ABSTRACT
Portraits in the seventeenth century were part of family history, preserving the likeness of an individual, and accompanying it with signs of lineage, wealth and authority, but no picture of the age aspires to function as a family chronicle and intellectual history in a way comparable to Lady Anne Clifford’s triptych at Appleby Castle. There were originally two versions of the Great Picture, one hanging in Appleby Castle, the other in Skipton Castle, both seats of Lady Anne. An inscription notes that the Clifford figures are copied from a painting made in June 1589, and then proceeds to particularise the date of Anne’s conception as 1 May 1589, so that the viewer may understand that she has an embryonic existence in the painting. Grand compendious survey of the creation on Lady Anne’s shelves was provided by Salluste Du Bartas, French Protestant poet of the later sixteenth century whose works, translated by Joshua Sylvester, enjoyed a lasting popularity in seventeenth century.
