|
Date: |
|
Description: | This full-length portrait of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk by the Italian painter Biagio Rebecca (1734/5-1808) belongs to a series of thirteen ancestral portraits commissioned by Sir John Griffin Griffin, 4th Lord Howard de Walden, 1st Lord Braybrooke for the ornamentation of the Saloon at Audley End in Essex. This room the first in a suite of five, newly arranged by Sir John Griffin Griffin is most richly decorated, as an observer of 1819 wrote: 'The frieze, cornice, pilasters and other parts, are richly carved and gilt; and the chimney-piece contains some beautiful miniature paintings, with the arms of the Howard family'. The interior architecture of this room gracefully integrates the rooms original Elizabethan 'stuccoed ceiling ornamented with pendantives' and frieze with an eighteenth-century neoclassical panelled interior suggestive of an arcade, each arch of which incorporates a portrait of 'the distinguished personages connected with the history of the place' (Wright's History of Essex, 1836). An extensive inscription records the genesis and development of the house. Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk (1584-1640) was the son of Thomas, 1st Earl of Suffolk and his second wife Catherine Knevet. He married Elisabeth Home, daughter of the Earl of Dunbar in 1612 by whom he had nine children. He succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Suffolk in 1626 when he was also appointed Privy Councillor and Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Dorset. He was made Knight of the Garter in 1627. | Subjects: | 2nd Earl of Suffolk) portrait (Theophilus Howard | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Rebecca, Biagio (Italian painter, 1735-1808, active in Great Britain) Æ | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8737... | Go to resource |
|
|