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1 of 253523 objects
Sir Peter Lely (1618-80)
Eleanor Needham, Lady Byron (1627-64) 1664?
Oil on canvas | 159.4 x 127.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 404089
Communication Gallery, Hampton Court Palace
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In this portrait Eleanor Needham, Lady Byron is depicted as Saint Catherine of Alexandria in a guise probably intended to flatter Charles II's Queen, Catherine of Braganza. Accordinly she carries the martyr's palm branch and leans upon a wheel. The sitter looks to two putti in the upper left, one of whom holds a wreath of bay leaves above her head. She is wearing a copper-red dress with a richly decorated blue mantle about her arms.
Provenance
First recorded in store at Whitehall in 1666 (no 495); in Mr Chiffinch's lodgings at Windsor Castle in 1688 (no 864); by 1710 it had joined Lely's 'Windsor Beauties' in the Queen's Waiting or Private Eating Room at Windsor (no 61); the set remained in this space, which became the Queen's State Bedchamber, until 1819, when they appear in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences (RCIN 922103).
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
159.4 x 127.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
178.9 x 146.1 x 10.0 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Eleanor Needham, Lady Byron (1627-64) as Saint Catherine
