File:Portrait of an Unknown Lady Hans Eworth.jpg

English: "The identity of this sitter remains unclear, although her opulent attire and jewellery indicate that she is of extremely high rank. The large coat of arms was added perhaps as much as a century later, and cannot refer to the sitter herself. It had been borne by Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and by his wife, Eleanor Brandon, who accordingly was long thought to be the subject of the portrait. She, however, died in 1547, about twenty years before the date of this painting.

Later it was thought that the sitter might be this couple’s only child, Margaret Clifford (1540–1596) who married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange, later 4th Earl of Derby, in 1555. At some time prior to 1866, a 75 mm strip was removed from the right-hand side of the painting and part of the inscription was consequently lost. As a result, while the truncated Roman numerals can refer only to 1565–8, the age of the sitter is now unknown.

Margaret Clifford would have been aged twenty-five to twenty-eight during these years although, as a married lady, one would expect her to have used not her parents’ arms but her own impaled with those of her husband. Art historian Lorne Campbell has, however, shown that in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English portraits, married women could often be represented by their maiden coat of arms, surmounted by helmet and crest." (Karen Hearn)