Dorothy Mason, Lady Brownlow (1665-1699/1700)

John Riley (London 1646 – London 1691) and John Closterman (Osnabrück 1660 – London 1711) . Oil painting on canvas, Dorothy Mason, Lady Brownlow (1665-1699/1700) by John Riley (1646-1691) and John Closterman (1660-1711). Inscribed. A full-length portrait of the daughter of Sir Richard Mason (c.1633-1685) and Anne Margaret Long (c.1637-1711) as a young woman, standing, gazing at the spectator, wearing a blue dress over a white bodice with a red mantle wrapped around her left arm and falling down on the right. She is standing by a fountain on the left and in her right hand she holds a shell with which is is about to scoop some water with her right hand. She was the wife of Sir William Brownlow and mother of John Brownlow, Viscount Tyrconnel. When Riley painted these 4 pictures (NT 436004.1-2 and 436005.1-2), he appears to have had the assistance of the recently-arrived John Closterman, and reputedly got £40 a full length, painting only the heads himself and giving Closterman just 30s (£1.50) for all the drapery. Described as 'really deserving everybody's love', her children were: 1.Anne Brownlow (1694-17790) married Sir Richard Cust 2.Richard Brownlow (1689-1690) 3.John Brownlow, 1st and last Viscount Tyrconnel (1690-1754) 4.Dorothy Brownlow (b.1695) Dorothy died before May 1700. Her will was probated in May 1700. After her premature death, her sorrowing husband gave her an immense funeral procession and commemorated her with a monument by William Stanton (1639-1705) in St Nicholas Church, Sutton, in Surrey which was dismissed by William Hone as 'a sort of hasty pudding, garnished with slices of gingerbread'. The monument is now completely concealed by the church organ.The design for the monument is in the collection of the V&A Museum. Belton House, Lincolnshire (Accredited Museum)