Lucy Loftus (incorrectly called Jenny Deering)
Not on view
A woman wearing a loose, low-necked gown kneels beneath a large tree and points toward a parrot. Sir Robert Walpole acquired Lely's painting from Thomas, 1st Marquess of Wharton and hung it in the Common Parlour at Houghton. An inscription on the frame misidentified the sitter as Jenny Deering (the previous owner's miistress) and this was repeated in Charles Townley's eighteenth-century mezzotint. A print by Alexander Browne, published around 1680 soon after the portrait was made, correctly identifies the sitter as Lucy Loftus, later Vicountess Lisburne. The latter's daughter (also named Lucy Loftus) married the Philip, first Duike of Wharton (1698-1731) and Sir Robert Walpole acquired the painting from the latter, together with other family portraits.
