Portrait of a Courtesan

manner of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680). Oil painting on canvas, Portrait of a Courtesan, manner of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680). A three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, seated, facing frontally, gazing at spectator, with fair hair, heavily curled with a cascade of ringlets and curls falling down over her left shoulder, wearing a décolleté russet dress with blue drapery, a shepherdess’s staff in her left hand, a lamb at the left, to which she is offering leaves with her right hand; landscape background. Once called Nell Gwynn, but probably based on Lely's portrait of Henriette de Kerouaille, Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton House, but with a different face and colouring of the hair. Chirk Castle, Wrexham (Accredited Museum)