The Penshurst Double Portrait
English School,
17th Century
H152 x W112cm (approx.)
Penshurst Place, Kent
After nearly twenty years exploring the Black presence in Renaissance art, this double portrait stands out as the most astonishing and compelling painting I ever have seen. To have been invited in at the very beginning of uncovering the identities of both sitters makes it even more extraordinary for me.
It hung in the West Solar dining room at Penshurst Place, Kent home to the Sidney family since the early 16th century, where its earliest recorded listing, is dated 1746, and its entry in the list of paintings hanging in the dining room describes it as: Probably Charles Louis Stuart (1617–1680), later Elector Palatine, with his page. English School.
The West Solar dining room at Penshurst Place, Kent
The painting remains a mystery. We do not know who the artist is, why it was painted, or even with any certainty who the sitters are. The identity of the Black figure is entirely unknown, while the white figure, though named on the column, has now been shown not to be the person depicted. There are, however, clues within the painting. But first, let me explain my involvement.
I was first introduced to this painting two years ago, following one of my Image of the Black tours, and was immediately struck by this exceptional dual portrait: both figures -Black and white - presented at equal scale and with equal presence. I was asked to hold back from writing about it while the folk at Penshurst decided how best to introduce it to the world.
Baron’s Hall at Penshurst Place, Kent
I spoke about the importance of this work in understanding and acknowledging the Black presence in Renaissance art and society, the event marked the beginning of a significant new initiative: The Two Boys Project a collaboration between Penshurst Place, the National Portrait Gallery, Historic Houses, and the Idlewild Trust.
The event was later featured on ITV Meridian News that evening and later on BBC Radio Kent, and BBC Local News Kent both of which included interviews with me on the significance of the work.
The composition of the sitters is striking. A dual portrait of a white elite figure and a Black attendant, yet both are presented at equal scale. This is rare - perhaps unique - in 17th-century European painting. Typically, Black figures, whether male or female, appear as marginal, subordinate attendants: reduced in size, placed lower in the composition, often positioned at the edge, looking up in admiration or service to the white sitter
Titian (circa 1520 - 1525)
H119cm W93cm
Heinz Kisters Collection, Switzerland
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| Anthony van Dyck (1634) Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page H213.4 x W127 cm |
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| William Dobson (Pre 1646) John Byron, 1st Baron Byron H142cm x W120cm Tabley House, Manchester University |
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| Jan Goseart (circa 1510-15) Adoration of the Kings H 180cm W 163cm National Gallery, London  Meeting of St Erasmus and St Maurice H 229 cm W 176cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
Outside these religious contexts, such representation is extraordinarily rare. To encounter a Black figure presented at equal scale, in a secular, life-size portrait of this period, is therefore astonishing.
That was my initial visual reading of The Dual Portrait composition. As to who the sitters are and what we can begin to understand about them - this is what I was to learn from the other presentations and discussions at the launch of The Two Boys Project
What’s the role of NPG ?
A copy of The Dual Portrait has been made and the original is now at the National Portrait Gallery, where it is being cleaned, stabilised, and closely analysed to better understand when, where, and how it was made.
The first stage will be its conservation - removing dirt, mould, and layers of yellowed varnish to reveal hopefully a clearer, more defined image, closer to perhaps how it would have been seen some 400 years ago. This will be followed by technical analysis: microscopic examination of pigments and paint layers, alongside infrared and X-ray imaging to an attempt uncover how the work was constructed and what alterations if any have been undertaken over time.
A life-sized replica will be on display at Penshurst Place, as part of a new exhibition named Who Are the Two Boys? In which the public are invited to help solve the mystery, while the original is being examined at the National Portrait Gallery. Currently the plan is to have the restored painting on display at the National Portrait Gallery in late September 2026.
Who is the artist?
We do not know who the artist was. Nevertheless, I would suggest that they had direct familiarity with Black people and therefore knew how to paint Black figures from life. Such is the veracity of this Black figure when I posted this on social media one of my Black friends commented QUOTE You gotta let the NPG know, if nothing else to let them know how real this image is. It could well be an ancestor, a relation or a friend. UNQUOTE
Who are the sitters?
There is clearly an expression of wealth and status in this painting. The aristocratic sitter on the left is fashionably dressed in a pointed doublet, decorated with points (metal-tipped ribbons), and soft boots; the African attendant beside him is similarly well presented, dressed in rich livery and holding a cloak and a sword.
The inscription on the column to the right of the white sitter suggests is PRINCE RUPERT, that he is thirteen years and four months old ( AETATIS SVAE - IN THE YEAR OF HIS AGE), and includes a symbol that may refer to the astrological sign Taurus. However the figure wears the golden spur of a Knight of the Bath, which Prince Rupert was never awarded and given the picture is dated 1626, it is likely that the sitter was made a Knight of the Bath as part of Charles I's coronation celebrations in 1625 or 1626 so it is believed could not Prince Rupert
What is depicted?
The portrait may capture the sitters on the point of departure for a hunting expedition. The short sword held by the attendant is the type used to dispatch wounded deer, while the background—where another Black figure appears alongside a dog—suggests the hunt already unfolding.
That’s as much as we now know the public are now invited help solve the mystery of the work along with NPG.
Why does the analysis of this painting, and the recovery of the Black sitter’s identity alongside the white sitter, matter so much today?
For centuries, the Black presence in Western European portraits of elites with their Black attendants has been neglected - ignored, hidden in plain sight within both the paintings and their written descriptions. Today, that neglect is being challenged. Portraits once named solely after the dominant white sitter, with no reference to the Black attendant, are being reconsidered and consequently renamed. The Black figure once unnamed, unrecognised their presence is now acknowledged. The National Portrait Gallery has played its part in this shift in recent times in renaming to include phrases such as “with page,” marking an important step towards recognition.
Unknown artist (c1711)
H135cm x W 135cm
National Portrait Gallery
For example, the National Portrait Gallery portrait of Sir John Chardin (1643–1713) illustrates this shift clearly. In the Wayback Machine entry of 13 August 2020, the work was simply titled Sir John Chardin. Two years later, when its NPG webpage was next captured on 19 December 2022, it had been retitled Sir John Chardin with an unknown male attendant. I believe the National Portrait Gallery’s change, and those across many other galleries, were accelerated by the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 and the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement that followed as most paintings from the period in our national collection which included a peripherlal, marginal Black figure have had there titles updated to include some reference to presence the Black figure.
Why is this renaming significant ?
Paraphrasing Marcel Duchamp, a title works like an invisible layer, shaping how we read a painting. Renaming a work offers another way of seeing—and in some cases, that shift brings the Black figure into view, moving from mere presence to identification, as names, histories and lives are put back into the image.
Joshua Reynolds (1782)
Yale Center for British Art
For example, Joshua Reynolds’s full-length portrait of Charles Stanhope has been exhibited under several different titles:
• 1782: Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington (artist’s studio)
• 1783: Portrait of a Gentleman (Royal Academy exhibition)
• 2014: Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington, and a Servant (Yale Center for British Art)
• 2022: Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington, and Marcus Richard Fitzroy Thomas (Yale Center for British Art)
That most recent renaming, following work by Victoria Hepburn, transforms the work into a dual portrait and adds life to the marginalised ‘servant’ figure. ( For more on the renaming listen to The BP2 Podcast Episode 7 Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington ( 1783) by Sir Joshua Reynolds)
attributed to Lenthall, c.1692
Claydon House , Buckinghamshire
Jean-Baptiste van Loo, 1739,
Chatsworth, Derbyshire
Other examples of Black “attendants” and “pages” being acknowledged by name in a portrait’s title, following the work of art historians, include Hannah Lees’s research on the 1692 portrait attributed to Lenthall at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire now titled Peregrine Tyam and Mary Lawley. Similarly, Ed Town’s work has led to Jean-Baptiste van Loo’s 1739 portrait of Richard Boyle and his family being fully retitled to recognise their Black attendant, whose life has also been researched: Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753), his daughters Charlotte (1731–1754) and Dorothy (1724–1742), his wife Dorothy Boyle, Countess of Burlington (1699–1758), and James Cumberlidge (1727/28–1788).
What we are seeing here is a shift - from anonymity to identity. These figures are no longer simply “attendants” or “pages,” but individuals with names, histories, and lives that can be traced and told. In naming them, we see they are worthy of recognition as a distinct personality we begin to restore both their presence and their humanity within the painting.
David Martin, 1778
Scone Palace, Scotland
Perhaps the most celebrated dual portrait of a Black and a white sitter from the 17th and 18th centuries is David Martin’s c.1793 work at Scone Palace in Scotland. At the turn of the last century it was known as Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton with a Negress Attendant. Today, thanks to the work of Paula Byrne, it is titled Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton and her cousin Dido Elizabeth Belle. Byrne’s research went on to inspire the film Belle (2013), directed by Amma Asante.
And so to conclude, the film based on the life of Dido Belle offers a glimpse of what The Two Boys Project might become: perhaps, in time, a film celebrating the life of the Black figure and his relationship to the white sitter - The Penhurst Boys - shaped by the findings of the National Portrait Gallery and others involved in the project. I, for one, look forward to attending its premiere in London’s West End!
graphic created with ChatGPT
