Cornelius Johnson (also known as Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen)

Portrait of Katherine Lady Leveson (1598-1674), half-length, wearing a black and white dress, a white ruff and a pearl rope

UK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Lot Closed

July 8, 01:34 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Estate of the Rt. Hon. The Countess of Sutherland

Cornelius Johnson (also known as Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen)

London 1593 - 1661 Utrecht

Portrait of Katherine Lady Leveson (1598-1674), half-length, wearing a black and white dress, a white ruff and a pearl rope

signed and dated lower right: C.J. fecit / 1625

oil on oak panel, in a painted oval

unframed: 77.5 x 60.5 cm.; 30½ x 23¾ in.

framed: 91.1 x 78.3 cm.; 35⅞ x 30⅞ in.

Possibly by descent in the family of the sitter;
Sutherland-Leveson-Gower collection, Lilleshall, Shropshire, by 1921;
Thence by descent.

A.J. Finberg, 'A Chronological List of Portraits by Cornelius Jonson', in The Walpole Society, vol. X, 1921-22, p. 11, cat. no. 15, reproduced plate X.

Katherine Leveson was the daughter of the explorer Sir Robert Dudley (1574-1649), illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532-88) and favourite of Elizabeth I, by his first wife, Alice (b. 1579), daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh. She married Sir Richard Leveson (1598-1661) in 1629, four years after this portrait was painted. The spray of small white roses in her hair, here, were probably intended to symbolise innocence and purity.