Although it was previously thought to depict the Queen Consort Henrietta Maria[1], the sitter is the court beauty Margaret Smith, whose likeness was replicated by several artists working in the circle of Van Dyck. In each, her costume remains largely the same: a shimmering silver thread dress is embellished with accents of gold embroidery; at her breast sits a large table-cut diamond set within a gold brooch. Margaret’s relatively simple, albeit weighty, pearl necklace and pearl-drop earrings also feature in the other versions. It is unsurprising that her coquettish suggestion of a smile and perfectly coiffed hair, falling delicately around her face, was reproduced so frequently that there are at least two other versions of our portrait attributed to Russel, one which was previously in the collection at Apsley House, and the other was handled by The Weiss Gallery in the 1990s.

Margaret Smith (1606 – 1678) was the daughter of Sir Thomas Smith, who began his career as secretary to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Later in 1608, he was made Master of Requests to King James I & VI. Margaret’s first husband was Thomas Carey, son of Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth. [2] A portrait of the Lord Carey, with his family, attributed to Paul van Somer, is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. After Thomas’s untimely death in 1634, she married secondly Sir Edward Herbert, Attorney-General to King Charles I and later Lord Keeper of the Great Seal to King Charles II. He lived in exile with the royal family in Holland and France during the English Civil War and remained there until his death in 1658. The pair had two sons: Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington and Sir Edward Herbert. During their early years the children lived with their parents in Brussels and Paris and then returned to the Britain in 1661.[3] In June 1688, it was their eldest son who carried the ‘Invitation to William’, a letter signed by seven notable English nobles, later called the “Immortal seven”[4], informing the stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange that if he invaded Britain, they would support his deposition of the much-disliked James II; and so, a chain of events began that would once again alter the British monarchy.

Theodore Russel, whose father Nicasius Russel was originally from Bruges and the Royal Stuart jeweller, was born in London in 1614. His career began as an apprentice in the studio of his uncle, the celebrated Anglo-Dutch painter Cornelius Johnson (1593 - 1661), and latterly as an assistant to Sir Anthony van Dyck. Russel’s Portrait of a Man, which is signed and dated 1644 (Knebworth House, Hertfordshire), shows the artist working in the sensitive manner of Cornelius Johnson. In 1641, after the death of Van Dyck, Russel began producing fashionably small-scale portraits; these paintings are naturally Van Dyckian in mood and presentation and indeed some – as we see here - were copied from autograph paintings by the late, courtly master. Russel’s style and manner is very different from that of the small-scale pictures made by the copyist Remigius Van Leemput (c.1609 – 1675). Examples of his work can be found in numerous country house collections, such as: Knole, Woburn Abbey, and Southside House, Wimbledon; as well as in the Royal collection. It is worth noting that our composition does not exist in these collections, making our painting’s that much more original and, likely, an important commission.[5]

[1] See: https://www.rct.uk/collection/602768/margaret-smith-1606-78

[2] Robert Carey, Margaret’s father-in-law, was himself the tenth and youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon and therefore related to the Boleyns of Hever.

[3] https://www-oxforddnb-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-13017?rskey=mAZl8P&result=12

[4] https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-95260

[5] We would like to thank Karen Hearn for her musings on this portrait type: “I was intermittently making a study of these small portrait heads - particularly the groups of them that survive. I've been able to inspect at first hand the groups at Southside House, in Schloss Mosigkau in Dessau, and in The Royal Collection. Neither of your portrait heads are replicated in those particular groups”.