The Family Collection of the late Countess Mountbatten of Burma

Enoch Seeman

Portrait of Elizabeth Somers (1655-1745), three-quarter length, in a white dress

Auction Closed

March 24, 08:41 PM GMT

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Enoch Seeman

Gdansk circa 1694 - 1745 London

Portrait of Elizabeth Somers (1655-1745), three-quarter length, in a white dress

inscribed centre right: Eliz Somers / Wife of S^r. Ioseph Iekel K^t

oil on canvas

126.9 x 103 cm.

By descent to the sitter's sister, Maria, who married Charles Cocks;
Thence to their only child, Catherine, who married James Harris;
Thence to their daughter, Catherine, wife of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull, 5th Bt. (d. 1749).

Inventory, 1749, in the withdrawing room;
Catalogue of Portraits, 1920, no. 46;
A.T. Bolton, ‘Mersham le Hatch’, Country Life, 26 March 1921, p. 371, photographed in the drawing room.

The sitter was the daughter of John Somers, a Worcester attorney, and his wife Catherine Ceaverne. Her elder brother was John Somers, who became a significant figure during the period when William III replaced James II as King, and later served as Lord Chancellor.

In 1697 she married Sir Joseph Jekyll (1662-1738), who became a member of the Middle Temple, the same Inn as his brother-in-law, John Somers. It was under Somers’ aegis that Jekyll became M.P. for Eye in 1697, the same year that he became Chief Justice of Chester. Jekyll’s legal career was distinguished, and in 1717 he was made Master of the Rolls and a Privy Councillor. He had a reputation as a man of great probity and high moral standards.