Later Stuart Portraits Catalogue

Mary Beale (1633-1699), Portrait painter

The Beale pocket book of 1661 gives an inventory of valuable paintings in the Beales’ possession, including:
‘3 pictures painted by Mr Walker [d. 1658]. her Father Cradock [d. 1652]. Mrs Beale & Mr Beale - £18’ (but were these Charles Beale’s parents, of whom his father d. 1660, aged 77?).

c.1655?
Painting by Peter Lely. Untraced. Vertue noted (G. Vertue, Notebooks , Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1936, p 174) from the Beale pocket book of 1661 ‘several pictures of the Family of Beales by Mr Lilly - Mr Beales picture HL. Mrs Beales HL … Each £20’ and ‘a double 1/2 length of Mr Beale & his wife Mrs Mary Beale by Sr PL[Lely]’ was in the younger Charles Beale’s widow’s collection c.1734 (G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1936, p 65).

c.1659-60
Painting by Mary Beale, half-length, with her husband and son Bartholomew, half-length standing figures. Geffrye Museum, London (49/1978). Exhibited Face to Face, Liverpool, 1994, no.1 as c.1663-64; T. Barber, Mary Beale, exhibition catalogue. Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, no.1 as 1659/60.

1664
Painting by Mary Beale, as Pallas Athene, ‘without any Arms, except Head-piece and Corselet’ as described by Samuel Woodforde 1664 (R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, p 2).

c.1666
Painting by Mary Beale, see NPG 1687.

c.1670-75
Painting by Mary Beale, small three-quarter-length seated to right, palette in left hand, brush in right. St Edmondsbury Borough Council. Exhibited R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.9 as c.1675; Mrs Mary Beale, Paintress, Catalogue of Paintings bequeathed by Richard Jeffree together with other paintings by Mary Beale in the collections of St Edmundsbury Borough Council, Manor House Museum, Bury St Edmunds, 1994, no.3 as c.1675; T. Barber, Mary Beale, exhibition catalogue. Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, no.6 as c.1670-75, illus. pp 18, 45. Companion to a portrait of Charles Beale I also with the St Edmondsbury Council, see Charles Beale, c.1670-75.

c.1675?
Drawing by Charles Beale II (after Lely?), half-length, curled hair, hands crossed at breast, inscribed with identity. British Museum (E. Croft-Murray & P. Hulton, British Museum, Catalogue of British Drawings: XVI and XVII centuries, 1960, p 187, no.138; G.G.4.W.5.88). Exhibited R. Jeffree, ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, exhibition catalogue, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.76. A replica is in the Lewis-Walpole Library, Farmington CT, from Horace Walpole’s collection, inscribed by Vertue: Mrs Beal/Paintress. aft Lely; engraved (reversed, without hands) T. Chambars 1762 (Walpole, Anecdotes).

c.1678-80
Miniature attributed to Mary Beale, watercolour on vellum, bust-length to right. Asprey & Co in 1975 (from Strawberry Hill and Knowsley, Christie’s, 8 June 1971, lot 83; illus. Connoisseur, CXLI, June 1958, p 46). Exhibited ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.47 as c.1678-80.

c.1679
Drawing by Charles Beale II, half-length. National Gallery of Scotland (RSA 1226). Vertue (G. Vertue, Notebooks, Wal. Soc., XXIV, 1936, p 64) saw copies by Charles Beale II of limnings of his mother and father dated 1679.

1681
Self portrait, three-quarter-length seated to right, right arm resting on chair arm. Mrs E. J. Whiteley. Exhibited ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’, Geffrye Museum, London, and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1975-76, no.22 as 1681, p 68, no.9; Mary Beale, Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, no.38 as 1681, illus. pp 9, 50. Painted on bedticking and possibly the portrait described in the Beale pocket book of 1681 as ‘The Picture of my Dearest Heart owne upon ye H.L. [i.e. three-quarter-length] Bedtickinge …’.
Two self portraits were listed in the Beale pocket book of 1672 and four appear in that of 1681 (some on bedticking and onion bags), one painted for Mr Kippes.

Doubtful Portrait
1675-80
Painting by Mary Beale, three-quarter-length, dressed in blue with brown drape, looking left; an urn and burning incense behind her. St Edmondsbury Borough Council. Exhibited Mrs Mary Beale, Paintress, Catalogue of Paintings bequeathed by Richard Jeffree together with other paintings by Mary Beale in the collections of St Edmundsbury Borough Council, Manor House Museum, Bury St Edmunds, 1994, no.8 as A Self portrait c.1675-80; Mary Beale, Geffrye Museum, London, 1999-2000, no.36 as A Lady (perhaps as Artemisia) c.1675-80.


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.