Lady Elizabeth Percy, Lady Capel, later Countess of Essex (1636 - 1717/18)
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1652 - 1655
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1181 x 991 mm (46 ½ x 39 in)
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486279
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Lady Elizabeth Percy, Lady Capel, later Countess of Essex (1636 - 1717/18) by Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), 1648. A three-quarter-length portrait, standing, three-quarters left, wearing a grey silk dress and a gold scarf. Her right hand is plucking a sprig of foliage, her left is resting on a vase against a landscape background. The sitter was the the fifth and last, but only second surviving, daughter of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668), by his first marriage, to Lady Anne Cecil (1612-1637). She was married in 1653 to Arthur Capel, 2nd Lord Capel (1631 -1683), created 1st Earl of Essex in 1661 who was sent to the Tower following his arrest for involvement in the Rye House Plot, he was found with his throat cut, having probably committed suicide, though many thought him assassinated by order of the court. A memorial portrait of his grieving widow, with their son and daughter, by Wissing, is at Syon House.
Provenance
Commissioned by the 10th Earl of Northumberland circa 1648, and recorded at Northumberland House in 1671. Was at Petworth in 1835. 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.
Makers and roles
Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), artist