Portrait of Lady Theresa Shirley

Painting by Anthony van Dyck

Portrait of Lady Shirley

Artist	Anthony van Dyck
Year	1622
Dimensions	200 cm × 133.4 cm (79 in × 52.5 in)
Location	Petworth House, Petworth, West Sussex, England

The Portrait of Lady Shirley is a 1622 painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, a Flemish Baroque artist. It is a portrait of Teresa Sampsonia (1589–1668), a Circassian noblewoman of the Safavid Empire of Iran. She was the wife of Elizabethan English adventurer Robert Shirley, whom she accompanied on his travels and embassies across Europe in the name of the Safavid King (Shah) Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629). Numerous sketches of the couple appear in Van Dyck's Italian Sketchbooks.^[1]

The painting

The painting is full-length portrait with the seated subject portrayed in a Circassian dress in dull gold, embroidered with blue and red, with a cinnamon mantle, typical of her homeland. The painting itself measures about 200 cm in height and 133.4 cm in width.^[1]^[2] The portrait is one of set together with the Portrait of Sir Robert Shirley commissioned when the couple met Van Dyck during a visit to Rome between 22 July and 29 August 1622.^[3] These portraits are now owned by Petworth House, a National Trust property in West Sussex.

References

^ ^a ^b "Teresia Khan, Lady Shirley (1579/80–1668) 486170". National Trust Collections. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
^ Antonie van Dyck, p.160
^ Blow 2009, p. 138 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBlow2009 (help); Canby 2009, p. 56 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCanby2009 (help); Schwartz 2013, p. 93 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSchwartz2013 (help).

Anthony van Dyck

List of paintings

Religious subjects

Entry of Christ into Jerusalem (1617)
Crucifixion with Saints (1617–1619)
Saint Martin Dividing his Cloak (1618)
The Brazen Serpent (c. 1618–1620)
The Apostle Matthew (c. 1618–1620)
The Crowning with Thorns (1618–1620)
The Betrayal of Christ (1618–1620)
- Bristol
- Madrid
- Minneapolis
Saint Ambrose barring Theodosius from Milan Cathedral (c. 1619–1620)
Samson and Delilah
- 1620
- 1630
Susanna and the Elders (c. 1631–1632)
Madonna and Child (1621–1627)
The Mocking of Christ (1628–1630)
The Coronation of Saint Rosalia (1629)
The Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph (1629–1630)
Madonna and Child with Two Donors (1630)
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1630)
Crucifixion (1630)
The Resurrection (1631–1632)
Madonna with Partridges (1632)
Deposition / Lamentation over the Dead Christ
- 1615
- 1618
- 1619
- 1629
- 1629–1630
- 1634
- 1635
- 1640