Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Carr (d.1696)
follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1675 - 1685
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 851765
Caption
The sitter was the daughter of Sir John Bennet of Dawley, Middlesex and Dorothy Crofts. She was married to Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Bt (1636/7-1682), of Aswarby & Sleaford, in 1664 as his second wife, and they had one son, Edward, later 4th Bt and a daughter, Isabella. This picture is clearly by the same hand as, and the pendant to, the portrait of her husband, Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Baronet, which is also at Ickworth. It is only the mistake in the inscription, of calling her Isabella – the name of her sister-in-law and of her daughter – rather than Elizabeth (though ‘Isabella’ is, in fact, only the Romance language form of ‘Elizabeth’), that has led to subsequent confusion over her identity.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Carr (d.1696) by a follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), 1675-1685. A three-quarter-length portrait of a woman, turned to the left, looking over her shoulder to the right, wearing a brown cloak (or loose, informal gown) over a white chemise, dark hair and eyes; column behind and to the right of her head, on a parapet, and a view through to landscape to the right of it. Incorrectly inscribed, mid-right in white: ISABELLA LADY CARR.
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by the sitter’s husband, and thence by descent through their daughter, Isabella, to the Earls and Marquesses of Bristol; accepted in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956, as an element of the estate, house, and the majority of its contents, and transferred to the National Trust.
Credit line
Ickworth, The Bristol Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1956)
Makers and roles
follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), artist previously catalogued as attributed to John Riley (London 1646 – London 1691), artist