This memorial miniature commemorates the renowed courtier and beauty, Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby. Her sudden, premature death at the age of thirty-three was mourned unremittingly by her devastated husband, Sir Kenelm Digby, who commissioned a number of posthumous portraits of her including a deathbed portrait by Van Dyck (Collection of Earl Spencer). In this context, it may be significant that Des Granges has replaced the usual format for a miniature of a plain background with an allegorical landscape. The clouds are arranged schematically over a dual landscape in which the contrast between the trees in leaf on the right and the barren trees on the left appears to symbolise life and death in the tradition of Renaissance artists such as Giovanni Bellini. This is an innovation which is not repeated in any other miniature of this period. Venetia Stanley, gentlewoman and beauty, mistress of Edward Sackville, later 4th Earl of Dorset, married in 1624/5, Sir Kenelm Digby. John Aubrey described her appearance: 'Her face a short ovall; darke-browne eie-browe about which much sweetness, as also in the opening of her eyelids. The colour of her cheekes was just that of the damask rose, which is neither too hott nor too pale'. Signed on the left in green: 'D D.G:.'