Portrait of Elizabeth Ogle, Circle of Michael Dahl.

Oil on canvas in a fine carved and giltwood period frame c.1695.

ELIZABETH OGLE, (later Elizabeth Case), baptised 1674, was a member of a notable Lancashire gentry family of ancient origin. This portrait was very probably painted on the occasion of her marriage to Jonathon Case.

A parrot demonstrated the wealth of the sitter able to own such an exotic creature from non-European lands, and it wasn’t just the live birds that were valued, the plucked feathers of parrots were valued too.

Also...curiously...the parrot symbolised virginity. This was probably because of its association with the Virgin Mary in earlier art.

OGLE OF WHISTON. Arms: Argent, a fesse between three crescents gules.

The Ogles appear in Lancashire in the middle of the fifteenth century as stewards of the manor of Prescot. John Ogle, the earliest known, is said to have been a son of Sir Robert, first Lord Ogle, who died in 1469. Early in 1472 John Ogle of Prescot purchased lands in Rainhill from John, son and heir of Hugh Woodfall. Margaret, widow of John Ogle, and Roger their son purchased lands from John Travers, and the family continued to prosper, becoming possessors of the manors of Whiston and Halsnead, the purchaser being John Ogle.

John's son and heir Henry, born about 1586, married in 1610 Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Whitby of Chester, and had by her a numerous offspring. He died about 1649, but does not seem to have taken any part in the Civil War. Two of his sons, however, took arms on the king's side. Cuthbert, the eldest, received a commission from the Earl of Derby, but soon retired, and in 1646 took the National Covenant in London and compounded for his estates by a fine of £120. Henry his brother, holding a similar commission, took part in the defence of Lathom House.

Cuthbert died in 1670, the heir being his son Edward, whose daughter and eventual heir Elizabeth carried the manor to her husband Jonathan Case, of the Red Hazels in Huyton. About the beginning of last century the manor was held by Richard Willis of Halsnead, to whose heirs it has descended; but the hall was then in the possession of John Ashton Case, a Liverpool merchant, great-grandson of the above-named Jonathan.

MICHAEL DAHL (1659-1743) was born in Stockholm; after studying in Paris, Rome and Frankfurt he settled in London. He soon became the best patronised portrait painter in England after Kneller. He was much employed at the Court painting many portraits; a great patron of the 1690s was the Duke of Somerset, for whom he painted the series of portraits of Court ladies known as the 'Petworth Beauties'.

SIZE: 44 x 36 inches including the frame.

PROVENANCE: By descent through the family of the sitter. VERSO: old handwritten labels by Mary Radcliffe (bearing incorrect dates) and Thomas Edward Case.