Portrait of moll davis (c. 1648 - c. 1708), mistress of charles ii of england
"the present portrait derives from a three-quarter length by sir peter lely which depicts her with the unguent jar of st mary magdalen, placing her in the guise of the reformed sinner, as well as providing a witty conceit for the display of a very decolletage. It has not precisely been established whether this mode is employed by lely and his contemporaries for the portrayal of mistresses alone, but references to the magdalen occur also in a portrait of hortense mancini (the same composition as the present painting) and in a portrait of the lady known as margaret hughes (tate gallery). The popularity of portraits of royal mistresses attests to the status that these women enjoyed in their heyday. The occupied a position of remarkable stardom, comparable to the great sex symbols of the twentieth century. Numerous repetitions of their portraits would be commissioned from lely and thus produced by the artists of his studio, many of whom such as john greenhill or nicolas de largilliere were to become considerable masters in their own right. Sometimes a single image might be reproduced consistently many years after the first appearance of their original. This is particularly true of lely's paintings of the most popular mistress of them all, barbara villiers duchess of cleveland. The most eagerly-sought icons in the 1670s and 1680s were still often those based on sittings of the 1660s. " [1]. Object Type: painting. Date: circa 1665. Dimensions: height: 47.5 cm (18.7 in); width: 40.5 cm (15.9 in). Medium: oil on canvas. Collection: Unidentified location.
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