Provenance:

• Possibly King Charles II (1630-1685);
• Possibly King James II (1633-1701);
• Possibly taken from Whitehall by his son-in-law, John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721), husband of Katherine Darnley, King James II's natural daughter by Catherine Sedley, and recorded at Buckingham House, Middlesex, by G. Vertue in an inventory of 1746;
• Presumably either sold by the Duke's natural son, Sir John Sheffield, 1st Bt. (c. 1706-1774), on the sale of Buckingham House to King George III, or removed to Normanby Hall or another residence;
• Possibly purchased by William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale (1787-1872), and by descent to George Henry, 4th Earl of Lonsdale (1855-1882), by 1879;
• Lowther Castle Sale; Lowther Castle, Wyatt, 30 April 1947, as a portrait of Nell Gywn;
• G. Houghton-Brown; his sale, London, Sotheby's, 8 February 1950, lot 76, as a portrait of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (when purchased by Denys Bower);
• Auction translate Christie's, ‏5 ביולי 2007‏, The Sale of the Trustees of the Denys Eyre Bower Bequest, removed from Chiddingstone Castle in Kent, London, Live Auction 7413 - Important Old Master and British Pictures (Evening Sale), lot 57 (bt. for £1,588,000 by the present owner) [1] [2] [3]
• Auction translate Sotheby's, London, ‏6 ביולי 2011‏, Old Master And British Paintings Evening Sale, lot 42 [4]

• London, Royal Academy, British Portraits, 1956-57, no. 157;
• London, National Portrait Gallery, The Masque of Beauty, 1972, no. 14 (as of Nell Gwyn);
• London, National Portrait Gallery, Sir Peter Lely 1678-80, 1978, no. 44.

• 
  Peter Lely - Portrait of a young woman and child, as Venus and Cupid.Jpeg
• 
  Lely venus-cupid.jpg