Sir Ralph Ellerker of Risby (b.1558/59) at the age of 73 (after British (English) School of 1632)

Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen was an Irish artist who made a significant contribution to the preservation and decoration of Baddesley Clinton — the medieval moated manor house in Warwickshire that she helped restore. This 1885 copy of an early English portrait of Sir Ralph Ellerker reflects the practice of copying earlier family portraits that was common in country house collections — a way of preserving and perpetuating ancestral identity. Orpen's many portrait copies at Baddesley Clinton form an important part of the house's visual identity and historical record, connecting the Victorian household to its Tudor and Stuart past.

Orpen approaches the copy with careful attention to the manner of the original — the restrained palette, the stiff, formal pose, and the flat, decorative handling characteristic of 16th-century English portraiture. The work has both the qualities of the original and Orpen's own competent Victorian interpretation of it.