Oil on canvas, 127cm x 101.5cm.
A pendant to PIC212.
Catherine Howard (c.1588-1673), a daughter of Thomas, 1st Earl of Suffolk was the wife of William, 2nd Earl of Salisbury (1591-1668), a grandson of William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley (1520-1598).
The portrait, with its pendant of her husband, also by Lely, (PIC212), came to Burghley in 1690 as part of an inheritance from their daughter Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire (1619-1689), to her daughter Anne, Countess of Exeter (1649-1703).
The enormous bequest was listed in an inventory known as the 1690 Devonshire Schedule, or Deed of Gift.
It included many family portraits and miniatures which became the nucleus of the Burghley Collection.
The entry in the 1690 Devonshire Schedule: ‘Oyle Colour pictures…A picture of the late Earl of Salisbury in a Carv,d fframe
A picture of his Lady in the like fframe’
The Dutch-born Lely arrived in England in 1641 and after the death of Sir Anthony van Dyck later that year, Lely succeeded him as the most fashionable portrait painter in England.
