Portrait miniature of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, watercolour on vellum, painted by Samuel Cooper, 1636-1640.

Portrait, head and shoulders, to right and looking to front; in the right background is a ship at sea. Features in long wiry hatches, predominantly in brown with some sanguine, yellow and blue; much gouache heightening (see Condition) and white highlights; the hair in brown wash hatched and lined with darker colour and with pale opaque lights; on a pale carnation ground; robe in black wash with pale grey lights; collar in white shadowed with grey; blue Garter ribbon with gouache lights and grey shadow; sky and seascape background washed and hatched in gouache; on vellum put down on pasteboard.

Frame: Seventeenth-century enamelled gold locket, the back of shallow convex section, the edges rounded to the rebate of the (now missing) front cover; the flat glass held by a bezel formed from the upstand of the rebate; the cover hinged at the bottom and fitted with a clasp at the top; the hanger a solid cast loop of cosse de pois type, with two side projections and a small finial, channelled to take enamel, dark blue beneath the projections, and light blue above.

Salting Bequest

Provenance: George Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle, at Castle Howard, Yorkshire; acquired by George Salting by 1898;3 by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1910.

This miniature portrait is set in a locket that is enamelled on the back. The enamel shows Cleopatra Holding the Asp and it is signed H. T. This probably refers to Henri Touting (1614-about 1683), an enameller of Blois and Paris. It used to be thought that Samuel Cooper painted the miniature, but the signature, 'S. C.', was added at a later date. The miniature derives from Anthony Van Dyck's well-known portrait of the 10th Earl of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle.

P.112-1910