William Larkin (1580-1619)
Portrait of Thomas Pope, 3rd Earl of Downe c. 1615
William Larkin was an English painter active from 1609 until his death in 1619, known for his iconic portraits of members of the court of James I of England which capture in brilliant detail the opulent layering of textiles, embroidery, lace, and jewellery characteristic of fashion in the Jacobean era, as well as representing numerous fine examples of oriental carpets in Renaissance painting.
About 40 portraits by Larkin have been identified, of courtiers and gentry, but he seems never to have painted members of the royal family. A series of nine full-length portraits by Larkin formerly owned by the Earls of Suffolk and now known as the Suffolk Collection is housed in Kenwood House, London.
Although Larkin's role as a portrait painter is recorded in contemporary documents, no surviving works were attributed to him until 1952, when James Lees-Milne identified Larkin as the painter of two portraits in oil on copper at Charlecote Park of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Thomas Lucy III which had formerly been assumed to be the work of Isaac Oliver. The identification was based on a reference in Herbert's autobiography to a portrait of himself ordered by Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, a "Coppy of a Picture which one Larkin a Painter drew for mee, the Originall whereof I intended ... for Sir Thomas Lucy".
Cleaning revealed portions of inscriptions that Lees-Milne suggested showed that the oval portraits had been cut down from rectangular originals. Other documentary evidence of Larkin's work is found in the Diary of Dorset's wife, Lady Anne Clifford, who sat for Larkin in 1619; in the Rutland Papers for 1617 and 1619; and in a seventeenth-century inventory of paintings at Claydon House including a portrait of Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset.
