On the west wall of this stupendous room is an enormous portrait of the family that owned and created it. Almost seventeen feet wide and eleven deep, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, and his Family c.1635 is the largest painting ever made by van Dyck, a joint portrait of the 4th Earl of Pembroke and his children. Each of the ten figures it portrays is just larger than lifesize and they dominate, as they were meant to, the gilded space in front of them. The painting is full of grace and aristocratic poise, of riches at ease with themselves, of what now would be called privilege and was then considered nobility. It exudes a distant and forgotten handsomeness, an abandoned world of elegance and power, neither stiff nor louche, but regal and familial.
featured on: Pride and Prejudice (2005), Emma. (2020), Bridgerton (2020)
