Grace Wilbraham, later Countess of Dysart (1655/6–1740)
after John Michael Wright (bap. London 1617 - London 1694)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1680
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
733 x 610 x 32 mm
Order this imageCollection
Chirk Castle, Wrexham
NT 1171145
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Grace Wilbraham, later Countess of Dysart (1655/6–1740), after John Michael Wright (London 1617 - London 1694), circa 1680. A reduced copy after the original by Wright in the former collection of the Earls of Bradford, Weston Park (now the NHMF-funded Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation). A portrait of a young woman, three-quarter length, seated, turned slightly to the right, facing frontally, gazing at the spectator, hair with a middle parting and ringlets falling on each shoulder, pendant-pearl ear-rings, wearing a décolleté pink silk dress over a white shift; glimpses of a jewelled stomacher; jewels are also used to attach the dress to the shift at the shoulders and sleeves, a blue cloak lies on a pedestal or wall, behind her and her left elbow rests on its folds, the cloak falls to her right; her left arm has a bracelet of three-rows of pearls, and the fingers of her hand pull together folds of her pink dress at her breast, her right hand, which is on her lap holds a sprig of myrtle (a sign of betrothal); in the background, to the right, is a formal garden, trees, and a darkening sky, in the centre of the garden is a statue of a naked female standing on a sphere and holding a billowing drape in front of her. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, 3rd Bt, of Woodhey, Cheshire and Elizabeth Mytton of Weston-under-Lizard, Staffs, she married Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart in 1680; she was sister-in-law of Sir Thomas Myddelton, 2nd Bt.
Provenance
Presumably acquired or commissioned by, or given to, the sitter’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Myddleton, 2nd Bt. (1651–1684); thence by descent, until in 1978, Chirk Castle and some of its contents were acquired from Lt - Col Ririd Myddelton (1902–1988) by the National Land Fund and handed to the Secretary of State for Wales. In 1981 Chirk was transferred into the ownership of the National Trust.
Credit line
Chirk Castle, The Myddelton Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after John Michael Wright (bap. London 1617 - London 1694), artist