Margaret Gerard, Lady Legh (m. 1584 - d. 1603)

manner of Marcus Geeraerts, the younger (Bruges 1561/2 - London 1635/6). Oil painting on canvas, Margaret Gerard, Lady Legh (m. 1584 - d. 1603), manner of Marcus Geeraerts, the younger (Bruges 1561 - London 1635), inscribed: in yellow, upper left: Sir Peter Leghs first Lady / That was Lord Gerrads / of Bromley Muster of / the Roles his ~ / Daughter. A standing, full-length portrait, facing, head turned slightly to the left but looking out, both hands down and resting on the projecting part of her dress, the right one holding a closed fan; dressed in a long and long-sleeved dress with a pronounced farthingale, alternating thin strips of greenish braid with yellow ornament on top, and thicker strips of banded orange with little diagonal dark brown [originally red?] slashes. A gauze mantle with pearls at intervals along the border is drawn back from it, and there is a gauze overdress over the whole dress. She wears an elaborate, multi-layered lace collar, a pearl aigrette that extends over her whole head, a pearl necklace with triangular points, four ropes of pearls extending right down below her exceedingly narrowed waist, a star-shaped diamond jewel in the middle of the lace fringe over her bosom, and bubbles of gauze between the circular seven-pearled fastenings down her whole front. A thin black cord of X-shape is looped over the ring-finger of her left hand, the other end [presumably with her wedding-ring on it?] extending under the lace-cuffed end of her sleeve. She stands in brown leather shoes on a patterned Turkey carpet of ‘Larkin’ type, and a pair of dark green curtains are drawn aside from her head and shoulders. Her eyes are bluish-grey. She was one of the four daughters of Queen Elizabeth I's Attorney General, then Master of the Rolls, Sir Gilbert Gerard (c. 1519/20 - 93) and Anne Ratcliffe, who in 1585 was married to Sir Perter ( IX) Legh (1563 - 1636). Lyme Park, Cheshire (Accredited Museum)