C.1665 Portrait of Lady, Grace Saunderson, Viscountess Castleton; Sir Peter Lely and Studio (1618-1680), Antique Oil on Canvas Painting

This work formed part of a collection of family pictures and heirlooms of the Saunderson, Viscount Castleton family and their descendants, the Earls of Scarbrough, at their magnificent family seat Sandbeck Park, where the Earls still reside today, almost 400 years later. It was painted in the studio of Sir Peter Lely, the most technically proficient painter in England after the death of Van Dyck, and the dominant court painter to Charles II and James, Duke of York. Remarkably, the sitter's substantial recipe and accounts book survives today, offering historians a rare and invaluable glimpse into a seventeenth century household.

The sitter is Grace Saunderson, Viscountess Castleton (1635-1667) and the portrait was painted circa 1665 to 1667. Her hairstyle was a popular one between the wired curled hair of the early 1660’s and the centrally-parted one of the early 1670s. Lady Grace Castleton embodied early modern principles of domestic virtue. The daughter of a wealthy and politically active landowner, she gave birth to eight children during her eleven-year marriage.

Lady Castleton was born Grace Bellasis (Ballassis or Belasyse) in Coxwold in 1635, as the daughter of Henry Belasyse (1604-47) and Grace Barton (d.1660). Her elder brother Thomas (1627-1700) inherited the title 2nd Viscount Fauconberg from his grandfather in 1652 and Earl Fauconberg from 1689. He married Mary, the 3rd daughter of Oliver Cromwell. According to legend Cromwell’s body is buried at Sandbeck. The Belasyse family were settled in county Durham in the middle-ages

Grace married the English soldier and politician George Saunderson, 5th Viscount Castleton (c.1631-1714) by 1656 and the couple had eight sons. When Saunderson began serving in Parliament in 1661, Grace apparently followed him to London but she died there suddenly in 1667. Her funeral elegy dedicated to her states she was a model wife and her abilities in this area appear to have been so great that she was, in the afterlife, able metaphorically to straddle both worlds, in a spiritually bigamous relationship with both Christ and her earthly husband.

Sandbeck Park was the Saunderson family seat and it is still lived in by their decendants today, the Earls of Scarbrough.

Lady Castleton started her recipe collection as a young woman; it contains over 200 recipes. After her death the book remained in the possession of the Saunderson family, and other family members, including Saunderson’s second wife Sarah, whose aunt was the notable cookbook keeper Anne Fanshawe, continued to add to it well into the 18th century.

The portrait is a fine example of English Baroque portraiture and it illustrates the painter's skill. Through examples such as this it is easy to see why Sir Peter Lely’s talent dominated the art world in the second half of the seventeenth century in England and everyone of significance sat to him.

We are grateful to Diana Dethloff and David Taylor for endorsing the attribution based on photographs.

Provenance:

The sitter at Sandbeck Park, the Saunderson and Lumley family seat;

By decent to George Augusta Lumley-Saunderson, 5th Earl of Scarbrough (1782-1807);

His sale, sold by Mr. Dawson on the premises by order of the executors, Sandbeck Park, Bawtry, Yorkshire, 2-7 Nov, 1807;

Lord Lansdowne (according to an old handwritten label on the stretcher);

Acquired by the father of the present owner, 1970s;

Thence by descent

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