Edmund Lilly

Private collection, Pembroke House, Richmond Green, Surrey;

Their sale, Richmond Green, Squibb and Son, 13 May 1823, lot 99 (as Sir Godfrey Kneller);

With Philip Mould, London;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

This elegant portrait is a rare likeness of Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (1689–1700), son of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark. He was their only child to survive infancy. Born a few months after the Glorious Revolution, Price William was the great hope of the Protestant Succession, being the last recognised heir of the Stuart dynasty. However, like his mother, William suffered frequently from ill health and died of smallpox shortly after his 11th birthday. His premature death precipitated the Act of Settlement of 1701, one of the most important documents in the English constitution, which ensured a Protestant succession to the English throne. After the death of Queen Anne in 1714, George I, son of Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover and granddaughter of James I, was elected to the British throne.

The prime version of this composition, dated to circa 1698 and one of the few signed works by Edmund Lilly, is at Windsor Castle, London.¹ Another, unsigned version is at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia.² As a portraitist, Lilly was extensively patronized by Queen Anne, who seems to have preferred his style to that of his more renowned contemporaries Sir Godfrey Kneller and Michael Dahl. Many of his portraits of the queen were reproduced for leading members of the nobility, notably a full-length state portrait, signed and dated 1703, which still hangs at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.³

¹ Inv. no. RCIN 404411; oil on canvas; 219.5 x 129.2 cm.; https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/404411/william-duke-of-gloucester-1689-1700

² Inv. no. 1974-133,A; oil on canvas; 152.4 x 102.9cm.; https://emuseum.history.org/objects/41932/portrait-of-william-duke-of-gloucester-16891700

³ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Queen_Anne_Lilly.jpg