Portrait of a young woman and child, as Venus and Cupid

<quote> Provenance: Possibly King Charles II (1630-1685); Possibly King James II (1633-1701); Possibly taken from Whitehall by his son-in-law, John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721), husband of Katherine Darnley, King James II's natural daughter by Catherine Sedley, and recorded at Buckingham House, Middlesex, by G. Vertue in an inventory of 1746; Presumably either sold by the Duke's natural son, Sir John Sheffield, 1st Bt. (c. 1706-1774), on the sale of Buckingham House to King George III, or removed to Normanby Hall or another residence; Possibly purchased by William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale (1787-1872), and by descent to George Henry, 4th Earl of Lonsdale (1855-1882), by 1879; Lowther Castle Sale; Lowther Castle, Wyatt, 30 April 1947, as a portrait of Nell Gywn; G. Houghton-Brown; his sale, London, Sotheby's, 8 February 1950, lot 76, as a portrait of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (when purchased by Denys Bower); The Sale of the Trustees of the Denys Eyre Bower Bequest, removed from Chiddingstone Castle in Kent, London, Christie's, 5th July 2007, lot 57 (bt. for £1,588,000 by the present owner)^[1]