Note Type
1992 Inventory NotesNote
Joane, Lady Somers (nee Heywood). Wife and widow of Admiral Sir George Somers. Oil painting, 45 x 34, in lavish wood and gilded 54.5 x 43.25 frame, also by the 17th-century Dutch artist Paul Vansomer.
This painting was acquired in 1932 by the BHS with the painting of her husband, from Miss E. Winifred Bellamy, of "Woodside Cottage", Plymouth, Devon, England, a collateral descendant of the Somers. The life of Sir George and Lady Somers is described very well (on pages 49-52) - complete with a photographic reproduction of this painting - in the large and valuable book VIRGINIA HISTORICAL PORTRAITURE, published in a Limited Edition of One Thousand Copies, of which the Bermuda Historical Society has Copy No. 369 (in the Society's display bookcase), donated to the Society by the book's editor Alexandert Wilbourne Wellell, FRGS, Litt. D. The second oldest, largest and most expensive painting in the BHS collection. B. Hist. S. 13. On display in the Somers Room, next to her husband's portrait.
