Both portraits show the countess in an unambiguously melancholic pose, which would suggest that the portraits were commissioned during a period of mourning. Indeed, the other version, which is smaller and more straightforward in its design, shows the countess holding a letter, which is inscribed: “Nothing can repair my loss”.

By the mid-1680s, the countess had lost several members of her immediate family; she had experienced an annus horribilis in 1684-85 when her husband and two of her children died within twelve months of each other. It is more than likely that this portrait was painted soon after this period to acknowledge the tragic losses of some of her closest family members.

In our portrait, Anne Howard wears her long strawberry blond hair unbound, which mirrors the loose-fitting of her exotic banyan that falls off her shoulder. Her cheek is pressed against her right hand and her lips are parted as though she is relaying her sorrow to those before her. Unlike the other version, her left hand is placed upon a sheet of thin gauze, which she presses against a velvet cushion. The delicacy of the gauze might allude to the fragility of life, whilst the nearby earl’s coronet might infer that whilst other heirs have perished, the earldom remains safe with the survival of her eldest son.

Anne Howard was born into a world of great social advantage and means; the daughter of Edward Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick (c.1597 – 1675) and Hon. Mary Boteler (1602 – 1645), she was the granddaughter of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk and the great-niece of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, two of the most controversial nobleman in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I respectively.

Aged seventeen she married Charles Howard (1628 – 1685), a distant cousin, and their first child, Edward, later 2nd Earl of Carlisle (1646 - 1692), was born soon after. Charles Howard, a distinguished military leader and politician, led a busy life in Cumbria, as well as the court in London; starting with roles including High Sheriff of Cumberland and Governor of Carlisle, during the Protectorate parliaments he was a tactful MP for Cumberland. Upon the restoration of the crown, despite his leanings during the civil war, he was created 1st Earl of Carlisle (1628 – 1685) in the spring of 1661, which preceded his various ambassadorial appointments to Russia, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden. Ultimately, he was appointed Governor of Jamaica, which he abandoned for a quieter life in Cumberland, where he spent the rest of his life.

Although he and the countess were apparently estranged soon after birth of their last-born child in Denmark, they were buried together in York Minster.[1] Few references to the countess’s own life survive, however she was mentioned in Samuel Pepys’s diary, when they sat next to each other at a Sunday service in St Olave’s on Hart Street in December 1667. The famous diarist wrote, “…in our pew there sat a great lady, which I afterwards understood to be my Lady Carlisle, that made her husband a cuckold in Scotland, a very fine woman indeed in person."[2]

Despite a fairly undocumented personal biography, Anne Howard was clearly a devoted mother and was, as Countess of Carlisle, responsible for the legacy of the earldom. Of her surviving children, there was Edward (1646 - 1692), who became the 2nd Earl of Carlisle around the time this portrait was painted; Lady Ann Howard (1650 - 1707), whose portrait was also painted by John Michael Wright; and the Hon. Frederick Christian Howard (1664 - 1684), who was nearly a generation younger than his older brother and born in Copenhagen. Frederick Christian, named after two of Denmark’s greatest monarchs, was slain in the Siege of Luxembourg in 1684 and, alongside the death of his sister Catherine (1656 - 1684) that same year, it is likely that our portrait of the melancholic Anne Howard was painted to commemorate the loss of two of her youngest children. Several of the siblings and their descendants are buried in St John the Baptist’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.[3]

The artist of our portrait, John Michael Wright (1617 - 1694), was one of the most distinguished and original native-born portrait painters during the Restoration period in Britain. Amongst other things, his palette is very distinctive from others of the period and might be attributable to his unique training, having first studied under one of Scotland’s earliest known portrait painters, George Jamesone (c.1587 - 1644), in Edinburgh before becoming the first British painter to be admitted to Rome’s prestigious Accademia di San Luca in 1648. This exposure to continental artists shaped the direction of Wright’s technique and style, which was a unique fusion of Dutch realism, Italian Baroque, and French classicism.

Wright returned to England in 1655 and, by 1660, had established a successful portrait practice in London. At the time, he was described by John Evelyn, as ‘the famous painter Mr Write’.[4] Wright worked on occasion for for the court and was appointed Picture Drawer in Ordinary to the King in 1673 - indeed, one of the most iconic portraits of Charles II was painted by him and is today on view at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh - but his clients increasingly came from the margins of the court and particularly from the catholic nobility and gentry, such as the Howard and Bagot families. As he worked for both Royalist and Parliamentarian clients, he must have been an affable as well as mercurial character.

Our portrait was painted toward the end of Wright’s career and must have been created between the death of Anne Howard’s children in mid-1685 and ahead of Wright’s departure for Rome in 1686. As the variant was kept in the collection of the Earls of Carlisle until 1947, it is almost certainly the portrait that was offered for sale in a Mr Playford’s London auction room in 1691, which, unusually, meant it was sold during the artist and sitter’s lifetime.

[1] See: www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/howard-charles

[2] See: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1667/12/01/

[3] See: www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/earl-of-carlisle-children

[4] E.S. de Beer (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn, 5 April 1659, Oxford 1955, p.228.