Circle of Sir Peter Lely

The Earls of Clarendon

R. Gibson, Catalogue of portraits in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon, Privately Printed 1977, p. 122, no. 137

Although this lively portrait, which is thought to date to circa 1670, contains many of the characteristics that are associated with Sir Peter Lely’s portrait drawings, a full attribution to him is not thought likely. We are grateful, however, to Diana Dethloff and Lindsay Stainton for suggesting that the artist responsible is highly likely to have been working in Lely’s immediate circle. 

Peter Lely had arrived in England from Holland in the early 1640s. He soon became the most sought-after portrait painter in the city and in June 1660, just after the Restoration, he was appointed Principal Painter to Charles II. From 1650 he had lived and worked in the Grand Piazza of Covent Garden, and as well as taking on a team of assistants to help him cope with the pressures of his practice, it is now believed that his studio also played host to a kind of unofficial ‘academy’, of the type that had existed on the Continent since the 16^th century but had never been set up in England. As with the European counterparts, Lely's 'academy' seems to have emphasised the importance of drawing. Lely himself is thought to have mentored those who attended, as did some of his studio assistants such as John Baptist Gaspars and George Freeman, both of whom were described by the painter and historian Bainbrigg Buckeridge (1668-1733), as being connected with the ‘Academy.’¹

The present drawing has a very distinguished provenance, having descended until this day within the collections of the Earls of Clarendon, themselves important patrons of Sir Peter Lely and his contemporaries. 

^1. For further information on this subject please see D. Dethloff, ‘Lely, Drawing, and the Training of Artists’, Court, Country, City. British Art and Architecture 1660-1735, New Haven 2016, pp. 291-312