Lot 1061: PETER CROSS (BRITISH, C. 1645-1724)

PETER CROSS (BRITISH, C. 1645-1724)
A fine portrait miniature of a lady, in elaborately embroidered blue dress, slashed sleeve to reveal white underdress, blue silk stole pinned at corsage with a diamond-set brooch, upswept dark hair
signed with initials and dated 'P.C 74' (mid-right)
on vellum
oval, 3 1/16 in. (78 mm.) high, gilt-metal frame with spiral cresting

London, South Kensington Museum, Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, June 1865, no. 958 (lent by the Earl Spencer).
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, 1889, Case XXXII, no. 59, as by Penelope Cleyn (lent by The Earl Spencer), illustrated plate XIV (not plate XIII as erroneously stated in exhibition catalogue, p. 93.)

B. Long, British Miniaturists, London, 1929, p. 60 (as by Paolo Carandini).
Albert Edward John, 7th Earl Spencer (1892-1975), inventory Miniatures at Althorp, 1937, no. 6 (as by Paolo Carandini, 'Probably a Sunderland Miniature. No: 12 in an old list, which has never been found No: 19 in 1914 list. X.469 in Inventory').

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Peter Cross was the son of Anthony Cross (b.c.1585) and his wife Margaret, née Thrall. He married firstly Arabella, née Burman and secondly Elizabeth, widow of Arabella's brother. They lived at 'The Blue Anchor' on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and were therefore neighbours of the celebrated miniaturist Samuel Cooper who lived on the same street.
It has been suggested that the Cross and Cooper families were associated through Company of Drapers: Peter Cross's father was a Freeman of the company and Samuel Cooper's in-laws were also drapers. It is also thought that Cross may have learnt the techniques of portrait miniature painting from Cooper (see J. Murdoch, Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1997, p. 275). Cross, a collector of miniatures himself, owned several works by Cooper including an unfinished portrait of the artist's wife, Christina Cooper (see D. Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, London, 1972, II, illustrated pl. 52, no. 156). His collection was sold by auction at his Covent Garden home on 5 December 1722.
Earlier records refer to an artist called Lawrence Cross based on an incorrect transcription of the artist's monogram as 'LC' instead of 'PC', the execution of an elaborate 'P' being the cause of confusion. Works formerly ascribed to Lawrence Cross have been re-attributed to Peter Cross (supra, p. 340).
Peter Cross had a distinguished clientele, executing portraits of members of the great English dynasties of the 17th century such as James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch; John Holles, Duke of Newcastle; Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, Mary Beatrice d'Este, 'Mary of Modena', and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Albermarle and Montagu, now in private collections.