Elizabeth Felton, Countess of Bristol (1676-1741)
Enoch Seeman the younger (Gdańsk c.1694 – London 1744)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1738
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2337 x 1461 mm (92 x 57 ½ in)
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 851818.2
Caption
The sitter is here shown standing in peeress’s robes, with her countess’s coronet on a table to her right. She was the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Felton, Bt, of Playford, Suffolk and Lady Elizabeth Howard (1656–1681), and second wife of the 1st Earl of Bristol, whom she married in 1695. Her husband frequently referred to her in his letters and diary as ‘my ever-new Delight’ and hated being separated from her. She bore him sixteen children. Lord Bristol recorded her death in his ‘Diary’ under 1st May 1741: “Friday, my dear wife dyed of a fitt which seized her as she was taking the air in her Sedan in St. James’s Parke, about 2 afternoon, after all sorts of means had been used to bring her out of it. We had been marryed and lived together above five and forty years….”
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Elizabeth Felton, Countess of Bristol (1676-1741) by Enoch Seeman the younger (Gdańsk c.1694 – London 1744), 1738. A full-length portrait of a young woman, standing, wearing peeress’s robes and an ivory coloured gown richly embroidered with gold, for the coronation of George I, turned slightly right, her left hand resting on a table with her countess’s coronet on it, her right arm across her waist.
Provenance
The Diary of John Hervey, First Earl of Bristol (1688–1742) (ed. S.H.A.Hervey), Wells, 1894, Section XI, p.164, April 8, 1738: “Paid Mr Enoch Seemans in full for copies of mine & my wife her pictures, being both whole lengths, (at 10 guineas each), £21”; thence by descent to the 4th Marquess (1863-1951), on the death of the 3rd (1834-1907); after his death accepted in lieu of tax by HM Treasury, and transferred to the National Trust in 1956.
Credit line
Ickworth, The Bristol Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1956)
Makers and roles
Enoch Seeman the younger (Gdańsk c.1694 – London 1744)