Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Bt. (1646 – 1723)

Shown in full-length wearing a silk costume shaped by her svelte figure, Lady Elizabeth’s attractively proportioned face is weighed down by a sense of deep contemplation. Her gaze, piercing through her shapely eyes, is almost expectant of an answer from us, her viewer. Her right elbow supports her head from the edge of a fountain, which she reveals by tugging away the long mantle that would otherwise be covering it. It is shaped as the mask of Medusa, the infamously hideous figure from Greek mythology, whose face is aggressively rendered, with water gushing out of the mouth; the juxtaposition between such an ugly mythological figure and a beautiful mortal subject is no accident.[1]

Kneller charged Lady Elizabeth £50 for her full-length likenesses, which was higher than his standard fee but likely explained by the fact they were almost certainly wholly autograph works by the artist. Though a regular customer, the patron was often late in paying for her many commissions: it is recorded that she issued the artist with a promissory note to pay for several portraits on 5th June 1703, however this remained unpaid by at least November of that year, when the artist felt obliged to gently remind her to settle her large debt to him.[2]

This portrait of Lady Betty, as she was best known to her acquaintances, is dated the year before her marriage to Edward “Neddy” Southwell (1671 – 1730), a fellow member of the Anglo-Irish nobility who, in that year, succeeded his father as the Principal Secretary of State for Ireland and became a member of the Privy Council for Ireland. As Lady Betty and many members of the Southwell family had their portraits painted by Kneller, it is not inconceivable that she and Edward were introduced to one another by the artist in London.[3]

By the time that she married Edward Southwell in October 1703, Lady Betty had sat for four different portraits, starting from circa 1699 through to our portrait from 1702. In turn, Kneller was obviously a close, longstanding acquaintance of the Southwell family, as he is recorded as having spent Christmas with them at their family seat, Kings Weston, in 1685.[4] Edward Southall first sat to Kneller, alongside his father, in 1683, beginning a twenty-year patronage, culminating in a grand full-length in 1701 [Fig. 1].[5] His sittings for this portrait might have afforded him occasion to meet Lady Betty, who likely visited the artist’s studio around the same time to sit for our portrait.[6]

Betty was the only child and, thus, heir of Vere Essex Cromwell, 4th Earl of Ardglass (1625 - 1687), and Catherine Hamilton. They inherited the town of Downpatrick upon the death of Vere’s nephew in 1682 and lived nearby at Bonecastle. Upon his own death in 1687, the earl’s wife and daughter moved to two other properties within their estate in quick succession. Lady Elizabeth, now referred to as Baroness Cromwell, must have been in London by early 1695 when she was invited to attend the funeral of Queen Mary II (1662 - 1694) by the Duke of Norfolk and, a few years later, the coronation of Queen Anne (1665 – 1714) in 1702.[7]

As a young, beautiful, and rich Irish heiress, Lady Betty must have proved a very desirable potential bride to many an English nobleman. One of her most notable suitors was William Byrd II (1674 – 1744), an Anglo-American lawyer-writer, who sent her highly charged love letters, referring to her as “Facetia”.[8] Seemingly, Byrd’s melodramatic attention proved unsavoury to Lady Betty, and she ignored all of his correspondence after what must have been a consequential trip to Dublin with her future husband, Edward Southwell.

If they had not been introduced to one another by Kneller it is plausible, considering their shared Anglo-Irish noble lineage, that Lady Betty might have met Edward Southwell at one or both of the major royal events around that time – being the funeral of Mary II and the coronation of Queen Anne - as he was one of the leading members of the court with responsibilities for Ireland. Although both were clearly proud of their immediate Hibernian heritage and engaged in Irish current affairs, Lady Betty’s English ancestry, being a direct descendant of Henry VIII’s chief minister Sir Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c.1485 – 1540), must have also been of huge appeal to Southwell.[9]

By his marriage to Lady Betty, Southwell acquired the town of Downpatrick and, although an absentee landlord, did much to improve the town by granting leases and promoting the building of more ornamental and durable housing.[10] Just before his marriage, he had also inherited Kings Weston House, near Bristol, which his father, Sir Robert Southwell (1635 - 1702), had begun rebuilding and where our painting hung for several generations.

Sadly, it would not prove to be a long marriage as Lady Betty died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1709, possibly during childbirth. She was survived by her only child, Edward Southwell Jnr (1705 – 1755) and her premature death appears to have greatly affected her husband. In a letter from Lady Wentworth to her son Lord Raby, apparently a former suitor of Lady Betty, it was relayed: "Your old Mrs. is dead and left thre lovly boys behynde and a dismall mallancolly husband; its Lady Betty Southwell whoe made a very good wife, and he a fond husband .... She dyed of a consumtion.”[11]

The death of his beloved wife, and the £35,000 she left in her estate, must have proved the impetus for Edward to rebuild the now tired Tudor mansion that they had briefly shared together. He employed the Comptroller of the Queen’s Works, Sir John Vanbrugh (1664 – 1726), who had already been commissioned to build Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, to remodel the whole house. Although renowned for these English Baroque palatial buildings, Southwell instructed Vanbrugh to design a practical, though grand family seat for him and his only surviving child, Edward [Fig. 3]. It took four years to build, and, in the summer of 1716, Edward moved in with his new wife, Anne Blathwayt (1691–1717). Tragedy struck for him again, however, when Anne, who had yet to become a mother, died within a year of their marriage.

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The painting’s extraordinary frame, dating from the early Rococo period in the 1740s, appears to have been a one-off order, as it seems to be the only frame of its kind that emanated from the collection at Kings Weston. The approximate date it was made sits between the house’s two main renovations; Vanbrugh’s Palladian house having been finished in 1716 and the next refurbishment, handled by the Scottish architect Robert Mylne (1733 – 1811) in the neo-classical manner, did not commence until 1763. It must have been Edward Southwell Jr. (1705 – 1755), Betty Cromwell’s only surviving child, who commissioned the frame and it was perhaps appropriate that arguably the most treasured of his late mother’s many portraits be re-presented in a trophy-like frame.

Whilst it is known that Mylne redesigned the framing solutions for other family portraits in the grand hall – whereby they were inset into the wall with elaborate plasterwork surrounds – a direct reference to our frame has yet to be discovered. The elaborate gilt rococo-style carving of our frame and its Chinoiserie features – such as the pagoda at the top, as well as the dragons and ho-ho birds that appear variously around the frame - is reminiscent of the work of the London-based carver Thomas Johnson (1723 - 1799). However, another plausible proposition for its maker was far more local to the house: it is known that the Bristol-based plaster worker Thomas Stocking (1722 – 1808) was latterly employed to make real the rococo ceiling work designed by Mylne and he often worked with his neighbour, the master mason Thomas Paty (c.1713 – 1789), who also worked as carver. In the absence of any receipts and references it could, thus, be suggested that this might be an early collaboration between the two Bristolian Thomases.

Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646 – 1723) was the final successor of court portraitists to be knighted by the crown in the seventeenth century, following the precedent set by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) and Sir Peter Lely (1618 – 1680). Born to a distinguished family in Lübeck in Germany, he moved to the Netherlands to study, at first to Leiden for mathematics but, after discovering a passion for painting, he moved to Amsterdam, where he probably studied under Ferdinand Bol (1616 – 1680). His early work was very much influenced by the later Rembrandt school, with an earthy palette and keen use of chiaroscuro.

After further informal studies around the continent, particularly in Rome, Venice, and Hamburg, he moved to London in the mid-1670s. Kneller had a strong work ethic and was a charming new option for patrons who could either not afford or avail themselves to Sir Peter Lely. After a few early commissions from Anglo-German acquaintances, he obtained a pseudo-royal patron in the form of Charles II’s illegitimate son, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (1649 – 1685), after painting a portrait of his secretary. This, in turn, lead to Kneller’s first formal royal commission in 1678, when he painted the king’s portrait.

No doubt thanks to his able likeness of the monarch, Kneller quickly earned a stellar reputation within court circles, which afforded him a large house in Covent Garden’s piazza. With the relatively rapid turnover of monarchs towards the end of the century, from James II in 1685 to William and Mary in 1688, he remained as the preferred portraitist for the court – allowing for a discernible continuity in visual representation of the later Stuart kings and queens - whilst also earning prestigious commissions from the wider nobility.

His appointment as Principal Painter to the Crown, which was briefly shared with John Riley (1646 - 1691), upon the accession of William and Mary in 1688, was a privilege he enjoyed for the rest of his long life. Upon Riley’s death, Kneller was knighted, which encouraged further patronage from those who wished to have their likenesses painted by the crown’s portraitist, Sir Godfrey. His studio became a high-status social enterprise, welcoming the most fashionable and notable beauties of his day, including Lady Betty Cromwell, who first sat to Kneller in 1699. Indeed, the full-length format of our portrait might have been influenced by Kneller’s set of ‘Hampton Court Beauties’, which were ordered by Mary II and, themselves, inspired by Lely’s earlier set of ‘Windsor Beauties’.

At the beginning of the new century, Kneller undertook another ambitiously scaled project, painting portraits of members of his aristocratic, Whig-leaning social circle, the Kit-Cat Club (all forty portraits were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1945). For this, he devised a new compositional format to allow for life-sized half-length portraits that could also show the subject’s animated hand gestures, which had been first pioneered by Raphael and refined by Rembrandt. The new size of canvas, 36 x 28 in., became known as the Kit-Cat format and synonymous with Kneller. In creating a new format of portrait, he also, quite cannily, provided an extra option to his clients: by 1705, he was able to charge £15 for bust-length portrait; £20 for a kit-cat; £30 for a three-quarter length; and £40 for a full-length.

The lucrative portrait practice, operated with the efficient assistance of numerous assistants who were individually charged with painting different elements of a client’s portrait (i.e. one would paint drapery, another the wig etc.), enabled him to build a country house for himself, Whitton House, near Twickenham (now called Kneller Hall). When he was not painting portraits of his wealthy clients, he began instructing younger artists, which culminated in him founding England’s first ever art academy in 1711. A few years later, in 1715, Kneller was granted a baronetcy by George I, which had never been given to an artist in England. He died in 1723 with a large fortune and an unprecedented reputation of having been a revered painter to five English monarchs - and being responsible for the production of several thousand portraits - over a fifty-year career.[12]

[1] The mask of Medusa was often placed on buildings to protect its occupants from evil spirits and negative energy. As a fountain spout, it here represents the fountain of the Muses, the source of all knowledge. See: T. Barber, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, London 2020, p. 149.

[2] “I have heard nothing from your Ladyship concerning the bond, which money I want very much, having bought some land.... Pray Madam do not disregard me so any longer for I have ever been very reddy to oblige your Ladyship ... I writ five letters to your Ladyship this summer but have had no answer.” See: J. Douglas Stewart, “Records of Payment to Sir Godfrey Kneller and His Contemporaries” from The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 113, no. 814 (January 1971), p. 31 & p. 33.

[3] Although both came from prominent Anglo-Irish noble families, the Cromwell’s were based in Downpatrick (modern-day Northern Ireland) and the Southwell’s were from Kinsale, toward the southern tip of Ireland, so it is unlikely they met in Ireland.

[4] E. Black, “Sir Godfrey Kneller and the Southwell and Cromwell families” from Down Survey: Yearbook of Down County Museum, Downpatrick 2008, p. 9.

[5] A list of pictures at Kingsweston, taken July 1695. His 1701 full-length portrait remains at Kings Weston.

[6] In his lifetime, Lady Betty’s father had rented a townhouse in London for the family’s use, Lady Betty and her mother probably continued using it after his death in 1687.

[8] Curiously, Byrd’s mentor was none other than Sir Robert Southwell, Lady Betty’s future father-in-law, who sponsored Byrd’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1696.

[9] Notably, Lady Betty kept her surname after their marriage suggesting the match to Edward Southwell was very much on her terms, especially considering her father was long dead by her marriage in 1703.

[10] Ibid., p. 14.

[11] J.J. Cartwright, The Wentworth Papers, 1705 – 1739, London 1883, p. 70.

[12] See: D. Cast, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Grove Art Online 2004.