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1 of 253523 objects
Paul van Somer (c. 1576-1621)
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1590-1630) Signed and dated 1617
Oil on canvas | 132.1 x 99.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405870
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Three-quarter-length portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1590-1630). He wears a black doublet with a lace ruff and cuffs and the ribbon of the Garter with a Lesser George around his neck. He holds the white staff, and at his waist hangs the key of office, of Lord Chamberlain.
Pembroke was a prominent figure at the early Stuart court, becoming Lord Chamberlain in 1615 and Lord Steward in 1626. He bore the crown at Charles I's Coronation and was the elder of Shakespeare's 'Incomparable pair of Brethren' to whom the First Folio was dedicated. He was a prominent member of the 'Whitehall group' of collectors and a patron of Donne, Jonson, Massinger and Inigo Jones.Provenance
Presumably painted for James I or Anne of Denmark; recorded in the Gallery at Oatlands Palace in 1617 (no 21); sold from there to Stone and others for £6 on 23 October 1651 (no 43); recovered at the Restoration and listed in the Long Matted Gallery at Whitehall in 1666 (no 72); the painting appears in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences of 1819, hanging as an overdoor in the Queen's Ball-Room at Windsor Castle (RCIN 922101).
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
132.1 x 99.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
149.1 x 116.9 x 7.5 cm (frame, external)
