Description
THE PROPERTY OF A CONTINENTAL COLLECTOR
PORTRAIT OF MARY KYTSON, WIFE OF THOMAS LORD DARCY
measurements note
111.5 by 93 cm., 44 by 37 in.
Three-quarter length, wearing an ornate emroidered dress and a white ruff
inscribed u.l.:Mary, Wife of Thomas Lord Darcy, / Daughter of Sir Thomas Kytson, / 1583. Aetatis 17.
oil on panel, in an ornate frame
PROVENANCE
By descent from the sitter through the Gage family at Hengrave Hall, Suffolk until the death of Henrietta Beauclerk, Lady Gage, widow of Sir Edward Gage 9th Bt;
Thence to Valentine Browne, 4th Earl of Kenmare (1825-1905), whose aunt, Lady Mary Anne Browne was the wife of Sir Thomas Gage, 7th Bt;
By descent to Elizabeth, Countess of Kenmare, her sale, Sotheby's, 21st July 1943, lot 81;
Colonel G.C. Golding, his sale, Christie's, 30th March 1951, lot 12
LITERATURE
See John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave, 1822;
Roy Strong, The English Icon: Elizabethan & Jacobean Portraiture, 1969, p. 177, no. 126;
See Dynasties, catalogue for the exhibition at the Tate Gallery, 1995-6, edited by Karen Hearn, pp. 102-103
NOTE
The sitter was the younger daughter of Sir Thomas Kytson of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, and of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Cornwallis of Brome in Suffolk. Her paternal grandfather, also Sir Thomas Kytson, was a famous Tudor Merchant Adventurer and Sheriff of London, with commercial interests in London and the Low Counties. He acquired the Hengrave estate from the Duke of Buckingham in 1521, and built Hengrave Hall (fig. 1), one of the finest Tudor houses in the country, over the following decade. Further acquisitions followed the dissolution of the abbey of St. Edmund in the late 1530's, and by the time of his death in 1540 Sir Thomas was amongst the larger landowners in Suffolk.
In spite of their adherence to the Old Faith (for which they were occasionally imprisoned following the 4th Duke of Norfolk's disgrace in 1572) the Kytsons rose rapidly in social prominence, and in 1578 Queen Elizabeth made two visits to Hengrave as part of her Suffolk and Norfolk progress. Five hundred young gentlemen in white and black velvet welcomed the Queen to Suffolk, where she spent several days as a guest of the more prominent gentry, before travelling on to Norfolk. On her return journey she visited Hengrave again, where, according to a contemporary account by Thomas Churchyard, 'the fare & banquet did so exceede a number of other places, that it is worthy a mention. A show representing the fairies, as well as might be, was there seene; in the which show a riche jewell was presented to the Queen's Highness'. Mary Kitson, then aged twelve, quite possibly took part in this masque: she was evidently a very pretty young girl, and would have danced since her early childhood. In any event, the visit of the celebrated Virgin Queen, at the height of her beauty and magnificence, must have impressed her youthful imagination profoundly.
Mary Kytson had two siblings: an older brother, who died in infancy, and an older sister Margaret, who married Sir Charles Cavendish of Welbeck, son of the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick, in 1582, but died soon afterwards. Mary Kytson herself was married to Thomas, Lord Darcy (afterwards Earl Rivers and Viscount Colchester) of St. Osyth in Essex in May 1583, and this portrait was probably commissioned to mark the occasion. Very remarkably, detailed accounts survive among the Hengrave papers for the clothes and jewels supplied for the wedding, and it seems likely that some of them appear in this portrait. The account include, among other jewels: '...x doz. Aglets... a payer of borders, upper and nether, set with rubys and perles and diamonds...xv buttons with v greate perles in a button...a jewell and xiij diamonds and a greate perle...a cheyne with perle...xxx buttons with perle and rubies...' for which Sir Charles Cavendish was reimbursed in full. Money was also paid to Peter the jeweller 'for a greate perle, bought of him, for my La. Dercye', and to Mr Herycke, goldsmith, in Cheapside 'for a cheyne of gold sett with perle, for my La. Dercye'.
Other recipients include 'Audrye, ye Dutch woman, for divers ruffes and sleeves and ptletts, bought of her for my La. Dercye', Mrs Crockston for 'wrought smocks and coyffes...wrought all over the sleeves and bodys', Mrs Barbor for 'calls of silver and golde' and a 'smocke wrought with grene, redd and silver.' Finally 'black vellet to face my La. Dercyes night gowne with' and a payer of silk hose for my La. Dercye' were purchased from unnamed purveyors, and one Anthony received money 'for silver and gold lace for my La. Dercye's kirtells, gownes and peticoates...'. (Gage, 1822, pp. 213-4).
The marriage was unsuccessful. In spite of his wife having borne him five children in under a decade, Lord Darcy suffered 'peevish jealousies' and accused her publicly of infidelity. There is no clear evidence of this, but Lady Darcy, being beautiful, bright and very rich, inevitably attracted more attention then her insipid husband, whom she soon began to despise. The couple separated in 1594, and never met again, despite surviving for almost fifty years. Lady Darcy eventually inherited all her father's great fortune, her two siblings having died without issue, and seems to have managed her property and family very astutely, perhaps inspired by her erstwhile connection Bess of Hardwick. Her final recorded correspondence - a far cry from the royal masque of 1578 - concerns the exclusion of Republican troops from Hengrave in 1642, at the start of the Civil War. Lady Darcy died on 7th May 1644 in Colchester, to which she had retired, and Hengrave Hall passed to her daughter Lady Penelope Gage.
Mary Kytson's most notable legacy, however is the series of portraits she commissioned throughout her life - a very deliberate personal iconography perhaps inspired by that of Queen Elizabeth herself. Four are known today, of which the present portrait is the earliest, representing her as a girl of seventeen on the point of marriage in 1583. The second, painted by an unknown artist in 1590 and now on loan to Tate Britain (fig. 2), depicts her seven years later, ravishing but melancholy, her marriage already in decline: the motto JAMAIS DERECHEIF(freely translated as 'never act in haste') is self-explanatory, but the little dog, a symbol of fidelity, probably alludes ironically to the slanders of her bitter husband. The third (fig. 3), which (like both the earlier portraits) remained at Hengrave until the mid 20th century, is an image of defiance and self-sufficiency: the combative pose, the exclusion of Rivers from her coat-of-arms, and the inscription 'if not I care not' on the letter in her hand all proclaim her indifference to her estranged husband. The fourth (fig. 4), still in the possession of her Gage descendants at Firle in Sussex, was painted by Cornelius Johnson in 1629, and portrays Mary Kytson at seventy-three. Evidently reduced in spirit, she nevertheless wears the two ropes of magnificent pearls familiar from the earlier portraits, quite possibly those she had recieved on her wedding day forty five years previously.
The emergence of the present portrait is of some art historical interest, since it appears to have left the country shortly after the sale of 1951 and thus has been unknown to British scholars (except in poor reproduction) for over fifty years. The two portraits of the sitter's parents, Sir Thomas and Lady Kytson (Tate Britain) are well known as the only fully documented works by George Gower, who was appointed Serjeant Painter to the Queen in 1581, and held a monopoly on all painted and engraved portraits of her from 1584 until his death in 1596. Kytson paid Gower £6 5s for five pictures in August 1573, but since his daughter Mary was then only eight, the present portrait can hardly have been among them. It does however, relate very closely to a portrait of Mary Cornwallis (Machester City Art Gallery), Lady Kytson's sister, also ascribed to Gower and painted circa 1580-5; of identical size and similar style, the two pictures are evidently by the same artist. Of the four pictures in this famous group, so central to the study of George Gower, this beautiful portrait of the young Mary Kytson is the only one to remain in private hands.
