Frances, Lady Reynell, of West Ogwell, Devon

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