Portrait of Elizabeth Wentworth (?), C.1620; Circle of Marcus Gheeraerts.

Oil on canvas in an appropriate frame.

This is a fine quality painting; there is a sense of the character of the sitter and her costly clothes are rendered with exquisite detail. This was a matter of great importance at this time. People were judged very much by their outward display and the money that was spent on jewellery and clothing by those who could afford it was colossal.

The sitter wears ropes of huge pearls...the pearl was a symbol of purity...and a large diamond brooch.

Research indicates that the lady is possibly Elizabeth Wentworth, daughter of John Wentworth and Elizabeth Southwell. She married Charles Garneys, of an ancient and wealthy family, in 1598. Charles was High Sheriff of Norfolk from 1652. They had a child, also Charles (1608-1661).

The Garneys lived at Somerleyton Hall, Suffolk; Kenton Hall, Suffolk and Boyland Hall, Morningthorpe, Norfolk.

Wentworth Garneys (1656-1679) was the grandson of Elizabeth and the fact that her marriage into the Garneys had brought them Somerleyton Hall is commemorated in his name.

The Garneys main seat was Boyland Hall and this portrait was hanging there in 1927 by which time the estate had passed to the Irbys. The painting is described in detail in Sing's book on portraits in Norfolk country houses.

MARCUS GHEERAERTS (also written as Gerards or Geerards; c. 1561/62 – 19 January 1636) was a Flemish artist working at the Tudor court, described as "the most important artist of quality to work in England in large-scale between Eworth and Van Dyck". He was brought to England as a child by his father Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, also a painter. He became a fashionable portraitist in the last decade of the reign of Elizabeth I under the patronage of her champion and pageant-master Sir Henry Lee. He introduced a new aesthetic in English court painting that captured the essence of a sitter through close observation. He became a favourite portraitist of James I's queen, Anne of Denmark, but fell out of fashion with the royal family in the late 1610s. His work thereafter was among the lesser aristocracy and rich gentry.

SIZE: 34.5 x 28.5 inches including the frame.

PROVENANCE: *Colonel Frederick Artur Irby, Boyland Hall, Morningthorpe, Suffolk by 1907.

*And by descent to Mrs. Victor Ramsay Fairfax of Brook House, Great Waldingfield, Sudbury, Suffolk.

*Her sale, Christie's, London, 18 April 1957, as by Zuccaro. VERSO : Christie's stencil and the date of the auction in chalk.

LITERATURE: H.H. Prince Frederick Duleep Sing, "Portraits in Norfolk Houses", Norwich, 1927, p.28, no.32 (as at Boyland Hall).