Letter 2824

Lely describes a bust whose ‘Nose was mutilated’. The body of the statue was not in good shape either, for Lely had ‘let it lye some time in the Water’. He believes it to be a genuine statue, as ‘the moderns’ could not imitate such great work. He thinks £10 is a fair price. If the nose were in better condition he could get £40. John Lely (b. 1674) was the son of Sir Peter Lely, the portrait painter and art collector, and his common-law wife Ursula. John married the daughter of Sir John Knatchbull (Diana Dethloff, ‘Lely, Sir Peter (1618–1680)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16419, accessed 28 May 2015]).