Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Bt (1637-1682)
follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1670 - circa 1675
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1270 x 1016 mm (50 x 40 in)
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 851979
Caption
This picture is clearly by the same hand as, and the pendant to, the portrait of his wife, Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Carr (d.1696), which is also at Ickworth. Sir Robert Carr or Carre, Kt., 3rd Bt (1636/7-1682), of Aswarby and Sleaford, Lincolnshire, was MP for Lincolnshire 1664/5 - 1681, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1672-82. He married, as his first wife, Isabel Falkingham, “his mother’s maid, to whom he gave £1,000 that she should not claim him.” This meant he could marry Elizabeth Bennet, by whom he had Sir Edward, 4th and last Bt (1665-1683), and Isabella. He is buried in St Denys, Sleaford, under a fine, but plain and by then somewhat old-fashioned, table-tomb, inscribed with his details and those of his only surviving son, the 4th and last Bt.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Bt (1637-1682), follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), circa 1670-1675. A three-quarter length portrait of a man, turned to the left, gazing at the spectator, standing, He has a dark brown, shoulder length wig and a slight moustache. He wears a brown cloak draped over his left shoulder. He has a white collar and a cream right sleeve. His right hand is holding a scroll and resting on balustrade. There is a dark background with columns on left. Inscribed, centre left - 'Sr. Robert Carr'. Sir Robert Carr or Carre, Kt, 3rd Bt (1636/7-1682), of Aswarby and Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the MP for Lincolnshire 1664/5 - 1681, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1672-82. Married firstly, in 1662 at Sleaford, Isabel Falkingham, “his mother’s maid, to whom he gave £1,000 that she should not claim him,” two years later, so that he could marry secondly (and bigamously?), in 1664, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Bennett of Harlington, Middlesex, and sister of Henry Bennett, 1st Earl of Arlington, by whom he had Sir Edward, 4th and last Bt (1665-1683), and Isabella (named in compliment to her aunt, Isabella van Beverweerd, Countess of Arlington), first wife of the 1st Earl of Bristol. He is buried in St Denys, Sleaford, under a fine, but plain and by then somewhat old-fashioned, table-tomb, inscribed with his details and those of his only surviving son, the 4th and last Bt. It may have been the latter's death at the age of eighteen, only thirteen months after his, that accounts for his not having been given a monument as sumptuous as those to Robert Carre (d. 1590) by Gerard Jonson the Younger, and to Sir Edward Carre, 1st Bt (d. 1618/10), and his family, by Maximilian Colt, which now flank the chancel arch (the monument would probably have been put up at the expense of his executors, including, no doubt, his son-in-law, John Hervey, later 1st Earl of Bristol.
Provenance
Presumably by descent from the sitter’s daughter and ultimate heir, Isabella, Mrs John Hervey; first recorded in the list of circa 1837, by Frederick William Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol (1769-1859), of pictures and of the rooms in which they were hung; by descent and inheritance to the 4th Marquess of Bristol (1863-1951), on whose death it was valued for probate; after which, accepted in lieu of tax by HM Treasury, and transferred to the National Trust in 1956
Makers and roles
follower of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680), artist
References
Farrer 1908 Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, no. 11