Studio of Robert Walker

Probably Colonel Philip Jones (1618–1674);

By descent to Oliver Harris Valpy (1876–1914);

By inheritance to to his sister Clara Valpy (1877–1969), who married Seymour William Brooke Boothby (1866–1951); 

Thence by descent in the Boothby family at Fonmon Castle, Vale of Glamorgan, to the present owners. 

A Catalogue of the Pictures in Fonmon Castle 1743, MS D/DF F/190, Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff, no. 27;

A. Oswald, ‘Fonmon Castle, Glamorgan II: The Home of Sir Seymour Boothby, Bt., and Lady Boothby’, in Country Life, vol. 105, no. 2723, 1949, p. 671;

J. Steegman, A Survey of Portrait in Welsh Houses, vol. 2, Cardiff 1962, p. 93, no. 6.

Henry Ireton may be counted amongst some of the most influential figures in the Parliamentarian army during the English Civil Wars. Emanating from a family of Puritans based in Nottinghamshire, the young Henry's education as a lawyer soon gave way to a career in the Parliamentarian army during the outbreak of the Civil War. He fought under the Earl of Essex at the Battle of Edgehill as a Captain of the Horse, and Parliamentarian success at the Battle of Gainsborough in 1643 brought him into the sphere of Oliver Cromwell. Ireton's proximity to both Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax saw his steady rise, supplemented by honourable action at the battles of Marston Moor, the second battle of Newbury and later Naseby secured his reputation in the theatres of war. Connections with the Parliamentarian leadership were further strengthened through his marriage to Cromwell's daughter Bridget (c. 1624–1662), a union which produced four children. Ireton's support of Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland would ultimately prove his undoing. After participating in a tireless expedition of sieges and efforts to colonise the Catholic nation there, Ireton would finally succumb to an illness brought on by a cold in the winter of 1652. Despite dying outside of Limerick, his body was brought back to London where a lavish funeral was prepared and his remains finally interred in Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey.

The composition of this portrait derives from Sir Anthony Van Dyck's Portrait of Sir Edmund Verney in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and features Ireton wearing the very same plain Greenwich armour featured in this painting.¹

It is almost certain that this portrait was commissioned or owned by Colonel Philip Jones (1618–1674), a significant figure in the history of South Wales during the English Civil Wars and a confidante of Oliver Cromwell. For Jones' portrait in this sale see Lot 46, and for Oliver Cromwell's see Lot 45.

¹ Oil on canvas, 135.5 x 108.2 cm. The National Portrait Gallery, London; https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07994/Sir-Edmund-Verney