The Hon. Anne Boteler, Countess of Newport, later Countess of Portland (c.1610 – 1669)
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1637 - 1638
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1343 x 1078 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486238
Caption
Anne Boteler was the youngest of the six daughters of Sir John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler and Elizabeth Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's sister. She was married in 1626/7 to Mountjoy Blount, Baron Mountjoy, later 1st Earl of Newport. In 1637, she was induced by her sister, Olivia, the wife of Endymion Porter, to follow the fashion of the ladies in the circle of Queen Henrietta Maria, and declare herself a Catholic. Her husband was strongly opposed to this step, and Lady Newport evidently latterly lived apart from her husband. After her husband's death in 1665/6, she was remarried in 1667, to Thomas Weston, 4th & last Earl of Portland (1609–1688) but died shortly after, in 1669. Portraits of her can be recognised by a distinct mole (here quite played down) to the side of her nose.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Hon. Anne Boteler, Countess of Newport, later Countess of Portland (c.1610 – 1669) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), circa 1637. A three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, standing turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, wearing a rose coloured dress, a rose-brown scarf flying behind her. She is pointing to the right with her right hand, whilst holding her dress with her left hand. Behind is a parapet with the sky in the right background. She was the sister-in-law of Van Dyck's freind Enymion Porter and wife of the Earl of Newport who appears with Lord George Goring and a Page in an earlier picture, also at Petworth (NT 486243) by Van Dyck.
Provenance
Recorded at Suffolk House in 1652, at Northumberland House in 1671 and at Petworth in 1764. 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 H.M.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)
Marks and inscriptions
Lady Cavendish / Lady Rich. (inscribed bottom left corner)
Makers and roles
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist
References
Remastered - Bosch to Bellotto: An Exhibition of Petworth's European Old Masters (exh cat) (Andrew Loukes) Petworth House, West Sussex, 9 January - 6 March 2016, cat. 45, p. 17