Summary
The three sitters are identified by the inscription in the top right corner: 'Mrs. Salisbury & her Grand-¦ children Sr. Edw[ar]d. Bagot & ¦ Eliz[abet]h. Bagot afterwards ¦ Countess of Uxbridge'. This was probably added in the eighteenth century. The painting may appear - and indeed is - a charming family group. Yet, when it was painted, it also served a further purpose. It was commissioned as a piece of visual evidence in a bitter dynastic row that centred on property - the very land that is depicted in it, beyond left.
It is the pivotal painting in a group of six family portraits commissioned in 1675 from John Michael Wright by a Staffordshire gentleman, Sir Walter Bagot (1644-1704) of Blithfield, near Rugeley. They comprised the present work showing his mother-in-law and his two younger children; a picture of himself in classical attire; a pendant pair of himself and his wife Jane, nee Salesbury (c.1650-95); a double portrait of his mother, Lady Mary Bagot with his other daughter Mary; and an image of his late father-in-law, Sir Charles Salesbury (died 1659) - the present sitter's husband… (read more)
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