Cleveland Museum of Art

Portrait of Mrs. Leneve

Peter Lely

Date

c. 1657

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

England, 17th century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This woman’s heavily lidded eyes, fleshy chin, and slender fingers conform to 17th-century ideals of beauty, but when the museum acquired this painting in 1942, her features had been extensively overpainted to bring her more in line with modern standards of beauty. This later intervention included lowering the sitter’s eyebrows, reducing her prominent eyes and lips, and adding curls to make her forehead appear smaller. Mrs. Leneve now appears as the fashionable artist Peter Lely originally intended. Long, slender fingers signified aristocratic elegance when this portrait was painted.

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