Skip to main content
Read page text
page 20
20  Joan carlile 2 FIG 1 (previous page) Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart (1626–98), with her first husband Sir Lionel Tollemache (1624–69) and her sister Margaret Murray, Lady Maynard (c. 1638–82) (before conservation), c. 1648, Joan Carlile (c. 1606–79), oil on canvas, 109.2 x 92.7cm, Ham House, London Photo: © National Trust Images FIG 2 The Carlile Family with Sir Justinian Isham in Richmond Park, c. 1638–50, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 61 x 74cm, Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire Photo: © Lamport Hall Joan, or Joanna, Carlile (c. 1606–79) was one of the first women in England to be identified as a professional painter.1 Active from the reign of Charles I, she continued as a painter throughout the Civil Wars and Interregnum and into the Restoration years. When in her early fifties, Carlile was ranked first in a brief list of English women artists produced by the Royalist historian William Sanderson in his book on painting, Graphice: ‘And in Oyl Colours we have a virtuous example in that worthy Artiste Mrs. Carlile: and of others Mr[s] Beale, Mrs. Brooman, and to [sic] Mrs. Weimes.’2 Of these four, a significant body of work survives only for Mary Beale (1633–99) and she is also the only one whose reputation has endured to the present day. Following the recent emergence of hitherto unknown portraits by Joan Carlile, however, her oeuvre can now be expanded. To a distinct group of small full-length portraits of female sitters, first identified by Margaret Toynbee and Sir Gyles Isham,3 can now be added a work acquired by the Tate in 2016 (Fig. 7), a portrait in the Mellerstain Trust (Fig. 5), a small head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman (Fig. 4), and another work in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart (Fig. 3).4 The current conservation of a family group portrait at Ham House (Fig. 1) has suggested potential avenues of new research. These are currently being explored by the National Trust in partnership with the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.5 This article therefore offers an overview of research still in progress. Joan Carlile was probably born in London, where her father, William Palmer, was an official of the royal parks.6 In 1626 she married Lodowick Carlile (1601/2–75), also known as Carlell and Carliell,7 a poet and playwright who was ‘gentleman of the bows’ to Charles I and a groom of the privy chamber. As a poet as well as a royal servant, Lodowick was following in the footsteps of his father, Herbert (also known as Robert),8 a Scotsman from Dumfriesshire who bred hounds for James I and dedicated his lengthy poem Britaines Glorie (1618) to the king and the English nobility.9 The Carliles lived in the parish of St Martin-inthe-Fields, London, where five of their six known children were baptised (only two, Penelope and James, survived to adulthood).10 In 1637, following Charles I’s enclosure of Richmond Park for hunting, Lodowick was appointed keeper of Petersham Lodge and Walk and the couple moved to Richmond.11 During the Interregnum, they provided in Richmond a safe haven for Royalists whose estates had
page 21
joan carlile  21 3 been sequestered by Parliament and who wished to be near London in order to fight their cause.12 Richmond appears to be the setting for two early and unusual conversation pieces by Carlile, set within a park landscape. One of these (Fig. 2) may depict Joan herself, along with Sir Justinian Isham of Lamport Hall, where the painting still hangs.13 The distant vista of the park is framed by two groups of trees, beneath which the Carlile family has been identified on the viewer’s left, with Isham on the opposite side, accompanied by a group of unknown ladies. If the group on the left is indeed the Carlile family, the painting represents the only known self-portrait by Joan, who is shown with Lodovick, Penelope and James. Both Lodovick and Isham are gesturing to the buck lying in the foreground, a crossbow before it. (In the prologue to one of his plays, Lodovick celebrates his love of hunting: ‘Most here knows/This author hunts and hawks and feeds his Deer,/Not some, but most fair days throughout the yeer’).14 The stage-like setting may have been influenced by set designs for her husband’s plays. While the scene appears a little awkward on such a compact scale, it brings out two distinctive features of Carlile’s work: her ability to render likeness and a keen interest in landscape.15 The Lamport Hall picture was traditionally thought to have been painted in around 1649–50, when Isham is known to have stayed with the Carliles at Petersham. His companions have not been identified, but if the seated woman in a loosely laced bodice represents Isham’s wife, Jane, the portrait must have been painted in the summer of 1638, as she died in childbirth in March the following year. The Ham House portrait depicts Elizabeth Murray, 4 Countess of Dysart, with her husband, Sir Lionel Tollemache, and her sister, Margaret.16 Elizabeth married Sir Lionel Tollemache, third baronet, in 1648 and the couple lived principally at her family home, Ham House, a former royal residence on the edge of Richmond Park. The Carliles were well acquainted with the Murrays before their move to Richmond on account of Lodovick’s office as groom of the privy chamber.17 The painting is less a conversation piece than three individual portraits on one canvas. The difficulties Carlile evidently had with scale led Horace Walpole to comment that the figures look ‘all too squab, but well finished’.18 The painting shows Carlile working out individual poses, and a disposition of hands, which she would draw on repeatedly throughout her portrait practice.19 Despite being awkwardly arranged, the individual portraits are delicately painted and show characteristic touches such as light, soft curls in the sitters’ hair and distinctive highlights in their facial features and costumes. These can also be seen in a well-preserved head-and-shoulder portrait by Carlile (Fig. 4) now in the possession of Philip Mould & Company, possibly cut down from a larger portrait. The sitter resembles the subject of another portrait very likely to be by Carlile, now in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart (Fig. 3) and identified in a later inscription as Elizabeth Murray.20 The Murray and Isham families were also well acquainted with one another, as the correspondence about ‘the lady of Ham’ between Sir Justinian and their mutual friend, Bishop Brian Duppa, indicates. This correspondence provides the majority of information we have about the life of Joan Carlile and clearly shows that she attempted to earn a living from painting. From FIG 3 Portrait called Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale, 1650s, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 123 x 99cm, Mount Stuart, Scotland Photo: © The Bute Collection, Mount Stuart FIG 4 Portrait of an Unknown Lady, 1650s, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5cm Photo: © Philip Mould & Company, London

Page Text

View plaintext

20  Joan carlile

2

FIG 1 (previous page) Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart (1626–98), with her first husband Sir Lionel Tollemache (1624–69) and her sister Margaret Murray, Lady Maynard (c. 1638–82) (before conservation), c. 1648, Joan Carlile (c. 1606–79), oil on canvas, 109.2 x 92.7cm, Ham House, London Photo: © National Trust Images FIG 2 The Carlile Family with Sir Justinian Isham in Richmond Park, c. 1638–50, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 61 x 74cm, Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire Photo: © Lamport Hall

Joan, or Joanna, Carlile (c. 1606–79) was one of the first women in England to be identified as a professional painter.1 Active from the reign of Charles I, she continued as a painter throughout the Civil Wars and Interregnum and into the Restoration years. When in her early fifties, Carlile was ranked first in a brief list of English women artists produced by the Royalist historian William Sanderson in his book on painting, Graphice: ‘And in Oyl Colours we have a virtuous example in that worthy Artiste Mrs. Carlile: and of others Mr[s] Beale, Mrs. Brooman, and to [sic] Mrs. Weimes.’2 Of these four, a significant body of work survives only for Mary Beale (1633–99) and she is also the only one whose reputation has endured to the present day. Following the recent emergence of hitherto unknown portraits by Joan Carlile, however, her oeuvre can now be expanded. To a distinct group of small full-length portraits of female sitters, first identified by Margaret Toynbee and Sir Gyles Isham,3 can now be added a work acquired by the Tate in 2016 (Fig. 7), a portrait in the Mellerstain Trust (Fig. 5), a small head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman (Fig. 4), and another work in the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart (Fig. 3).4 The current conservation of a family group portrait at Ham House (Fig. 1) has suggested potential avenues of new research. These are currently being explored by the National Trust in partnership with the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.5 This article therefore offers an overview of research still in progress.

Joan Carlile was probably born in London, where her father, William Palmer, was an official of the royal parks.6 In 1626 she married Lodowick Carlile (1601/2–75), also known as Carlell and Carliell,7 a poet and playwright who was ‘gentleman of the bows’ to Charles I and a groom of the privy chamber. As a poet as well as a royal servant, Lodowick was following in the footsteps of his father, Herbert (also known as Robert),8 a Scotsman from Dumfriesshire who bred hounds for James I and dedicated his lengthy poem Britaines Glorie (1618) to the king and the English nobility.9 The Carliles lived in the parish of St Martin-inthe-Fields, London, where five of their six known children were baptised (only two, Penelope and James, survived to adulthood).10 In 1637, following Charles I’s enclosure of Richmond Park for hunting, Lodowick was appointed keeper of Petersham Lodge and Walk and the couple moved to Richmond.11 During the Interregnum, they provided in Richmond a safe haven for Royalists whose estates had

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content