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Elizabeth Claypole (née Cromwell)

1 of 7 portraits of Elizabeth Claypole (née Cromwell)

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Elizabeth Claypole (née Cromwell)

by John Michael Wright
oil on panel, 1658
21 1/4 in. x 17 3/4 in. (540 mm x 451 mm)
Purchased, 1893
Primary Collection
NPG 952

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

This allegorical, and posthumous, portrait shows her as Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The carved relief represents the goddess springing from the head of Jupiter (Jove) with the Latin motto AB JOVE PRINCIPIUM ('From Jove is My Beginning'), in allusion to her father, whose cameo portrait she holds.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Piper, David, Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625-1714, 1963, p. 73
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 128

Events of 1658back to top

Current affairs

Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell dies from pneumonia at Whitehall on 3rd September. His effigy lay in state at Somerset House, the ceremony based upon that of James I. Cromwell's son, Richard Cromwell is nominated Lord Protector.
Granddaughter of James I, Princess Sophia marries Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.

Art and science

Puritan divine, Richard Baxter, publishes A Call to the Unconverted, a core text of evangelicalism.
Playwright, William Davenant stages his innovative The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, relating to Oliver Cromwell's anti-Spanish policy. Presented as a musical, it circumvents the ban imposed during the Interregnum on dramatic performances.

International

James, Duke of York, fighting alongside his brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, commands a Royalist contingent allied to Spanish forces against the armies of England, Holland and France at the Battle of the Dunes. Their defeat ends the prospect of a Royalist invasion of England with Spanish support.

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