This remarkable newly discovered portrait by the pastellist Edward Luttrell depicts the Durham Landowner Freville Lambton and was almost certainly created at the time of the sitter’s first marriage to Ann Milwood in 1686. Freville Lambton was born in 1661, the son and heir of Thomas Lambton and his wife Margaret

Freville. Following the death of his grandfather, Sir Nicholas Freville in 1674, Lambton inherited Hardwick Hall and he later inherited Biddick Hall on the death of his step-father Nicholas Coyners in 1686. Nicholas Pevsner notes that the remodelling of Biddick was ‘probably done for Freville Lambton in 1723 and the Vanbrughian characteristics of the façade may be accounted for by Vanbrugh’s presence in the area (at Lumley, three miles away) in 1721’.

Freville had a number of children, His eldest son Thomas Lambton had inherited Hardwick Hall which was in turn jointly inherited by his six daughters and sold in 1748. Freville’s younger son Nicholas Lambton inherited Biddick Hall which passed to his only daughter Mary Lambton. She devised the house and all its contents to a man named John Dawson who took the name Lambton but then sold the hall, again seemingly with its contents to Robert Stewart, 1 Marquess of Londonderry. He then sold the house back to the Lambton family when it was acquired by Major General John Lambton a younger branch of the family. Following this, this portrait remained with Major General John Lambton’s heirs until now, when it comes to the market for the first time.

This portrait is an exceptional example of the work of the pastellist Edward Luttrell and shows the sitter seated within a landscape, likely with Hardwick Old Hall in the distance. Luttrell rarely created such ambitious compositions, and he must have looked to the portraits of Sir Peter Lely for inspiration with this example. There is some compositional similarity between this portrait and the early surviving self-portrait of Luttrell, although the finish of this work appears superior and the landscape seen here appears particularly unusual for Luttrell who tended to depict sitters with a plain background. It is possible to date the work by the sitter’s clothing to the 1680s, it would therefore seem likely that it was created at or around the time of Freville Lambton’s first marriage to Ann Milwood in 1686. Lambton went on to marry twice more, again in to Thomasine Milwood, his first wife’s cousin and finally in 1695 the Ann Wright, the daughter of Sir Robert Wright, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. The portrait is housed in a remarkable hand carved Sunderland type frame, considered the most prestigious type of frame popular between 1660 and 1690. Incredibly, it is known that the frame was carved by a female frame maker, Mary Ashfield. Ashfield was probably the wife of Luttrell’s teacher and fellow pastellist Edmund Ashfield, whom she created a number of similar small Sunderland frames for. The survival of this frame is almost as fortuitous as the delicate pastel itself and can again be seen on Luttrell’s early self-portrait.