Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Lucy Percy (1600?–1660), Countess of Carlisle

Samuel Cooper was orphaned as a child and brought up, together with his brother Alexander (1609–?1660), also a miniaturist, by his uncle John Hoskins (active by ca. 1615–died 1665). He was the pupil and for many years the partner of Hoskins, who is said to have been jealous of his accomplishment. He set up on his own about 1641–42. He was much patronized by Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) and the Puritans and after the Restoration by Charles II (1630–1685) and his pleasure-loving court. He was recognized in his lifetime throughout Europe as the most accomplished miniaturist of his age. At his peak, Cooper is remarkable for the breadth of his handling and the subtlety of his interpretation of character.

The miniature was once in France, since a torn blue-edged stock label fixed to the back of the frame is lettered in ink 1724 / par Cooper. In the packing material at the back between the frame and the miniature are two green cards cut from a balcony ticket priced at two shillings and sixpence for a concert in 1856 in aid of the Organ Builders' Benevolent Institution, indicating that the miniature was then in Great Britain.

Verbally, Richard Allen (1977) accepted this as an authentic work by Samuel Cooper, but Daphne Foskett (1972) and Hermione Waterfield (1978) rejected it. It is by Cooper, with an authentic signature, but it has suffered so severely as to lose most of its quality.

The identification of the sitter as Lucy Percy (1600?–1660), second daughter of Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland, who became in 1617 the second wife of James Hay, later first earl of Carlisle (died 1636), is an early one but has to be regarded with suspicion. This lady's beauty, reputation, and intrigues caused her name to be attached to many otherwise unidentified seventeenth-century portraits. There is no reason to suppose that she wore a widow's cap seventeen years after her husband's death.

[2015; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

There are several areas of flaking—the left eyebrow and, most notably, the left cheek—but the damage is in fact much more extensive. The entire forehead has been retouched, and there are smaller repaints on the bridge of the nose, the neck, and the bosom.

[2015; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Inscription: Signed and dated (left, in light brown): SC [monogram] . 1653 .

Mary Clark Thompson, New York and Canandaigua, N.Y. (until d. 1923)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 26.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 81–82, no. 26, ill., attribute it to Cooper, but state that "it has suffered so severely as to lose most of its quality"; doubt the identification of the sitter as Lucy Percy.