Joan Stint was the second wife of George Evelyn (1526-1603). Evelyn owed his fortune to the monopoly granted to him in 1565 by Elizabeth I for the manufacture of gunpowder. He purchased the manor of Long Ditton in 1567, Wotton in 1579 and Godstone in 1588. Joan Stint had eight children by George, six of whom died young and it is likely she is depicted pregnant in this portrait. George and Joan Evelyn’s grandson was John Evelyn (1620-1706), the writer and diarist, who inherited their estate at Wotton. The present portrait was likely bequeathed to John Evelyn and it has descended in the family to the present day.

This is one of a series of female portraits from the 1580s that can be attributed to John Bettes the Younger. It is related to the series of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I which are linked to his studio, especially in the rendering of the left hand and the embroidered sleeve (see R. Strong, The English Icon: Elizabethan & Jacobean Portraiture, London, 1969, cats 141-3).

A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE:

Sir Roy Strong, C.H., F.R.S.L. (b. 1935) is an English art historian, former museum curator, writer, broadcaster, and garden designer. He was made Director of the National Portrait Gallery aged 32, and at 38 Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, where he stayed until 1987. Sir Roy has published extensively, and is particularly renowned for his knowledge of Elizabethan portraiture, and gardens. In 1971 he married the theatre-designer Julia Trevelyan Oman (1930-2003), and together they created the celebrated gardens at The Laskett, Much Birch, Herefordshire, which Sir Roy has recently gifted to Perennial, the Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Society.