Graphic portrait of Charles II's mistress comes to light | Art and design | The Guardian
Graphic portrait of Charles II's mistress comes to light
17th-century actress Nell Gywn depicted in composition laden with lewd symbolism
She is one of history's most famous mistresses, but few of the many paintings labelled as Charles II's lover Nell Gwyn are actually of her. Now a saucy portrait with lewd and lurid symbolism that would have been instantly recognisable to 17th-century eyes has come to light for the first time.
The painting has never before been seen in public. It depicts Gwyn bare-breasted and stuffing sausages, a composition laden with titillating symbolism. She is dressed in white, a satirical pun on virginal purity, while a black manservant standing by her may allude to the black-haired king known as "the black man".
Measuring only 9 by 7 inches, it depicts Gwyn, who was a leading comic actress and coquettish cockney and inspired the playwright Dryden to give her saucy parts and the diarist Samuel Pepys to describe her as "pretty witty Nell".
She captivated the king, becoming his mistress for some 16 years until his death in 1685. Indeed, on his deathbed, he is said to have uttered: "Let not poor Nelly starve". She had two sons by him, the elder of whom became the Duke of St Albans.
A nephew of the 12th Duke has decided to sell the portrait to Philip Mould, a leading specialist in British portraiture, to raise money for the family's next generation.
Mould told The Guardian yesterday: "It's come from her descendents. So it's the Holy Grail Nell Gwyn. She's not as commonly portrayed as a lot of other mistresses, for example the Duchess of Portsmouth … Every year we're offered portraits of Nell Gwyn that actually aren't her. Her identification gravitates towards any sexy-looking image from the 17th century."
Mould, currently presenting a BBC series Fake or Fortune?, added: "It's the most graphic contemporary portrayal of her sexual qualifications that we have found. What makes it so distinctive is that this is not a smutty doodle, but exquisitely-crafted. One can only assume that it may have had an intimate purpose in the court circle."
The portrait is by an anonymous 17th-century hand, in a genre of Anglo-Dutch character portrayals of the time. Mould claims that Gwyn's gently tilting head is linked to a lost miniature by Samuel Cooper, Charles II's miniature painter.
Although the subject matter of such a private commission was too subversive to be recorded in official inventories, the composition is recorded in a contemporary engraving. The National Portrait Gallery is believed to be in discussion over the possibility of acquiring the picture.
Mould will this week show the Gwyn portrait at Masterpiece, an art fair at the Royal Chelsea hospital. Tradition has it that Gywn persuaded the king to set up the hospital, a reflection of her famed compassion for the common people.
