This superb early portrait by Sir Peter Lely (1618-80) depicts Josceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland (1644-70) and constitutes the rediscovery of the earliest known portrait of one of Lely’s most significant patrons at the tender age of only 3 or 4 years old.

The portrait, which was painted by Lely in c. 1648, would almost certainly have been commissioned by the sitter’s father, the statesman Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland. Lord Northumberland first commissioned Lely between August and October 1647 to paint the three younger children of Charles I (Figure 1), James, Duke of York, the Princess Elizabeth and Henry Duke of Gloucester, while they were under the guardianship of Lord Northumberland at his estate Syon House. Lord Northumberland was a supporter of the Parliamentarian course, but, although opposed to Charles I in his beliefs, he viewed his role as guardian to his children as a great honor and provided a comfortable life for them. [1] Indeed James, Duke of York far from seeing Lord Northumberland as a goaler writes to Josceline, the 11th Earl, following his father’s death in October 1668 "As I have received many civilities and obligations from him, ever since I first knew him, so I do assure you, you shall find the continuation of my kindness to you upon all occasions.”[2]

Lord Northumberland’s early patronage of Lely was key to the young artist’s career and success in a tumultuous English society during and following the Civil War. Lord Northumberland, who was one of the most significant nobles supporting Parliament over the Crown in the Civil Wars, first commissioned Lely in 1647 to paint the King’s children and also a portrait of the King with the young James, Duke of York. [3] It would appear that Lord Northumberland was so impressed with Lely’s portraits that soon after they were completed, or even during the commission, he also had Lely paint his own young son.

Lely is considered to have come to England from his native Holland sometime in 1643, and saw some success painting mythological and religious scenes.[4] Lely however, seeing a gap in the market for portrait painting following the death of van Dyck in 1641, soon changed to this genre.

This portrait, painted when Lely was just 30, shows the capability and skill the artist had at capturing the human nature of his sitters. The young Josceline, Lord Percy, is shown very much as a member of the nobility looking out to the viewer with an aristocratic confidence, he wears rich grey drapery that flows dramatically over his shoulder and has a crisp white collar neatly at his neck.

This portrait was almost certainly hung at Suffolk House, the London Palace Algernon Percy had bought in the 1640s from his father-in-law, Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk, for £15,000. Richard Symonds made an inventory of the house in 1652 where he notes a portrait of Josceline as a young boy. Considering the other Lely portraits of Josceline were painted predominantly when he was older it would appear that it is this portrait Symonds refers to.

It is known from Symonds inventory that the most important pictures in Lord Northumberland’s collection were hanging at Suffolk House, including the majority of Northumberland’s impressive collection of van Dyck portraits. Lely was greatly influenced by the works of van Dyck on his arrival in England and certainly at this time in his career there is a definitive stylistic change from his typically Dutch manner to the grander, aristocratic style of van Dyck. Looking at van Dyck’s portrait of Josceline’s father, mother and sister (Figure 2), painted some 15 years earlier between c. 1633-35 the influence of van Dyck on Lely becomes evident. When painting this portrait of Josceline, Lely must have been used van Dyck’s portrayal of his father Algernon as a template as both sitters are shown turned but looking to the viewer with an authoritative stare. Likewise, the youthful innocence of van Dyck’s Lady Catherine Percy seems to be translated by Lely with soft brushstrokes and pale rosey cheeks, something of a departure from his slightly earlier depiction of the King’s children which lack this naturalistic finish.

Consequentially it can be said that this portrait is key to understanding Lely’s early development as an artist working in London during the Civil War and Interegnum.

Josceline was his father’s only son and as such was heir to the enormous Northumberland estates. However he was born a sickly child and his health and the continuation of the Northumberland line was often at the forefront of his father’s concern. Josceline had two sisters that survived to adulthood, Lady Anne, who married Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, but died in 1654 and Lady Elizabeth, who married Arthur Capel, later the 1st Earl of Essex. Algernon was adamant that he wanted his son to make a good marriage, and on 23 December 1662 Josceline married Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley, the daughter of the Lord High Treasurer Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.

Lady Elizabeth was considered by the men of Court a great beauty with the notorious Pepys commenting that she was ‘a beautiful Lady indeed’. [5] She was also an heiress in her own right being in line to receive a substantial part of her father’s estate as well as that of her uncle’s the Earl of Chichester. Following the young couple’s marriage, they turned once more to the trusted portraitist Peter Lely, who at this stage Josceline would have known almost his entire life, to create what would presumably have been pendant portraits painted in c. 1662. Lady Elizabeth was painted once again by Lely as a sitter in one of the eleven portraits that formed his celebrated Windsor Beauties series (Figure 3).

It would appear that from Algernon Percy, this portrait was inherited or gifted to Josceline’s sister, Elizabeth, Countess of Essex. Lady Elizabeth had married Arthur Capel in 1653 who was made the Earl of Essex on the restoration of Charles II in 1661. It is known that as a wedding gift, the young couple were given the full-length portrait of the bride’s father by van Dyck, it could well have been this portrait was given at the same time to remind Lady Elizabeth of her young brother.

Certainly the portrait would have been at Cassiobury House, the seat of the Earls of Essex by 1670 when Josceline died. The inscription is very particular to the extensive collection of Lely portraits that were at Cassiobury and presumably only the most important portraits in the collection were inscribed. These inscriptions were probably done around 1677-80 when Cassiobury was rebuilt and were likely intended to flaunt the family connections and add to the grandeur of the collection.

Rather than remaining in the collection at Cassiobury, this work, along with a significant number of other Percy portraits went not to Lady Elizabeth’s son, Algernon Capel, 2nd Earl of Essex but instead went to her daughter Anne de Vere Capel who married Charles, 3rd Earl of Carlisle in 1688. Portraits were often used by a brides family to show important family connections and as such, this portrait would have been used as a direct visual link between the Capel family and the grander Percy family.

This would have been especially relevant in the case of the Capel family as Arthur Capel, 1st Earl of Essex had committed suicide in 1683 while captive in the Tower of London following his involvement in the Rye House Plot, a scheme organised by a group of nobles to overthrow the Catholic James II in favour of the Protestant James, Duke of Monmouth, the eldest illigitimate son of Charles II.

It would seem likely that, following this scandal, Lady Elizabeth had included a number of family portraits amongst her daughter’s dowry in order to show the strength of the family’s connections to her future son-in-law.

From Lady Anne, Countess of Carlisle the portrait remained and was with the family, first at Castle Howard and later Naworth Castle until it was sold in 1947 by the 11th Earl of Carlisle, its importance as the earliest depiction of Josceline Percy and its significance within the oeuvre of Sir Peter Lely long forgotten. The portrait then went to a private collection in Sussex and comes to the market for the first time in over seventy five years.

The importance of this work within the oeuvre of Sir Peter Lely’s artwork is key to understanding both the artist’s circle of early patrons, many of whom were significant supporters of Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum, as well as the artist’s stylistic shift on arriving in Britain.

Although Dutch, the obvious inspiration Lely took from the Flemish style of van Dyck plays an important role when looking at this portrait, and Lely’s life in general. The early date of this portrait, being one of the first created by Lely indebted to van Dyck’s style, shows the artist working in a way that incorporated a style that soon became synonymous with English portrait painting.

[1] Frances Harris, An Ambivalent Image: Lely’s Double-Portrait of Charles I and the Duke of York, The Burlington Magazine, Mar 2007, vol. 149, no. 1248, p. 180

[2] Gerald Brenan, A History of the House of Percy; from the Earliest Times Down to the Present Century, 1902, London, vol. II, p. 311

[3] Margaret R. Toynbee, The Early Work of Sir Peter Lely, The Burlington Magazine, May 1945, vol. 86, no. 506, p. 125

[4] Diana Dethloff, Britannica, 2018

[5] Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 31 March 1667