Sir Peter Lely, 1618–1680, Dutch, active in England (from 1643)
Title:
Diana Kirke, later Countess of Oxford
Date:
ca. 1665
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
52 x 41 inches (132.1 x 104.1 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.756
Gallery Label:
The Dutch painter Peter Lely moved to London in about 1643 and came into his own after 1660 when he was appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to the pleasure-loving court of the restored Charles II. Diana Kirke (d. 1707) was one of the great beauties at court where her parents held office in the royal household. Their beautiful daughter was a valuable asset in promoting their interests. Diana, described as “free of morality” by one contemporary, was soon rumored to be attached to two powerful men before becoming the mistress of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford, whom she married in 1673. De Vere may have commissioned this portrait of his mistress. With deliberate irony, Lely casts her as Venus with a rose and bare breast, rather than as her namesake, the chaste goddess Diana. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016