No. 57 The Ladies Devereux
(According to one Catalogue of an earlier date, ‘Two Ladies, by Honthorst,’ or as it is spelled, Hunthurst.)
Two sisters dressed alike, in one picture. Half length. Light hair. Red and gold velvet bodices. White sleeves. Pearl necklaces.
IN all probability, the Lady Frances and the Lady Dorothy Devereux, daughters of Robert, the second Earl of Essex (Queen Elizabeth’s favourite)—the eldest married to the Earl of Hertford, widower of Arabella Stuart, afterwards Duke of Somerset; and the younger to Sir Henry Shirley of Stanton Harold, county Leicester, and secondly, to William Stafford, Esq. of Blatherwyck, county North Hants.