Sir Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London) and Studio

When included in the 2004 monograph of van Dyck's work, Oliver Millar (op. cit.) wrote of this portrait: 'The head can be attributed to Van Dyck. It is sensitive and direct in touch, rather dry in texture, lively in character and possibly, in the curls on each side of the head the ribbon (?) in her hair, not quite finished. There are clear indications of the painter working ad vivum in the areas of opaque paint on the far side of the head.' Whilst van Dyck's hand is evident in this part of the composition, the remainder appears to have been executed by an assistant in his studio using one of the artist's most successful full-length figure patterns, the finest example of which is arguably the portrait of Mary, Duchess of Lennox and Richmond, with Anne Shepherd, dated to circa 1638-9, at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.

Philip Gell of Hopton (1775-1842) came from a long established and distinguished Derbyshire family that could trace its origins with some certainty back to the first decade of the thirteenth century. The Hopton estate is recorded as having been acquired by Ralph Gell (1491-1564), together with Rochester and Darley Abbeys, in 1553, and by the late sixteenth century a substantial house had been built on the estate which was known as Hopton Hall.