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22  Joan carlile 5 FIG 5 Portrait of an Unknown Lady, 1650s with later additions, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 120 x 93cm, Mellerstain House, Scotland Photo: © The Mellerstain Trust FIG 6 Portrait of a Lady, possibly Lady Anne Wentworth (1629–96), 1650s, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 125 x 101cm, private collection Photo: © Christie’s Images/ Bridgeman Images 6 Duppa’s letters we know that in 1653 Joan was searching for lodgings that would allow her to have a studio in Covent Garden (recently laid out by Inigo Jones), ‘where she means to make use of her skill to som more advantage than hitherto she hath don … but whether this be a thriving course for her I am not able to judge’.21 The implication that the Carliles needed money is confirmed by another letter, in which Duppa speaks of her being in Covent Garden and looking ‘to raise up som fortune for her self and children’ and being ‘resolved there to use her skill for something more than empty fame’.22 Duppa’s misgivings appear to have been justified because by 1656 the Carliles were back in Petersham, where two years later he wrote of their ‘declining condition (for painting, and poetry have shut out of dores providence and good husbandry)’.23 Nevertheless, the 1650s appear to have been particularly productive years for Joan. Several full-length portraits from this period have been identified and form a distinct group. Four of them – a portrait at the Tate of an unknown woman (Fig. 7), a portrait thought to depict Lady Anne Wentworth (Fig. 6), a portrait of an unknown woman in the collection of Berkeley Castle (Fig. 8), and another portrait of an unidentified woman at Mellerstain House (Fig. 5) – depict sitters in a white satin dress standing sheltered within a rocky outcrop, with a detailed and probably imaginary landscape beyond.24 Carlile had evidently found a formula whereby she could resolve the difficulties she had encountered with seated figures and foreshortening in her earlier landscape groups.25 With the exception of differences in the sitters’ features and in certain landscape details, the Tate portrait (Fig. 7) and that at Berkeley Castle (Fig. 8) appear to be versions of the same composition. The possible portrait of Anne Wentworth (Fig. 6) is similar but in reverse, with the same characteristic hanging branches that can be seen in the Berkeley Castle portrait.26 The painting at Mellerstain House (Fig. 5) follows the same pattern, though a table and a crown were later added by another painter in order to turn the portrait into an image of Henrietta Maria.27 The same white dress appears in the Bute portrait which is also in reverse (Fig. 3). In these portraits, Carlile had evidently found a compositional formula that was appreciated by her clients. The dimensions and shape of the sitters’ faces and hands and the strong outlines suggest the replication of drawn patterns. The white satin gown with full sleeves and the shawl embroidered with metal thread that appears in multiple works were evidently studio props. Indeed, in a codicil to her will (dated 31 December 1678) she leaves to ‘her deare friend Mrs Herman, the picture of “The Princess – in white satin”’, which, assuming it is by Carlile, she may have kept in order to advertise her talents.28 That Carlile had been painting for some time before producing the portraits discussed here is indicated by the notebooks of the royal physician and chemist Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655). In an entry dated November 1634 on amber varnish, de Mayerne reveals that ‘Mrs Carlile a worthy lady who paints very well sent me over the notes of Mr. Lanire, an excellent musician who occupies himself with painting.’29 Lanier had told her that in Italy the painters follow their dead colour, or first layer of painting, with a varnish to prevent the underlayer from discolouring: a technique de Mayerne discovered that Lanier had learnt from another female painter, Artemisia
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joan carlile  23 7 Gentileschi. Analysis of pigment samples from the portrait at Ham House have revealed that, in this instance at least, Carlile did not employ this method herself. Nicholas Lanier was Master of the King’s Music and a painter who collected for Charles I in Italy. He was also instrumental in persuading Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) to come to England. The reference provides a pointed insight into Joan Carlile’s connections and artistic influences, both within the court and perhaps also, through de Mayerne, with the immigrant artistic community he entertained at his home in St Martin’s Lane. While she must have known Sir Peter Lely, the first of whose portraits of Elizabeth Murray was painted at around the same time as her own, the artists who influenced Carlile, most notably van Dyck, were of an earlier period.30 The placing of a figure against a rocky outcrop with a landscape beyond, the arrangement of the hands on highlighted satin and the billowing shawl are all elements visible in a number of van Dyck’s English portraits of the 1630s.31 Carlile and van Dyck also shared at least one patron, Anne Carr, later Countess of Bedford, and possibly also Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, who is known to have stayed with the Carliles at Petersham.32 Landscape in Carlile’s portraits is given as much weight as the sitter. In this she may well have been inspired by other Dutch and Flemish painters working in England, such as George Geldorp (d. 1665), Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1604–71) and Jan Weesop (fl. 1640–53). The proffering of flowers to the seated figure in the group portrait at Lamport (Fig. 2), for example, recalls the portrait by Gerrit van Honthorst (1592–1656) of the Duke of Buckingham with his family (1628), which Carlile may have known from the royal collection.33 She appears to 8 have selected elements from myriad sources, including nature and her own imagination, to create her own distinct patterns.34 The floppy-leaved burdock, for example, the purpose of which Ruskin later described as ‘to grow leaves wherewith to adorn foregrounds’, is a distinctive feature of Carlile’s work.35 So too are trailing plants, such as ivy, which Carlile uses to soften the conjunction of sky and rock. The Italian influences on her work are less easy to ascertain, though according to an essay by Bainbridge Buckeridge in 1706, Carlile was known for copying the Italian masters so well that she was ‘much in favour with Charles I, who became her patron, and presented her and Sir Anthony Vandyck with as much ultra marine at one time, as cost him above five hundred pounds’.36 Unfortunately Buckeridge gives no source for the story of this extraordinary accolade. While none of her copies of Old Masters have yet been found, the possibility that she may have painted subject pictures is indicated by the codicil to her will in which she leaves to her daughterin-law, Ellen,‘the little St Katherine and the Mercury’.37 There are clearly more works to be found. Indeed this article has not discussed a number of small oil paintings that are attributed to Carlile, including one probably depicting Catherine Bruce, Mrs William Murray, at Thirlestane Castle, the Scottish seat of the Lauderdales of Ham House (Fig. 9). These will be the subject of the collaborative research and technical analysis project looking at the works of this ‘worthy lady’, who was evidently still held in high esteem some 30 years after her death. FIG 7 Portrait of an Unknown Lady, 1650–55, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 110 x 90cm, Tate, London Photo: © Tate, London FIG 8 Unknown Woman in White, 1650s, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 122 x 94cm, Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire Photo: © Berkeley Castle FIG 9 (overleaf) Portrait of a Lady, probably Catherine Bruce, Mrs William Murray (d. 1649), 1640s, Joan Carlile, oil on panel, 22 x 17cm, Thirlestane Castle, Scotland Photo: © Thirlestane Castle Trust Jane Eade is a Curator with the National Trust in London.

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22  Joan carlile

5

FIG 5 Portrait of an Unknown Lady, 1650s with later additions, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 120 x 93cm, Mellerstain House, Scotland Photo: © The Mellerstain Trust FIG 6 Portrait of a Lady, possibly Lady Anne Wentworth (1629–96), 1650s, Joan Carlile, oil on canvas, 125 x 101cm, private collection Photo: © Christie’s Images/ Bridgeman Images

6

Duppa’s letters we know that in 1653 Joan was searching for lodgings that would allow her to have a studio in Covent Garden (recently laid out by Inigo Jones), ‘where she means to make use of her skill to som more advantage than hitherto she hath don … but whether this be a thriving course for her I am not able to judge’.21 The implication that the Carliles needed money is confirmed by another letter, in which Duppa speaks of her being in Covent Garden and looking ‘to raise up som fortune for her self and children’ and being ‘resolved there to use her skill for something more than empty fame’.22 Duppa’s misgivings appear to have been justified because by 1656 the Carliles were back in Petersham, where two years later he wrote of their ‘declining condition (for painting, and poetry have shut out of dores providence and good husbandry)’.23

Nevertheless, the 1650s appear to have been particularly productive years for Joan. Several full-length portraits from this period have been identified and form a distinct group. Four of them – a portrait at the Tate of an unknown woman (Fig. 7), a portrait thought to depict Lady Anne Wentworth (Fig. 6), a portrait of an unknown woman in the collection of Berkeley Castle (Fig. 8), and another portrait of an unidentified woman at Mellerstain House (Fig. 5) – depict sitters in a white satin dress standing sheltered within a rocky outcrop, with a detailed and probably imaginary landscape beyond.24 Carlile had evidently found a formula whereby she could resolve the difficulties she had encountered with seated figures and foreshortening in her earlier landscape groups.25

With the exception of differences in the sitters’ features and in certain landscape details, the Tate portrait (Fig. 7)

and that at Berkeley Castle (Fig. 8) appear to be versions of the same composition. The possible portrait of Anne Wentworth (Fig. 6) is similar but in reverse, with the same characteristic hanging branches that can be seen in the Berkeley Castle portrait.26 The painting at Mellerstain House (Fig. 5) follows the same pattern, though a table and a crown were later added by another painter in order to turn the portrait into an image of Henrietta Maria.27 The same white dress appears in the Bute portrait which is also in reverse (Fig. 3).

In these portraits, Carlile had evidently found a compositional formula that was appreciated by her clients. The dimensions and shape of the sitters’ faces and hands and the strong outlines suggest the replication of drawn patterns. The white satin gown with full sleeves and the shawl embroidered with metal thread that appears in multiple works were evidently studio props. Indeed, in a codicil to her will (dated 31 December 1678) she leaves to ‘her deare friend Mrs Herman, the picture of “The Princess – in white satin”’, which, assuming it is by Carlile, she may have kept in order to advertise her talents.28

That Carlile had been painting for some time before producing the portraits discussed here is indicated by the notebooks of the royal physician and chemist Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655). In an entry dated November 1634 on amber varnish, de Mayerne reveals that ‘Mrs Carlile a worthy lady who paints very well sent me over the notes of Mr. Lanire, an excellent musician who occupies himself with painting.’29 Lanier had told her that in Italy the painters follow their dead colour, or first layer of painting, with a varnish to prevent the underlayer from discolouring: a technique de Mayerne discovered that Lanier had learnt from another female painter, Artemisia

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