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Attributed to British School, 17th century

Portrait of a Young Girl c.1625-35

Oil on canvas | 65.2 x 53.5 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 401363

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  • This unidentified sitter wears a red silk gown over a matching bodice and skirt, each embroidered with a variety of flowers in coloured silk threads. This style of naturalistic embroidery was particularly popular in England during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and took inspiration from various patterns books and botanical publications, one of the most famous of which was 'The Herball, or, Generall historie of plantes' by John Gerard (RCIN 1057110), first published in 1597. Rather unusually each flower here is depicted in its correct vertical alignment - more typically portraits and surviving garments show the floral design arranged into a serpentine format with swirling stems and variable orientations. The curling stem at the base of each flower suggests that they are slips, cuttings of flowers taken for cultivation. It is also interesting to note that the embroidery design is deliberately asymmetrical across the bodice, sleeves and skirt.

    The bodice has sleeves cut into panes of fabric, each of which is also embroidered with flowers and the red gown is gathered at the elbow with red ribbons. This is a style known as a virago sleeve and is particularly helpful in dating the portrait as this fashion was very popular in England during the latter half of the 1620s. Her blonde hair is tied back with a red ribbon and she carries a fashionable closed fan in her right hand, a relatively new introduction to England from the Far East, first recorded in the accounts of Queen Elizabeth I during the 1580s but which by this date had replaced the older style of rigid fan more frequently depicted in sixteenth century portraits.

    Provenance

    Bequeathed to Queen Elizabeth II by Cornelia, Countess of Craven, in 1961

  • Medium and techniques

    Oil on canvas

    Measurements

    65.2 x 53.5 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)

    82.25 x 70.6 x 4.7 cm (frame, external)

  • Other number(s)
    Alternative title(s)

    Princess Elizabeth, previously entitled


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