30 minute read
Gives the time of day to a bonheur-du-jour
e George III satinwood bonheur-du-jour was recently acquired by David
Waxing lyrical
A lady’s writing desk, breakfast table, toiletry stand – or all three? David lifts the lid on a charming bonheur-du-jour
Some 41 years ago my father bought this beautiful George III satinwood bonheur-du-jour. In the catalogue of the day it was accompanied by a matchbox-sized, black-and-white image and was described as being “a raised superstructure with four open compartments crossbanded with rosewood, the base with striped tambour shutter enclosing a leather lined writing surface, pigeon holes and drawers, the frieze with a drawer on square tapering legs.”
While catalogues may have come on since then, what hasn't changed is the piece itself, which I was delighted to re-acquire recently. Seeing it afresh presented me with a good chance to review and re-appraise its charm.
Above right e magni cent inlaid spandrels depict either a conch shell or starburst
Right e slide is composed of alternating pieces of satinwood and purple-heart (amaranth)
Daytime delight
e bonheur-du-jour (in French it means "daytime delight") is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced to Paris around 1760 by one of the city's marchandsmerciers, purveyors of desirable interior designs. It quickly became intensely fashionable and an essential piece of furniture for the well to do. By the mid-1770s, the bonheur-du-jour was being made in London, where it was simply called a "lady's writing-desk". e desk was often kept in the lady's bedroom where it would serve as a breakfast table in the morning and a desk during the day, letter writing being a favourite pastime for ladies of high birth.
In this instance the quality of the piece (it is inlaid with ne-quality marquetry panels of a conch shell, or sunburst) suggest it would have been destined for the drawing room rather than the bedroom. Like other examples it has a shelf for placing small ornaments.
Rolling stock
e rolling part of the desk is a tambour: a exible sliding shutter. e tambour, French for "drum", was favoured by the Sheraton and Hepplewhite schools of the late 1700s. It is made of a series of closely set wooden ribs glued to a backing of strong cloth which move in guiding grooves.
Crossbanding around the tambour, rather than rosewood, is, in fact, tulipwood. e striping composed of alternating pieces of satinwood and purple-heart (amaranth) backed onto canvas, which continues as banding around the drawer.
Writing section
Rolled back, the tambour reveals the inside of a desk with seven pigeonholes and two small drawers at the rear of the leather-lined writing surface.
If the tambour were a roll top, or cylinder, the whole piece would need to be much deeper to accommodate the cylinder when opened. But as the tambour is exible it opens above the pigeonholes, exing to drop down vertically within the grooves at the back of the piece behind the small drawers and the full width drawer.
Early examples were raised on slender cabriole legs; under the in uence of neoclassicism, examples made after about 1775 often had straight, tapering legs.
Lady’s toilet
Sadly, we have not been able to establish for whom this bonheur-du-jour was made, which might indicate where it stood in the home. e shaping of the top has a space for books, reading being a very popular leisure pursuit for wealthy ladies of the period.
But the intricacy of the wide drawer, with its multiple- lidded compartments, sections on the left side and two, lidded, removable boxes, does not con rm whether it was designed to house the paraphernalia of a lady’s “toilet”, stationery items, or maybe both.
Having castors suggests the piece would have been intended to be moved around the room. Whatever its use, I could hardly contain the sheer delight of meeting up with a dear old friend again.
Above e tambour opens to reveal a number of pigeonholes and two drawers
Above right e design for a "lady’s cabinet and writing table” from Sheraton’s e CabinetMaker and Upholsterer’s Drawing-Book
Below right e opened desk. Could it double as a breakfast table and writing desk?
David Harvey is the owner of Witney-based W R Harvey & Co. (Antiques) Ltd. For more details go to the website www.wrharvey.com
Who made it?
The bonheur-du-jour's design is derived from the work of the celebrated designer Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) and, like so many other pieces, it is an interpretation of his work rather than an exact copy.
The essence of the piece is based on plate 50 of Sheraton's 1792 work, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing-Book.
After establishing the bonheur-du-jour is George III in age and based on a design by Thomas Sheraton, it leaves the question of who might have made it?
Time and again one name crops up as the maker of a range of similar pieces: George Simson. Simson established a business at 19 St Paul's Churchyard in 1787 from which location he continued to trade until 1839.
He is also listed in Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert's1986 book Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660-1840. While we know Simson subscribed to Sheraton's Drawing-Book in 1793, less is known about his clients, although payments were made to him by the 2nd Viscount Palmerston, possibly in connection with his home in Hampshire.
Company Man
is month a single-owner collection of coins of the East India Company is estimated to make £2m when it goes under the hammer. Antique Collecting reveals one of numismatics most exciting – and rewarding – elds
It was in 1977 that the Canadian Robert P. Puddester decided to start a coin collection. It wasn’t long before he found a theme: the East India Company.
He said: “At its peak, the EIC was the greatest company the world had ever seen and from my perspective had the most varied coinage imaginable; multiple languages on its coins, innumerable designs, worthy of much study and within my price range, including a multitude of beautiful proofs and patterns as well as currency coins from numerous mints in India and England.”
In other words, a cornucopia of coins that were undercollected, undervalued and available.
Over the next 45 years, including a stint living and working in India, Puddester and his wife Norma put together the greatest collection of EIC coins ever amassed. is month sees the rst in a series of nine sales which will have 1,246 coins sold in 907 lots. Described as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, it is expected to fetch in the
Above ree coins from the Puddester collection of coins from the East India Company. All images, unless otherwise stated, courtesy of Noonans
Right e centrepiece of the sale is the celebrated 1765 Bombay gold mohur of 15 rupees which measures 24mm and is expected to fetch £100,000-£150,000 region of £2m at the London auction house Noonans.
Praising its breadth and scope, Noonans’ coin specialist, Peter Preston-Morley, said: “ is is undoubtedly the nest and most complete group of coins of the English East India Company, and British India, ever assembled.”
Building the collection
It wasn’t long after starting his collection in the early ‘80s that Puddester’s job took him to India – a move which proved a signi cant boost to his collection. His wife, and fellow collector Norma, recalled: “We made a point of visiting our favourite dealer every Saturday morning in old Delhi. Robert would usually bring home a big bag of rupees destined for the melting pot to search for dates and marks during the week and then return them to the dealer the next Saturday.
“One Saturday I saw these attractive coins with a leaf on them and was intrigued, so the dealer gave me a bag of several hundred pieces to bring home and have a look at.”
Robert said: “India was a gold mine for sourcing EIC locally-struck currency coinage, the very parts of my collection – and of most Western collections in those days – that were weakest. My work took me all over India and I had soon established contacts with numismatic societies and dealers in every part of the country.”
Above East India Company Ships at Deptford. e large Indiaman being tted out in the dock belongs to omas Grantham (1641-1718), launched in February 1683, credit Wikicommons
Above right Portcullis issues Elizabeth I, testern, 1600-1601, London, has an estimate of £12,000–£15,000
Below Madras presidency, a Urangzer Al Amgir mohur, 17031704, Chinapatan, has an estimate of £10,000–£15,000
e heart of the collection
East India Company coins have long been known in the precious metal trade. It was, and still is, the only company
THE PORTCULLIS COINAGE
A royal charter on December 31, 1600, allowed the export of £30,000 in foreign coin, or bullion, per voyage, as long as at least £6,000 be first coined at the Mint. The silver to be exported was to be shipped only at the ports of London, Dartmouth and Plymouth.
The coin plate or bullion of the company was to have the portcullis on one side and the arms of England on the other. The money itself was to consist of testerns of eight, four, two and single pieces, at 109 testerns to the pound weight. By January 24, 1601, some £6,000 had been coined.
While intended for use in Achin, Priaman and Bantam the merchants soon encountered hostility to Elizabeth’s Portcullis pieces.
Gerald Malynes, writing from the Indies in 1620, explained the problem. The coins “were not such as the people of these parts were acquainted with; but stamped with an image strange and unknown to them.”
The subsequent fate for most of coinage would appear to have been the melting pot – perhaps via the factory at Bantam – although a few worn specimens have survived to the present day.
in history to mint its own trading currency and grew to become one of the largest bullion traders of its time.
Despite the fact the EIC was a non-government entity, after it consolidated India’s existing mints it became the sole issuer and controller of India’s circulating money until 1858. e designs on the coins often featured the company’s crest, as well as inscriptions in English, Persian, and other local languages.
To understand EIC’s coinage we need to delve into the trading history of Britain.
Founding an empire
By the late 1590s Dutch merchants had broken the Portuguese trade dominance of East Indies. Very soon eets were returning to Amsterdam laden with pepper, cloves, nutmeg and mace with investors seeing their total outlays quadrupled.
Booming pro ts ew in the face of English failure. At the end of the century its only established trading link with the East was through the Levant Company, a consortium of English merchants who had arranged to have silk, indigo and spices carried overland from India and Persia through Turkey to the eastern Mediterranean ports. Rumours that the Dutch were even planning to buy ships
Sale highlights
The centrepiece of the sale is the celebrated 1765 Bombay gold mohur of 15 rupees which measures just 24mm and is expected to fetch £100,000-£150,000.
Authorised in the wake of a shortage of silver coins, it is one of three – or possibly four – specimens of gold coinage first authenticated for the Bombay presidency.
Some 4,000 mohurs, including their fractions, were struck and, by a public notice of January 8, 1766, the coins entered circulation.
Another high value coin is an exceptionally rare Bombay gold 15 rupees, dated 1770, which measures 24mm and is also estimated at £100,000-£150,000 one of only three examples known. After the 1765 gold coin met with local resistance, because they carried the company’s arms, the governor proposed a new coin, the Bombay, with Persian legends on the obverse. Specialist, Preston-Morley, said: “These legends copied those on the contemporary rupees, naming the deceased emperor ‘Alamgir II, rather than the name and titles of Shah ‘Alam, which was perhaps indicative of the company’s preference to follow a directive made to the Surat Council in February 1760.”
Also of note and from the Bengal presidency is the highly important and unique C-marked Mohur from Calcutta’s second gold coinage, dating from 1766-8, which measures 24mm and carries an estimate of £30,000-£40,000.
Above left Bombay presidency, half mohur, 1765, Mumbai, has an estimate of £100,000–£150,000
Above Benjamin West (1738–1820). e Mughal emperor Shah Alam II (17281806) hands a scroll to Robert Clive, the governor of Bengal, which transferred tax collecting rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. Benjamin West (1738–1820)/ British Library
Right Bombay presidency, anglina, type II, 1674, Mumbai. It has an estimate of £70,000–£90,000
Below left Bombay presidency, 15 rupees, 1770, Mumbai, it is expected to make £100,000–£150,000 in English ports to supplement their East India eets proved to be the last straw.
Voiage to the Easte Indias
On September 22, 1599, a meeting was held at the city mansion of Sir omas Smythe (1558-1625), in Philpot Lane, London with Lord Mayor, Sir Stephen Soame (15441619) and a number of merchants, all of whom wanted a slice of the action. e initial meeting was called to raise funds for a “voiage to the Easte Indias” and there was no shortage of subscribers to what became known as the Company of Merchant Venturers. In all, 101 men put their names, and the sums they would venture, on to the subscription list. Ironmongers, grocers, clothworkers, drapers, vintners and leather sellers were among those who subscribed an average of between £200 and £300 each, the majority paying their fees in the form of cobs and other Spanish money. e total subscription raised was £30,133 6s 8d, a
very considerable sum for the time.
While Elizabeth I was in favour of the venture, she was anxious not to hinder peace talks with Spain and Portugal. It wasn’t until December 31, 1600, that she signed the charter of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, granting the company a monopoly of trade for 15 years.
Above Madras presidency, Alamgir II mohur, 1759, Arkat, has an estimate of £10,000–£15,000
Above right Wrecks of the Admiral Gardner and the Britannia on the Goodwin Sands in 1809, credit Wikicommons
Below Madras presidency, mint specimen set, 1808, Madras. It has an estimate of £15,000–£20,000
Below right Bengal presidency, Shah Alam II, C-marked mohur, 1766-1767, Kalkata. It has an estimate of £30,000–£40,000
Elizabeth I
e new company’s directors soon began working out the complicated nancial arrangements for the voyage. ey knew English merchandise, mainly manufactured woollens, iron, tin and lead, would not attract a su cient market in the East to ll four ships by barter alone. ere was an immediate requirement to acquire the only currency known to be accepted in the Orient – Spanish eight-réale pieces.
A Committee for Rials was established and 24,000 coins were acquired by the servant of omas Alabaster, the company’s rst accountant.
Although Elizabeth had originally refused the idea that foreign coin be struck at her Mint – even if it were only intended to use in the Indies – she changed her mind. e voyage could take place as long as a percentage of the foreign coin being exported had been recoined into an English trading equivalent of the Spanish piece of eight.
On November 11, 1600, a warrant was issued for the providing and coining of £5,000 in the Tower mint, and for providing bullion for the same and the Portcullis coinage was born.
e Admiral Gardner
British ships bound for India, called East Indiamen, could expect a journey that lasted six months: south down the coasts of Europe and Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope and north through the Indian Ocean. The route became strewn with EIC wrecks carrying valuable cargo, including the Admiral Gardner.
The 813-ton ship was on her sixth voyage when she was wrecked off the south foreland of the Goodwin Sands, a notorious stretch of the Thames Estuary, on January 25, 1809. Her cargo included 46 tons of cash coins newly struck by Matthew Boulton of Birmingham’s Soho Mint and worth a reported £21,579, packed in wax.
In 1976, EIC coins appeared in sand dredged up by Dover Harbour Board thought to be from the Admiral Gardner or her sister ship Britannia, which sank on the same night.
EIC foothold
Gradually the EIC gained a trade monopoly in India. By the middle of the 17th century, the company’s trade increasingly depended on the export of bullion from Britain to serve its needs. In 1677, it had become so in uential that Charles II granted the EIC the right to mint its own currencies in the territory of Bombay, which it administered through an earlier grant of charter.
Coins issued by the EIC were produced by mints across India and at the Soho Mint near Birmingham. is mint was established by Matthew Boulton (business partner of James Watt), who obtained the rst patent for a steam coin press and provided equipment for mints in India. e Indian territories governed by the EIC, namely
the Madras presidency, Bombay presidency and Bengal presidency all struck their own coin.
But the 1835 Coinage Act decreed that there should be a universal coinage for all the British Colonies and after the Indian Rebellion of 1857–1858, the administration of British India was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown. From 1862 until Indian independence in 1947, circulation coins were minted under the direct authority of the Crown.
Part 1 of the Puddester Collection takes place at Noonans, Mayfair, London, W1J 8BQ, on February 8 (lots 1-457) and February 9 (lots 458-907). Viewing is on February 6-7 from 10-4pm. For more details go to www.noonans.co.uk
Left A silver doublerupee in the name of Alamgir II, exceptionally rare, believed only three specimens known, one of which is in the British Museum. It has an estimate of £10,000£15,000
Below left European minting, 1803-1808, Soho, gilt-copper proof 20 cash, 1803. It has an estimate of £700-£900
Bottom left e National Museum in Delhi houses a large collection of East India Company coins, image Shutterstock
Bottom right One of the most spectacular Indian silver coins ever struck: Prinsep’s pattern double-rupee, 1784
IN MY OPINION...
We asked Noonans’ coin expert Peter Preston-Morley for his sale highlights Have you got a favourite coin from the collection?
Yes, the double-rupee (below) dated 1784 is one of the most spectacular Indian silver coins ever struck. It is believed to be one of only three other known specimens. The coin was struck by John Prinsep in an attempt to convince the Calcutta Board to let him produce a new silver and gold coinage for Bengal. It was made using equipment that was far superior to anything in India at that time and which even allowed an edge inscription to be put on the coin. It has an estimate of £30,000–£50,000 at this month’s sale.
How has the market changed since Puddester started collecting?
There are far less coins available to buy today than then, so prices have obviously risen. Many coins have disappeared into collections in India as Indians have become noticeably more interested in their own coinages and their history.
Discover more
The British Museum has a large collection of East India Company coins, including a number of rare and unusual examples as well as a number of medals and tokens that were issued by the company.
The National Museum in New Delhi, India, also has a collection, including a number of rare and valuable examples. The museum’s collection also includes coins that were minted in India and other parts of Asia, as well as medals and tokens issued by the company.
Other institutions with good collections include the American Numismatic Society, the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Royal Canadian Mint. Are there any undervalued areas still to explore?
There is a lot of variety to be sure. Copper coins pre-1800 can be elusive but are probably still undervalued. Trying to collect some of the rupees by date, for instance, is very challenging. Post-1800 coins are generally more available. The Dutch and French East India Companies both had their own coin series which have their devotees but neither is as extensive for the collector as the British series.
Any tips on starting a coin collection?
I would look at coins either of one’s own country, or perhaps go for a theme which appeals, such as bridges or animals. Buy the best you can aff ord as condition is paramount. Historical medals off er a similar perspective and can be much cheaper than coins of the same period.
COURT DRAMA
An exhibition in Warwickshire hopes to answer one of the art world’s greatest mysteries – who was the court painter responsible for one of the Elizabethan era’s most iconic portraits?
For centuries mystery has surrounded the artist behind a portrait of the Countess of Warwick, Anne Russell, (1548-1604) a lady-in-waiting and close friend of Elizabeth I. e confusion is understandable. In the febrile environment of the 16th-century royal court, there was a number of artists jockeying for favour with the monarch, any of which could be in the frame. e riddle is made more problematical still by the fact the artist in question did not sign his work.
In the 1960s, the renowned art historian, Sir Roy
Above Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s), Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick, c. 1569, from the Woburn Abbey Collection
Right Elizabeth I, private collection, © Philip Mould & Company Strong, coined the name the ‘Master of the Countess of Warwick’ for the mystery artist. His book e English Icon also went on to identify eight other works by the hand of the enigmatic portraitist – all of them nely-dressed women in ornately embroidered attire turned to the left with clasped hands.
Strong linked the works by their con dent draftsmanship, the careful paint layering on the face and close attention to the details of clothing and jewellery.
Since Strong’s book, the number of works by Master of the Countess of Warwick has grown to almost 50 works of varying size and complexity. is month’s exhibition, at Compton Verney, features eight such works, including a portrait of Sir omas Knyvett (c. 1539-1617) in its own collection, and makes the claim for a lesser-known Belgian-born painter to assume the title. But in order to suggest a name for the unknown artist it is important to consider portraiture of the day and the artists at the heart of it.
Court painters
England under the volatile Tudor dynasty was a thriving home for the arts. An international community of artists and merchants, many of them religious refugees from across Europe, navigated the high-stakes demands of royal patrons against the backdrop of shifting political relationships with mainland Europe.
Tudor courts were packed with Florentine sculptors, German painters, Flemish weavers, and Europe’s best armorers, goldsmiths, and printers, while also contributing to the emergence of a distinctly English style. e Tudors devoted vast resources to crafting a public image as divinely ordained sovereigns, shoring up their tenuous claim to the throne.
After the Reformation, commissions for religious art
decreased and commissions for portraits increased in great numbers. e upwardly mobile used portraiture to signal their social ascent recording status, lineage, piety, and political a liation, as well as physical appearance. Portraits allowed distant relatives to keep in touch, or royals to gauge the attractiveness and health of potential future spouses. e emergence of the portrait miniature, intended to be held in the hand or worn on the body, heightened the association between portraiture and intimacy and portraiture’s role in bridging geographic separation. In the same way, generations later, families showed their important heritage by displaying portraits of their eminent ancestors.
Right Attributed to the Master of the Countess of Warwick, the portrait sold for £25,000 last year, image courtesy of Chorley’s
Below left After Holbein, King Henry VIII © Compton Verney
Below right Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s), Sir omas Knyvett c. 1565 © Compton Verney
THE MASTER AT AUCTION
Last year a portrait of a Tudor lady thought to be by the Master of the Countess of Warwick sold for £25,000 at the Gloucestershire auctioneers Chorley’s.
Catalogued as “attributed to the Master of the Countess of Warwick”, it was pitched at £20,000£30,000 – a level possibly derived from the £20,000 hammer price for a similar portrait of a different lady also attributed to the artist that had sold at Christie’s in July 2012.
In common with his other works, the female sitter is turned to the left with clasped hands with great attention given to her ornate clothing, jewellery and elegant ruff.
Elizabeth ascended the throne, left a void for a reliable portrait painter. His passing once more left a position for a talented and reliable artist worthy of patronage within the upper tiers of English society.
A short time into her accession Elizabeth’s trusted advisor William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burghley) launched a search for a “cunning painter” capable of depicting the Queen and cementing her image as a powerful monarch.
Hans Holbein
e most well known court painter of the Tudor age was Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497–1543) the German Swiss artist whose portrait of Henry VIII, painted in 1537, projects a powerful image of the monarch.
After Holbein’s death in 1543, a number of artists emerged as his successor. One such was John Bettes the Elder (1527-1563) a contemporary of Holbein whose work shows the in uence of his accomplished predecessor. Bettes produced a number of portraits during his career, including a portrait of Edward VI now held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.
His death in 1563, ve years after Henry VIII’s daughter
‘The upwardly mobile used portraiture to signal their social ascent recording status, lineage, piety, and political affiliation, as well as physical appearance. They allowed for physically distant relatives to keep in touch, or for royals to gauge the attractiveness and health of potential future spouses’
Above Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s) Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent © Canterbury Museums and Galleries
Arnold Derickson
Enter Arnold Derickson, a native of Mechelen, who was not only Bettes’ son-in-law, he was also recorded in London in 1549 as the “servant” (more likely apprentice) of the Flemish artist Hans Eworth (c.1520-1574). Eworth was another prominent portrait painter active in London in the 1550s. Despite his considerable output little else is known about Eworth’s personal life or the details of his career.
Derickson’s determination to take over from Bettes is con rmed by records from June 1558 when, aged around 30, he married a woman called Elizabeth Bettes at St Martin-in-the-Fields, likely the artist’s daughter.
At this point, he seems to have taken over Bettes’ workshop in St Martin-in-the-Fields, which he ran, with success, until at least the end of the decade and possibly longer.
In 1568, the Returns of Aliens recorded Derickson and his servant Christopher Sowlofe (presumably a Dutchman) as residents of Westminster, a location well placed to catch trade from those attending the Inns of Court or visiting the numerous courtly residences that lined the Strand between Westminster and the City.
Master revealed
According to Dr Edward Town, one of the curator’s of this month’s exhibition, it is likely Derickson was the ‘Arnold’ who received the substantial sum of £4 6s 10d for “my lords pycture” from Sir Henry Sidney’s paymaster in 1565–1566, and he may also have been ‘Arnold the paynter’ paid 30 shillings for a picture of Andromeda made for the O ce of Revels Christmas performances in 1572–1573. Like his nom de plume, e Master of the Countess of Warwick, Derickson, was active in the years 1567-1569, and his work – a fusion of Flemish and Holbein-inspired elements – shows the in uence of both Bettes and Eworth.
Dr Town said: “While the identi cation of Arnold Derickson as the Master of the Countess of Warwick cannot be proved, it can be said that he ts the pro le of this artist more comfortably than any other painter of the period. At the midpoint of the decade, there were only a handful of skilled foreign artists in London. Only Derickson seems to have held a commanding position, placed as he was at the doorstep of the courtier homes along the Strand.”
Top Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s), William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham and his Family, 1567, reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat
Above Hans Eworth (c. 1520-1574) Margaret Audley, from a private collection, on loan to English Heritage, on view at Audley End. Photo courtesy of Mark Asher Tudor Mystery: A Master Painter Revealed, in association with Philip Mould, is on at Compton Verney in Warwickshire from Feb 4 to May 7. Alongside eight works attributed to the Master of the Countess of Warwick there will also be a programme of talks from curator Dr Amy Orrock and Dr Edward Town FRSA (Assistant Curator for Early Modern Art at the Yale Center for British Art). For more details got to www.comptonverney.org.uk
Below Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s), A Group of Four Children Making Music, private collection, photo courtesy of the Weiss Gallery
In the frame
Restoration to a 16th-century small panel portrait revealed the unmistakable hand of the Master of the Countess of Warwick, writes gallery owner Philip Mould
When this portrait emerged from a private collection in 2012 it was evident that it had been subjected to unnecessary restoration in the last century. While the body and arms appeared to be in an excellent state of preservation, it was clear that the face had been overpainted in an attempt to cosmeticise the sitter’s delicate features.
A face quite at odds with other surviving examples of English portraits from this date was the result. ese amendments were easily reversed with the removal of the overpaint to reveal a pristine surface beneath, and an a ecting Tudor characterisation.
It also highlighted several interesting quirks associated with the Master of the Countess of Warwick, such as decisively drawn eyes and tiny, wispy eyelashes. e overpaint had also concealed the small veins on the sitter’s temple, a clever visual illusion intended to emphasise physical presence and remind the viewer that they were looking at the likeness of a living human being. e inscription, which retains its original layer of shell gold, identi es the sitter as Mary Tichborne of Edenbridge, the 22-year-old wife of omas Potter.
His master’s hand
As more works by the Master of the Countess of Warwick come to light we can better understand the artist’s style and working methods. He appears to have favoured the half-length format with the sitter turned right with their hands clasped. is mode of depiction appears to have been in uenced by the work of Hans Eworth, a prominent portrait painter active in London in the 1550s, and to whom the present work was attributed when sold at auction in 1935. e artist’s treatment of his subjects’ faces is also quite distinctive, with a delicate ush of colour in the cheeks, boldly painted eyes and sharply drawn mouths. ere is also a tendency to emphasise the head in proportion to the body.
Fine costume
e costume and jewellery in the present painting are among the best preserved of all the ‘the Masters’ works and show the extent to which its black pigments (always the most vulnerable to overcleaning) have remained intact over the centuries. e contrast of black and white seen in the sitter’s costume is typical of the Elizabethan period. Black and
Above right Master of the Countess of Warwick (active 1560s) Portrait of Mary Tichborne (b.1541), 1565, oil on panel © Philip Mould & Company white were the queen’s colours and were symbolic of constancy and purity. Black was also the most expensive dye and it thus features prominently in portraits which were intended to display a sitter’s wealth and ne taste. e black gown is accessorised with a black hood that covers most of the hair – a signi er of modesty – and under her gown she wears a linen smock that is gathered into a ru e at her neck. e neck and sleeve ru s are edged with gold to emphasise the sitter’s status and the linen smock is embellished with ‘spanishework’ or blackwork embroidery in small stylised oral designs. Such ne stitching was highly skilled and time-consuming work, and therefore costly. e central jewel, intricately painted with gold and madder, and perhaps containing a miniature, is also well preserved, as are the elegantly modelled hands.
