Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Paul van Somer, ca. 1576–1621, Flemish, active in Britain (from 1616)
Title:
A Girl, Probably Cecilia Egerton
Date:
1617
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
25 3/4 × 20 inches (65.4 × 50.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Label on verso, lower center: “Pitt & Scott Ltd | London | F. [handwritten] 4002 | #187 | [typed] 3576”; center: "8622"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1973.1.57
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
Jacobean | girl | child | oval | costume | jewelry | portrait
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Art in Focus: Gazes Returned (Yale Center for British Art, 2012-04-13 - )
Publications:
Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 210-211, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)

Gazes returned, the technical examination of early English panel painting , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2012, cover, pp. 9, 15-19, figs. 8-12;cover, V2415 (YCBA

Sotheby's sale catalogue : Catalogue of old master paintings : 16 January 1963, Sotheby's, p. 30, Lot 169, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)

Edward Town, The portraits of Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby, and her family by Paul van Somer, Burlington Magazine, v. 167, April 2025, p. 378, N1 B87 Oversize (YCBA)

Ian Tyers, The tree-ring analysis of 23 panel paintings from the Yale Center for British Art , New Haven : dendrochronological consultancy report 470, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2011, pp. 15, 16, 17, 26-28, fig. 7, CC78.3 .T94 2011 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
The sitter wears on her bodice an oval jewel forming the crowned cipher "S," which (being the first letter of the name of Sophie of Mecklenburg, King James I's mother-in-law, the mother of his queen, Anne of Denmark) had strong royal connotations in Jacobean England. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:151