Beschreibung:

A portrait of the artist, Mary Beale (née Craddock) (1633-1699), wearing pale ochre-coloured dress with white underslip, three pearls on a ribbon about her right shoulder, further pearls across her chest, held at her corsage by a brooch and blue cloak, her light brown hair curled, landscape background. Watercolour on vellum, inscribed on reverse Mrs Mary/ Beale a famous/ woman for Painting/ Lived in the Pall Mall/ Died at ye Age of 70/ years in the year/ 1698/ Painted in 1679, turned ebonised wood frame, the gilt-metal reverse engraved Mrs Mary Beale/ Artist/ Painted by herself. Oval, 87mm (3 7/16in) high Provenance: Horace Walpole Strawberry Hill Sale, 14 May 1842, lot 161 (bought by Burn) Earls of Derby, Knowsley, Christie's, 8 June 1971, lot 83 Purchased from Asprey & Co Ltd, July 1976 Exhibited: South Kensington Exhibition, 1862, no.2224 South Kensington Exhibition, 1865, no.1915 (as by Samuel Cooper "The excellent Mrs. Mary Beale": 13 October-21 December 1975, Geffrye Museum, London, 10 January-21 February 1976, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (lent by Asprey & Co Ltd) Literature: J.J. Foster, British Miniature Painters and their work, London, 1898, Appendix A, p.18; Appendix C, p.41 G. Scharf, Knowsley Catalogue, no.220 (as by Samuel Cooper J.J. Foster, Samuel Cooper London, 1914, ill.pl.LXV (as by Samuel Cooper The Connoisseur, June 1958, p.46 Basil Long, British Miniaturists, London 1966, p.21 Apollo Magazine, May 1973, p.81 "The excellent Mrs. Mary Beale", Exhibition catalogue, 1975, no.47 Daphne Foskett, Collecting Miniatures, Woodbridge, 1979, p.114, ill.p.109, pl.21D