One of the most monumental of Van Dyck’s English group portraits, this painting represents the family of James Stanley, Lord Strange, Earl of Derby, who was a descendant of King Henry VII and a member of one of the most powerful families in Britain. On the left, we see his wife, Charlotte de La Trémoille, a granddaughter of William of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt, and daughter of the Duke of Thouars, a famous Huguenot. She was connected to some of the most prominent aristocratic defenders of Protestantism. At the center of the painting is their daughter, dressed in orange, visually evoking her Orange descent. Depicting the couple with their daughter, rather than the male heir, suggests the importance of matrilineal ancestry in the family.
The figures stand together looking out onto a landscape. Lord Strange points to what has been identified as the Isle of Man, a semi-autonomous fiefdom of the Stanley family. This is where they retreated during the English Civil War, when they realized that the royalist cause for which they were fighting was a lost one. Lord Strange returned to England to join King Charles II’s unsuccessful invasion; he was captured and beheaded on October 15, 1651. The countess survived and witnessed the restoration of the monarchy, at which point she filed claims for the restitution of the belongings of which she and her husband had been stripped.
James Stanley, Lord Strange, Later Seventh Earl of Derby, with His Wife, Charlotte, and Their Daughter
James Stanley, Lord Strange, Earl of Derby, was descended from an ancient land-owning family in the north of England that also ruled the Isle of Man. He married Charlotte de La Trémoille, who was related to some of the most prominent aristocratic defenders of Protestantism in continental Europe. Both played a role in the royalist cause following the outbreak of the civil war, and the earl was eventually beheaded. Here, Lord and Lady Strange form an inverted triangle with one of their daughters, an arrangement of classical simplicity that coexists with an allusive iconographic program. The island in the background may represent the Isle of Man and the color of the young girl’s dress her descent from the House of Orange.
The Earls of Clarendon. Knoedler. Frick, 1913.
Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. Volume I. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.
