Oil on panel, 30.5cm by 24.1cm.
Penelope, née Naunton (1620-1647), was the first wife of Philip, Lord Herbert (1621-1669), who inherited as 5th Earl of Pembroke on the death of his father in 1649.
Joan Carlisle (née Palmer), the daughter of a Royal Parks official was one of the first women in England to paint professionally.
She copied the Italian Masters in miniature and was also an accomplished portrait painter.
The portrait was formerly attributed to Edmund Ashfield (fl. 1660-1690) and appears as such in the 1763 Burghley Inventory: ‘The Japan Closet….Lady Herbert by Edmund Ashfield.’
