17th century English school."Portrait of Lady Anne O'Brien".Oil on canvas. Re-coloured.With

17th century English school.
"Portrait of Lady Anne O'Brien".
Oil on canvas. Re-coloured.
With inscription in the lower right corner.
Frame with slight faults.
Size: 105 x 85 cm; 138 x 118 cm (frame).
In this canvas the painter offers us the portrait of a young lady of beautiful features and elegant position, dressed in the English fashion of the 17th century. The inscription in the lower right-hand corner indicates that she is Lady Anne O'Brien, the fourth daughter of Henry O'Brien, the fifth Earl Thomond, a descendant of an important Irish Gaelic dynasty, who in turn descended from Brian Boru (an important medieval king of Ireland). Anne, the protagonist of our play, married the seventh Earl of Thomond, also known as Sir Henry O'Brien, and died in 1645. She wears a voluptuous dress decorated with puffed sleeves and a straight, period neckline. Around her delicate neck she wears a pearl necklace to match her earrings. With her left hand she makes a peculiar gesture, with her index finger and thumb stretched out, pointing to something that could be outside the room in which she is depicted, far from the viewer's sight. This gesture can also be related to the figure of her husband, as it could point to the portrait of Sir Henry O'Brien, which may have been painted to form a pair with the present one. On a formal level, it is worth mentioning how the figure is strongly illuminated, standing out against a neutral background that suggests the walls of a fortification and allows us to glimpse a landscape, something very much in keeping with the English fashion of the time. The brushstroke used by the artist changes, being much more precise, practically invisible, on the woman's face, hair and bust, but looser on the dress and background. Due to the technical and formal characteristics mentioned above, this is a work close to the circle of Pieter Van del Faes Lely (1618-1680), an English portraitist clearly influenced by Anton Van Dyck. The son of a Dutch father, Lely studied in Haarlem. In 1641 he decided to move to London, where he imbibed English taste. He specialised in portraiture and was appointed painter to the court of Charles I. Museums such as those in London and Dublin, and collectors at Hampton Court and Windsor own works by this well-known artist.
In the 18th century the European portrait scene was varied and wide-ranging, with numerous influences and largely determined by the tastes of both the clientele and the painter himself. However, this century saw the birth of a new concept of portraiture that would evolve throughout the century and unify all the national schools: the desire to capture the personality and character of the human being, beyond his external reality and social rank, in effigy. During the previous century, portraiture had become established among the upper classes and was no longer reserved solely for the court. For this reason, as the 17th and even more so in the 18th century, the formulas of the genre became more relaxed and moved away from the ostentatious and symbolic official representations typical of the Baroque apparatus. On the other hand, the 18th century reacted against the rigid etiquette of the previous century with a more human and individual conception of life, and this was reflected in all areas, from furniture, which became smaller and more comfortable, replacing the large gilded and carved pieces of furniture, to the portrait itself, which came to dispense with all scenographic elements in order to depict the individual rather than the personage.