Anne Spencer (née Churchill), Countess of Sunderland

Inscriptionback to top

Signed bottom left: GKneller/fecit (GK in monogram).

This portraitback to top

A signed Kneller which Piper considered to be largely studio work; the execution is not inspired and the pose was frequently used by Kneller.
There is some slight doubt over the sitter’s identity, there being a close resemblance between Henrietta and Anne, the older daughters of the first Duke of Marlborough. Here the provenance would seem to make Henrietta more likely, but the identification of Anne is traditional.

Referenceback to top

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 336.

Sir George Scharf’s Sketch Books, 117:37.

Stewart 1983
J. D. Stewart, Godfrey Kneller, 1983, no.731 as c.1710.

Provenanceback to top

Pelham collection, Stanmer;¹ by descent to the 4th Earl of Chichester, by whom presented in December 1888.<sup>2

1</sup> Piper plausibly supposed that the portrait had descended through the 2nd Baron Pelham, heir to the Duke of Newcastle, the husband of the sitter’s sister Henrietta.
² Sketched by Scharf at Stanmer, 19 August 1888 (Sir George Scharf’s Sketch Books, 117:37), the clasp at her breast then having a second row of three pearls, and the signature being read as GKneller/f 17 (obliterated).


This extended catalogue entry is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, National Portrait Gallery, 2009, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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