Portrait of Lady Mary Feilding, Marchioness of Hamilton (1612-1638)

Painted by Sir Anthony Van Dyck or in his studio (1599-1641)

Although this painting of the Marchioness is described in several of the inventories as being by Van Dyck, some but not all modern experts have doubted the attribution and think it a work from his studio.

After Lady Mary's long-postponed reunion with her husband in 1628, their marriage was a surprisingly happy one and they had six children in less than five years. They lived at Wallingford House, close to the Court, where the Marchioness was one of the ladies-in-waiting to Charles I's French Queen, Henrietta Maria. Unfortunately Mary's rapid series of pregnancies undermined her health and after the birth of her youngest son she suffered a long and ultimately fatal illness. During this time there were persistent rumours that, although brought up as a Protestant, she was about to convert to Roman Catholicism as a result of the efforts of her cousin Olive, wife of Endymion Porter and George Con, a Scottish Roman Catholic priest widely believed to be trying to persuade the ladies of the Queen's retinue to turn to Catholicism.

Mary died in May 1638 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the vault of her maternal grandmother, the Countess of Buckingham. 'Thar never lived a better nor a more religious creatur,' her husband wrote to his own mother, adding that she 'left me behind her with a sad and greved sould.'

The painting may well be an early copy, in which case the original is now lost but is mentioned in the following inventories

Hamilton Inventory M4/20/ Entry 290
Hamilton Inventory M4/22/ - 'An Inventory of the Pictures that are Rolled [Up] This is 26 Case'
Hamilton Inventory M12/1 Page 4 Line 20 - In the High Dining Room
Inventory of 7 June 1759 (M4/48) Entry 14
1850s Inventory - Volume 1228

It is probably listed in:
Hamilton Inventory M21 - [Line 30]