A Connoisseur's Eye by The Weiss Gallery

A C O N N O I S S E U Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122; S E Y E

59 Jermyn Street London SW1Y 6LX Tel. +44(0)20 7409 0035

www.weissgallery.com

THE WEISS GALLERY . 2020

The Weiss Gallery

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A C O N N O IS SEU Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S E Y E

The Weiss Gallery 59 Jermyn Street London SW1Y 6LX Tel. +44(0)20 7409 0035

www.weissgallery.com

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

FRONTCOVER Catalogue no.1 – Detail FRONTCOVER INSIDE Catalogue no.2 BACKCOVER INSIDE & ABOVE Catalogue no.4 – Detail

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CONTENTS

1 B ARTHOLOMEUS SPR ANGER (1546 – 1611)

7 PAU L VA N S O M E R (c.1577 – 1622)

2 C O R N E I L L E D E LY O N (c.1500 – 1575)

8 NICOL AES ELIASZ. PICK ENOY (1588 – c.1656)

3 ANTONIUS CL AEISSENS (c.1541 – 1613)

9 S I R A N T H O N Y VA N D Y C K (1599 – 1641)

Robert van Belle, Lord of Schonewalle (c.1539 – c.1572)

Mary Barber, later Lady Jermyn (d.1679) [?]

4 GEORGE G OWER (c.1540 – 1596)

10 COR NELIUS JOHNSON (1593 – 1661)

Venus and Cupid with Mercury and Psyche – An allegory

Madeleine of France,later Queen Consort of Scotland (1520 – 1537)

George Goring Jnr of Ovingdean and Danny Park, Hustpierpoint, Sussex (c.1555 – 1602) 5 M ARCUS GHEER AERTS (c.1561 – 1636)

Cecily Manners, née Tufton, Countess of Rutland (1587 – 1653) 6 WILLIAM L ARKIN (c.1610 – 1619) A Noble Baby

Sir Thomas Dallison, 2nd Bt. of Laughton (1591 – 1645)

Frederick Dircksz. van Alewijn (1603 – 1665)

An Unknown Young Dutch Girl 11 JOHN MICHAEL WRIGHT (1617 – 1694)

Lord Henry Howard, later 6th Duke of Norfolk (1628 – 1684) 12 JAKOB FER DINAND VOET (1639 – 1689)

John Offley of Madeley and Crewe Hall (1650 – 1688)

A CONNOISSEURâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S EYE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my Gallery Director, Florence Evans, for writing and editing this catalogue, and my Gallery Manager, Charlie Mackay, for his excellent research. I wish to dedicate this publication to my darling wife Catherine. Without her amazing support and hard work, my gallery would not have achieved the success that it has. As a team, we would also like to thank the following for their kind assistance: RESEARCH

Silvia Rita Amato; Till-Holger Borchert; Prof. Philippe Bordes; Dr. Aviva Burnstock; Flavie Durand-Ruel; Florence Evans; Janet Grant; Prof. Karen Hearn; Prof. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann; Charlie Mackay; Dr. Norbert Middelkoop; Dr. Gabriele Monetti; Geoffrey Munn; Dr. Susan North; Anne van Oosterwijk; Dr. Francesco Petrucci; Prof. Aileen Ribeiro; Dr. Eddy Schavemaker; Dr. Margaret Scott; Sir Roy Strong; Dr. Duncan Thomson; Dr. Edward Town; Catherine Weiss; Thomas Woodcock CVO, Garter Principal King of Arms; and Dr. Alexandra Zvereva. FRAMING

John Davies Framing; Rollo Whately and Virginia Brix; and Arnold Wiggins & Sons. RESTORATION

Cinzia Pasquali; Henry Gentle; Fabio Mazzocchini; and my beloved sister, Debra Weiss. PHOTOGRAPHY

Matthew Hollow; and Prudence Cuming Associates. CATALOGUE DESIGN & PRODUCTION

Ashted Dastor

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INTRODUCTION

n this, our first catalogue of the new decade, I am very proud to offer some truly exceptional works, many of which are newly discovered and published here for the very

first time. It has been produced to coincide with our first ever independent exhibition in the USA held at Daniel Crouch Rare Books in New York as part of Master Drawings Week

(24 January – 1 February), as well as for TEFAF in Maastricht (7 – 15 March), 2020. Whilst pride of place must naturally go to the magnificent allegorical work by Bartholomeus Spranger, which once formed part of the imperial collection of Rudolph II in Prague, I am equally excited to present the exquisite, almost-miniature Corneille de Lyon, of Madeleine of France. There is a certain symmetry here, as I was privileged in 2007 to handle an exceptionally rare portrait of Madeleine as a baby, by Jean Clouet (one of only thirteen known autograph portraits in oil), and another Corneille of her husband, James V of Scotland, which I handled twice in the early 1990s. Another remarkable work is the ravishing William Larkin, the only known portrayal by the artist of a baby. Larkin is an artist with whom I have a particular affinity; since the birth of my gallery some thirty-five years ago, I have discovered and handled nine portraits by this rare artist whose known oeuvre today numbers less than fifty works. The last we recently sold to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven. Another two personal favourites are a strikingly colourful Paul van Somer, and an equally flamboyant portrayal of an Englishman painted on the Grand Tour in Rome by Voet. I think these latter two portraits are fitting exemplars to justify the title of this catalogue, A Connoisseur’s Eye. They reflect what I believe to be the true role of an art dealer: someone who through expertise and taste is able to selectively buy – often simply through personal choice – the very finest works by a particular artist, and to then represent them to the market after careful conservation (and reframing where necessary), and of course after knowledgeable research. I am confident that several of the paintings included here will ultimately find new homes in major museums, and that the others will be acquired by discerning private clients and collectors, fulfilling my raison d’être as a dealer.

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

1 . BA RT H O L O M E U S S P R A N G E R (1546 – 1611)

Venus and Cupid with Mercury and Psyche – An allegory 1. Daniel de Briers (c.1573– 1633) was an Antwerp-born émigré jeweller and art dealer, based in Frankfurt, who had direct dealings with the Imperial Court. In 1623 Ferdinand II inherited Rudolf ’s vast collections housed in Prague Castle. He quickly sold a large collection of some 56 paintings, including this picture, to Daniel de Briers, as he thought their mythological and allegorical subjects were too frivolous and erotic. That same year Briers was commissioned by the Prince of Lichtenstein to create an Imperial crown, gems for which he also procured from Ferdinand II. 2. Heinrich von Uchelen (1682 – 1746) was a banker, also based in Frankfurt, but likely from Amsterdam. His company went bankrupt in 1744 and this auction was held, by court order, to pay off his debts. Interestingly, this is the first recorded instance of a public auction held in Frankfurt. 3. A building now known as the Amalienburg, which was built by Rudolf II c.1580. See Wolfgang Köhler, “Aktenstücke zur Geschichte der Wiener Kunstkammer in der Herzöglichen bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, xxvi, 1906-7, pt.2, reg. no.19946, under no.83, no.21 and 22. 4. We are grateful to Prof. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and PhDr. Eliška Fučíková for confirming the attribution after first hand inspection, and to Sally Metzlar, curator and author of Bartholomeus Spranger: Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague, Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue (4 Nov 2014–1 Feb 2015) who from an image has commented ‘The painting looks fabulous and is replete with many nuances and potent characteristics of Spranger’s artistry. Wish I had known about it for my exhibition and book for the Met in 2014!’ (private email 21 October 2019). 5. Sally Metzler, Bartholomeus Spranger: Splendor & Eroticism in Imperial Prague, 2015, p.42 6. Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università di Bologna, Ravenna

Oil on canvas: 55 1⁄8 × 40 1⁄8 in. (140 × 101.9 cm.) Painted c.1600 PROVENANCE

Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (1552 – 1612); to his brother Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor (1557 – 1619); succeeded by Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (1578 – 1637); possibly (i) the Kunstkammer sale, 30 March 1623, inv. no.47 (as ‘Naked Venus and Cupid’, value 200 taler); bt. by Daniel de Briers (c.1573 – 1633), Frankfurt;1 possibly Heinrich von Uchelen (1682 – 1746), Frankfurt; his bankruptcy sale, court Substituti Frießen, Frankfurt, 20 May 1744, lot 128 (as ‘Bartholomaeus Spranger, 1 schön Stück Venus und Cupido’);2 or possibly (ii) one of two paintings by Spranger listed as “Von Spranger Venus und Cupito in einer gross” in the Kunstkammer of the Neuenburg, in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna;3 Private collection, Padua, until c.1970; with Galleria d’Arte Antica, Padua, until 1972; bt. by Private collection, Turin; by descent, until 2018.

his newly discovered rare and very significant work by Spranger was almost certainly an imperial commission for Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (1552 – 1612), for his Schatz and Kunstkammer at Prague Castle.4 Rudolf was one of the most important collectors of all time, and his remarkable gallery displayed fine paintings, objets d’art and natural wonders of the world. It comprised of four rooms accessible to Rudolf by a staircase from his private quarters, and the space was enormous for a Kunstkammer, stretching nearly one hundred metres long and five and a half wide. ‘Chests of drawers were filled with drawings, medals, and gems – hidden from immediate view – and larger objects like sculptures and globes stood on tables… Cases held stuffed birds, paintings hung on walls. It was a kaleidoscope of treasures, and for those privileged to visit, a dazzling delight for the senses.’5 As such, Rudolf ’s treasures may be seen to embody a glorious microcosm of the universe, and a shimmering reflection of his court’s magnificence and power within it. As a master of mannerism, Spranger specialised in mythological subjects at a time when humanist themes were increasingly in demand, and the appetite for religious art had declined. Once he became court painter in Prague to the Emperor Rudolph, of all the subjects that Spranger painted, it was the seductive female form that most beguiled his most significant patron, and their sensuality continues to fascinate today, representing the pinnacle of his painterly brilliance and innovation. Mythological subjects such as this enabled Spranger to develop eruditely profane themes, often treated in the form of complex allegories. In this instance, the artist draws inspiration from a phrase from the Roman comedian Terence’s Eunuchus (IV, 732) – ‘Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus’, (‘without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold’), in other words, love needs food and wine to thrive. It was a subject frequently depicted by Northern Mannerist artists such as Goltzius and Von Aachen, and a theme much expounded by Spranger, whose lithe nudes and appreciation of mythological

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sentiment formed the core of his oeuvre. As seen in the Goltzius engraving, Spranger depicts Venus holding grapes to represent Bacchus and ears of wheat for Ceres, with Cupid by her side, but he also includes Mercury, the father of Cupid, flying up to Mount Olympus where in the clouds a nebulous female figure beckons. This is likely to represent Psyche who, in order to become Cupid’s wife, was created an immortal and borne to Olympus by Mercury. No other painting or engraving is known to combine all these characters and, as Professor DaCosta Kaufmann points out, the commissioning of this complex allegory would likely have been a specific request to convey imperial propaganda that has now become obscure. HENDRICK GOLTZIUS (1558 – 1617)

Venus and Cupid, c.1590

Scientific analysis of the painting and its pigments has revealed that the work is fully compatible with Spranger’s palette and practice, and on stylistic grounds and comparison to other paintings by the artist it can be dated to circa 1600.6 The form of Venus is closely comparable to Spranger’s now much damaged Suicide of Sophonisba (Narodni Galerie, Prague, 1605), in which the central female figure assumes a similarpose. Our painting, with its tender portrayal of motherhood, yet erotic and sinuous understanding of form and flesh, is characteristic of the final phase of Northern Mannerism, combining elements of Netherlandish painting with a Roman sensibility. The particular sweetness of Venus’s expression is typical of Spranger’s women, usually framed by blond curls and

BARTHOLOMEUS SPR ANGER (1546 – 1611)

BARTHOLOMÄUS SPR ANGER (1546 – 1611)

The Suicide of Sophonisba, c.1605

Venus and Cupid, Late 1590s – early 1600s

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an elaborate bejewelled hairstyle. A facial comparison can be made with Spranger’sVenus and Cupid (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Troyes), and with his Diana (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest).Venus gazes up at Cupid as he returns an arrow to its quiver, and his pose shares much in common with Spranger’s drawing depicting another Cupid (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, inv. no. HZ 28, dated 1599). There, the young Cupid also appears as if suspended in air, his imperious gesture likewise recalling that of Minerva in Spranger’s Minerva Vanquishing Ignorance (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, c.1596 – 1600). The broad, yet delicate blue-green landscape and cloudy sky, provide an expressive interpretation of nature typical of Spranger’s idealised aesthetic. The architectural elements are comparable to some of the artist’s earlier works, as in his Saint Jerome in the Wilderness (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, 1568), and his Saint George and the Dragon (Szepmuveszeti Museum) and Charity (Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 1569). RUDOLF II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (1552 – 1612)

During the reign of Emperor Rudolf II, the city of Prague became one of the most enlightened centres of artistic and philosophical innovation in the history of Europe. Rudolf was the eldest son and successor of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, and King of Hungary and Croatia, from a loveless marriage with his cousin, Maria of Spain, daughter of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. He and his younger brother Ernest were sent to the Spanish court of his maternal uncle, Philip II, in Madrid, from the age of eleven to nineteen, and his uncle’s learning and appreciation of the arts as a generous patron and passionate collector no doubt provided a formative influence on the young Rudolf. Their humanist education, provided by two tutors who had come from Vienna with the young princes, was alternated with hunting, dancing and tournaments. In the years following his return to Vienna, whilst his father was still alive Rudolf was created King of Hungary (1572), King of Bohemia and King of the Romans (1575). With the sudden death of Maximilian in 1576, the need for a formally chosen future residence for the imperial seat became urgent. Immediately after his accession, the construction of Prague Castle was already underway and from 1580 onwards, Rudolf chose to remain in Prague on a more or less permanent basis, and an act of 1583 established Prague Castle as the imperial seat. Once installed, Rudolf won the favour of the Bohemian estates, and distanced himself not only from his family in Vienna, but also from the Papal court. It was his chance to model a castle, a city and a people in his own aesthetic, humanist and scientific philosophies. Many of the scholars, artists and artisans who had worked for Ferdinand I and Maximilian II now followed the new Emperor to Prague Castle, forming a nucleus colony of scholars and artists, with Spranger at its heart. Other artists in Rudolf ’s employ included Martino Rota, Giuseppe Archimboldo and Hans Von Aachen. In the final two decades of the sixteenth century, painters in Rudolf ’s court worked in the majority of genres, all of which interested the Emperor, but none more so than the mythological. They all shared an Italian training and the ability to influence one another, and often their friendships had preceded their arrival in Prague. The Emperor granted them extraordinary freedom in their work, in his desire to furnish his castle extravagantly.

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

AEGIDIUS SADELER II (1568 – 1629 ) after HANS VON AACHEN (1552 – 1616)

An allegorical portrait of Rudolph II, (1603)

©The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York

Prague had become an immense centre of art and culture. As the court expanded into the bordering towns of the city, the private studios of court artists moved into private burghers’ houses, and art became a commodity for all. Although the Emperor reserved the priority to purchase works from his artists, some craftsmen and artists also worked for burghers, the various city corporations and, of course, for the nobility. As such, the Rudolfine courtly aesthetic came to influence the culture of Prague more generally. Creating allegories, histories, portraits, and landscapes, these artists vied to satisfy the Emperor’s, and the city’s, voracious appetite for beauty. By the 1600s, a dark shadow was cast over this great city by Rudolf ’s increasing mental infirmity. He became ever more paranoid, dismissing his most trusted advisors, while his own brother Matthias promulgated rumours of Rudolf ’s madness, taking control of Hungary, Austria and Moravia, leaving the once great Emperor only with control of Bohemia. Indeed, by 1606, Matthias was appointed Head of the House of Hapsburgs, and Rudolf was forced from Prague Castle to the gilded cage of Villa Belvedere, built by his great-grandfather, Ferdinand I. It presaged a tragic slowing-down of the city’s great artistic blossoming, further brought to an end by the chaotic events of the soon-to-erupt Thirty Years War. In 1648, at the end of the war, Queen Christina of Sweden’s army swept through Prague and looted the city and castle. Although many of Rudolf ’s treasures had already been moved to Vienna, what remained of his Kunstkammer suffered damage and dispersal. Much was taken back to Stockholm, and then later, when Christina converted to Catholicism, to Rome. Thus many of the Emperor’s greatest treasures were widely dispersed and have become difficult to trace. The surviving inventories, with their brief descriptions, provide an often cryptic and tantalising window onto his treasures, as with our own painting of Venus and Cupid.

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BARTHOLOMEUS SPRANGER (ANTWERP, 1546 – 1611, PRAGUE)

Bartholomeus, who became court painter to first Pope Pius V and later to Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian II and finally Rudolph II, was born in Antwerp, the son of a Flemish merchant, Joachim Spranger. Showing an early talent for drawing he was apprenticed as a youth to the artist, Jan Mandijn (1502 – 1560), and then with Cornelis van Dalem (c.1530 – 1573). In 1565 aged but nineteen, as many other Flemish artists did, he travelled south to Italy via Paris, where he briefly worked in the studio of Marc Duval (1530 – 1581), before arriving in Milan. From Milan he set out for Parma, where he worked as an assistant to Bernardino Gatti (1495 – 1576), who was decorating the dome of Santa Maria della Steccata. Here, Spranger studied the masterpieces and frescoes by Correggio (1489 – 1534), whose work was to form a significant influence on his style. In 1566 Spranger set out for Rome. Here, he met Giorgio Giulio Clovio (1498 – 1578), who introduced him to the great patron, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520 – 1589). From this introduction no doubt came his recommendation to serve as court painter to Pope Pius V (1504 – 1572), for whom he worked for two years. In 1575, eager for promotion, at the recommendation of Giambologna (1529 – 1608), Spranger was called to the court of Maximilian II (1527 – 1576), in Vienna. This was a pivotal appointment that ultimately led to Spranger’s employ by Maximilian’s successor, Rudolf II. Spranger came to Prague as one of the first painters in Rudolf ’s entourage, engaged to produce numerous mythological scenes linked to the Emperor’s esoteric taste for late Renaissance philosophical ideas, for an elite and sophisticated audience. Thus Spranger was officially appointed as ‘Hofkünstler’ (court artist) in 1581, at fifteen guldens per month, a salary that was regularly and substantially raised over the years. It was an appointment that presaged great stability in the artist’s life, and after his peripatetic youth, he chose now to settle down with a young wife, Christina Müller, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a prominent court goldsmith and jeweller, Nikolaus Müller. Christina was blond and delicately featured, very much the ideal of beauty expounded by Spranger in his female subjects, his very own Venus. Upon his appointment Spranger focused his energies on painting erotic mythologies, his first being a series, Neptune and Coenis, (only known today through drawings and engravings), with erotic couplings that would become his signature style, male and female nudes entwined in rapture. The present painting, with quite literally the theme of love at its heart, can be regarded as the visual culmination of Spranger’s most seductive and expressive production. Yet, in 1600, not long after, and at the apogee of Spranger’s artistic output, his wife Christina died, leaving the artist hugely bereft. Despite his personal loss, Spranger had reached a point of great artistic fulfilment. A master court artist, he was rewarded by Rudolf for his years of excellent work, with one thousand guldens, which he used in 1602 for a final trip to the city of his birth, Antwerp, where he was lauded as a hero. His return coincided with the demise of Rudolf ’s health and sanity, and marked a shift in Spranger’s final output, with a darker palette and a sense of foreboding: his lithe nudes became more heavily sculptural, his themes more brooding, such as The Suicide of Sophonisba from c.1605. In January 1611, Spranger wrote his last will and testament, dying on 27 September that same year. It reveals a generous man, bequeathing over a thousand thalers to friends beyond his immediate family, and his remaining fortune and house adjacent to Prague Castle were given to his brother, Quirin. It was only a year later that Rudolf II himself would die, marking the end of a golden age in Prague.

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

Professor Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann ATTRIBUTION

believe that this picture with figures from Greco-Roman mythology represents an important rediscovery. It can be convincingly attributed to Bartholomeus Spranger (1546 – 1611), the Antwerp-born court painter to Emperor Rudolf II Habsburg (15506 – 1612). Most likely it is mentioned in a record pertaining to the imperial collections initially assembled in Prague. The attribution of this work is based on numerous similarities of figure type, setting, composition, general conception of theme, modelling, colouring, and facture with other works by Spranger. Although disagreements among scholars in dating the artist’s works noted thirty years ago may persist1, numerous indices suggest a dating of this work by the artist to comparable paintings datable despite some inconsistencies in consensus to period from the end of the sixteenth century through the first years of the seventeenth century. Undraped female figures like that in the picture under consideration appear in numerous paintings by Spranger. They have been associated with a penchant often deemed ‘erotic’ found throughout the artist’s oeuvre2 and in that of many other artists at the imperial court, associated with the taste of Rudolf II.

1. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Review, Prag um 1600, Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II.,exhibition, Essen, 1988, Kunstchronik, xli, no.10, October, 1988, pp.553-60. 2. See however for another approach to his issue idem, “Éros et poesia: la peinture à la cour de Rodolphe II, Revue de l’art, xviii, 1985, pp.29-46. 3. Sally Metzler, Barholomeus Spranger. Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague. The Complete Works, New York, New Haven, and London, 2014, cat. nos 69, 75, 76, 82). 4. Ibid, p.158. 5. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The School of Prague. Painting at the Court of Rudolf II,Chicago and London, 1988 (revision of L’ Ecole de Prague, Paris, 1985), cat. no.20.66. 6. Metzler, cat. no.82.

However, as will be discussed below, in this case the manner of presentation may fit the subject appropriately, and nudity is of course a common form of depiction of the ancient gods as revived in Renaissance works of art. The combination of two mythological figures – the smaller winged childlike male figure on the left with bow, quiver, and arrows, may easily be identified as Cupid/Eros – is frequently found in Spranger’s oeuvre. More specifically, semi-nude females shown in three-quarter length appear in several of Spranger’s paintings of the late 1590s and early 1600s.3 The pose of the figure in this particular picture, with head upturned to the right, eyes staring up to the right, body seen in frontal view, and seated slanting slightly to the right, is very close to that of the heroine in a painting of The Suicide of Sophonisba (illus. p.10). That painting has been re-dated by Sally Metzler to 1605,4 and was previously dated by Jaromír Neumann to 1610, and initially by this author (whose chronology for Spranger was devised in collaboration with Konrad Oberhuber) as 1596 – 1600;5 I am prepared to accept Metzler’s re-dating. The facial type in the work under consideration is also a variant of Sophonisba’s, and resembles that seen in other Spranger paintings. The youthful mien of Cupid, with curly locks falling down the middle of his high forehead, small nose, plump cheeks, small bow-shaped puckered lips, and small chin, is a type familiar from Spranger’s works from the later 1590s. The way that Cupid alights, with one leg raised, toe pointing upward, the other leg trailing backward, head pointing downward to the side, is similar to that of a drawing of Cupid signed by the artist and dated 1599. In the early 1600s Spranger set compositions before a verdant landscape with a darkened sky behind, most noticeable in his Baptism dated 1603, and the background here is very comparable to them.6 After repeated examination of the painting, I observed that the color-change modeling in the quiver, with exquisite tones of grey and mauve, is extremely attractive, and characteristic of much of that sort of effect in Spranger’s oeuvre. I also observed that the modeling using green undertones (they are more evident especially in the face of the female) as the superficial glazes may have become more transparent) seems

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similar to that in Spranger’s works from the early 1600s. The pasty treatment of highlights also recurs frequently in Spranger’s oeuvre. All told, I believe that this painting is a work by Spranger datable to the first years of the 1600s. SUBJECT MEANING AND PROVENANCE

While the basic identification of Cupid in this painting seems straightforward, that of the female figure is not. She holds a cluster of grapes in her left hand, and two straws of wheat in her right. Absent of other attributes (the pearl necklace that falls between her breasts is found as an adornment of various female protagonists in Spranger, and can thus not be regarded as a motif associated with Venus Anadyomene), the wheat and grapes must be used to identify her. Their presence may lead to identification of her as Venus in relation to the subject of the well-known adage taken from the Roman comedian Terence’s Eunuch, Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus, without Bacchus and Ceres Venus Freezes, meaning that Love needs nourishment. This subject is frequently represented in the history of art, by Spranger among many other artists. The wheat and grapes may be related to this adage and hence to an association with Venus. Engravings by Hendrik Goltzius of c.1590 and by Agostino Carracci of 1599 show Venus holding ears of wheat and grapes in her hands, without the depiction of Bacchus, but with scenes of harvesting in the background, which may refer to Ceres (and implicitly to Bacchus). These prints both bear the inscription Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus. The identification of Cupid and Venus is confirmed by the two figures painted in grisaille shown in the clouds in the upper right of the painting. Close, repeated examination reveals them to be a woman, shown bare-breasted and bust-length, who holds a yellow tipped object in her hand, a torch. In her right hand she holds the edges of something that may be seen to be the edge of a blanket or covering, which she seems to remove from a recumbent, evidently male figure shown to her right, as he lies down on the clouds. This group can be linked to a key moment in the story of Cupid and Psyche, where Psyche, against her hitherto unknown lover’s admonitions, finds out who he really is.

AGOSTINO CARR ACCI (1557 – 1602) after HENDRICK GOLTZIUS (1558 – 1617)

Sine cerere et Baccho Frigit Venus, 1599 © British Museum, London

The story of Cupid and Psyche is most familiar from subplot within the ancient novel known as The Golden Ass by Apuleius. In it Psyche falls in love with Cupid, and undergoes numerous trials imposed by Venus, which she overcomes. Jupiter orders Mercury to carry her to heaven, where she is made immortal and married to Cupid, whose union is celebrated by a banquet of the gods. Episodes of this story, including depictions of Mercury carrying Psyche to heaven were the

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

subject of numerous works by Renaissance artists, including several by Spranger and other artists active at the imperial court.7 The interpretation of the painting as a representation of this theme is complicated by the appearance of another figure in the painting. The figure in the background who seems to fly to the heavens may give a clue to the further meaning and context. He is identifiable as Mercury by his winged helmet and heels and caduceus. His appearance may not be accounted for by reference to the theme Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus. Instead, he may also be associated with the story of Cupid and Psyche. Mercury serves as a messenger from Venus to announce broadly a reward for finding Psyche, and penultimately, it is suggested, may carry Psyche aloft to the clouds. The question is why Mercury, Cupid and Psyche might be shown together with Venus and Cupid, given that the seemingly positive relation of Venus to Cupid in the foreground runs counter to the behaviour of Venus in most of the story of Cupid and Psyche, where she makes difficulties for Psyche. A simple answer to the appearance of Mercury, related by the story, is said by Venus herself, who tells the divine messenger that ‘You know that Venus has never done anything without the aid of Mercury.’ However, the relatively unusual grouping of themes suggests some further allegorical significance, as does the somewhat odd combination of motifs. This hypothesis is supported on the one hand by the fact that in many Renaissance representations the story of Cupid and Psyche lends itself to allegorical representations, stemming from the obvious meaning of Psyche as soul. This is particularly the case with the representation of Mercury/Hermes, who in one of his guises is the psychopomp, leader of the souls – in many images he is shown literally carrying Psyche/soul aloft The easiest explanation involves immortality, which is conveyed on Psyche. On the other hand, no surviving known work by Spranger exists in any medium in which the subject of Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus is shown without the presence of Bacchus and Venus. Indeed, Spranger shows the three (or four, counting Cupid) gods in relation to each other in one way or another in all his representations of the theme, notably in paint.8 As the artist himself suggests in a signed and dated drawing of 1604 in which he shows Bacchus and Ceres walking away as Cupid and Venus huddle warming themselves before a fire,9 Venus freezes in the absence of the two other gods. In the initial context in Terence, this is not meant, however, as in Spranger, to suggest that Love needs to be warmed up, but that wine (and food) increase desire.

7. E.g. Metzler, cat. no.19, where the painting is imprecisely described, but with references to other treatments of the same theme. The painting has subsequently been rediscovered and auctioned at Christie’s 7 December 2017, when he fetched a price of £3,368,750. 8. E.g., The School of Prague, cat. nos.20-48 and 20-49. 9. Metzler, cat. no.154.

Moreover, Cupid is shown in Spranger’s painting putting away his arrow rather than extracting it from his quiver. If it were the latter, he would be grasping it by the feather end. Replacing it back into the quiver may hardly be associated with the heat of love. The notion that Cupid is asleep in the clouds is also not suggesting erotic activity. Both the motif of Cupid putting away his arrows and sleeping Venus may be associated with another conception of love. The first motif is related to depictions of the education of Cupid, who is disciplined by having his weapons taken away (as in many versions of a composition by Alessandro Allori, for example in the Uffizi). Here he seems to have learned his lesson. Similarly the sleeping figure of Cupid, as in many other images in which he is shown dormant, suggests another sort of meaning.

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The presence of white roses in the bottom left corner of the picture also call for interpretation. White roses appear in the emblematic literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries10 as symbols of purity. (Furthermore, in ancient mythology blood colours the roses – as in the story from Ovid of Venus and Adonis.) This hardly lends to a view of the theme of the heating of erotic love and is inappropriate to the idea of its cooling off as well. While the subject plays with the theme of Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus without its erotic connotations, it may therefore rather suggest the idea of nourishing Venus, corresponding to the conception of Venus as a personification (and goddess of love) as a source of fecundity. A poem accompanying an engraving by Aegidius Sadeler after Spranger and published by Joris Hoefnagel called Venus Receiving Gifts, says as much: ‘[it] ties with a bond of life all things that have been created.’ This print shows Venus holding grapes and receiving gifts of fruits, grain, and doves, another of her symbols.11 This notion may correspond to an important poetic and philosophical current that relates Venus to the creative force of nature, the nourishing Venus (‘Alma Venus’,De rerum natura 1:2) described by Lucretius as the generative power in all living beings. This notion of nourishing Venus may be related to the motif of maternal nourishment (captured in the phrase ‘Mother Earth’), and the parallelism of Venus/Isis/Eve/Mary. As such, it this idea of nourishment may be related to Venus’s bared breasts, not as erotically enticing, but as life-giving. In turn, this concept relates to white roses: in the Song of Songs (and elsewhere), and various Marian litanies, milk is associated with white roses. This subject also resonates in numerous Renaissance works of art. 10. See Arthur Henkel and Albrecht Schöne, ed., Emblemata, Stuttgart and Weimar, 1996. 11. Metzler, cat. no.179. A similar subject is represented in a print by Muller after Spranger, ibid. cat no.181. 12. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Empire Triumphant: Notes on an Imperial Allegory by Adriaen de Vries in the National Gallery of Art,” Studies in the History of Art, viii, 1978, pp 63-75. 13. It is not possible to identify this painting however as that being owned by Joseph von Dufresne or François de Dufresne in the eighteenth century as the description of the work in their collection refers to a work in which “Venus crowns Cupid.” 14. See Wolfgang Köhler, “Aktenstücke zur Geschichte der Wiener Kunstkammer in der Herzöglichen bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, xxvi, 1906-7, pt.2, reg. no.19946, under no.83, no.21 and 22.

From c.1600 the use of mythological figures for the expression of allegory appears increasingly in Spranger’s oeuvre, as it does in that of other Rudolfine artists. Often the allegory is compressed into a few figures, as it is here. Rudolfine allegory increasingly reflects on the emperor and his virtues in the first years of the 1600s, when the ‘long war’ with the Turks was continuing (until 1606), and Rudolf II was increasingly beleaguered. Seemingly obscure or veiled allegories, including those containing what might seem to be more general (nude) personifications may point to him.12 A master of allegorical invention, Spranger may thus have embodied such an imperial allegory in the work under consideration, which would have appealed to the emperor for many reasons. In any case this painting must be one of the several works by Spranger of the subject of Venus and Cupid identifiable in the collections in Prague. It is plausibly the one that was sold in 1623 to the dealer Daniel De Briers who was based in Frankfurt. I would however prefer to associate this picture instead as possibly being one of two paintings listed as ‘Von Spranger Venus und Cupito in einer gross’ in the Kunstkammer in the Neuenburg, a building now known as the Amalienburg in the Hofburg in Vienna, which was built by Rudolf II c.1580.13 The paintings were listed in an inventory compiled 1610-1619 that contains many works known to have been painted by Spranger for Rudolf II, including his mythologies of the 1580s, many of which are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. They had been taken to Vienna from Prague after Rudolf II’s death by his successor Matthias.14

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2 . C O R N E I L L E D E LYO N ( c. 1 5 0 0 – 1 5 7 5 )

Madeleine of France, later Queen Consort of Scotland (1520 – 1537) Oil on panel: 5 1⁄2 × 4 5⁄8 in. (13.8 × 11.8 cm.) With an old hand-written label from the 19th century (verso), erroneously identifying the sitter as Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara Painted between September 1536 – May 1537 PROVENANCE

Private collection, France, from at least the mid-19th century, and very likely substantially longer, until 2019. In association with Agnews Gallery

T 1. We are grateful to Professor Philippe Bordes and Dr. Alexandra Zvereva for their confirmation of the attribution.

his newly discovered, unpublished and beautifully preserved portrait by Corneille de La Haye, called Corneille de Lyon, depicts Madeleine of France (1520 – 1537), the fifth child and third daughter of the French king, François Ier (1494 – 1547).1 It was painted when the artist was at the height of his powers at the Valois court in Lyon, and is very likely a royal commission. At the time, the sixteen-year-old princess was being courted by James V of Scotland (1512 – 1542), becoming engaged and subsequently married to the twenty-four-year-old in January 1537. She had been painted some fourteen years earlier as a baby, by Jean Clouet, one of the greatest of all 16th century court artists, a painting formerly with The Weiss Gallery in 2007.

JEAN CLOUET c.(1485 – 1541)

Madeleine of France (1520 – 1536) © Private collection, UK, formerly with The Weiss Gallery

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ACTUAL SIZE

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The singular virtuosity with which Corneille has captured her sweet and somewhat wistful expression places this portrait amongst the most ravishingly beautiful and endearing of all Corneille’s oeuvre. Its simplicity speaks of piety and devotion, while the diminutive scale – even smaller than is usual for this artist – accentuates the painting’s jewel-like quality. James V travelled to France in September 1536 to claim a French princess as his wife under the terms of the Treaty of Rouen which cemented the ‘auld alliance’ between France and Scotland. James himself was painted by Corneille at this time, a portrait first with The Weiss Gallery in 1992. Although he was initially contracted and expected to marry Marie de Bourbon (1515 – 1538), a ‘daughter of the Prince of the Blood’, once at the court in Lyon, James instead became infatuated with the French king’s favourite, but sickly daughter, Princess Madeleine. The feeling was apparently mutual, and the young couple persuaded François Ier to break the contract with Marie de Bourbon, and give consent to their marriage. This he did reluctantly due to Madeleine’s notoriously delicate health, for she was already suffering from tuberculosis.

STUDIO OF CORNEILLE DE LYON (c.1500 – 1575)

James V of Scotland (1512 – 1542), c.1536 – 37 Private collection, formerly with The Weiss Gallery

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2.Technical analysis by Silvia Amato 4.12.19, The Courtauld Institute of Art, ref. CIA2659. 3. Inv. No.1994.67. See Anne Dubois de Groer, Corneille de la Haye, dit Corenille de Lyon, Paris, 1996, p.264., no.ADD.5 repr. as ‘sitter unknown’. This tondo replica is known in two other versions, one sold at Christie’s New York, 23 January 2004, lot 53, and the other at the Bibliothèque de l’Histoire du Prostestantisme Français, Paris. Other portraits of women from the 1520s–1530s in France show the same fashion for these sleeves – notably Corneille’s portrait of Anne Stuart, c.1533–1536, (Bristol Museum & Art Gallery), and Jean Clouet’s portrait of Marguerite de Navarre, c.1527, (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool).

The couple were married at Notre Dame on 1 January 1537, after which they waited till the milder weather of spring for their departure for Scotland. The young royals arrived in Leith on 19 May 1537, providing a terminus ante quem for the dating of our portrait. Madeleine’s health was fast deteriorating, and tragically on 7 July 1537 she died at Holyroodhouse, reportedly in her new husband’s arms, before she had even had an official coronation. Madeleine’s reign was so short, that she became known as James’s ‘Summer Queen’, and pivotally, her death precipitated the British royal lineage we know today, providing us with a fascinating historical ‘what if?’. Had she lived to produce an heir, there would have been no Mary Queen of Scots, (daughter of James V by his second wife, Marie de Guise). Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland and I of England, would not have been born or succeeded Elizabeth I to the English throne. Nor would his son Charles I have been born, and the Civil War and Cromwell’s Interregnum might never have happened. There would have been no Caroline Restoration and the Hanoverians would never have succeeded to the English throne. Queen Victoria would never have reigned, and Queen Elizabeth II would not be here today. Our hitherto unrecorded portrayal of the ill-fated princess is almost certainly Corneille’s ad vivum original. Recent infra-red reflectography has revealed ‘the presence of a freely applied underdrawing’, corroborating the spontaneity of a painting drawn from life.2 Although Madeleine’s iconography based on this portrait type was already known through several versions – some from the Corneille studio and others of a much later date – all are of varying and lesser quality than the present work. The closest is a tondo replica at the Fogg Art Museum, in which she wears an identical dress with Italianate sleeves of white silk emerging from slashed black velvet.3

STUDIO OF CORNEILLE DE LYON (c.1500 – 1575)

Madeleine of France

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An almost identical dress is worn by her sister-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici (1519 – 1589), in a portrait by Corneille (now at Polesden Lacey, National Trust). That portrait is widely accepted as dating from 1536, the year that Catherine became Dauphine, and significantly, the same year as Madeleine’s courtship with James V.4 In two other well-documented portraits of Madeleine, she is presented in an entirely different dress with ermine sleeves, appearing marginally older. One of these, clearly a studio replica, is housed at Versaille, and the other, previously at the Musée des Beaux Arts de Blois, was stolen and subsequently destroyed.5 It is possible that the use of ermine, often associated with the iconography of royalty, may reference Madeleine’s subsequent married status as Queen.

4. We are grateful to Professor Aileen Ribeiro and Dr. Margaret Scott for corroborating the dating of this style of dress to 1536, and for suggesting that Corneille may well have worked on Catherine and Madeleine’s portraits at the same time, deriving the dress from the same preparatory drawing 5. Anne Dubois de Groer, ibid., pp.112–113, nos.11 & 11A. 6. Alexandra Zvereva has argued that our portrait represents Madeleine’s younger sister Marguerite (1523–1574), however the iconography for Marguerite of France depicts a woman with an entirely different facial shape – long rather than oval, with a large nose similar to her father Francois I, and totally dissimilar to the iconography for Madeleine. If the portrait were of Marguerite, it would require our painting to date from the 1540s, at which point the fashion would be for a different sleeve than represented here, as discussed above. 7. We are grateful to Geoffrey Munn for his analysis of Madeleine’s necklace. 8. The Versaille and Blois type likely provided the source for this portrayal of Madeleine amongst her family.

STUDIO OF CORNEILLE DE LYON (c.1500 – 1575)

Madeleine of France (1520 – 1536) c.1537 © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Blois

In all of Madeleine’s iconography, the facial similarity to our portrait is clear, with its delicate oval shape and her petite nose.6 Likewise, in all of her portraits, she is depicted in the exact same head-dress and jewelled necklace, with distinct, lozenge-shaped diamonds interspersed with pearls and rubies. The small rubies, their size consistent with a virgin bride, are the alter ego of roses in the lore of lapidary, and both are primary attributes of Venus. The pearls represent purity and, like Venus, are born of the sea and the shell. Consequently, the jewels together are appropriate signs of Madeleine’s enduring love for James V of Scotland.7 Madeleine is even depicted wearing the same necklace in the later miniature group portrait with her mother, Claude of France, and other kinswomen, forming part of Catherine de’ Medici’s Livre d’Heures (Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris), of c.1570s.8 In that exquisite illuminated manuscript, Madeleine is positioned top right amongst the women of her family, quite literally ‘elevated’ by her royal status as Queen consort of Scotland.

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THE BOOK OF HOURS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI, c.1570s

The daughters of Francǫis I with his wives Claude of France (1499 – 1524) and Eleanor of Austria (1498 – 1558) © Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Corneille de La Haye, called Corneille de Lyon was a Protestant Dutch émigré artist and one of the finest portrait painters of the French Renaissance. His art was strongly influenced by the tradition of the portrait miniature, following the lead of Jean Perréal (b.after 1450 – d.after 1530), and in this respect his work also shared an affinity with his near-exact contemporary in the French royal court, François Clouet (c.1516 – 1572). Corneille above all achieved a delicate naturalism in his portraiture, executed with sensitivity and refinement. He arguably captured more humanity in his diminutive likenesses than any other portraitist of his time. All his works are bust- or half-length, lit dramatically from the side and usually set against a green background, as here. On this scale, Corneille conveys an intimate rapport, even though in our portrait of Madeleine, she averts her eyes with a degree of regal remove. It is uncertain whether Corneille was apprenticed in his native city of The Hague, as nothing is known of him before 1533, when he was first recorded in the Valois court as painter to François I’s second wife, Eleanor of Austria (1498 – 1558). In 1541, he was appointed official painter to the Dauphin (later Henri II (1519 – 1559)), and ultimately at Henri’s succession became Peintre du Roi. Corneille’s studio was extremely prosperous until c.1565, and it may be that a decline in his fortunes was precipitated by the reversion of Lyon to Catholicism at that time. In 1569 the painter and his family, despite all the protection they could call on, were forced to recant. Nonetheless, the artist’s sons, Corneille de La Haye II (b.1543), Jacques de La Haye and his daughter Clémence de La Haye, were all painters, and the family continued to be active as artists until the 18th century.

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3. ANTONIUS CL AEISSENS (1541/2 – 1613)

Robert van Belle, Lord of Schonewalle (c.1539/40 – c.1572) Oil on panel: 14 × 10 7⁄8 in. (35.6 × 27.8 cm.) Dated upper left to right: ‘ANo DNI ~ 1563 ~ ÆTATIS· SVE ~ 24 ~’ PROVENANCE

By repute, in the family of the previous owner since at least the beginning of the 20th century; Private collection, Paris, until 2019.

R 1. For further information on the sitter, see Ludo Vandamme, ‘Een opstandige edelman en zijn geschilderd portret: Robert van Belle, heer van Schonewalle (c.1540–c.1572)’, in: Genootschap voor geschiedenis, no.143/1-2, pp.247-274, 2006. 2. Inventory number P844.

obert van Belle, Lord of Schonwalle, was a Flemish aristocrat from southwest Flanders. His family over several generations had occupied high positions in the city of Bruges, whether mayoral or in the alderman’s office. Robert was a younger son, and was an active Calvinist at a time of great religious unrest. In the late 1560s he fled to London, where he continued to support the uprising against invading Catholic forces from Spain. He seems to have earned a living at this time as a merchant, and is recorded in January 1572 as having hijacked a Spanish ship near the Isle of Wight.1 There is no record of his activities after this year, and it is possible that he died in London. His identity is confirmed by another portrait of Van Belle by the artist, painted some two years later, (hitherto erroneously identified as the work of Pieter Pourbus), at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.2

ANTONIUS CLAEISSENS (1541/2 – 1613)

Robert van Belle, Lord of Schonewalle (c.1539/40 – c.1572), 1565 © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille

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Our painting can also be compared with Claeissens’ portrait of twenty-two-year-old Adolf van Cortenbach (1540 – 1594), (Gemeentemuseum, Helmond), also painted in 1563. In both works the young men are presented in identical suits. This shines a fascinating light on the artistic practices of Antonius Claeissens, and the choices he offered his clients – whether the clothes were props from the artist’s studio, or chosen from a pattern book.

ANTONIUS CLAEISSENS (1541/2 – 1613)

Adolf van Cortenbach (1540 – 1594), 1563 © Museum Helmond, Helmond

3. For further discussion of Antonius Claiessens, see A. van Oosterwijk (ed.), Forgotten Masters: Pieter Pourbus and Bruges Painting from 1525–1625, 2018, p.303.

The inscription on our portrait is written in an identical format and style to various monogrammed works by Pieter Pourbus (c.1523 – 1584), in whose workshop Antonius Claeissens trained. As such, works by Antonius have often been attributed to his master, and sometimes even to his elder brother, the better-known artist, Gillis Claiessens (c.1536 – 1605). We are grateful to Dr. Alexandra Zvereva for confirming the attribution of the present painting on stylistic grounds to Antonius, characterised by the sitter’s pronounced and elongated fingers with peculiarly squared nails, and the artist’s close attention to perspective and proportion. Notably, in Antonius’s small portraits, the sitters’ arms are often shown exiting the picture plane, as here.3

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ANTONIUS CLAEISSENS (1541/2 – 1613)

A Family saying grace before a meal c.1585 Formerly with The Weiss Gallery, sold to The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1990.

Antonius Claeissens was the fourth son of the artist Pieter Claeissens I and Marie Meese. He was trained by his father before entering the workshop of Pieter Pourbus, and on 17 September 1570 he became a master painter, a few months before his older brother, Pieter II. Pourbus may have helped Antonius obtain his appointment as the town’s official painter, with an associated income, at which point he set up his own workshop. Like his father and brothers, Gillis and Pieter II, Antonius repeatedly occupied a seat on the painters’ guild council, serving as a dean. Like his brothers, he was also a member of St. Sebastian’s archery guild. Antonius’s oeuvre has been reconstructed on the basis of signed and dated works and archival evidence. There are records of payments for services rendered in both municipal and church accounts, and most of his private commissions came from the Bruges area – such as the Spanish Pardo family, c.1584, merchants based in Bruges (Groeningemuseum). On 24 June 1571, Antonius married Elisabeth Roelants; they had several daughters and certainly one son, also known as Pieter IV, following in the family tradition by becoming a painter as well. He died on 18 January 1613 and was buried in the St. Giles cemetery in Bruges.

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4 . G E O R G E G O W E R (c.1540 – 1596)

George Goring Jnr (c.1555 – 1602) of Ovingdean and Danny Park, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex Oil on panel: 26 ¾ × 22 in. (67.9 × 55.8 cm.) Inscribed and dated upper left: ‘Ao DNI.1581./AEtatis Suae.26.’ Charged with the Goring coat-of-arms, upper right PROVENANCE

Presumably commissioned by the sitter; and by descent at Danny Park; presumably to Peter Courthope (1577 – 1657) who purchased the estate in 1652; Private collection, Austria, until 2018.

his archetypal Elizabethan portrait exemplifies the haughty swagger that Gower so effortlessly imbued in his sitters, conveying a firm sense of character through his markedly linear handling. It represents an important addition to the artist’s oeuvre, being previously unknown and unrecorded. It was painted in 1581, a pivotal year for Gower, when he was appointed ‘Sergeant-Painter to the Queen’, with an annuity of £10. The duties of this office had traditionally been decorative and heraldic, so apart from being the first English-born artist to achieve courtly success, Gower appears to have been the first portraitist to hold this post. Thus, he became the principal architect of the queen’s iconography, remaining the pre-eminent painter at Elizabeth I’s court for most of her reign.1 It was an extraordinary achievement for an Englishman, at a time when Gower’s contemporaries in London were born and trained overseas, hitherto the artistic status quo. Although it can be argued that his peers achieved greater levels of realism and more painterly effects, none could match Gower’s uniquely English style and finish. Among his best known works are a pair of bust-length portraits at Tate Britain, of Sir Thomas Kytson and his wife, Lady Kytson, dating from 1573. Technical analysis of those two works by the conservator Rica Jones revealed Gower’s use of intermediate varnishes during the course of painting to ensure maximum saturation of the paint, providing a unique clarity of colour. This is apparently also evident in the artist’s Self Portrait of 1579, the first such in large-scale by an English artist. It is fair to assume, looking at George Goring here with his dazzling and typically icy palette, that Gower has accordingly saturated the layers of paint in this exquisitely accomplished and indeed typical work.

1. Karen Hearn notes in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that it has not proved possible to identify definitively any portraits of the queen by Gower, though he has been proposed as the author of the ‘Armada’ portraits of about 1588–9 (Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire; and National Portrait Gallery on loan to Montacute House).

In our portrait, the courtly aspirations of the twenty-six-year old George Goring are vibrantly captured by Gower through the sitter’s resplendent costume. He wears a fine reticella lace cartwheel ruff, and his black velvet cloak is abundantly embroidered with grape vines and acorns in costly silver and gold thread. Golden acorns further adorn his doublet and the buttons themselves are acorn-shaped, all symbolising Goring’s status as the scion of a dynasty from which a ‘great oak’ would grow. His right sleeve is unbuttoned to reveal the embroidered initials of his wife, Anne Denny, on his under-shirt – a garment worn literally and metaphorically close to the heart, providing a dash of Elizabethan romance and whimsy.

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Anne Denny (b. c.1549/50 – after 1602), was the daughter of one of Henry VIII’s most trusted courtiers and advisors, Anthony Denny (1501 – 1549), of Waltham Abbey, Essex. Denny was Keeper of Hatfield House (where the young Princess Elizabeth spent much of her childhood), and then of Westminster palace and latterly of Henry VIII’s royal household. He was the most prominent member of the Privy chamber in Henry’s last years, having charge of the ‘dry stamp’ of the royal signature, and acting as an Executor of the king’s will. He was even given the use of the Windsor crest in the 1st and 4th quadrants of his own coat-of-arms. Though Anne’s father died around the time of her birth, this royal connection and indeed the wealth that she brought to Goring, were essential in elevating the status of our sitter to the point we see here in 1581, the probable year of his marriage. Notably, Anne was some five years older than her younger husband. George Goring Jnr, MP for Lewes in 1593 and 1601, was the eldest son of George Goring Snr (c.1522 – 1594), also an MP for Lewes (elected to the English parliament in 1563). Goring Snr purchased an impressive estate in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex, a year after the present portrait was painted, and there at great expense he built Danny House, the construction of which was not finished until a year after his death. This extraordinary mansion, which would later house an exceptional art collection, was constructed in the shape of the letter ‘E’ in honour of the Queen, who had been on the throne for over thirty years by that time. Goring Jnr ultimately became responsible for both the house and his father’s associated debts, which amounted to the substantial sum of £20,000, but through favourable connections with Sir Robert Cecil (1563 – 1612), 1st Earl of Salisbury, (to whom he and his wife regularly sent presents in gratitude), George managed to avoid the forcible sale of Danny Park. In 1596, Sir Walter Raleigh allowed Goring to try to repair his fortunes by prospecting for iron on some of his lands in Munster.

2. After four generations of Gorings, Danny was sold to Peter Courthope in 1652.

He died on 7 February 1602, leaving lands in Dorset and Sussex to his brothers-in-law, with the provision of portions for his four daughters. Anne was left as his sole executrix with the house at Danny Park, until their eldest son George reached his majority.2 Colonel George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich (1585 – 1663), like his father and grandfather, went on to become an MP for Lewes, and was knighted in 1608. A favourite of Charles I of England, he took a prominent royalist role in the Civil War of 1648.

Danny House, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex © Richard Burrows

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5 . M A R C U S G H E E R A E RT S ( c . 1 5 6 1 – 1 6 3 6 )

Cecily Manners, née Tufton (1587 – 1653), Countess of Rutland Oil on panel: 35 3⁄4 × 27 3⁄4 in. (90.8 × 70.5 cm.) Painted c.1612 – 1613 PROVENANCE

(Possibly) Foster’s, London, 7 November 1833, lot 141 (as ‘Mark Garrads, Mary Sydney, Countess of Pembroke’);1 with Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell, 160 New Bond Street, London (as ‘Countess of Pembroke’); bt. by Durand-Ruel of Paris and New York, 27 September 1901 for £300; sold to William Rockhill Nelson, Kansas City, on 27 February 1902; gifted to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; by whom sold at Sotheby’s London, 31 March 1999, lot 65 (as ‘Frances Knyvett, Countess of Rutland’); Private collection, England, until 2019. L I T E R AT U R E

W.A. Bostick (ed.), The World of Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616, Virginia 1964. R. Strong, The English Icon: Elizabethan Jacobean Portraiture, London 1969, p.301, no.309 (illus. as ‘Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke’). R.E. Taggart and G.L. McKenna (ed.), Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri: Art of the Occident, Kansas 1973, p.257. Southeastern College Art Conference Review, Vol. 11 (1986), p.51 (where re-identified as ‘Elizabeth Sidney, Countess of Rutland’). C. Wright, The World’s Master Paintings: From the Early Renaissance to the Present Day, vol. I, Michigan 1992, p.185 (as ‘Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke [?]’). B.L. Dunbar (ed.), The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450 – 1600, Seattle 2005, p.15 (as ‘Frances Knyvett’). L.C. Orlin, Material London, c.1600, London 2012, p.149 (as ‘Frances Knyvett, Countess of Rutland’). E XHIBITED

Richmond, Virginia and Detroit, Institute of Arts, The World of Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616, 1964. Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Those Beguiling Women, 27 September to 30 October 1983, no.14 (as ‘Mary Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke’ by Marcus Gheeraerts). 1. This was a sale of portraits of the sort regularly held by the dealer Horatio Rodd, who may have been the principal consigner. One of the lots, no.78 by Carel de Moor, almost certainly had been consigned by the dealer Josiah Taylor, as he had done for other sales of portraits, mostly the property of Rodd.

his spectacular costume piece is by Marcus Gheeraerts, arguably the most significant and best known of all Elizabethan and Jacobean court painters, whose long career reached its apogee in the last decade of Queen Elizabeth’s reign and the first two of King James’s. Amongst Gheeraerts’ most renowned works – all full-lengths – are the so-called ‘Ditchley’ portrait of Elizabeth I, from c.1592 (NPG); Captain Thomas Lee, from 1594 (Tate Britain); and Anne of Denmark, from c.1611 – 1614 (Woburn Abbey).

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Hitherto, our portrait has been incorrectly identified as ‘Mary Sydney, Countess of Pembroke (1585 – 1612)’, and more recently as ‘Frances Knyvett, Countess of Rutland (c.1566 – c.1605)’. However, since the costume can be dated stylistically to between 1612 – 1615, it almost certainly depicts the 6th Earl of Rutland’s second wife, Cecily Tufton (1587 – 1653),2 whom he had married in 1608. A full-length portrait of Cecily, now in the collection of the Colchester and Ipswich Borough Council Collection, shows a young woman with blonde curls, and facial features very similar to our sitter. As well as the present three-quarter length, Gheeraerts also painted a full-length version that has descended to the current Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. Although the very early provenance of our three-quarter-length version is unknown, it was presumably painted for someone within the close family circle. In the first years of the twentieth century, our portrait passed through two legendary dealers, Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell as well as Durand-Ruel from whom it found its way into the collection of W.R. Nelson, one of the co-founders of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas, from which it was deaccessioned in 1999. It is likely that Cecily’s portrait was commissioned to celebrate her becoming countess after her husband Francis’s succession to the Earldom on 26 June 1612, following the death of his elder brother Roger, the 5th Earl. Francis was also appointed lord-lieutenant of Lincolnshire on 15 July of that year, and on 7 August he and Cecily entertained King James I at Belvoir, in what was an ‘aestas mirabilis’ for the couple.

MARCUS GHEER AERTS (c.1561 – 1636)

Cecily Manners, Countess of Rutland (1587 – 1653) Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire © Bridgeman Images

Here, Cecily wears an exquisitely embroidered bodice of polychrome silk and drawn gold wire, fastened with carnation-red silk bows, and a very fine suit of cutwork and Italian needle lace: band, edging, double-cuffs and cap. Her loose gown is of matching carnation-red silk embroidered with silver, finished with a scalloped-cut border, artfully arranged to reveal an ivory silk lining, embellished with silver-gilt spangles. It is an extraordinary display of wealth through finery, fit for a queen. She holds her left hand across her bodice, beneath the gown, a gesture to signify her fruitfulness. The embroidery incorporates peapods, cherries and rose buds, all further alluding to Cecily’s fertility, as well as blue gentian flowers, associated with the Virgin Mary. Significantly, the two peacocks embroidered at her dramatically low neck-line are references to the Rutland armorial which

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incorporates this bird. Motifs from nature dominated English embroidery from the second half of the sixteenth century, and their symbolism was also closely associated with a growing interest in horticulture and medicinal uses of plants and flowers. The swirling ornamental motifs of sinuous and branching scrolls elaborated with leaves and other natural forms on Cecily’s bodice, called rinceaux, overlap and meander across individual motifs, encircling them in an alternating clockwise and anticlockwise pattern.3 The countess wears a table-cut diamond ring and black silk threads as a form of jewellery – a particularly Jacobean fashion to show off the sitter’s pearly white skin. She also wears a generous string of pearls wrapped at least five times around her left wrist, and a large pearl-drop earring, from which there is fastened a love-lock of dark hair coiled like a spring and in contrast to her own, presumably the 6th Earl of Rutland’s.

2. We are grateful to Dr. Susan North of the Victoria and Albert Museum for dating our portrait on the basis of the construction of the informal style of day dress to around 1612–1615, in an email to The Weiss Gallery, 12 December 2019. 3. A remarkable surviving example of this form of decoration can be seen embroidered onto Margaret Layton’s jacket, from c.1610– 1615 (V&A Museum). 4. The inscription on the Earl’s tomb in St. Mary the Virgin’s Church, Bottesford, gives the death of both their sons to sorcery, stating that: ‘In 1608 he married ye lady Cecila Hungerford, daughter to ye Honorable Knight of Sir John Tufton, by whom he had two sons, both of which died in their infancy by wicket practises and sorcerye.’ 5. See E. Town, ‘A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625’, The Walpole Society, 2014, pp.87-88.

Cecily Tufton was the daughter of Sir John Tufton, 1st Bt. of Hothfield in Kent, by his second wife Christian (Browne). Her first husband was Sir Edward Hungerford of Farley Castle, Wiltshire, and she married as a widow the future 6th Earl of Rutland, Francis Manners (1578 – 1632), of Belvoir Castle, in late 1608. He himself had firstly married Frances Knyvett in 1602 (to whom our portrait was previously incorrectly identified, who died around 1605). Cecily and Francis had two sons, Henry, Lord Ross (d. late 1613) and Francis (d. 5 March 1620), both of whom died as infants. The death of Henry was sensationally attributed to sorcery: three servants, a mother and her two daughters, were dubbed ‘the witches of Belvoir’, and accused of poisoning the young Lord Ross.4 The mother died during interrogation, and the daughters subsequently confessed and were hanged. One can only imagine the ordeal these women were subjected to at a time when sorcery was a pet fascination of James I. It marked a tragic end to the family’s happiness; Cecily did not have any more children, and went on to out-live her husband, who died in December 1632, by some years. She was buried in St. Nicholas’ chapel in Westminster Abbey on 11 September 1653, though she has no monument or marker. Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger was born in Bruges in 1561, the son of the painter Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, with whom he would train. When he reached the age of seven, the family moved to London, firstly settling in St. Mary Abchurch, and finally moving to the parish of Christ Church Newgate Street, from 1599 until his death in 1636. He was hugely successful, and established a quintessentially Elizabethan aesthetic that endured through the reign of James I. On 4 July 1611, Gheeraerts was paid £79 by the royal household for three portraits of James I, Queen Anne and Princess Elizabeth, to be sent to the Marquess of Brandenburg, and also a portrait of the future Charles I to be sent to Scotland to the Lord Chancellor’s sister. In 1613, ‘Mr Marcus’ was paid £20 by Lord Harrington, Princess Elizabeth’s treasurer, for a ‘picture of her grace made at the whole length’, to be given to John Murray of the Bedchamber.5 It is in this hugely successful context that our portrait was painted around 1613. After the death of Queen Anne in 1619, Gheeraerts somewhat fell from courtly favour, usurped by newly-arrived Flemish artists, Paul van Somer and Daniel Mytens. His later paintings were of less prestigious sitters but he continued nonetheless to paint a steady stream of worthy gentry and professionals until his death in his local parish in January of 1636.

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6 . W I L L IA M L A R K I N ( c. 1 5 8 5 – 1 6 1 9 )

A Noble Baby Oil on panel: 35 1⁄2 × 28 in. (90.1 × 71.1 cm.) Painted c.1615 PROVENANCE

Reputedly by descent in the Lambert family until Richard Stanton Lambert (1894 – 1981); and to his daughter Mrs Jessica Riddell (1924 – 2012), Ontario, Canada; Sotheby’s New York, 5 June 1986, lot 109 (as ‘English School c.1615, An Unknown Noble Baby, called Lady Waugh’); The Weiss Gallery; London, by whom sold in 1987 to Private collection, USA. L I T E R AT U R E

The Weiss Gallery, English Portraits 1530 – 1650, 1986, cat.no.9. R. Strong, William Larkin: Icons of Splendour, 1995, nos.34, pp.114–115.

1. If she had been the daughter of a Duke, Marquess or Earl, she would have been described as ‘Lady (Christian name) Waugh’. Waugh would therefore have been either her maiden name or that of her husband. 2. A pair of oval portraits of his patrons Sir Edward Herbert (1583–1648), later 1st Baron Cherbury and Sir Thomas Lucy (1584–1640) at Charlecote Park (National Trust), referred to by Lord Herbert in his autobiography were first identified as the work of Larkin by James Lees-Milne, ‘Two Portraits at Charlecote Park by William Larkin’, Burlington Magazine, XCIV, 1952, pp.352-356. Sir Roy Strong subsequently was the first to assemble his oeuvre around these two, documented works.

his is the only known portrait by Larkin depicting a baby, and it was first re-attributed to the artist by Mark Weiss in 1986. Over the years, The Weiss Gallery has handled nine fully autograph works by William Larkin, whose known oeuvre today numbers no more than fifty paintings. Of these, we have sold three to museums; The National Portrait Gallery, London; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; and The National Gallery of Hungary, Budapest. Whilst a traditional identification of the baby as ‘Lady Waugh’ suggests this young child would have been a peeress in her own right, or have subsequently become the wife of a Knight, Baronet or peer of the rank of Marquess or lower, there is no Duke, Marquess, or Earl with the surname of Waugh to be traced1. She has been placed by Larkin within the full apparatus of pictorial convetions for Jacobean court portraiture, with a highly formalised curtain in the background. For many years, Larkin’s portraits were ascribed to ‘The Curtain Master’, because of the sitters’ presentation within draped curtains.2 These formalised swags of silk were a device Larkin commonly employed to frame his subjects, often replicating almost identical folds. The damask cushion on which the baby is placed is equally rich, with red silk tassels and gold trim. In an age when infant mortality made survival to adulthood such an achievement, this child’s importance within her own family can be imagined.

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3. R. Strong, William Larkin: Icons of Splendour, (op. cit.).

Roy Strong has noted that ‘there are no internal clues to a closer dating [of this work], for the dress could be any time during Larkin’s working career, [however], the carpet border is one which appears in the Suffolk series of Isabella Rich, which suggests a dating to around 1615’.3 The carpet would have been made in west Anatolia between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, commonly called a ‘Holbein pattern’ because of its use in his double portrait of The Ambassadors (National Gallery, London).

WILLIAM LARKIN (c.1580 – 1619)

Lady Isabella Rich, 1615

The Suffolk Collection, Kenwood House, London © English Heritage

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Little is known of William Larkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life and career, which was cut short by his death in 1619, the same year that Nicholas Hilliard and the Queen, Anne of Denmark, died. It is almost certain that he was the son of an innkeeper also named William Larkin, living in the parish of St. Sepulchre, and that he was a close neighbour of the royal portrait painter Robert Peake, with whom he may well have trained. Although Larkin never occupied an official position at court, he is celebrated for his spectacularly decorative full-length portraits of members of the court of James I of England. He is most famous for his celebrated set of nine magnificent full-length portraits that descended with the Earls of Suffolk, and now hang at Kenwood House. His exaggerated, iconographic style has been likened to miniature painting on a grand scale, reflecting a particularly English aesthetic, and his distinguished clientele included the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the Earl and Countess of Dorset.

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7 . PAU L VA N S O M E R (c.1577 – 1622)

Sir Thomas Dallison, 2nd Bt. of Laughton (1591 – 1645) Oil on canvas: 43 × 35 1⁄4 in. (109.2 × 89.5 cm.) In a fine English 18th century carved, pierced and gilded frame Painted c.1620 PROVENANCE

By descent to Sir Thomas Dallison (d.1691), Greetwell Hall, Lincolnshire; thence by descent to Maximilian D. P. Dalison (1881 – 1956), Plaxtol, Kent; thence by descent until 2018.

his striking Jacobean costume piece, which descended in the sitter’s family until 2018, is one of the most beguiling examples of Paul Van Somer’s work. He has rendered the young Thomas Dallison’s face with a soft sfumato brush-work in a feat of realism that represents a huge shift from the iconographic and mask-like portraits of a generation earlier in Elizabethan England. Thomas was clearly a young man of substance and ambition, and Van Somer has accordingly rendered his clothes with meticulous detail. Sir Thomas’s magnificent red silk suit would have been worn as formal court dress, and his accessories are of the highest fashion and expense – from the dropped lace collar and cuffs, to the kid gloves and blue-dyed ostrich-plumed hat. Most costly of all are the extravagantly silver-embroidered mantle and sash, from which decorative silver lace chapes jauntily dangle. Thomas was the son of Sir Roger Dallison MP, 1st Bt. Laughton (c.1562 – 1620), and his second wife Elizabeth Tyrwhitt. He became heir to the estate after his elder brother’s death, shortly before his father died in 1620. That same year he and his mother successfully petitioned King James I to return the family manor, which had been used as collateral to repay his father’s debts, and it is likely that our portrait was painted around this time.

1. See: History of Parliament online. 2. He was also a Colonel of the Horse under Prince Rupert’s forces.

However, in May 1624, Thomas’s claim to his father’s baronetcy was jeopardised when it emerged that the seal for the grant had been omitted from the register by clerical error. Despite concerns expressed by the king to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Conway, that Thomas’s reduced estate ‘might be prejudicial to the orders of the institution’,1 Thomas was created a baronet by a special grant the following October. Dallison continued in royal favour over the decades, and was appointed a captain of the Royalist army in 1639 and a Commissioner of Array in Lincolnshire in 1642.2 He was killed at the battle of Naseby in June 1645.

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Paul van Somer (also known as Paulus) was a Flemish émigré artist, as were many other painters in England at the time. He came to London from Antwerp in 1616, and was immediately appointed court painter to James I, bringing with him a new grandeur and naturalism to British royal iconography. Two of his best-known works are his portraits of James I from 1616 and of Queen Anne in hunting attire with her dogs, from 1617 (Hampton Court). These very much established Van Somer’s position as the royal favourite, supplanting John de Critz and Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Surprisingly little is known of Van Somer’s training, given he arrived in England as a mature artist, but according to Karel van Mander, he was the brother of the artist Barend van Someren. As well as the king and queen, his patrons included powerful members of the royal circle, such as Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, Elizabeth Stanley, Countess of Huntingdon, Lady Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, and Lady Anne Clifford, who referred in her diary to sitting to Van Somer on 30 August 1619. In many ways, Van Somer can be said to have paved the way at the British court for fellow Flemish artists Daniel Mytens and Sir Anthony Van Dyck, much as Jacob de Critz and Marcus Gheeraerts had made way for him. Indeed, Mytens settled in London by 1618, where he was Van Somer’s close neighbour in St. Martin’s Lane, Covent Garden.

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8 . N I C O L A E S E L IA S Z . P I C K E N OY ( 1 5 8 8 – c. 1 6 5 0 )

Frederik Dircksz. van Alewijn (1603 – 1665) Oil on panel: 51 1⁄8 × 36 1⁄4 in. (129.9 × 92 cm.) With a label for the Embassy of the Netherlands in Paris, verso Likely in its original black and gold frame Painted c.1632 – 1637 PROVENANCE

By descent to Dirk Margarethus Alewijn (1816 – 1885), Heemstede; His estate sale, C.F. Roos & Co., Amsterdam, 16 December 1885, lot 75 (as ‘Frederik Alewijn by Dirk Santvoort’); bt. by Alphonse de Stuers (1841 – 1919), The Hague and Paris; presumably to his brother Victor de Stuers (1843 – 1916), The Hague and Kasteel de Wiersse, Vorden; to his daughter Alice de Stuers, Lady van de Wiersse (1895 – 1988), by 1918; Private collection, Austria. L I T E R AT U R E

J. Six, ‘Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy’ from Oud Holland, vol.4 (Amsterdam, 1886), p.95.

his beautifully preserved and astonishingly life-like portrait depicts a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, Frederik Dircksz. van Alewijn (1603 – 1665). Comparison with another, later portrait of the same man by Dirck Dircksz. Santvoort (in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), has enabled us to restore our sitter’s identity, hitherto lost for a century.

DIRCK DIRCKSZ. VAN SANTVOORT (1609 – 1680)

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Van Alewijn is presented to the viewer, contrapposto, with his mantle draped over his shoulder and wrapped around his waist, left arm akimbo, hand on hip. His black attire may not look ostentatious, but in fact black dye was the costliest pigment at the time. Likewise, his starched white collar and matching cuffs of Flemish bobbin lace are an expensive status symbol, executed deftly and with great attention to detail. The cuff of the left arm is portrayed in foreshortened perspective to give the illusion of depth, in a painterly tour de force. Pickenoy imbued his sitters with ‘tranquillitas’: the neo-stoic ideal of keeping control of one’s emotions. Despite this unwritten artistic rule, he nonetheless developed and adopted idiosyncracies to make his sitters appear more spontaneous and natural. Those qualities are shown to great effect here – an honourable and realistic likeness, with an accurate portrayal of his costly wardrobe, as well as the covetable ‘tranquillitas’. Interestingly, in our portrait Van Alewijn’s body and face are directed towards our left. Usually in portraiture, this pose was reserved for a woman, (with the husband standing on the other side – body and face directed to his wife). This unusual stance suggests that our portrait was painted when the sitter was a bachelor, giving us a terminus ante quem of 1637, the year he married Agatha Geelvinck (1617 – 1638), daughter of Amsterdam’s mayor, Jan Cornelisz. Geelvinck. His costume conforms with this dating, and stylistically, the portrait can be compared to Pickenoy’s Civic Guard Painting of District IX of 1632 (Amsterdam Museum), which shows similar bold brushwork in the heads.

1. According to Jan Six, (op. cit.), three other Pickenoy portraits from the 1885 Alewijn sale were bought for the Rijksmuseum (their attribution to Pickenoy has since been downgraded). 2. Victor de Stuers was an influential art historian and administrator who did much to promote and preserve the integrity of Dutch institutional art collections. He discovered Vermeer’s masterpiece The Girl with the Pearl Earring when it was being sold anonymously at an auction in The Hague. He entered an agreement with the buyer that he would not bid on it so long as they promised to bequeath the painting to the Mauritshuis, which they did in 1902. 3. See: L. Sorenen (ed.), “Stuers, Victor Eugène Louis de, Jonkheer.” from Dictionary of Art Historians.

A significant article dedicated to the life of Pickenoy, written in 1886 by Prof. Jan Six (1857 – 1925) explicitly refers to our portrait, dating it to c.1632. Six was the first to re-attribute the painting to Pickenoy after it had previously been sold as a ‘Santvoort’ in the Alewijn family sale of the previous year.1 He noted that it had been purchased by ‘Mr. A. de Stuers’ – the diplomat Alphonse de Stuers (1841 – 1919). Alphonse and his brother, Victor de Stuers (1843 – 1916), were at that time prominent collectors of Dutch old master paintings and other objects.2 By 1918 our painting had passed via his brother Victor, to Alice de Stuers, Lady van de Wiersse (1895 – 1988).3 The artist might not be a household name today, but between 1625 – 1640, Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy was the most sought-after portrait painter in the thriving city of Amsterdam, keeping this coveted position even when Rembrandt settled there in the early 1630s. He was the son of Elias Claesz., an armorial mason, and Heijltje Laurens d’Jonge, both from Antwerp. Although we don’t know with whom Pickenoy trained, it was most probably with Cornelis van der Voort (1576 – 1624), the leading Amsterdam portraitist of his time, and whose workshop Pickenoy took over after the latter’s death. His career took off seriously in 1625, when he received at least three commissions for group portraits, and in 1634, he acted as Head of the Amsterdam painters’ guild. Besides several biblical and mythological scenes, Pickenoy’s production largely consisted of portraits. He painted no less than five civic guard paintings and four group portraits for craft guilds or charitable institutions, making him even more productive in this field than his most successful pupil, Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613 – 1670).

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Frederick Alewijn (1603 – 1665), was the son of Dirck Alewijn (1571 – 1637) and Maria Schurman (1575 – 1621). He studied in Leiden, becoming the first of his family to be admitted as a regenten in Amsterdam’s ruling class. Latterly he was appointed Lieutenant of the Militia in 1650, then Captain in 1657. Unfortunately, Alewijn’s first wife Agatha died only five months after their nuptials, and so in 1640 he married secondly the widow of Dirck de Graeff, Eva Bicker (1609 – 1665), (daughter of Jacob Bicker). The Alewijn, Geelvinck, Bicker, and de Graeff families were amongst the most influential in Amsterdam’s republican ruling class and major patrons of the arts. Notably, Eva Bicker was also painted by Pickenoy during her first marriage, in pendant to her then husband (both on loan to Adel High Council in The Hague).

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9 . S I R A N T H O N Y VA N DYC K ( 1 5 9 9 – 1 6 4 1 )

Mary Barber, later Lady Jermyn (d.1679) [?] Oil on canvas: 48 × 37 1⁄4 in. (122 × 94.5 cm.) Painted c.1637 PROVENANCE

Probably in the collection of Henry, 3rd Vis. Brouncker (d.1688), and bequeathed to Sir Charles Lyttleton 3rd Bt. (1629 – 1716);1 by descent at Hagley Hall, Worcestershire, until Christopher Charles Lyttleton, 12th Viscount Cobham (b.1947); by whom sold Sotheby’s London, 5 June 2008, lot 11; Private collection, England, until 2019. L I T E R AT U R E

John Loveday of Cavesham (1711 – 1789), ed. S. Markham, 1984, p. 508 (‘at Hagley, 13th – 14th July 1765, as the Duchess of Buckingham by Van Dyck’); A Description of Hagley Park by the author of Letters on the Beauty of Hagley, Envil and Leasowes, Birmingham 1777, p.10 (as ‘The Duchess of Buckingham, Daughter to Lord Fairfax; by Van Dyck’); J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, 1831, no.492; J. Guiffrey, Antoine Van Dyck: sa vie et son oeuvre, 1882, no.419; L. Cust, Anthony Van Dyck: A Historical Study of His Life and Works, 1900, p.271; Catalogue of the Pictures at Hagley Hall, 1900, no.17; E. Larsen, The Paintings of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, 1988, no.269; W. Musgrave, ‘Lists of Portraits’, ed. A. Meyer, Walpole Society, vol.54, 1991; S. J. Barnes et alia (eds.), Van Dyck, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, 2004, p.622, no.IV. 252. E XHIBITED 1. Henry, 3rd Viscount Brouncker, bequeathed his pictures along with the rest of his property to his friend General Sir Charles Lyttleton in 1688. Lord Brouncker’s cousins, Henry, Daunsey and William Brouncker and Martha Hartley challenged the will unsuccessfully in 1688.

London, South Kensington Museum, National Portraits Exhibition, 1866, no.902. Worcester, Worcestershire Exhibition, 1882 (as ‘Duchess of Buckingham’). London, Grosvenor Gallery, Exhibition of the Works of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, 1887, no.27. Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, 1926, no.32. London, Royal Academy of Arts, 17th Century Art in Europe, 1938. London, Royal Academy of Arts, Flemish Exhibition, 1953 – 1954, no.297.

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his sumptuous portrait of a lady from the court of Charles I captures all the elements that made Van Dyck one of the most influential and significant portraitists of his day. Freely and quickly painted, with delicate glazes and a simple and fresh palette, this well-documented and much-exhibited painting was one of the jewels of the Lyttelton family collection at Hagley Hall until it was sold by the 12th Viscount Cobham in 2008. Dated by Sir Oliver Millar on the basis of costume and handling to c.1637, it was painted at a golden moment in Van Dyck’s career in England, contemporary with some of the artist’s finest female portraits, among them Queen Henrietta Maria in yellow (Private Collection, New York). Our sitter’s richly bejewelled blue silk dress and basket of roses are particularly reminiscent of a number of Van Dyck’s portraits of the Queen. Roses were used to symbolise beauty, youthful bloom, love and even fertility, while pearls and diamonds were a nod to purity and Venus, as well as markers of wealth. Although Sir Oliver Millar described the condition of our sitter’s head and right arm as ‘thinned’, careful cleaning of earlier disfiguring over-paint has since resolved this, revealing much of the original glazes’ subtlety and delicacy. Millar also noted the painting’s ‘fundamentally fresh’ handling, ‘especially in such passages as the left hand and the basket of flowers, the jewelled clasps on the dress and the light on the draperies.’ The sitter’s identity, however, had become lost as early as 1765, when she was mistakenly thought to be ‘The Duchess of Buckingham’. Millar rightly dismissed this, as well as Sir Lionel Cust’s later suggestion that it depicted ‘Mrs Cary’, instead cataloguing her as unidentified.2

2. O. Millar, op. cit.: S.J. Barnes et alia (eds.), Van Dyck, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, 2004, p.622, no.IV. 252. 3. The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon… written by himself Vol.2 p.515 quoted in OUP DNB. 4. Abigail Williams alias Cromwell, daughter of Sir Henry Clere. She was separated from her husband Colonel John Williams alias Cromwell, one of Oliver Cromwell’s Royalist cousins, and lived as his wife with William 2nd Viscount Brouncker (‘made a visit to Madam Williams who is going down to my Lord Bruncker’, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 28th September 1665). 5. Will of William 2nd Viscount Brouncker, National Archives PROB 11/375/434.

It is reasonable to exclude the possibility that our sitter was a member of Henry, Viscount Brouncker’s immediate family. His two sisters were not old enough in 1637, and it seems that he inherited no family property with the title. He was ‘a man throughout his whole life notorious for nothing but the highest degree of impudence, stooping to the most infamous offices, and playing chess very well, which preferred him more than the most virtuous qualities could have done.’3 His elder brother William, eminent mathematician and President of the Royal Society, left him only ten pounds in his will: ‘for reasons I thinke not fitt to mencon and because hee will gaine well otherwise by my death… And the rest of my estate, in Land, houses Jewells plate mony goods or Chattels whatsoever either in my possession or belonging or due to me, my debts being paid of which that to herselfe is the Cheife, I give and bequeath entirely to my beloved friend Mrs Abigail Williams alias Cromwell 4 who meritts much more from mee than what I have to dispose of’.5 There is a convincing argument, however, for identifying our lady as Mary Barber (d.1679), one of Viscount Brouncker’s relatives by marriage. She married firstly Thomas Newton of Heightly Hall, in Shropshire, and secondly the courtier Sir Thomas Jermyn (1579 – 1645). A portrait of Mary formerly at the Jermyn family seat of Rushbrooke Hall in Suffolk, bears a clear facial resemblance to our sitter. The Rushbrooke portrait can be dated on costume to the 1640s, and it quite plausibly represents the same woman, only a few years older. Sir Thomas Jermyn was sixty-nine years old when he and Mary were married in 1642, but they had a daughter, Elizabeth, before his death in 1645, confirming that Mary Barber was considerably younger than her husband. We do not have a date for Mary Barber’s first marriage, to Thomas Newton, nor for the birth of the Newtons’ son, also called Thomas. But it is possible that Van Dyck painted our portrait to celebrate Mary’s pregnancy. The roses that she

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ENGLISH SCHOOL, c.1640s

gathers to herself from the basket in our portrait are a traditional symbol of youthful beauty, but the gesture may be more specific. Considering the portrait of Henrietta Maria of 1635 (Dresden), Millar remarked: ‘If the roses held over her stomach allude to the forthcoming birth of a child, the portrait was possibly painted some time before the birth of Princess Elizabeth on 28 December 1635.’6 Sir Thomas Jermyn’s property passed at his death in 1645 to his son, Thomas Jermyn MP, whose will, proved in 1661, may explain how the portrait could have found its way into the possession of Henry, 3rd Viscount Brouncker, and thence to his friend Sir Charles Lyttleton. Given that Mary Barber had no direct and immediately obvious familial relationship with Sir Charles Lyttleton, it is easy to understand how her identity in this portrait by Van Dyck could have become lost. She was very briefly step-mother to two adult sons, and left no direct line of descendants within the family.

6. Millar, ibid., p.524 IV. 120. 7. The will of Dame Mary Jermyn of Norwich, National Archives 8. The same style is worn in Van Dyck’s Countess of Morton, c.1638 (Althorp).

In her will, Mary left most of her fortune to Thomas Newton, her son from her first marriage, but to her grandchildren by her late daughter with Sir Thomas Jermyn, a man to whom she was clearly devoted, she left a great diamond ring, ‘That it may be enjoyed from one to another by the Relations of the blood of that worthy Gentleman Sir Thomas Jermyn Knight, and be preserved and used in that Family as an heireloome in his memory who first give it me’.7 Further bequests of jewellery included ‘a great diamond knot’, a diamond-studded fan handle, ‘a great table diamond’ and two further diamond rings. Mary clearly loved jewellery, and one is reminded of the elaborate pearl headdress worn by the sitter in our portrait, and the diamonds in her dress, representing the height of fashion at this date.8

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10. CORNELIUS JOHNSON (1593 – 1661)

An Unknown Young Dutch Girl Oil on canvas: 25 1⁄2 × 20 7⁄8 in. (64.7 × 52.9 cm.) Signed and dated, lower right: ‘Cors Johnson. v.n Ceulen / fecit 1643’ PROVENANCE

John H.H.V. Lane (d.1917), King’s Bromley Manor, Lichfield; Christie’s London, 12 December 1912, lot 136; with Asher Wertheimer, London; from whom acquired by Adolph Hirsch (b.1862), London; by descent to his grandson George Pinto (1929 – 2018),Bramling, Kent.1

his delicate portrait of a young Dutch girl is one of the first painted by Johnson after his departure from England to the Netherlands in 1643, where he firstly settled in Middelburg. Presented within a feigned stone oval, it is similar in design to Johnson’s earliest works, notably of members of the Dutch Reformed Church in England, of which the artist was himself a close member. It mimics the format of the portraits painted in 1634 of the Dutch minister of Austin Friars, Willem Thielen (1596 – 1638) and his wife, Maria de Fraeye (1605 – 1682), themselves from Middelburg, (Catherijneconvent Museum, Utrecht), and latterly of their eldest son, painted in 1644 after the Thielen family’s return to their native city (Private collection, Amsterdam) – all of which are set within the familiar marble cartouche. It is likely that this young girl is the child of someone in Johnson’s close circle in Middelburg, painted at a time when he would have been re-establishing his network. People whom Johnson already knew well in the city included the Hoste family, and the widowed Maria de Fraeye (van Thielen), and it is possible that our sitter could indeed be a member of Maria’s family.2

The young girl, aged around five years old, engages with the viewer confidently, in spite of her youth. She wears a simple oyster satin dress, and a blue silk mantle, draped in the manner of a Van Dyck: this is a child of some wealth. Her starched linen cap, reaching over the crown of her head, and back to her ears, is a peculiarly Dutch fashion. The large pearl-drop earrings, reminders of Dutch trading links with the Orient, have been attached to her cap by black silk threads, perhaps on account of their weight, and the child’s diminutive age. Johnson brilliantly captures the sweetness of his subject whilst avoiding sentimentality.

THE WEISS GALLERY

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CORNELIUS JOHNSON (1593 – 1661)

Willem Thielen (1596 – 1638), Reverend Minister of the Reformed Dutch Church of London; and his wife Maria de Fraeye (1605 – 1682), 1634 Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, formerly with The Weiss Gallery CORNELIUS JOHNSON (1593 – 1661)

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Johnson must have been a pragmatic character, with a resilience to his personality, for it was a bold move to uproot his family and practice to the Protestant northern Netherlands in 1643. As Vertue describes, he ‘stayed in England till the Troublesom civil war. Being terrifyd with those apprehensions & the constant persuasions of his wife he went to Holland.’ His wife was herself from a Dutch migrant family, so her encouragement is not surprising. They settled firstly in the prosperous city of Middelburg, before moving to Amsterdam in 1646. In 1652, the artist and his family moved on again, this time to Utrecht, where he was to be acclaimed as the leading portrait painter of that city. Johnson’s experience painting both the British aristocracy and gentry must have given him an appealing social ease, a mercurial ability to engage with a broad cross-section of society. His skill in capturing a likeness, but also in painting costumes and sumptuous fabrics did not go unobserved. The artist’s chameleon-like ability to adapt his portraiture to the taste and style of the country in which he was now living ensured his continuing success, and his Dutch-period works are notable for their finesse and naturalism, executed with a more subdued palette in keeping with the restrained Dutch sensibility.

A CONNOISSEUR’S EYE

1 1 . J O H N M I C HA E L W R I G H T ( 1 6 1 7 – 1 6 9 4 )

Lord Henry Howard, later 6th Duke of Norfolk (1628 – 1684) Oil on canvas: 52 3⁄4 × 41 1⁄2 in. (133.9 × 105.4 cm.) Painted c.1660 PROVENANCE

By descent to Reginald J. Richard Arundel (1931 – 2016), 10th Baron Talbot of Malahide, Wardour Castle; by whom sold, Christie’s London, 8 June 1995, lot 2; with The Weiss Gallery, 1995; Private collection, USA, until 2019. L I T E R AT U R E

1. Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790, 4th integrated edition, 1978, p.108. 2. Other versions include: Deene Park, East Northamptonshire (ancient seat of the Brudenell family), misidentified as The Hon. Edmund Brudenell; Ex-Abbotsford, misidentified as Sir Philip Stapleton, offered to NPG in 1945, bt. by Cannon Hall Museum, Park and Gardens in 1958; Oval format after JMW at Ingatestone Hall (1954). 3. These include the portraits of Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, (Manchester City Art Gallery); John Leslie, Duke of Rothes, (Private collection); and General George Monck, Duke of Albemarle (The Marquess of Bath, Longleat). 4. D. Howarth has suggested that the model for this unusual composition may well have been inspired by Agnolo Bronzino’s portrait of Cosimo I de Medici (Toledo Museum of Art), an image well known to both artist and sitter through the tradition of friendship between the Medici and the Howards. Questing and Flexible. John Michael Wright: The King’s Painter. Country Life, September 9, 1982, p.773. 5. G. Wilson, ‘Greenwich Armour in the Portraits of John Michael Wright’, The Connoisseur, February 1975, pp.111-114.

E. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530 – 1790, London 1953, p.72, plate 66b. G. Wilson, ‘Greenwich Armour in the Portraits of John Michael Wright’, The Connoisseur, Feb. 1975, pp.111–114 (illus.). D. Howarth, ‘Questing and Flexible. John Michael Wright: The King’s Painter.’ Country Life, 9 September 1982, p.773 (illus.4). The Weiss Gallery, Tudor and Stuart Portraits 1530 – 1660, 1995, no.25. E XHIBITED

Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, John Michael Wright – The King’s Painter, 16 July – 19 September 1982, exh. cat. pp.42 & 70, no.15 (illus.).

his portrait by Wright is such a compelling amalgam of forceful assurance and sympathetic sensitivity, that is easy to see why that doyen of British art historians, Sir Ellis Waterhouse, described it in these terms: ‘The pattern is original and the whole conception of the portrait has a quality of nobility to which Lely never attained.’1 Painted around 1660, it is the prime original of which several other studio replicas are recorded,2 and it is one of a number of portraits of sitters in similar ceremonial armour, painted by Wright in this decade.3 That Wright painted the nobility in what was by then anachronistic Elizabethan tilting armour, may be understood in the context of the recent Civil War and the climate of the post-restoration court.4 The pierced helmet appears again in Wright’s portraits of Inchiquin and Rothes, and it is likely that Wright, who had strong antiquarian interests, actually owned these vestiges of an earlier age.5 The degree of realism which the artist attains in these areas of the painting must owe a great deal to daily familiarity with their gleaming presence, lit by an adjacent window in his studio in London’s Great Queen Street. This realism was always a remarkable feature of the artist’s work, as a painter of unmannered observation, far more so than his contemporaries. This same quality is evident here in the implication of weightlessness that he finds in the lace at Howard’s throat and in the vagaries of the intertwining sword straps and their shadows on the tomb-slab.

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There are two features of the portrait that suggest a more idealising vision. In the middle distance on the right is a landscape perhaps more Italian than English, with an emotive sunrise, the compacted bars of grey cloud and pink sky something that appears in many of the artist’s works. Also, on the left, in a dark wood a huntsman passes, grasping a lance, by the side of a prancing horse. This motif is similarly found in Wright’s full-length portrait of the 1670s of an unidentified lady as Diana the huntress,6 and in two famous chieftain full-lengths from the 1680s – that of Sir Neil O’Neill and of Lord Mungo Murray.7 Whether these figures are simply attendants, references to the sitter’s predilection for hunting, or have a deeper symbolic meaning is open to interpretation. The metaphorical narrative could signify a spiritual gallop through a ‘selva oscura’, brought to successful conclusion on the edge of an unfolding Arcadian landscape.8 In turn, the rising sun breaking through the clouds may suggest a new dawn following the restoration of the monarchy – and indeed a new beginning for the Howard family. The combination of these unique resonances with Wright’s fresh and unblinking realism, again sets him apart in an entirely original way from his contemporaries in seventeenth-century British art. Henry Howard was the second son of Henry Frederick Howard, Lord Maltravers and 15th Earl of Arundel (1608 – 1652) and his wife, Elizabeth Stuart (d. 1674), daughter of the 3rd Duke of Lennox. Henry’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel (1585 – 1646), was a notable figure in the court of both James I and Charles I, appointed Earl Marshal in 1621 and Constable of England in 1623. Indeed, in 1636 Thomas Howard commissioned a double portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck with his eldest grandson Thomas (1627 – 1677), in a clear statement of dynastic intent (The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle). It was in this context that Henry joined his elder brother with their grandfather in Padua in 1644, in exile from the English Civil War. Poignantly, it was there that his brother contracted a fever rendering him a lunatic for the rest of his life, unable to fulfil his hereditary destiny. Our sitter, Henry Howard, therefore became de facto head of the family when his father died on 17 April 1652.

6. Private collection. See S. Stevenson & D. Thomson, John Michael Wright, The King’s Painter, exhibition catalogue, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh 1982, pp.83-4; illustrated in colour, p.37. This exhibition was the last major showing of Wright’s work. 7. Respectively at Tate Britain, London, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. 8. J. Moffitt, ‘Le Roi à la chasse? Kings, Christian Knights, and Van Dyck’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles I’, Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 4 (7) 1983, 79-99, p.85.

Following the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the family fortunes improved. There was near unanimity in the House of Lords that year to persuade King Charles II to revive the Dukedom of Norfolk, and since Thomas the heir apparent was consigned to an asylum in Padua, Henry was summoned to the Lords in his own right. By 1665, the year of the Great Plague in London, Henry had settled at his villa in Albury, Surrey, where the famous diarist John Evelyn visited him and admired his collection of paintings and curiosities, with ‘cartoons and drawings of Raphael and the Great Masters’. Like his grandfather, he was a keen connoisseur, and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society, to whom he presented the greater part of his library in 1666, after the Great Fire of London. In 1677, following the death of his elder brother, he finally became 6th Duke of Norfolk. That Henry Howard chose the most fashionable painters of the day to paint his portrait in a dazzling array of costumes is no surprise. Among his chosen artists were Flemish-born Gilbert Soest, Adriaen Hanneman and of course, John Michael Wright, who painted him again in c.1669 (Powis Castle & Garden, Powys, National Trust). Henry’s preoccupation with his own image, and desire to promote himself through portraiture, was no doubt prompted by his elder brother’s mental infirmity, and an awareness that he would ultimately succeed to the Dukedom. As such, our

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ADRIAEN HANNEMAN (1603 – 1671)

Lord Henry Howard, later 6th Duke of Norfolk (1628 – 1684), 1660 © by kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle

portrait can be regarded as a vehicle for historical continuity. It is not known for what occasion this portrait was commissioned, but Henry’s apparent youth and the symbolism within the painting would suggest the Restoration of 1660, and the revival of the Dukedom of Norfolk. In 1662, on the death of his first wife Lady Anne Somerset, Howard is said by Evelyn to have fallen into a deep melancholy and to have sought relief in a course of dissipation, which impaired both his fortune and his reputation. He married secondly his mistress, Jane Bickerton, whose father was Gentleman of the Wine Cellar to Charles II.9 He died in 1684 at Arundel House and was buried at Arundel Castle, except for his heart which was deposited at the convent of St Elizabeth in Bruges.10 9. Evelyn, who clearly did not approve of the union, commented in his diary the Duke had: ‘now newly declared his marriage to his concubine, whom he promised me he would never marry.’ 10. Howard said of himself that: ‘the character of a papist … (was) … ever indelible in me.’ 11. E.S. de Beer (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn, 5 April 1659, (Oxford Press 1955), p.228.

John Michael Wright was the most distinguished and original native-born portrait painter during the Restoration period. He spent his apprenticeship working for George Jamesone in Edinburgh which provided a grounding in the fundamentals of painting, however it was his entry into the Academy of St. Luke in Rome in 1648 that introduced the young artist to a new and more sophisticated approach to painting. This exposure to continental artists shaped the direction of Wright’s technique and style, a unique fusion of Dutch realism, Italian Baroque and French classicism. He returned to England in 1655 and by 1660 established a successful portrait-practice in London. At the time, he was described by John Evelyn, as ‘the famous painter Mr Write’.11 He worked for both Royalist and Parliamentarian clients, and must have been an affable as well as mercurial character. We are grateful to Dr. Duncan Thomson for his assistance with this catalogue entry.

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1 2 . JA KO B F E R D I NA N D VO E T ( 1 6 3 9 – 1 6 8 9 )

John Offley (1650 – 1688) of Madeley and Crewe Hall [?] Oil on canvas: 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm.) In a fine English 18th century carved, pierced and gilded frame Painted c.1670 – 1675 PROVENANCE

Presumably commissioned by the sitter and by descent to Colin Crewe, Nether Hall, Old Newton, Stowmarket; his sale Christie’s London, 20 November 1992, lot 3; where acquired by George Pinto (1929 – 2018), Bramling, Kent.1 L I T E R AT U R E

F. Petrucci, Ferdinand Voet (1639 – 1689), detto Ferdinando de ‘Ritratti’, Rome, 2003, pp.14, 69 and 264, no.259, illustrated.

his elegant portrait of a young nobleman is one of the artist’s very finest, painted when he was at the height of his powers in the early- to mid-1670s. It displays such a luminous quality and sensitivity that it is no surprise that Voet was among the most prominent and fashionable portrait painters of his day. Painted in Rome, it has been described by Francesco Petrucci as a ‘highly important example relating to the birth of portraiture of British grand tourists in Italy’.2

1. George Pinto, a celebrated English merchant banker at Kleinwort Benson, was renowned as an eccentric. He was a talented amateur golfer and a passionate supporter of Zionist causes. 1. In an email to The Weiss Gallery, 19 November 2019. 2. A series of letters from the Odescalchi archive, published by Marco Pizzo, show that Voet’s sojourn to Lombard lasted about a year in 1680. Furthermore, from the correspondence of Francesco Maria della Porta with Livio Odescalchi, it becomes clear that Voet was even summoned by Charles II of Spain to execute court portraits some time between February and early May 1680. See: Marco Pizzo, ‘Livio Odescalchi e i Rezzonico. Documenti su arte e collezionismo alla fine del XVH secolo’ in Fondazione Giorgio Cini - Saggi e memorie di storia dell’arte, 1732.

Voet often painted his male sitters in exotic and luxurious chamber robes (or ‘banyan’), as seen here. His bravura portrayal of the flowing grey and gold silk embroidered robe is typical, with a resplendent pink silk lining to match the sitter’s pink bowtie – artfully asymmetrical. It is a confection of texture, continued in the frothy lace cravat, and the sitter’s softly curling hair. The young man’s face is equally sensitively rendered with soft highlights to the nose and eyes, and a pink blush to his cheeks, while the seriousness of his expression is in contrast to his youthfulness. Voet subtly individualises the young man’s features, with his dandy moustache and distinctly bushy eyebrows. Previously thought to depict John Offley Crewe (1681 – 1749) – an impossible identification due to the painting’s dating between 1670 and 1675 – it more likely depicts his father, John Offley of Madeley in Staffordshire and latterly Crewe Hall (1650 – 1688). Flemish by birth, Jakob Ferdinand Voet’s artistic ambition led him first to Rome and then on to Paris, where his stylish technique and attention to costume was eagerly endorsed by the most fashionable and eminent sitters. The artist’s phenomenal success was in part due to his renowned affability, enabling him to obtain the favour of new patrons and to maintain his professional relations with all the major families of the Roman nobility. He travelled extensively in Italy, executing numerous commissions in Como and Milan and it is probable that he also travelled to Genoa, and certainly to Florence, Modena and Parma.3 His tenure in Rome, from 1663 – 1679, was consistently marked by patronage from the Papal court and the local aristocracy, including the Mancini and

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JAKOB FERDINAND VOET (1639 – 1689)

Private collection, formerly with The Weiss Gallery

Unknown Noblewoman

3. His production of ecclesiastical portraiture was prodigious, including ‘rows’ of fourteen cardinals and the official image of the Odescalchi Pope, Innocent XI. 4. Cristina Geddo, ‘New Light on the Career of Jacob-Ferdinand Voet’, from The Burlington Magazine, vol.143, no.1176 (March 2001), p.138.

Unknown Young Nobleman

Colonna families.3 He is perhaps best remembered for his series of Les Belle Romanes – a great set of portraits of the most enchanting women of Rome. Inspired by the Mancini sisters, these portraits from 1672 onwards included sitters from the Chigi, Savoia and Massimo families, as well as other celebrated Italian dynasties. The paintings were so popular that Voet was repeatedly asked to reproduce replicas and versions. After working mainly in Italy, his reputation was such that he spent the last years of his life as ‘Pittore del Re’ – official portraitist to the Sun King, Louis XIV, in Paris.4 With such international production, his fame even surpassed that of Pierre Mignard, Carlo Maratta, Giovanni Maria Morandi and Baciccio, his main rivals in the genre.

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