Nicholas Dixon fl. c. 1660-1708

with curling dark brown hair, falling to her shoulders, wearing a blue dress with a white chemise, and a grey scarf tied around a pearl and diamond rope, ebonised fruitwood veneer frame

Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth (1673-1734) was the daughter of Guillaume de Penancourt and his wife Marie de Ploeuc de Timeur. 

She became Charles II's mistress and she was to maintain a strong hold on the king's affections until his death in February 1685. Not only created Duchess of Portsmouth, Countess of Fareham and Baroness Petersfield by Charles II in 1673 but Louise was also made Duchess of Aubigny by the French Court in the same year at Charles’s request. 

Louise was rumoured at the time to have been selected by the French court deliberately to fascinate the King of England. It was widely believed that the support she received from the French envoy was given on the understanding that she would ultimately serve the interests of her native sovereign. The bargain was confirmed by gifts and honours bestowed to her from Louis XIV.

Openly hated in England, due to her supposed activities in the interest of France as to her notorious rapacity, Nell Gwynne, another of Charles's mistresses, called her "Squintabella", and when mistaken for her, replied, "Pray good people be civil, I am the Protestant whore."

Soon after the king's death, the Duchess quickly fell from favour, and retired to France where she remained almost entirely until her death, harassed by debt. The French king, Louis XIV, and after his death the regent Philip II, Duke of Orléans, gave her a pension and protected her against her creditors. She died in Paris in November 1734.

Another smaller portrait of the Duchess attributed to Susan Penelope Rosse was exhibited in the London exhibition of Samuel Cooper and his Contemporaies, 1974, no. 1922.