
In Tate Britain
- Artist
- Cornelius Johnson 1593–1661
- Medium
- Oil paint on oak
- Dimensions
- Support: 410 × 330 mm
frame: 565 × 470 × 60 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1965
- Reference
- T00745
Display caption
Johnson, born in London in 1593 to a German/Flemish immigrant family, became an extremely prolific portraitist, working on every scale, including painting full-length groups. The sitter is thought to be the wife of the sitter in the portrait nearby. Its unusual scale – halfway between a full-size portrait and a miniature – is found in other works by Johnson.
Gallery label, February 2016
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Catalogue entry
Cornelius Johnson 1593–1661
T00745 Portrait of an Unknown Lady 1629
Inscr. ‘C. J. fecit 1629.’ b.r.
Panel, 16¿ x 13 (43 x 33).
Purchased from the Executors of Captain E. G. Spencer-Churchill (Grant-in-Aid) 1965.
Coll: as for No. T00744.
Lit: A Catalogue of the Pictures, Works of Art, etc. at Northwick Park, 1864, reprinted 1908, p. 15, No. 88; Borenius and Cust, 1921, p. 125, No. 315, as of Elizabeth, neé Tanfield, wife of 1st Viscount Falkland; Finberg, 1922, p. 17, No. 38, as ‘Called Lady Falkland’.
Engr: Charles Turner, published by S. Woodburn 1811.
Letitia Morison (1611–1646/7), the traditional subject of this portrait, did not marry the 2nd Viscount Falkland until 1631, which is one of the reasons for rejecting the traditional identification of this pair of pictures (see T00744). Her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Tanfield (1585–1639), married the 1st Viscount in 1602 and would have been too old to be the sitter as suggested by Borenius.
Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1965–1966, London 1967.
Features
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Portrait of an Unknown Lady 1629: By Cornelius Johnson
Read technical information about this painting resulting from examination and scientific analysis by conservators and conservation scientists at Tate
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