Portrait of Charles (1655–1698), 3rd Lord Cornwallis
Mary Beale is the first professional British woman artist. She ran a prolific and successful portrait studio out of Pall Mall from 1669 onwards, which endowed her with a degree of financial independence known to few women in 17th–century England. Her friendship with Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), the influential court painter to Charles II, flourished in the 1670s as did her own career: in 1677 alone, she received 83 individual portrait commissions. Beale received tutelage from Lely and was known to have visited his personal collection–one of England’s finest at the time–making copies after his work and borrowing elements for her own compositions.
Dated to the mid 1670s to early 1680s by Tabitha Barber, our portrait is characteristic of Beale’s work from her most fertile period, as it matches the documentation in her husband Charles’s notebooks from 1677 and 1681. Many of her bust-length formal portraits from this date were fashionably set within a trompe l’oeil cartouche. Also typical from this period was her bravura portrayal of the shimmering drapery, frothy lace cravat, and the sitter’s softly curling hair that contribute to a confection of texture. As it perfectly complements the painted cartouche, the Sunderland frame on the present picture may well be an original choice of Beale––for she is known to have been involved with matching frames for her commissions, offering up to 15 different choices, also noted in Charles’s almanacs.
In this portrait the young man’s face is sensitively rendered with individualized physiognomy that provides the portrait with a deep pathos. With his large wide-set eyes, chiseled nose tip, plump lips and upturned chin, the face resembles that of Charles (1655–1698), 3rd Lord Cornwallis depicted in a full-length portrait by Peter Lely in 1673 (Audley End House; fig. 1). Lord Cornwallis was first Lord of the Admiralty in 1692-93. He married in 1688 Anne Duchess of Buccleuch, the widow of the executed Duke of Monmouth, who was once believed to be the sitter.
Historically many of Beale’s works were incorrectly ascribed to Lely, which has only been reassessed in recent years as she returned to the spotlight. For example, Frances Vaughan, Coutess of Carbery (Carmarthenshire County Museum) a portrait believed to be by Lely, was reattributed to Beale in 2017 while the Lely original appears lost. Similarly, the portrait of King Charles II (National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 153; fig. 2), based on a work by Lely ca. 1675, could well have been painted by Beale.
Having fallen into obscurity, Beale’s oeuvre was promoted by Richard Jeffree, whose intensive studies of her work resulted in the exhibition ‘The Excellent Mrs. Mary Beale’ at the Geffrye Museum in 1975. Jeffree confirmed the attribution of our portrait in 1986 after firsthand inspection. Not much is known about its early provenance besides the fact that it entered a private New York collection that year, from the London-based dealer Wilkins and Wilkins.❖
Provenance
with Wilkins & Wilkins, London, by 1986
Private collection, New York acquired from the above
Related literature
Elizabeth Walsh and Richard Jeffree, The Excellent Mrs. Mary Beale, Geffrye Museum and Towner Art Gallery, London, 1975, exh. cat.
Tabitha Barber, Mary Beale (1632/2-1699): Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Painter, London, 1999.