Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester (1598-1659)
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1632 - 1641
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1350 x 1080 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486222
Caption
Lady Leicester was the eldest daughter of the 9th Earl of Northumberland, sister of the 10th Earl, and the mother of Lady Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland (1617–84), who was celebrated in the poems of Edmund Waller as ‘Sacharissa’. This, and some of the other Van Dyck portraits at Petworth, are part of a group put together by commission, purchase and gift by the 10th Earl of Northumberland. He was consciously emulating the continental fashion for portrait series of beautiful and famous women. The Petworth portraits are in uniform carved and gilt frames similar to those in the ten engravings after Van Dyck's portraits of Countesses by Pierre Lombart (1620–81), a French engraver who came to England in the 1650s.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester (1598-1659) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641). A three-quarter length portrait, seated, full face, wearing a silver-white dress with sleeves trimmed with Antwerp green and a gold-grey scarf over her right shoulder. Her right arm is on the chair arm, her left hand on her knee. In the left background is a black and gold hanging and a stone parapet and sky in the right background.
Provenance
At Petworth by July 1671. 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 Dorothy Percy/Countess of Leicester (inscribed between 1785 and 1798 with the name of sitter, centre right below window sill)
Makers and roles
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist