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Yale Symposium: A Puritan Picture: Vanity, Morality, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Britain
Purchased by the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) at auction in June 2021, the painting was recognized as a work of outstanding significance to the study of early modern race and gender. After an export stop, it was acquired by Compton Verney, an art gallery in Warwickshire that is housed in a Grade I–listed eighteenth-century manor surrounded by 120 acres of parkland, landscaped by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. Compton Verney has loaned the painting to the YCBA for inclusion in the museum’s ongoing technical study of the theory and practice of painting skin tones. It will go on view at Compton Verney in November 2024. This enigmatic painting has never been subject to sustained research, and much about it remains uncertain. We do not know the identity of the artist or patron, or the original location of the painting, and it is not clear whether the two women are real or imagined figures.
The YCBA, in partnership with Compton Verney, will host a symposium to increase understanding of this significant object in the history of British art and culture.
Available as an online event
