Anglo-Netherlandish School circa 1565-70

Probably painted for Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley (1521-1598);
Possibly acquired by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), at Clarendon House, London;
by descent to his son, Henry Hyde, 2^nd Earl of Clarendon (1638-1709), at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire;
by descent, at Cornbury, where it was recorded in 1750, and later The Grove, Hertfordshire, to his nephew, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Rochester and later 4th Earl of Clarendon (1672-1753);
transferred to his son, Henry Hyde, 5^th Baron Hyde and Viscount Cornbury (1710-1753), in 1749, who died without issue;
by descent to his niece, Charlotte (d.1790), eldest daughter of William Capel, 3rd Earl of Essex (1697-1743), who married Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1709-1786), of the second creation;
thence by descent to the present owner

London, Tate Britain, Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630, October 1995 - January 1996, no. 50

Lady T. Lewis, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, London 1852, Vol. III, pp. 259 and 286, no. 12;
E. Auerbach and C. K. Adams, Painting and Sculpture at Hatfield House, London 1971, no. 49;
R. Gibson, Catalogue of Portraits in the Collection of the Earl of Clarendon, Wallop 1977, pp. 131-132, no. 145 (illus.)

PAINT SURFACE This condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an independent expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The painting is in an excellent condition. The three member panel appears in very good condition. There is a very slight convex curvature. There are minor damages behind the rebate of the frame where previous framing damage has occurred. It appears that the right member has been rejoined. The paint layers appear in very good condition, there are no obvious or recent damages or loss and the adhesion between the paint and ground layers and the support appears good. The paint is thinly applied and the thinness of the paint layers has allowed the lower layers and under-drawing to become more visible, most noticeable in the coat of arms in the top left corner. The increased transparency of the paint layers also reveals the changes in the placing of the questioner's feet and raised arm. There are minor abrasions visible in the questioner's profile and the figure on the far right black cloak. There are relatively minor and carefully applied retouching present, at the lower edge and in small re-enforcements in the questioner's hair. There are localised areas of slight discolouration in the sky; the retouching present has a whitish appearance, an aging characteristic of certain types of modern white pigments. There is a thin slightly discoloured varnish layer present. The painting was examined in the frame with an aluminium backing present. FRAME Held in a carved and gilded seventeenth century Sunderland frame. To speak to a specialist about this lot please contact Julian Gascoigne on +44 (0)207 293 5482, or at julian.gascoigne@sothebys.com, or Emmeline Hallmark on 44 (0)207 293 5407, or at emmeline.hallmark@sothebys.com.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Datable to circa 1565-1570, this painting is an illustration of the Elizabethan fondness for puzzles and allegories, and their preoccupation with the application of reason. The answer to the riddle can be explained by the fact that the first two men, the lady's half brothers, must have married the daughters of her husband by a previous marriage, making them sons (or sons-in-law) to her husband and brothers to her own son, the third man.

Three paintings on this subject survive, each by a different hand, of which this is the earliest. Of the other two versions one, in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is datable to the 1570s on the basis of the costumes, whilst by the same principle the other, at Knole, Kent, dates to the late 1620s. However, whether it is purely an abstract puzzle, or in fact based upon an established contemporary family situation, remains unclear. The rarity of such a narrative subject, as opposed to a portrait, and the relative accomplishment of the work suggests that painting is attributable to one of the Netherlandish painters working in Britain at this period, such as Hans Eworth, Joris Hoefnagel or Lucas de Heere.  

The dedication to Cecil suggests that it is likely to have belonged to him or to a member of his family, though there is no clear reference to the painting in the early inventories at Hatfield or Burghley. However there is a close resemblance between the three figures on the left and those found in Hoefnagel's famous Fête at Bermondsey, first recorded at Hatfield as early as 1611. The emblems in the corners of the picture (clockwise from top left: a pelican, a gryphon, a unicorn and a knot) is also a format used by Hoefnagel in his work of 1571, Allegory including a View of Windsor (Private Collection) [i]. A label on the back of the Fogg version links the identities of the individuals to Cecil, through his sister Margaret. Although the identities suggested by the Fogg picture do no fit the complex relationships in the text, the link to Cecil is nevertheless interesting.

i. see K. Hearn, op.cit, London 1995, p. 98