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Martha, Countess of Lindsey (1605-1641) was the daughter of Mary Morris and Sir William Cockayne (1561-1626) the first Governor of Ulster and a much respected Lord Mayor of London, and trusted confident of King James I.
This portrait captures the rich heiress at a pivotal moment in her life: the year of her second marriage to Montagu Bertie. She wears a black over-gown with a bodice and skirt of embroidered oyster silk, tied with striped ribbon at the waist. This ribbon also keeps in place the paned and padded figure-of-eight sleeves known as 'virago' sleeves. As a truly fashionable English beauty, Martha has taken as much care in choosing her accessories as she did her dress; the large double-collar, the feathers in her hair, and a black ostrich feather fan completing her costume. She stands by a chair under a red canopy, and the landscape beyond shows a withered tree stump, perhaps a symbolic reference to her recently deceased first husband and their childless marriage.
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