Mary Beale

PROVENANCE:

Acquired by descent from the family.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: 

One of the first professional female English artists. Beale was a talented and prolific painter and through the diaries kept by her husband Charles, who became her studio assistant and colourman so we know much of her technique and working practice. 

 
Beale began her artistic career as an amateur in the 1650s, but started to paint professionally in the early 1670s, when, after escaping to Hampshire to avoid the plague, her family returned to London. She worked with Peter Lely in his studio, and, amongst other duties, made small copies of his portraits of famous sitters. We can observe Lely’s influence in the present work, particularly in the inclusion of a painted stone cartouche which was a visual device frequently employed by Lely from the 1660s onwards.   Stylistically this portrait conforms with Beale’s portraiture from the early-to-mid 1680s when her work was in high demand.   Her paintings are often described as "vigorous" and "masculine".  Sir Peter Lely admired Beale's work, saying she "worked with a wonderful body of colour, and was exceedingly industrious." 

ABOUT THE SUBJECT: 

 Charles Fox was an English politician. Fox was born at Brussels as the third son of Sir Stephen Fox just before the Restoration.  He was named after Charles II who acted as his godfather. Both his elder brothers were then dead, and in 1676 at the age of 16 he was sent on a tour of the Continent under the charge of Dr. Younger, later Dean of Salisbury. On his return in 1679 he married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Trollope, 2nd Baronet; they had no children. 

 
Fox stood and won for Cricklade in 1685. Apart from one short break in 1701, he represented this borough or Salisbury for the rest of his life. ‘His modesty made him backward in attempting set speeches’, he was moderately active in James II’s Parliament, with seven committees, including those to examine the disbandment accounts, to estimate the yield of a tax on new buildings, and to reform the bankruptcy law. He was much disturbed by the employment of Roman Catholic officers in the army, and was advised by his friends to absent himself from Parliament in order not to displease the King by voting to discuss grievances before supply. 

 
A High-Church Tory, Fox was far more of a party man than his father, though he regularly voted for supply under William III and Anne. He was dismissed in 1696 for voting against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick and again under Anne for voting for the Tack. He died at Chiswick in his father’s lifetime on 21 Sept. 1713, considerably indebted, and was buried at Farley. 

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