First Lord Russell

Sir Peter Lely · n.d.

Medium

Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with touches of white gouache, over graphite, on tan laid paper, tipped on cream laid paper

Original size

9.6 × 7.4 cm (3 13/16 × 2 15/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Sir Peter Lely's study of First Lord Russell is a quietly commanding work — an intimate glimpse into the draughtsmanship underpinning one of the most celebrated portrait practices of seventeenth-century England. Lely, born in the Dutch Republic and trained in Haarlem, arrived in England in the early 1640s and rose to become Principal Painter to Charles II. His reputation rests chiefly on his sweeping oil portraits of Restoration courtiers, but works like this one — pen and brown ink over graphite, lifted with white gouache — reveal the careful preparatory process behind those polished canvases. The layering of wash and ink gives the sitter a sculptural solidity that pure line alone could never achieve. Lely ran one of the most productive studios in England, employing specialist assistants for drapery and backgrounds while reserving faces and hands for himself — a system that allowed him to satisfy the enormous demand from court and aristocracy. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this drawing as part of its Old Masters collection, where it is valued as a rare window into Lely's working method. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the tonal subtlety and expressive line of the original into paint, bringing its quiet authority off the paper and onto canvas for your wall.