Elizabeth (née Steele), Lady Trevor

This portraitback to top

V. J. Murrell suggested this was by the same hand as Eugene Steele, NPG 1506c. [1]
There has been some hesitation over the sitter’s identity. The old label (see Richard Steele NPG 1506a) identified her as Lady Steele, viz., Mary née Scurlock (1677-1718), who married Richard Steele as his second wife in 1707. The sitter has also has been identified as Elizabeth Steele (1709-82), [2] Richard Steele’s eldest daughter, who would have been between eleven and fourteen when the miniature was painted. Lady Steele died in 1718 aged forty-one, before the miniature was painted according to the dates proposed here. See Richard Steele NPG 1506a.

Footnotesback to top

1) Examination report on file (1975).
2) Cf. J. Nichols, Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele, I, 1809 (p xiii), G. W. Aitken, Life of Richard Steele, 1889 (i, p xiv) and R. Blanchard, The correspondence of Sir Richard Steele, 1941 (f.p.400) described the set as showing Steele’s children. D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963 preferred ‘probably’ Elizabeth, Lady Trevor. The NPG catalogues of 1914 and 1932 called her Lady Steele, but changed to Elizabeth in 1949.

Referenceback to top

See Richard Steele NPG 1506a.

W. Nisser, Michael Dahl, 1927, p 107, cat. p 140, no.22 as Mary Steele, Steele’s second wife, by Christian Richter.

Piper 1963
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714, 1963, p 330 as probably Elizabeth Steele, attributed to Richter.

Provenanceback to top

See Richard Steele NPG 1506a.


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.