To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com



This putative portrait of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, was painted by Peter Oliver around the year 1620. There is little evidence to enable a conclusion as to the identity of the sitter; although the gentleman in this miniature shares some facial characteristics with the earl, he does not completely accord with his iconography – particularly in the shape of his face or in his thinning hairline.

Peter Oliver was the eldest son of Isaac Oliver (c.1565-1617), the limner both to Anne, Queen of Denmark (1574-1619), and the short-lived eldest son of James I (and VI of Scotland) (1566-1625), Henry, Prince of Wales (1594-1612). His father was responsible for his artistic training, teaching him how to paint in a style that was similar to his own so that he could better manage the high volume of commissions for which he was engaged. Oliver the younger proved himself to be an effective learner, producing works that are at times only distinguishable from those of his father thanks to the signature.

Unlike Laurence Hilliard (1582-1648), the eldest son and artistic heir of the miniaturist Nicholas (1547?-1619), whose work was never more than derivative of that of his father, Peter Oliver’s talent was such that his art began to move on a separate path to that of his father following his death in 1617. This work, painted around 1620, represents an early moment in Peter Oliver’s gradual transition away from the firm stippling used by his father, towards softer, broader modelling influenced by the works of artists in oils such as Daniel Mytens (c.1590-1647) and, subsequently, by his study of the Italian works of art that were bought up for the extraordinary collection that was assembled by King Charles I (1600-1649), for whom Peter was eventually to serve as his personal limner. This stylistic transition was picked up and developed in the work of John Hoskins (c.1590-1665), thereby paving the way to the more naturalistic miniature style of the second half of the seventeenth century.

Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, was one of the most prominent noblemen of his age. The son of the disgraced 2nd Earl of Essex (1565-1601), whose ill-judged attempt to harness his personal popularity in rebellion against Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) had ended in his execution, the younger earl had benefitted from the accession to the throne of James I in 1603. James took the decision to restore the lands and titles to the young nobleman – then still at Oxford – that had been made forfeit on his father’s treason.

His early years at the court were not easy, however. One of the results of Essex’s favour with the king was that the Howard family, who feared for their diminished status, was eager to secure a marriage with the young nobleman, who was duly betrothed by the consent of the King to their daughter, Frances (1590-1632). The marriage was, however, a disaster. Aged only fifteen at the time of the wedding, Essex was too young to cohabit with his bride, and so, with the marriage still unconsummated, left instead to go on a 21-month tour of Europe. He returned to find that his wife had grown to become a noted beauty, with rumours that she was the subject of the romantic attentions both of Henry, Prince of Wales, and Robert Carr (1585/6?-1645), the King’s new favourite.

Severely disfigured at this time by a bout of smallpox, Essex grew insecure and hot-heated, frequently rowing with the Prince himself and those around him. This was exacerbated as relations with his wife became ever more uncordial. Keen not to succumb to Essex’s desire to father an heir, his wife instead attempted to poison him; at the same time, she engaged in an open affair with Robert Carr, by now Duke of Somerset. The marriage finally broke down at the instigation of the Howard family, who persuaded the king to establish a commission to grant Frances an annulment.

Sadly for Essex, his second marriage, in 1629, to Elizabeth (d.1656), daughter of Sir William Paulet, fared little better. After only seven years, the couple had begun largely to live apart. And although Essex, still keen to prove his virility before the eyes of the court, had succeeded in impregnating his wife, she, too, had begun to embark in an open affair.

Unsurprisingly, given his treatment at the hands of the king, Essex became an implacable opponent of the crown in parliament in the years that followed, diligently attending almost every sitting day of any parliamentary session. He acquired military experience, moreover, fighting in the Low Countries in defence of the rights of Frederick V of the Palatinate (1596-1632) and his wife, Elizabeth, “The Winter Queen” (1596-1662). At the same time, Essex’s faith began to take on an ever-more intensely Puritan strain so that, when the Civil War broke out in 1642, Essex was well placed to serve as a commander of the Parliamentarian forces. Serving at first as Captain-general, Essex proved himself to be an effective – if uninspired – leader of men and was appointed to the Lord-General (commander-in-chief) of the Parliamentary forces.

By 1644, however, Essex had come to be eclipsed. The decisive Parliamentarian victory at Marston Moor had placed the star of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) firmly in the ascendant, whilst Essex’s unsuccessful campaign in the West Country, by contrast, had ended with his surrender at Lostwithiel in 1644, which proved to be the end of his career.

He was, nonetheless, remembered as a hero, and when he died unexpectedly of a stroke in 1646, his state funeral in Westminster Abbey, modelled on that of Henry, Prince of Wales, was the largest that had been seen in many years.