The family collection of the earls of Suffolk and Berkshire (a title united in 1745) was formerly at Charlton Park, Wiltshire, and passed to the nation in 1974. It will be visible once more to us all when Kenwood House reopens after refurbishment late in 2013. Except for a handful of landscapes and subject pictures, it consists of family-related portraits. The most famous group of these is that associated with the name of William Larkin (c 1580–1619) but images by, or from the workshops of, the most celebrated painters of Stuart and early Georgian England and one glamorous Sargent of 1898 are also included.

The catalogue is organised as a series of short essays on each picture followed by condition, frame, provenance, where exhibited and literature, all beautifully illustrated with a full page on each item and comparative material. The catalogue is preceded by a series of essays on aspects of the collection which add a richness of pathways into this resource that nail a few myths about these works and suggest hitherto unknown aspects. It is particularly good to see recorded here through text and photographs how the paintings have been shown over time, in Laura Houliston's own important chapter on the history of family collecting and display. Karen Hearn takes the opportunity to reconsider the emergence of the full-length portrait in the early modern period; she emphasises the importance of this group for showing how the idea of the full-length quickly moved out of just royal circles, for indeed much earlier discussion of this portrait type is in the art-historical literature as ‘the state portrait’, implying a dominance of only the highest patronage. Anna Keay doubts the previously asserted claim that the later Stuart portraits must have a royal provenance by pointing to their apparent absence from the extant inventories of James ii's collection. Costume historian Susan North writes about the evidence here for dress and its representation, a highly relevant offering given the subject matter of current exhibitions in London and elsewhere.

It is, however, most of all to Sarah Cove's essay on the Larkin ‘set’ that one's attention is drawn. Technical research on these paintings was carried out by the author in the 1980s and up until now we have had just conference papers and short papers on which to rely. The idea of these as a coherent set is checked by the sense that their comparability of size may simply reflect the standard type of canvas that Larkin ordered. They are special in the sense that they are ‘loomed’ canvases, bearing the evidence of their original stretching by ties on to a frame, the physical remains of which were often removed in other collections by the later restoration and adaptation of family images. X-rays reveal a very distinctive handling of paint and the tricks of Larkin's trade, especially white heightening at the centre of the forehead, along the nose and under the eyes, which, it is suggested, if not found by comparable radiography, rules out other works attributed to him. Studio participation is discussed and the fine, detailed, late medieval quality of Larkin's work praised. In a telling comparison (p 65) two paintings of the same sitter, one by the master, one by the studio, both in other collections, are shown. Whilst the first is immaculately painted, the second could be said to be more prescient of its period, with more shadowed flesh tones and more a sense of the momentary glance at the spectator.

The book is in effect a biography of one of the country's great families, rendered here through their image-making and revealing the progress of new documentation, new technical analysis and the widening of the scope of the context for portraiture, which has come to be characteristic of the high standards of scholarship now expected of such catalogues. Enjoying a beautiful book in addition is a bonus for the eyes.