This pair of half-length portraits by Sir Peter Lely (1618-80) feature in Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ next sale to be held in Maine from May 31-June 2.
The artist and the English couple depicted are identified on a label to the verso from the Fogg Museum at Harvard. The sitters are Robert Nelson II who was admitted to the bar on March 11, 1631, and his wife Mary, daughter of Sir John Temple. Further records indicate that the paintings were in the possession of Miss Alida Boyland (1833-98) of Boston, as of 1894, as recorded in The Descent of John Nelson and His Children by Temple Prime of Huntington, NY.