Portrait of Catherine of Braganza.

Peter Lely · 1670

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Peter Lely

Dutch Republic · 1618–1680

Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. He became a naturalised English subject and was knighted in 1680 by King Charles II. == Life == Lely was born Pieter van der Faes on 14 September 1618 to Dutch parents in Soest in Westphalia, where his father was an officer serving in the armed forces of the Elector of Brandenburg. He studied painting in Haarlem, where he may have been apprenticed to Pieter de Grebber. He became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1637.

Independent artist guide by Momentable. Biography from Wikipedia; artworks credited to the museums that hold them.

Stream Peter Lely

Portrait of Catherine of Braganza. — The living window: art moves here the way it moves in your living room.

life: 1618–1680life
rights: Public domainrights

The work

A selection of 2 works, free to stream.

Susanna and the Elders
Peter Lely · 1652
Tate Britain

How Peter Lely worked

From the record of their own practice.

Lely was first and foremost a portraitist. He painted both men and women, but with a greater inclination towards the latter, whose cleavage was often accentuated, sometimes to the point of having one breast fully exposed (such as in Margaret Hughes's earlier portrait, seen below).