Called Sophia Fairholme, Marchioness of Annandale (1668-1716)
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1660 - 1669
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1240 x 990 mm
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486183
Caption
The supposed sitter in this portrait was the wife of Wiliam Johnstone, 3rd Earl of Annandale and Hartfell and 1st Marquess of Annandale (d.1721). However, it is an early portrait by Lely, of around 1652, and therefore cannot represent Sophia Fairholm. It is hard to see why such an identification should ever have been proposed, as no portrait of such a sitter was listed in any 18th century inventory, nor does there appear to have been any family link between the supposed sitter and the Percys or the Wyndhams. The real identity of the sitter in this picture must therefore remain conjectural, unless a named version of the portrait crops up somewhere. The rather unusual profile presentation of the sitter, clutching the broken-off branch of a fully-blown rose (here intimating the transience of life and beauty?), in a crepuscular landscape suggests that this is actually a posthumous portrait.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Called Sophia Fairholme, Marchioness of Annandale (1668-1716) by Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), 1660s. A half-length portrait of a young lady, turned to left, left profile wearing a fawn silk dress with a spray of oleander in her left hand. The background is of rocks and foliage.
Provenance
Possibly at Northumberland House by 1671; probably in the collection of the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837) by 1835; thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HM Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Makers and roles
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), artist