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Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland

Portrait Miniature
1665-1670 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Unfinished portrait vignette, head in outline, to right and looking to front. Features finely hatched in sanguine with some very tentative shadowing in grey; the eyes in opaque grey; on a very pale carnation ground; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

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read Portrait miniatures at the V&A In 1857, the year the new South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) opened to the public, the museum acquired its first portrait miniature – an image of Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard. The miniature, housed in an enamelled gold locket with a jewelled cover, is a rare survival as most E...

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleBarbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book
Brief description
Portrait miniature, unfinished, of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland. Watercolour on vellum by Samuel Cooper, 1665-1670
Physical description
Unfinished portrait vignette, head in outline, to right and looking to front. Features finely hatched in sanguine with some very tentative shadowing in grey; the eyes in opaque grey; on a very pale carnation ground; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.
Dimensions
  • Sheet height: 74cm
  • Sheet width: 58mm
  • Drawn oval height: 74mm
  • Drawn oval width: 58mm
Dimensions taken from John Murdoch Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Content description
Portrait in outline of a woman's head.
Styles
Production typeUnique
Marks and inscriptions
'Cooper / Ds Cleveland' (Inscribed on the back in graphite)
Object history
Provenance: Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1 723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
  • Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Collection
Accession number
446-1892

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
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