Dorothy, Lady Browne (née Mileham); Sir Thomas Browne

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© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Dorothy, Lady Browne (née Mileham); Sir Thomas Browne

attributed to Joan Carlile
oil on panel, circa 1641-1650
7 1/4 in. x 9 in. (184 mm x 229 mm)
Purchased, 1924
Primary Collection
NPG 2062

Sittersback to top

Artistback to top

  • Joan Carlile (1600-1679), Artist. Artist or producer associated with 1 portrait.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Edited by Lucy Peltz & Louise Stewart, Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy, 2020, p. 22
  • Piper, David, Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625-1714, 1963, p. 38
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 83
  • Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, 1997 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 8 November 1996 - 9 February 1997), p. 153 Read entry

    Carved and gilt oak, lap jointed mason's mitre, the owl mask damaged at the top, the frame surface regilt with traces of bronze powder and lacquer. 1 1⁄ 2 to 2 inches wide, 2 3⁄ 4 inches at top cresting.

    Many small portraits were framed in auricular or Sunderland frames in the mid-seventeenth century including the copies after Van Dyck attributed to Theodore Russel in the Brown Gallery at Knole and some pastels of the Restoration period. The frame on this portrait of the Royalist politician and writer, Sir Thomas Browne, is an early example belonging to the 1640s and certainly original to the Portrait. It is of fine quality with a rather satisfying tight rhythm to the carving though the surface has been renewed. It does not follow a standard auricular pattern. At the bottom, two branches spring from the corners to surround the central shell. At the top, an owl-like mask provides a large-scale centrepiece. The frame is of oak, chamfered on the rear like the chamfered oak panel of the portrait; it retains its original hanging holes pierced through from the back of the frame to the top edge for a cord or ribbon.

Events of 1641back to top

Current affairs

Statesman, John Pym, plays a leading part in bringing charges of treason against the king's chief councillor, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford whose subsequent execution is widely celebrated.
The Grand Remonstrance, a long, comprehensive indictment of the king's government since his accession, is narrowly passed by Parliament.

Art and science

Following the death of Sir Anthony van Dyck, William Dobson is appointed Principal Painter to the king.
Poet and polemicist, John Milton, publishes the first of several anti-prelatical tracts, attacking the episcopal form of church governance and in particular, the arguments of royalist Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich.

International

The Irish Catholic gentry, fearing invasion from the increasingly pro-Puritan English Long Parliament and the Scottish Covenants, launch an unsuccessful coup d'etat in order to seize concessions for Catholics; the ensuing Irish Rebellion, which precipitated civil war in the three kingdoms, is led by Irish rebel, Sir Phelim O'Neill.

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