"Portrait Of A Lady In Pink Silk Dress C.1695, Circle Of Godfrey Kneller, Fine Gilded Frame"
This elegant portrait is a type favoured by Godfrey Kneller’s refined court-style depiction of aristocratic women. The sitter is unencumbered by high fashion or a background of stately topography. The emphasis is instead placed directly on feminine beauty, and enhanced by the loose drapery and falling hair around her shoulder. The portrait can be dated to circa 1695 based on the hairstyle and the clothing. Kneller dominates our understanding of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century British portraiture and his work influenced countless artists both during his lifetime and after. Not only did he paint almost every person of prominence in forty years of British public life, but every reigning British monarch from Charles II to George I sat to him for official portraits.Held in an exquisite gilded period frame of fine quality and condition.
Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723) was born in Germany but trained in Amsterdam and studied in Italy before moving to England in 1676. Towards the end of the century, after the deaths of Peter Lely and John Riley, Kneller became the leading portrait painter in Britain and the court painter to English and British monarchs from Charles II to George I. He dominated English art for more than thirty years. His over 40 "Kit-cat portraits" and the ten "beauties" of the court of William III are most noteworthy.
Provenance: From a Uk country house, Hertfordshire UK
Measurements: Height 97cm, Width 84cm framed (Height 38”, Width 33” framed
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