Mary Beale

Probably Hon. Frederick Henry North (1834–1917), London;

Probably with Frank T. Sabin, London, by 1914;

From whom probably acquired by Sir Gilbert Alexander Boswell Eliott of Stobs, 10th Bt. (1885–1958), Hertfordshire and New York;

By descent to his daughter, Charlotte Elgitha Veronica Boswell Mosby, née Eliott (1913–1981), Sarasota, Florida;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 16 November 1979, lot 186;

Anonymous sale, Texas, Dallas Auction Gallery, 31 August 2023, lot 48 (as manner of Sir Peter Lely).

Sarasota, Ringling Art Museum, on loan, by 1966.

Probably F.H. North, in The Connoisseur, vol. XIX, September–December 1907, p. 57;

Probably E.M. Reid Nepean, On the Left of a Throne: a personal study of James, Duke of Monmouth, London 1914, p. xiii;

P. Hunting, My Dearest Heart: The artist Mary Beale (1633–1699), London 2024, p. 201, reproduced in colour.

This fine portrait compares closely to Beale's likeness of Thomas Coventry, 1st Earl of Coventry (c. 1629–1699), on long-term loan at West Lodge Park, Enfield, which is datable circa 1675.¹ Both portraits deploy the same rich colour palette and an oval painted cartouche.

¹ Accession no. 1993.40; oil on canvas, 51 x 64 cm.; https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/thomas-coventry-c-16291699-1st-earl-of-coventry-10560.