Mary Beale (Suffolk 1632-1697 London)

The sitter was formerly wrongly identified as Mrs Alice Fanshawe (1633-1662). The style and the sitter's hairstyling point to a date in the mid-1670s. Although an unidentified Mrs Fanshawe was painted by Beale in 1677, the sitter's maturity, her somewhat foreign style of dress and her apparent widowhood suggest that she could well be Lady Fanshawe, whose iconography is somewhat confused. Anne, daughter of Sir John Harrison, married Sir Richard Fanshawe, the poet and diplomat, and accompanied him on his embassies for the Royalist cause in Spain and Portugal. Her formidable character is revealed in her vivid Memoirs.