Lot 4: Peter Oliver (London 1589 - London 1647)

Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester (1598-1659) wearing elaborate embroidered dress, falling white ruff, a pearl earring and pearls at her neck, a red embroidered shawl over her right shoulder, fresh flowers in her flowing blonde hair
watercolour on vellum stuck to a playing card (two of clubs), bearing monogram IO on obverse, the reverse inscribed in a contemporary hand in ink, La: Dorothy/ Percy./ afterwards/ Countesse of/ Leycister, later silver frame with rope-twist border and fleur-de-lys motifs
Oval, 52mm. (2ins.) high

Geneva, Chefs d'OEuvre de la miniature et de la gouache, 1956, no.32
H.M., 1999
P.A., 1999
S.N.P.G., 2000-2003

S.P.N.F., no.3

Private Collection, Germany

Dorothy Percy was the eldest daughter of the 9th Earl of Northumberland and sister of the 10th Earl. In 1615, she secretly married Robert Sidney (1595-1677). Their marriage was only made public in March 1616. Robert became 2nd Earl of Leicester of the 1618 creation in 1626. He was employed on diplomatic business in Denmark in 1632, and in France from 1636 to 1641. He was then appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in place of the Earl of Strafford, but he waited in vain for instructions from the king, and in 1643 he was compelled to resign the office without having set foot in Ireland.
The couple had fifteen children. Their first daughter was Lady Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland (1617-84), who was celebrated in the poems of Edmund Waller as 'Sacharissa' and went on to found the Spencer and Spencer-Churchill families through her marriage to Lord Spencer, 1st Earl of Sunderland. In 1635, Leicester completed the first mansion on the site of Leicester Square, London and gave the area his name. The estate stretched from present day Lisle Street to Whitehall. It was one of the most notable addresses in London, often the venue for grand parties.
Leicester shared the literary and cultivated tastes of his family and was possibly commissioned the present lot of his future wife from the 'up and coming' young artist, Peter Oliver. This miniature presents the future Countess as a virgin, with flowing loose hair, a symbol of purity. The flowers are also a possible indication of her pre-marriage status. It has been suggested that she is dressed here in costume for a masque, but given the nature of the rest of her dress this is unlikely.

If painted on the eve of their marriage, this dates the miniature to circa 1615/16. It belongs to a group of young women, painted from circa 1615-20, all wearing similar embroidered dresses and stoles, with long, flowing hair (including the portrait of Venetia Stanley in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the portrait of an unknown lady in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). At this time, both Peter and Isaac Oliver were producing this portrait type and working in a similar style up until Isaac's death in 1617. On stylistic grounds, this particular example has been given to Peter, rather than to his father. The handwriting on the reverse of the miniature, which has been dated to the 1620s, must have been written after 1626 when Robert Sydney succeeded to the Earldom of Leicester.

The frame is almost identical to that housing a miniature by Isaac Oliver in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (no.3866). The present miniature is possibly the example loaned London, South Kensignton Museum, Special Exhibtion of Portrait Miniatures, 1865 (by Rev. W. V. Harcourt).

We are indebted to Felix Pryor for his assistance in identifying the age of the handwriting on the reverse of the present lot.