Portrait of Queen Mary II, Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723)

Full-length, portrait of Queen Mary II (1662-1694) in robes of state, by a draped table on a terrace, a crown by her side. Housed In an elaborately carved period wooden Sunderland frame, decorated with cornucopia and acanthus leaves, surmounted with a cartouche.


This portrait relate to Kneller's official state portraits of King William III and Queen Mary II now at Windsor Castle (for which see O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 1963, pp. 142-4, nos. 335 and 338, II, pls. 335 and 338).

King William III and Queen Mary are recorded as having sat to Kneller at Kensington Palace on the 17th and 20th March 1690. Kneller's finished full-length portraits of the King and Queen, which are perhaps those mentioned in an order of 16 July 1691 for a payment to Kneller of £200 for portraits of the King and two of the Queen, were hanging in the Council Chamber at Kensington Palace by 1697 and remained there until they were sent to Windsor Castle in 1795.

These portraits were almost immediately regarded as the approved official likenesses of William and his Queen, and Kneller and and his studio were required to produce numerous copies of them for despatch to the King's ministers, friends, representatives abroad and foreign sovereigns and governments.

Among the collections in which other paired copies are recorded are those at Hatfield, Narford, Penshurst, Grimsthorpe and Welbeck.
Mary II (30 April 1662 – 28 December 1694) Mary was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, with her husband, King William III and II from 1689 until her death in 1694. She was also Princess of Orange following her marriage on 4 November 1677. Her joint reign with William over Britain is known as that of William and Mary.

Mary was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. She was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Mary and her sister Anne were raised as Anglicans at the behest of Charles II, although their parents both converted to Roman Catholicism. Charles lacked legitimate children, making Mary second in the line of succession. At the age of 15, she married her cousin William of Orange, a Protestant. Charles died in 1685 and James became king, making Mary heir presumptive James's attempts at rule by decree and the birth of his son from a second marriage, James Francis Edward (later known as "the Old Pretender"), led to his deposition in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the adoption of the English Bill of Rights

William and Mary became king and queen regnant Mary mostly deferred to her husband – a renowned military leader and principal opponent of Louis XIV – when he was in England. She did, however, act alone when William was engaged in military campaigns abroad, proving herself to be a powerful, firm, and effective ruler. Mary's death from smallpox in 1694 at the age of 32 left William as sole ruler until his death in 1702, when he was succeeded by Mary's sister, Anne.

Provenance: An Historic House Cumbria.
Dimensions: 240cm X 148cm