Ritratto di Venetia, Lady Digby

Venetia, Lady Digby died suddenly in her sleep in the spring of 1633, only 33 years old, and her husband was shattered. Sir Kenelm Digby, a courtier and close friend of Van Dyck, had the painter turn her into an allegory. She sits as Prudence, a figure of wisdom, one hand resting near a white dove for innocence while she treads on chained figures of Deceit and profane love beneath her. It was a way of insisting, in paint, that his wife had been virtuous, since gossip had long questioned her past. Van Dyck also painted her on her deathbed, propped as if asleep with a single rose shedding its petals on the sheet, a picture Digby said he kept beside him for the rest of his life.