Portrait of a Lady in Blue holding a Flower

This painting, along with its pair to the left of the arch, hung for almost 300 years at Raynham Hall in Norfolk, the estate of the aristocratic Townshend family, before being sold at auction in 1904. The two portraits, which have always hung together, may represent two sisters; a theory supported by the fact that the two girls physically resemble one other. Lely, however, is widely known for painting a certain fashionable facial type in the latter part of his career. These girls, along with many of Lely’s portraits of courtly beauties, share the same heavy half-closed eyes and languid expression, a very specific look that seems to recall Barbara Villiers, one of the most influential mistresses of Charles II.