Portrait miniature believed to be of Lucy Hutchinson, 1659

Lucy Hutchinson is one of the most important women writers of the 17th Century. She is noted for her translations and poetry, and her classic political biography, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, a Parliamentarian's eyewitness account of the English Civil War.

Lucy was born in the Tower of London in January 1620, and her autobiographical "fragment" which is published with the memoirs gives an extraordinary account of her mother, Lucy St.John. Describing fascinating details of the St.John family, the fragment focuses on Lucy St.John, the youngest sister of Sir John St.John, 1st Baronet, and her husband, Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Lucy Hutchinson is noted for her subversive opinions and high intellect. This portrait, held in a private collection with direct familial links to Lucy Hutchinson and believed to be of her, is inscribed with the date of 1659, and is one of a pair, with the other believed to be of her husband, Colonel John Hutchinson. It is dated just one year before the end of the eleven-year interregnum of parliamentary rule, and the restoration of Charles II.