Extract from Temporary Gallery Text Panel c.1995:.

The portrait shows the other garments that Margaret Layton (formerly Laton) (who died in 1641) wore with her embroidered jacket: an Italian needlelace collar and cuffs, a black velvet gown, a red silk petticoat and a whitework apron.() This is an extremely rare example of a portrait featuring a garment that still survives.

Important as it was to dress magnificently, it was also essential to be recorded in one's finery. After that date, Gheeraerts's sitters came more and more from the gentry. He was popular at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I, but fell out of favour with James's wife, Anne of Denmark, after 1617. Marcus eventually obtained many commissions from the English court, both for portraits and for decorative work.

When he was about seven, the family moved to London. The artist, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561-1635), spent his early years in Bruges (Belgium), where his father was active as a painter and printmaker. She married Francis Layton (1577-1661), one of the Master Yeomen of the Jewel House at the Tower of London, and died in 1641. She is said to have been born in 1579, but it is more likely from her costume and appearance that she was born around 1590. Margaret Layton (formerly Laton) was the daughter of Sir Hugh Browne, a wealthy vintner and grocer. The portraits nearly always show the sitters splendidly dressed, in the height of expensive fashion, in order to emphasise their status. Important as it was to dress magnificently, it was also essential to be portrayed in one's finery. Oil-painted portraits of noble or wealthy men and women became increasingly common in the 17th century.

The Silver Locket by Margaret James