Mary Beale (1633 – 1699) arguably became one of the most important portrait painters of 17th century England, and has been described as the first professional female English painter. Born in Barrow, Suffolk, the daughter of John Cradock, a Puritan rector, she married Charles Beale, a cloth merchant from London, in 1652, at the age of 18. Her father and her husband were both amateur painters, her father being a member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company. She became a semi-professional portrait painter in the 1650s and 1660s, working from her home, first in Covent Garden and later in Fleet Street and became well acquainted with the local artistic talents of Robert Walker and Peter Lely. However it was not until the 1670s when she established a studio in Pall Mall, that success really came to her; her husband working as her assistant, mixing her paints and keeping her accounts.

After leaving Clare College Cambridge John Tillotson went on to become the leading preacher of the day; his plain, direct style, emphasizing reason and moral duty made him immensely popular and he soon became chaplain to Charles II. In 1672 he was made Dean of Canterbury and later of St. Paul’s , eventually becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 1691 replacing William Sancroft. He was a supporter of the Toleration Act of 1689 and was energetic in promoting the abortive scheme of comprehension with the dissenters who refused to give an oath of allegiance to the new monarch after the Glorious Revolution. He became a close friend of the Beales soon after his arrival in London, officiating at the marriage of Samuel Woodforde and Alice Beale in 1661. A constant visitor, Tillotson was to sit for Mary on a number of occasions, remaining on close terms with the family throughout his life.

Various portraits exist of Tillotson by Beale most of them in major collections. This present version stylistically seems to date to the 1670’s and interestingly it is smaller than all her other known three-quarter lengths. In 1672 it is recorded that Beale executed a “half-length for a Col. Strangways” and in 1677 “two three-quarter lengths” the whereabouts of which are unknown or cannot be conclusively accounted for.

Lit: John Ingamells “The English Episcopal Portrait 1559-1835”, 1981, p382-386

I am grateful to the art historian Stephen Conrad for his opinions concerning the work of Mary Beale and late 17th century British portraiture