Portrait of a Lady of Title

This portrait is likely to depict Vere Egerton, second daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Egerton. It may have been painted around the time of her marriage to William Booth in 1619. It is one of a group of portraits assembled by ‘Old’ Sir George Booth who inherited Dunham in 1579 and celebrates the elevated connections brought by the marriages of his son William and of his grandson George to Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the 1st Earl of Stamford. Vere was an important member of the family as mother to ‘Young’ Sir George Booth, 1st Lord Delamer, and the granddaughter of Lord Chancellor Egerton. Her picture is the only full length one in the group as well as being sumptuously painted, probably by the eminent Elizabethan and Jacobean portraitist, Robert Peake. This painting adds to the group of portraits which have been returned to Dunham.