Lady Elizabeth Howard, Lady Felton (1656-1681), as Cleopatra
Benedetto Gennari the Younger (1633 - 1715)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1678 - 1679
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1143 x 838 mm (45 x 33 in)
Place of origin
Bologna
Order this imageCollection
Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset
NT 1257081
Caption
When the Roman statesman, Mark Antony, expressed his surprise at the extravagant magnificence of the Queen of Egypt’s banquet she notoriously dissolves a priceless pearl in a glass of wine and drinks it to demonstrate her indifference to riches. Here the wife of Sir Thomas Felton, 4th Bt, Comptroller of the Household to Charles II’s queen, Catherine of Braganza, whom she married against her parents’ wishes in 1675 sits in a suggestive pose with loose clothing. She mimics the romantic legend and, like Cleopatra, holds a golden goblet whilst plucking one of her large pearl earrings.The Italian artist Benedetto Gennari the younger spent time in England and the sitter admired him. According to the artist’s own records her portrait was painted for the Duke of Monmouth, whose mistress she probably was, in around 1678/9. She was also the subject of lewd satirical verse in the ‘Ballad of Betty Felton’(1680).
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Lady Felton (1656-1681), as Cleopatra by Benedetto Gennari the younger (Cento 1633 – Bologna 1715), circa 1678-79. She was the wife of Sir Thomas Felton, 4th Bt, Comptroller of the Households to King Charles II's Queen, Catherine of Braganza, who patronised Gennari in England. Cleopatra, dining with her lover, Mark Antony, took a priceless pearl-drop from her ear and dissolved it in her glass of wine, to indicate that the magnificence of the feast was a trifle to her. Gennari’s own account of the pictures he painted in London includes under No.46 ‘Un ritratto mezza figura di Miledi Beti Felton figurata in una Cleopatra, e questo per il duca di Monmot’. The manner of its transference from the collection of the Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch to Kingston Lacy has yet to be discovered. Monmouth had himself sat to Gennari, and, as Oliver Millar observes, 'the thinly veiled suggestiveness of the presentation conveys the impression that the lady was more than a casual friend of the Duke’.
Provenance
Painted for Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685) around 1678/9; first recorded at Kingston Lacy, 1731; bequeathed by (Henry John) Ralph Bankes (1902 – 1981) to the National Trust, together with the estates of Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacy and its entire contents in 1981
Makers and roles
Benedetto Gennari the Younger (1633 - 1715), artist
References
[Gennari, 1633 - 1713] MSS.B.344 Raccolta di Memorie di Benedetto Gennari in the Biblioteca Communale del Archiginnasio, Bologna, no. 46
