Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Satin Dress

Dated 1662 and painted on copper, this portrait of a lady in blue satin at Cannon Hall, Barnsley, demonstrates Coques's mastery of the colour and textile subject that blue satin presented: a technically demanding material requiring careful observation of how light breaks across folded silk to produce the range of blues from near-white highlight to deep blue-purple shadow. Blue was among the most expensive pigments available to seventeenth-century painters — ultramarine derived from lapis lazuli or the slightly less costly smalt — and its use in a major costume passage signalled both the sitter's wealth and the artist's investment of premium materials. Cannon Hall preserves this alongside companion works, suggesting a double portrait commission where this lady's portrait paired with that of an officer, both dated 1662.

Blue satin on copper creates an exceptional display surface: the copper backing's reflectivity interacts with the translucent blue glazes to produce depth and luminosity unavailable on canvas. Coques models the fabric in multiple passes — underpainting in grey or brown, followed by increasingly saturated blue glazes, with final opaque highlights in near-white.