Mary Beale (British, 1633-1699) Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length seated, in a brown silk dress and blue wrap

Lot description

Mary Beale (British, 1633-1699) Portrait of a lady, three-quarter-length seated, in a brown silk dress and blue wrap oil on canvas (127 x 103cm; framed 143 x 119cm) Provenance: Mrs Houghton, Cambridge; by whom sold (‘From the collection of Mrs Houghton, of Cambridge’), Christie’s, London, 16 June 1933, lot 135 (as Lely); anonymous sale, Bukowski, Stockholm, 20–21 September 1933, lot 89 (as Peter Lely); acquired circa 2000 into the collection of Donnington Castle House, Newbury, Berkshire. Footnote: This painting is a recent and exciting addition to Mary Beale's oeuvre and is a testament to her powers in English baroque portraiture of the late 17th century. Executed with a particularly refined and porcelain-like touch, and remarkably well preserved in the fine details, the work is likely to date to the 1670s. In terms of composition, Beale borrowed the following pose, showing this unknown female sitter in the moment of introspective penseroso, from her male contemporary Sir Peter Lely. It was evidently popular in his portraiture, which he employed in paintings of Elizabeth, Countess of Northumberland, now at Althorp, amongst others. Beale returned to it herself on several occasions, including within another recently reattributed work of a said-to-be likeness of the Duchess of Portsmouth, which appeared at auction in November 2025. Condition Report: Relined. Craquelure. There is a light surface scratch across the bottom of the sitter's dress with a small abrasion to the fabric beneath the sitter's wrist. Under certain lighting the finish appears somewhat patchy and uneven. The painting appears to have undergone several campaigns of restoration. Examined under UV light there is some fine infilling to the sitter's face and arms, and some further retouching shows at the top of the sitter's left forearm. Thers is some fluorescing to the area surrounding the abrasion on the sitter's dress beneath the wrist. There is a small scuff/ loss to a crease of the skirt in the lower centre which fluoresces white. A further small spot of overpaint fluoresces white under the sitter's left sleeve. Heavier restoration is apparent to the upper edge and background and also to the dress in the lower left quarter. Much of the surface is partially obscured by a layer of varnish which may conceal further restoration. Please refer to additional conditon images.