| Existing comment:
Lucy Parke Byrd (1687-1716), the daughter of Daniel Parke II, married William Byrd II in 1706. Her husband recorded their tempestuous yet loving relationship in his secret diary. They quarreled over many things -- his flirtations with other women, her treatment of slaves, the goods she ordered from England, even the plucking of her eyebrows. But love and caring are present in the entries too, and when she died of smallpox at age twenty-nine, he wrote, "How proud I was of her, and how severely I am punished for it." The presence of an African slave was both appropriate and a touch of exoticism favored by the artist. The basket hints at the domestic responsibilities that called even to ladies of Lucy Parke Byrd's status. The portrait is from the school of Sir Godfrey Kueller. |