Sir Richard Mason, MP (1619-1685)
Jacob Huysmans (Antwerp c.1630 – London 1696)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1670 - 1685
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
940 x 820 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436126
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir Richard Mason, MP (1619-1685) by Jacob Huysmans (Antwerp c.1630 – London 1696). Inscribed, bottom right: R. RICHARD MA/SON CLERK OF T[HE] GREEN CLOTH. TO KING CHARLES/HOUSMANS/ FEC. A painted oval half-length portrait, in dark dress and broad white lace collar. The inscription on this picture appears to be in the same hand as that identifying Sir James Long, on his portrait given to the Nation Portrait Gallery by Miss Dorothy Long in 1968, which likewise mis-spells the artist’s name as ‘Housmans’. It seems very likely that the present picture only came to Belton when the male line of the Longs of Draycot died out with the last baronet in 1805, and that this – and perhaps other pictures and chattels at Belton – reverted to the Custs Brownlow, as residual heirs of the Masons. He was born at Sutton, Surrey and married Anne Margaret Long (d.1717), daughter of Sir James Long, 2nd Bt and Dorothy Leach. He held the office of Comptroller of the Board of the Green Cloth. He had two daughters: Dorothy Mason, Lady Brownlow (1664-1700) and the notorious Anna Mason, Countess of Macclesfield (b.c.1665-1753). He was MP successively for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight and Bishop's Castle, where his country seat lay. He lived latterly at Worcester Park, Sutton, which had been leased to his wife’s great-uncle, Sir Robert Long, 1st Bt(see his portrait by Lely, NT 436068), who had also bequeathed him £300, for the benefit of his soul, suggesting complicity in crypto-Catholocism. He was present at the death of King Charles II within a month of dying himself. The Board of Green Cloth was a board of officials belonging to the Royal Household of England and Great Britain. It took its name from the tablecloth of green baize that covered the table at which its members sat. It audited the accounts of the Royal Household and made arrangements for royal travel. It also sat as a court upon offences committed within the verge of the palace. While it existed until modern times, its jurisdiction was more recently limited to liquor, betting and gaming licences for premises falling within the areas attached to or governed by the Royal palaces. The Board of Green Cloth disappeared in the reform of local government licensing in 2004, brought about by the Licensing Act 2003 (section 195).
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1984)
Makers and roles
Jacob Huysmans (Antwerp c.1630 – London 1696), artist