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.

Thomas Gale, English classical scholar and antiquarian, was born at Scruton, Yorkshire and educated at Westminster school and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1666 he was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge; in 1672 High Master of St Paul’s school; in 1676 Prebendary of St Paul’s; in 1677 a Fellow, and later Secretary, of the Royal Society; and in 1697 Dean of York. He died at York five years later in April 1702. He published editions of several Greek and Latin authors, but his fame rests chiefly on his collection of old works on early English history, entitled Historiae Anglicanae scriptures and Historiae Britannicae, Saxonicae, Anglo-Danicae scriptores.

The first Earl of Macclesfield, Thomas Parker (1667-1732) was an extremely wealthy, if somewhat controversial peer, who established one of the finest private libraries in Britain. Given his intellectual interests it is not surprising that a portrait of Gale should be found amongst family possessions. Equally his son, George, second Earl of Macclesfield (1697-1764) went on to become President of the Royal Society and as such may have favoured a portrait of a one time secretary of that learned society, who may also have known his father. The present portrait passed through the family of the Earl of Macclesfield at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, England, the seat of the Earls of Macclesfield since 1716. Gale was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller as an older man around late 1680s (City of York Art Gallery); the present portrait is a more youthful visage and is similar to John Riley’s painting held in the Royal Society collection. Mary Beale has used her favoured ornamental cartouche surround and typically displays all the hallmarks of her distinctive style suggesting a dateline of the early to mid 1670s.