Portrait of a Lady in Blue holding a Flower

In this portrait, Peter Lely (1618-1680) depicts a young woman looking out towards the viewer in a wooded landscape. Her hands rest in her lap, holding a spray of white jasmine, perhaps a symbol of youthful purity. Beyond the young woman’s expression, it is the shimmering blue fabric of her dress that catches the eye, as Lely expertly captures the play of light across the contours of the drapery.

Lely grew up in the Netherlands, but by 1647 he had moved to London, where he found professional success by shifting from landscape and history painting to focusing on portraiture. In this way he filled a gap left by the recently deceased Flemish portraitist Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641). Like Van Dyck, Lely became renowned for catering to aristocratic English patrons, and he skilfully cultivated clients from both courtly and Parliamentary circles during the English Civil War (1642-1651). This picture is probably a pair with another work in Dulwich Picture Gallery’s collection, Lely’s Portrait of a Lady with a Drape (DPG559). Both works were bought at the sale of the Townshend collection in 1904 and may show sisters from that family.