17th Century English School - Oil on Canvas Portrait of a Lady Dated 1624

A sumptuous and highly detailed 17th century Jacobean oil on canvas portrait of a lady of significant wealth and status. She wears her finery, reveals her most virtuous characteristics and gazes at us with an air of confidence befitting her 46 years. A latin inscription gives us her age and the date (1624) and conveys with it the notion that the sitter is well read, and both her clothing and deportment tell us that she is well-bred.

Display is evidently important to this sitter. Her wealth and power are revealed in her choice of colours – red and black were both extremely expensive dyes. Many women would have worn black silk twists of ribbon at the wrist (and perhaps one beaded bracelet) to set off the desired pale complexion. This lady’s show of red beaded bracelets is ostentatious and they would have been heavy and difficult to keep in the desired position. They are secured to stiffened starched linen cuffs with black silk ‘twists’ to decorate and disguise the pin.

She invites us to admire her piety with a cross-shaped brooch, and perhaps the plainness of her linen (in place of very costly lace). Don’t be fooled however as the black stones that glisten from her wrist are in fact diamonds. With her golden locket, and another diamond cross round her neck, it is clear that she has worldly wealth in abundance.

The fashionable silhouette that she exhibits is consistent with the 1620’s – namely a hairstyle that is broad rather than high, with little straggles of hair – called ‘lovelocks’ spilling onto her ruff. The ruff is full and closed – i.e. not open at the front – and is raised up at the back. This would be supported by a stiffened pasteboard collar called a ‘pickadil’ or ‘underpropper’ or perhaps a wired contraption (a ‘supportasse’) that would keep the starched linen elevated.

Her natural/high waistline is consistent with this period, as is the amount of wrist showing and the fullness of the sleeves. By the late 1620’s to 1630 sleeves would be full and would have shrunk to reveal the forearm, thus giving poets another area of the body to praise in poetry, and for moralists to condemn as sinfully and shamelessly displayed.

The use of polychrome embroidery - adorning her waistcoat and petticoat - is typical of the Jacobean era (the age of James I (1603-1625). The fashionable silhouette that she exhibits is consistent with the 1620’s – namely a hairstyle that is broad rather than high, with little straggles of hair – called ‘lovelocks’ spilling onto her ruff. The ruff is full and closed – i.e. not open at the front – and is raised up at the back. This would be supported by a stiffened pasteboard collar called a ‘pickadil’ or ‘underpropper’ or perhaps a wired contraption (a ‘supportasse’) that would keep the starched linen elevated.

The most striking feature of the sitters costume is undoubtedly the wealth of embroidery on display . This could have been the work of a professional embroiderer or created by the lady of the house herself as a demonstration of her skills.The polychrome patterns that adorn her high-necked waistcoat had been in fashion since the end of the Elizabethan era. There is a beautifully worked linen waistcoat from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow which exhibits a very similar scrolling pattern of gold, enclosing strawberry flowers and oak leaves. It can also be seen in the remarkable portrait by Marcus Gheerearts the Younger of Margaret Layton in the V&A - where the real jacket worn in the portrait also survives.

The embroidery in this portrait is more stylised than in the examples cited, but the motifs of oak leaves, acorns, strawberry leaves and flowers are clearly identifiable. Strawberries had been a popular motif since Virginia strawberries had been brought back from the ‘new world’ in the late C16th.The mini-beasts, butterflies and bugs that creep and crawl over her petticoat wo