Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset (1638-1706)
studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lübeck 1646 - London 1723)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1694 - 1706
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent
NT 802392
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset (1638-1706) by Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lübeck 1646 - London 1723) and Studio, signed, bottom right: G. Kneller fec.t., circa 1694. A three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, his right hand resting on a table on the left. wearing full-bottomed wig and Garter robes, Red drape in the background left and centre, pulled back to reveal a stone arch topped with a stone balustrade. He was born during the Civil War, possibly at Copt Hall and succeeded his father in 1677, having already through his mother inherited the estates of the last Earl of Middlesex in 1674, and, having had the latter’s titles conferred on him in 1675. Neither proved sufficient to satisfy his expenses. He was described by Pepys and Macaulay as a notorious libertine, but he was a patron of men of letters such as Dryden, Prior and Congreve, and most of the portraits in the room at Knole known at the ‘Poet’s Parlour’ were brought together by him. He was also responsible for accumulating the silver furniture at Knole, which is today such a feature of the house. Although wielding great influence at the Court of Charles II, he fell out of favour under James II and backed the Revolution, so that his public appointments were the result of his support for William III, for whom he thrice acted as one of the regents during the King’s absences in the Netherlands, and who appointed him Lord Chamberlain of the Household, from 1689 to 1697. By his first wife, Mary Bagot (1645 – 1679), widow of the 1st Earl of Falmouth, whom he married in 1674, he had no children. By his second wife, Mary, daughter of James Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton, whom he married in 1685, but who died in 1691, he was the father of the 7th Earl, later 1st Duke, of Dorset. More celebrated than either marriage was his liason in 1667-8 with Nell Gwyn, who called him her ‘Charles the first’, and whom – to Pepys’s great disappointment – he persuaded to quit the stage. By Michelmas 1668, she had become the mistress of the king Charles the Second, and he was sent on a “sleeveless errand” to Louis XIV. In his old age, sadly, he grew fat and – according to Swift – extremely dull. This may have been the result of premature senility, for he also fell into the clutches of a third wife, one ‘Anne, Mrs Roche’, a “woman of obscure connections”, whom he married in 1704 and with whom he lived in retirement [in Fulham?].
Provenance
Bought by Harold Nicolson, July 8 1918 and given to Lady Sackville; thence by descent, on loan from Adam Nicolson, Baron Carnock (b. 1957)
Marks and inscriptions
'G. Kneller fec.t'
Makers and roles
studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lübeck 1646 - London 1723), artist
References
Ingamells, 2009: John Ingamells, Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2009, p.76