Frances, Lady Reynell, of West Ogwell, Devon

Robert Peake
Britain
c.1551 – 1619

Frances, Lady Reynell, of West Ogwell, Devon
c 1595
oil on oak panel
Currently on display, Gallery 9
Place made
London?
Medium
oil on oak panel
Dimensions
113.5 x 88.5 cm
133.4 x 108.5 x 7.7 cm (frame)
Credit line
Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1998
Accession number
978P97
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Provenance
By descent from Thomas Reynell (1555-1621) of West Ogwell, Devon, to Colonel Pierce Taylor (1840-1921) of Newton Priory, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. Sold for 315 (gns) at Christie's, London, 28 July 1922, as lot 10, Frances, Lady Reynell, in white bodice, embroidered skirt and white lace ruff and jewelled rope (assigned to Nicholas Hilliard), bt. Grissell. Thence by family descent. Sold Weiss Gallery, London 1997,
Media category
Painting
Collection area
British paintings

  • The subject of this sumptuous three-quarter-length portrait is Frances (1554–1605), the first wife of Sir Thomas Reynell (1555–1621), the senior member of a distinguished family of Devon gentry. The panel plays directly to the theatrical elegance and political context of late Elizabethan portraiture, the sitter’s face replicating the perfectly pale mask of eternal youth reportedly preferred by the ‘Virgin Queen’ Elizabeth I.


    Robert Peake was one of the most significant painters in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England, serving as principal Picture Maker to Henry, Prince of Wales
    (1604–07), then Serjeant Painter to King James, an office he held jointly with John de Critz (c.1550–1642). The artist’s painstaking details of finish such as the eyelashes, the blush of the cheeks, wisps of hair and threads of lace in the ‘cartwheel’ ruff – details normally lost due to overcleaning – are here preserved in all their original crispness.


    Tony Magnusson, Curator of European Art, 2016–18


  • Reimagining the Renaissance

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 20 July 2024 – 13 April 2025
  • [Book] AGSA 500.