# Martha Bertie \(née Cockayne\), Countess of Lindsey [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GELDORP, Georg]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 201 x 128 cm ## Commentary Martha Bertie \(née Cockayne\), Countess of Lindsey c. 1627 Oil on canvas, 201 x 128 cm Private collection 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. ## Related artworks - [William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()