Big price for Cromwell 'warts' mini portrait

Oliver Cromwell was a tough subject to paint.

When Sir Peter Lely was asked to create a portrait of him, he famously asked for a brutally honest image.

"Use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me and not flatter me at all, but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts and everything as you see me," he said.

Now Sotheby's is to sell a miniature of the Lord Protector painted by Samuel Cooper, perhaps the greatest British portrait artist of the 17th century.

The striking 4in x 31/2 in image of Cromwell, dressed in his battle armour and looking as he did when he led Parliament against King Charles I, is considered in some quarters to be the definitive "warts and all" representation.

It is to go under the hammer for an expected £150,000 in June, making it one of the highest prices yet for a miniature.

It was painted in 1657, a year before Cromwell died of malaria.

A number of copies were made but this one, owned by the Harcourt family and on loan to the Museum of London for 50 years, is one of only two that survives.