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2 Ex. catalogue: A Saxon left-hand dagger, c.1580. Please click on image for more information.
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THE WEISS GALLERY & PETER FINER present
AN EXHIBITION OF OLD MASTER PORTRAITS FEATURING ARMS & ARMOUR 26 November to 18 December
To be held at The Weiss Gallery + Online 59 Jermyn Street London, SW1Y 6LX www.weissgallery.com www.londonartweek.com
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CONTENTS 1. Studio of Corneille de Lyon (c. 1510 – 1575) An Unknown French Nobleman
2. A Reinforcing Buffe for the Prince Elector of Saxony Christian I by Anton Peffenhauser
3. Pierre Dumonstier (c. 1543 – 1601) Filippo di Piero Strozzi
4. A North German Etched Gorget for a Field Armour, 1555
5. Hieronimo Custodis (fl. 1585 – 1593) Sir Thomas Drake of Buckland Abbey [?] 7. Marcus Gheeraerts II (1561 – 1635) Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex 9. Attr. Sir William Segar (c.1554 – 1633) Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
6. A Breast-Plate for a Foot Armour, c. 1570-80 8. An Etched Demi-Shaffron c. 1590-1600 10. A French Gorget, c. 1610 12. An English Rapier, c. 1635
11. Pieter Isaacsz. (1568 – 1625) An Unknown Danish Nobleman
14. A Pair of Rowel Spurs, English, c.1630
13. Frans Badens (1571 – 1618) Gerard Reynst, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
16. An English Gold-encrusted Small-Sword and Scabbard, by Charles Bibb, c. 1735-40
15. Cornelius Johnson (1593 – 1661) Colonel Robert Hammond
18. A Flemish Shaffron, c. 1520-30
17. Adriaen Hanneman (1603 – 1671) An Unknown Dutch Officer
20. (a) An Important Highland Officer’s Decorated Silver Basket-Hilted Broadsword
19. John Michael Wright (1617 – 1694) Lord Henry Howard
20. (b) A Highland Officer’s Silver Basket-Hilted Backsword, c. 1745
21. Antonio David (1694 – 1750) The Old Pretender, a ricordo
22. A Small-Sword, c. 1770-74
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INTRODUCTION The general definition of the word ‘Valour’ is: ’Great courage in the face of danger’. This year has been like no other; from dealing with unprecedented tragedies to confronting our fear of future uncertainties. Truly everyone on this planet must consider 2020 as one of the most unpredictable years in human history. The genesis of this exhibition was founded on a - now familiar - feeling of having to face difficulties, of all kinds, 'head on'. Like all businesses, we have had to think fast and prepare for the worst, accept certain limitations and speculate the uncertain. Feelings and thoughts that have surely crossed the minds of those, historically speaking, involved in martial events and activities. Whatever their duties and causes, the sitters of the portraits featured in this exhibition have chosen to display themselves as brave, resourceful characters in their finest and, perhaps most importantly, protective apparel. Some were famously generous and chivalrous men, others were more single-minded and mischievous in their pursuits. Regardless of their intents and purposes, we felt enough of a collective character that connected ourselves with these sitters to curate a show concerning historic human strength and endeavour. In this exhibition, visitors - virtual and physical alike - will see period pieces of armour, battle-worthy daggers, and ceremonial swords alongside our historic portraits. The literal juxtaposition of these objects will hopefully spark the imagination of the viewer and further connect us to these realistic likenesses. Beyond this digital catalogue, we have commissioned a virtual tour, designed a viewing room, and filmed a highlight video, which will be available on our website. We hope you enjoy these novel digital features whilst current limitations continue. We intend on welcoming visitors back to the gallery from Thursday 3rd December - all going well. In the meantime: we welcome you to ‘VALOUR’. From all at The Weiss Gallery & Peter Finer 7
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1. Studio of Corneille de Lyon (c. 1500/10 – 1575) An Unknown French Nobleman Oil on panel: 13 x 9 ⅞ in. (33 x 25 cm.) Painted circa 1560 – 1570 Provenance Private Collection, New York. Sixteenth-century portraits of sitters depicted in armour traditionally portray royalty, a pictorial tradition whose Renaissance precedents notably include François Clouet’s Equestrian Portrait of François I (c.1540, Uffizi Gallery, Florence) and Titian’s portraits of Emperor Charles V on Horseback (1548: Prado Museum, Madrid) and Philip II in Armour (1551, Prado). The present painting best compares with a bust-length portrait of the young Dauphin Henri by Corneille de Lyon, showing the future King Henri II in armour (Fig. 1: Galleria Estense, Modena, inv. no. 312, painted c.15367). Our young nobleman was likely therefore to have been of some distinction, and certainly of wealth, for such fine and ornate armour would have been very expensive indeed. Fashioned in steel and held together with brass rivets and joins, it is finely tooled in order to create combinations of floral ornaments and geometric patterns. This ‘fluting’, besides being decorative, reinforced the plates, is characteristic of armour from Landshut, a famous Bavarian armour-making centre, made fashionable by Philip II of Spain. Indeed, at this time, Landshut armourers almost exclusively supplied to the Spanish nobility, and it is therefore quite possible that our sitter is Spanish. The painter has taken great trouble to extensively render the highlights on the metal with touches of pure white. Yet for all this attention, the sitter’s face too is depicted with equal care, his confident gaze perhaps reflecting the near invincibility granted by this steel suit. Far from the noisy chaos of the battlefield, the image conveys a sense of power and order, calm and refinement, the sitter an exemplar of the Renaissance nobleman, both as courtier and as warrior. 8
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The unknown artist’s technique appears to reflect the direct influence of Corneille de Lyon, and it is likely that he may either have worked in that artist’s studio, or at least to have come into contact with his work. Corneille was one of the very finest portrait painters of the French Renaissance. Of Flemish origin, he was recorded in Lyon in 1533, and it was perhaps in that year, while the French court was residing in that city, that Corneille was made painter to Queen Eleanor, the second wife of François I. By 1541, he was painter to the Dauphin Henri, and when the latter succeeded to the throne in 1547, he was created Peintre du Roi. Corneille’s studio was very prosperous and his art was strongly influenced by the tradition of the portrait miniature, especially the example of Jean Perréal (1450/60 – c.1530). His work also shows an affinity with his almost exact contemporary, François Clouet (c.1516-1572); both painters shared the northern inclination towards naturalism, executed with great sensitivity and refinement.
Fig.1 Corneille de Lyon (1500/10 - 1575) The Dauphin Henri, c.1536 © Galleria Estense, Modena.
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2. A Reinforcing Buffe by Anton Peffenhauser for the Prince Elector of Saxony Christian I, c. 1586 Germany, Augsburg Steel, gold and brass. Height: 26 cm. / 10 1/4 in. Length: 23 cm. / 9 in. Provenance Prince Elector Christian I of Saxony (1560 - 1591); Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden; Private collection, France.
This buffe, a detachable reinforce for a helmet, belongs to one of the most extensive and best-preserved garnitures of sixteenth century armour by Anton Peffenhauser. Likely intended for use in the ‘free tourney’, a mock combat in which a pair, or larger groups of armoured horsemen first ran at each other with lances, then resumed the contest with swords, it appears to have complemented a helmet preserved in the Rüstkammer (armoury) of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden. The buffe is one of very few elements of this garniture no longer in the museum in Dresden. The buffe was designed to fit against the upper and lower bevors of a close helmet and was designed to ‘reinforce’ the helmet by providing added protection. The buffe alone is a strikingly sculptural object that echoes the curves of the face like a mask. The highly polished steel surface is adorned with etched and gilt bands of ornamentation. These bands enclose gilded trophies of arms, connected to one another by gilded ribbons tied into knots. The band that extends down the centre of the plates is bordered by a Moresque pattern. The head of a lion decorates the upper corner of the buffe and this symbol of strength repeats throughout the garniture in the museum in Dresden; for example, that armour’s pauldrons and poleyns each show the head of a lion, as do the toecaps of the sabatons. The armour dates from the beginning of his rule and comprises elements for man and horse, including a complete bard. The majority of this garniture is preserved today in the Rustkammer of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (no. M 99). 13
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It is the largest and best-preserved example in the Dresden collections, and is one of the most complete specimens of the Augsburg school. The garniture is of considerable importance; in fact, it occupies a special place among the many Augsburg armours in the Dresden collections, which have been traditionally, and somewhat liberally, attributed to the famed armourer Anton Peffenhauser. This armour of Christian I in Dresden remains one of the very few, and perhaps the only armour, that is a documented work by Peffenhauser. In the 1606 inventory of the Electoral Saxon armouries (unpublished, the document is today in the archives of the Rustkammer), the garniture is notably recorded as having been geschlagen (literally ‘hammered’) by Anton Peffenhauser, while other armours listed in the armoury are described as only having been ‘purchased’ from Peffenhauser, or simply ‘acquired’ in Augsburg. Consequently, while there is no record of how the buffe became separated from the remaining garniture of Christian I’s armour, this buffe may be unquestionably ascribed to the hand of Anton Peffenhauser, one of the greatest armourers of all time. Evidence suggests that this buffe left the Electoral Saxon armouries well before the twentieth century: the buffe does not appear in the dispersal sales of the Dresden collections in the twentieth century, nor is it recorded in the list of pieces lost as a result of the Second World War. There is evidence that certain elements of the garniture exited the Dresden collections prior to the twentieth century: a bevor and targe for the tilt in the Italian fashion that also belong to Christian I’s garniture of armour in Dresden are today in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (no. R 24). These two pieces were acquired by the diplomat and collector Constantino Ressman, and bequeathed by him to the Bargello in 1894. Aside from the two pieces in Florence, a vamplate from this same garniture – a defence for the hand on a lance – is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was bequeathed by the great collector Carl Otto von Kienbusch in 1977. The Christian I garniture in the Rustkammer comprises two helmets, one intended for the tilt and designed to rotate around the upper rim of the gorget, and the other constructed with neck lames at the front and back, called a Mantelhelm, that was intended for the field and the ‘free tourney’. The buffe under present discussion was almost certainly made for the latter helmet. The circular hole on its right side, made to accommodate a bolt, aligns exactly with a corresponding hole 15
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on the Mantelhelm’s upper bevor. The buffe is shaped the same as the Mantelhelm’s lower-bevor, essential for its fit, but equally important perhaps, the buffe does not swell over the neckline nor follow the contours of the embossed lower edge of the garniture’s other close helmet for the tilt. Therefore it seems likely that this buffe complemented the Mantelhelm specifically and was likely intended as a reinforce for the free tourney. Perhaps because this type of reinforce was very likely to become seriously damaged, the garniture of Christian I ostensibly included more than one; a buffe of comparable construction and decoration is indeed included among the elements of the garniture which are preserved today in the Dresden Rustkammer. The more remarkable for its untouched state of preservation, this buffe is also one of the few works outside of institutional collections which may be securely ascribed to Anton Peffenhauser. Moreover, this important element of a luxury armour garniture was made for a princely patron of particular historical significance, and one whose identifiable ownership is verified by the documentation of the Electoral Saxon inventories.
Fig.1 Anton Peffenhauser. Foot-Combat Armor of Prince-Elector Christian I of Saxony, 1591 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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DESCRIPTION: Designed to fit closely against the upper and lower bevors of a close helmet, this reinforcing buffe is constructed of three plates. The upper plate is modelled to overlap the entire left side of the helmet’s bevors, and slightly embossed at the end of its left shank to overlap the protruding head of nut of the bolt that secured the bevors to the bowl. At the right side it is tailored to cover only the very front portion of the bevors, and slightly embossed near the rear edge to accommodate the device that locked the bevors together. At the upper right side, towards the front, it has a circular hole to be secured to the helmet’s upper bevor by a bolt. Small circular holes at the rear upper sides might have served the purpose of ensuring that the upper plate would neatly fit in place against the helmet’s upper bevor while it was still being forged. Along the lower edge the upper plate is flanged outward to receive two neck lames, which protect the entire left side and only the front portion of the right side of the wearer’s throat. These lames are secured to the upper plate and to one another by rivets down the left side, and by internal leather straps down the centre and right sides. The bottom plate has an inward file-roped turn along the lower edge, which is bordered by a row of rivets that secure an internal leather strap to which a lining was presumably sewn. The rivets have domed brass-capped heads and appear to be original. The polished bright exterior surface is adorned with etched and partly gilded and blackened bands of ornament down the centre and the right edge of the upper plate and neck lames, and along the lower edge of the bottom neck lame. The bands enclose gilded trophies of arms that are connected to one another by gilded ribbons tied into series of knots, and that are set against a blackened dotted ground. The band that extends down the centre of the plates is bordered at either side by a gilded narrow band of Moresque ornament.
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3. Pierre Dumonstier (c. 1543 – 1601) Filippo di Piero Strozzi (1541 – 1582) with the Order of Saint Michel Oil on canvas: 45 1/8 x 34 ¼ in. (115 x 87.5 cm.) Painted circa 1580 Provenance Private collection, France.
This portrait, with its extraordinary display of armour, is a rare example in oil of Pierre Dumonstier's work in oil. He was primarily a portraitist, best known today for his delicate pencil drawings, though as the present fine oil attests, he must also have been accustomed to painting full-scale commissions. Dumonstier came from a prolific dynasty of artists; his father, Geoffroy Dumonstier (d.1573), was master illuminator to Francis I of France and Henry II of France, while his elder brother Étienne (c.1540 – 1603) was official painter to Catherine de Medici and Maximilian II. His younger brother Cosme (d.1552) was painter to Marguerite de Navarre, and Étienne’s son Pierre and Cosme’s son Daniel also became artists. Dr. Alexandra Zvereva has noted that Pierre Dumonstier probably received the same train- ing as his elder brother, Etienne, and that the pair often worked together in the service of the queen mother, Catherine de Medici.1 Portrait sketches of Étienne by Pierre are still in existence today from when he accompanied Étienne to Vienna in 1569, (Hermitage, St. Petersburg), suggesting a close bond between the brothers. Pierre had entered the service of Catherine de Medicis shortly after his brother, probably around 1565 – 1567, but the few accounts preserved for this period are partial, and his name appears only in that of 1583: ‘To Pierre Dumonstier... a painter, the sum of one hundred crowns’. By 1588, however, it was the king’s treasury who paid his wages, though Zvereva notes that unlike his brothers, Pierre was not officially engaged by Henri IV, and in his will of 1601, he is described only as ‘painter and valet of the late Queen mother’ (Zvereva, op. cit.). He was then living in Paris in Rue du Temple.
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Filippo di Piero Strozzi was an Italian condottiero, a member of the Florentine family of Strozzi, though his associations were mainly with France, hence his portrait by a French artist. Although Filippo was born in Florence to Piero Strozzi and Laudomia de’ Medici, his father had been exiled from his native city, and had been received in France by Queen Catherine de Medici, appointed as Marshal of France. As a boy, Filippo was page to the future King Francis II.
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In 1557 he entered the French army and in 1558 took part in the Siege of Calais against England, in which his father was killed. By 1563 he was appointed Colonel of the French Royal Guards. In 1564 he assisted Emperor Maximilian II during the Ottoman invasion in Hungary, and the following year again at the siege of Malta. From there he moved to Rome, distinguishing himself in the defence of Ancona. Strozzi returned to France in 1567, where he fought against the Huguenots. Two years later he was appointed the sole Colonel General (commander-in-chief of the army) of France, and subsequently took part to the long siege of La Rochelle. It is logical to assume that the present portrait must have been commissioned and painted around the time of Strozzi’s promotion to Commander-in-Chief of the French army in 1569, as a celebration of the great responsibility and honour therein. Indeed, here we see him wearing the Order of Saint Michel, which he would have been awarded by King Charles IX of France. The Ordre de SaintMichel was a specific order of chivalry founded by Louis XI of France, in competitive response to the Bergundian Order of the Golden Fleece. As a chivalric order, its goal was to confirm the loyalty of its knights to the king. It was a great honour, and the highest Order in France after the Ordre du Saint-Esprit. By 1581 Strozzi was created Lord of Bressuire, and pivotally was employed as a mercenary by the claimant to the Portuguese throne against Spanish Habsburg King, Philip II – António, Prior of Crato. With a contingent of French, Dutch, English and Portuguese volunteers, he set sail to the Azores, a Portuguese Atlantic territory that still did not recognize Philip II as king. His fleet was, however, destroyed in the Battle of Terceira in July 1582. He was taken prisoner, and duly executed and thrown into the sea from a Spanish ship.
Fig.1 Pierre Dumonstier (c.1543 - 1601) Philippe Strozzi © Musee Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne.
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following year again at the siege of Malta. From there he moved to Rome, distinguishing himself in the defence of Ancona. Strozzi returned to France in 1567, where he fought against the Huguenots. Two years later he was appointed the sole Colonel General (commander-in-chief of the army) of France, and subsequently took part to the long siege of La Rochelle. It is logical to assume that the present portrait must have been commissioned and painted around the time of Strozzi’s promotion to Commander-in-Chief of the French army in 1569, as a celebration of the great responsibility and honour therein. Indeed, here we see him wearing the Order of Saint Michel, which he would have been awarded by King Charles IX of France. The Ordre de SaintMichel was a specific order of chivalry founded by Louis XI of France, in competitive response to the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece. As a chivalric order, its goal was to confirm the loyalty of its knights to the king. It was a great honour, and the highest Order in France after the Ordre du Saint-Esprit. His dedication was such that he infamously ordered, in 1570, the massacre (by drowning!) of 800 female camp-followers who were hindering the progress of the royal army as they straggled across a bridge over the Loire just outside Angers. By 1581 Strozzi was created Lord of Bressuire, and pivotally was employed as a m e r c e n a r y b y t h e c l a i m a n t t o t h e Po r t u g u e s e t h r o n e a g a i n s t Spanish Habsburg King, Philip II – António, Prior of Crato. With a contingent of French, Dutch, English and Portuguese volunteers, he set sail to the Azores, a Portuguese Atlantic territory that still did not recognize Philip II as king. His fleet was, however, destroyed in the Battle of Terceira in July 1582. He was taken prisoner, and duly executed and thrown into the sea from a Spanish ship. 23
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4. A North German Etched Gorget for a Field Armour, dated 1555 Northern Germany Steel, leather. Height: 19 cm. / 7 1/2 in. Width: 32 cm. / 12 1/2 in. Provenance Private Collection, Europe.
The etched acanthus designs with their allegorical emblems are of a distinctive character frequently associated with the armours, luxurious firearms and splendid related etched steel accessories of both the court of the ruling Dukes of Brunswick and that of the Saxon Electors in Dresden. In Christian iconography the lions and the phoenix are representative of majesty and strength, together with immortality: the lions in this instance are possibly additionally emblematic of the Brunswick court; the peacock and pelican respectively represent immortality and sacrifice, while the bucranium is a classical Graeco-Roman device much used within the renaissance as an emblem reinforcing a sense of historic classical grandeur and was as such a favoured decorative device. Constructed of four lames front and rear, the uppermost hinged on the left and closed by a stud catch on the right and with turned roped edge. The lower three lames with their subsidiary edges each cut at the middle with cusped ornament. The broad lower lame slotted for a stud to secure the right spaulder, with a low medial ridge coming to a blunt point and its flanking outer edges slightly concave. Finely decorated throughout with linear bands of scrolling leafy acanthus fronds on a blackened granular ground inhabited by allegorical animals, birds and motifs, with three principal bands radiating from the base front and rear, the frontal bands involving a rampant lion at the sides and a phoenix in the middle, the latter surmounted by a classical bucranium, the rearward bands involving flanking pelicans and a peacock centrally, above the latter a plaque suspended within the foliage and etched with the date ‘1555’. The frontal lower border etched at its centre with a winged bat mask and the corresponding rearward border involving a serpent.
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5. Hieronimo Custodis (fl. 1585 – 1593) An Elizabethan courtier, probably Sir Thomas Drake of Buckland Abbey, Yelverton (1556 – 1606) Oil on panel: 30 x 24 ¾ in. (76.2 x 62.8 cm.) Inscribed upper left: ‘Fatto a tempo’ [‘done/ made in time’] by a device with a vase of gillyflowers on a grassy bank, and a sparrow An old wax collector’s seal [verso] with the arms of O’Brien, Barons Inchquin, above quartered arms including the Barons Carew of Clopton, Or three Lions passant in pale Sable, and a Pheon (a broad arrow head, a coat used by several families in several different tinctures) Painted circa 1590 Provenance Presumably commissioned by the sitter, and to his daughter Elizabeth Bampfylde (1592 – 1631); by descent to the Barons Carew of Clopton, Devon and to the Barons Inchquin, Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare (according to an interpretation of the wax seal); Anthony Dudes; his sale, February 1876; Wakefield Christie-Miller (d. 1898), Britwell Court, Bucks., by 1894; Private collection, Ireland. Literature Anon., Catalogue of Pictures, Porcelain, Furniture and Works of Art at Moira House, St James’s, and Britwell Court, Bucks, the property of W. Christie-Miller, Esq., London 1894, p. 26 [as ‘Sir F. Drake’ by Zucchero].
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The sitter in our portrait may well be Sir Thomas Drake, younger brother of the famous explorer Sir Francis Drake, as identified by a pencil inscription, ‘Sir T. Drake’, on the reverse of its former old frame. Its provenance through the Barons of Carew of Clopton, Devon, would certainly allow this, as Drake’s direct descendant, Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde, 3rd Bt. (c. 1689 – 1727), married into that family. Sir Thomas Drake was one of twelve children of a Protestant farmer from Devonshire, Edmund Drake of Crowdale (1518 – 1585), and his wife Mary Mylwaye (1520 – 1586). Due to religious persecution during the ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ of 1549, the family fled Devonshire for Kent. There Edmund obtained an appointment to minister to men in the King’s Navy, and was ordained deacon and vicar of Upnor Church on the Medway. It was likely through their father’s connections that Thomas and Francis went to sea. The intriguing motif in the upper left corner depicts a vase of gilly flowers, a sparrow ‘nipping the bud’ of a gillyflower (carnation), above which is an inscription ‘fatto a tempo’, (‘done in time’, i.e., ‘just in time’). Though its exact meaning has been lost to us today, it certainly would have been understood by the sitter’s circle. We do know that a gillyflower, or ‘July flower’, was generally used to symbolise marriage, and that Sir Thomas Drake married a widow some time between 1585 (the likely birth year of Elizabeth’s last son by her first husband), and 1588 (the birth year of Sir Thomas and Elizabeth’s first son, Sir Francis Drake, 1st Bt.). Could our portrait in some way be referencing their union? It is therefore perhaps not too fanciful to wonder whether their union was ‘just in time’. They are not the emblems of the Drake family, whose arms were Argent a Wyvern wings displayed Gules, and there is no mention of the motto ‘fatto a tempo’ in any of the contemporary printed books of mottoes both British and Continental. The choice of bird, crudely identifiable as a sparrow due to its ‘seed eating’ beak, nipping the bud of the gillyflower, is likely significant. Further supporting this dating, the artist, Hieronimo Custodis, was a protestant émigré from Antwerp who fled to England after the capture of the city by the Duke of Parma in 1585. His dated English works are from 1589 until his death in 1593. Our portrait may perhaps even have been one of his first English commissions. The simple, plain collar seen here, which replaced high, concertiaed collars and was a precursor to much larger cartwheel ruffs, was in fashion at exactly this time. 30
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6. A Breast-Plate for a Foot Armour, c. 1570-80
Northern Italy, probably Milan Steel, gold. Provenance Private collection, Italy Height: 42 cm. / 16 1/2 in. Width: 34.5 cm. / 13 1/2 in.
The etched decoration, of this type, found on North Italian armour has commonly and erroneously been referred to as ‘Pisan’. The city of Pisa in fact has no history of the making or etching of armour and the present etching style is more correctly described as Lombardic, it being the fashion of the whole region. The present example is preserved in notably fine condition and the clearly higher quality suggests that it belonged to an armour of distinction, most probably from a Milanese workshop. DESCRIPTION: Formed with a low medial ridge drawn down to an acute V-shaped point. Flanged across the neck and with turned cabled edge, the arm openings with holes for attaching gussets and the basal flange with two pairs of holes for attaching a skirt lame. Decorated throughout with etched bands in the Lombardic fashion, filled with a profusion of armour trophies, martial emblems and small monsters all on a gilt granular ground. The medial vertical band rising to a halfarmour trophy surmounted by a pair of cabled roundels filled with a male and a female classical bust respectively, each bordered by an elaborate spandrel involving a winged grotesque head and with a sphinx and a complementary winged grotesque respectively forming the base of each, and the panel below the neck centring on a nude deity, possibly Minerva. All within a gilt linear border edged by a single slender line.
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7. Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561 – 1635) Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565 – 1601) Oil on panel: 44 ¾ x 35 in. (113.7 x 88.9 cm.) Painted circa 1596 – 1598 Provenance Mr. and Mrs. Eric Bullivant, Anderson Manor, Dorset; their sale at Sotheby’s, London, 8 May 1974, lot 8; Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, 15 November 1991, lot 4, (as ‘Attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger’); Mrs. Barbara Overland, Mont Pelier House, Jersey.
This is a particularly fine example of a three-quarter-length variant that Gheeraerts and his studio produced, deriving from the artist’s famous full-length which has descended in the collection of the Dukes of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. That painting was commissioned soon after the earl’s triumphant return to England following the capture of Cadiz from the Spanish in August 1596. Our version has a terminus ante quem of 1599, when the earl was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Governor General of Ireland, after which other versions show the earl holding the baton of his office. In our portrait Essex wears a black velvet riding cloak, and the choice of the black and white costume is a clear allusion to colours favoured by Elizabeth I, alluding the purity of the Virgin Queen. As one of the most famous and recognisable of all Elizabethans, Essex was always well poised at court as the stepson of Elizabeth I’s favourite, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and given that his own mother, Lettice Knollys, was descended from Mary, the sister of Anne Boleyn. From the heights of his success as a favourite of the Queen, and the hero of Cadiz, his failures in Ireland and the enmities he created at court led to his catastrophic demise being imprisoned at the Tower and subsequently tried and executed for treason in 1601.
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Gheeraerts’ portraits of the earl support a description of him given in a letter by a Venetian visitor in England after the capture of Cadiz, as: ‘fair skinned, tall but wiry; on this last voyage he began to grow a beard, which he used not to wear.’ Indeed, his distinctive red, square-cut beard became a trademark feature of his appearance. Devereux, much more than his contemporaries, quite consciously engineered his public image in an ambition to stand out from others, and the Gheeraerts commission can be regarded as a means of displaying his achievements, capabilities and superiority as a prominent courtier. He was fully aware that portraiture was valuable in creating a lasting record of the most significant achievements of his career and by employing Gheeraerts he benefited from having his image projected by a leading artist. Essex recognised the value of presenting his portrait to friends and associates, and consequently numerous three-quarter and bust-length versions were produced. The existence of these abridged versions suggest that Gheeraerts must have run a workshop in which assistants contributed to their production. Leicester ensured that Essex was preferred in a number of important ways at court. He was appointed as a commander of the cavalry in Leicester’s expedition to Holland in 1585, distinguishing himself at the battle of Zutphen. He succeeded Leicester as Master of the Horse in 1587, and when his stepfather died in 1588, Essex was already highly esteemed by Elizabeth, appointed as a member of the Queen’s Privy council. In 1589, he took part in Sir Francis Drake’s English Armada, after the Queen specifically forbade him from going. He returned after the failure of the English fleet to take Lisbon. In 1590, he secretly married Frances (1567-1632), the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, but the marriage was only revealed when it became clear that the Countess was pregnant, in 1591. Shortly afterwards she gave birth to Robert Devereux, Lord Hereford (later 3rd Earl of Essex). They had two more sons and four daughters together, despite Essex’s dalliances with other women at court. Later that year, the Earl left to lead English forces in Normandy, alongside the army of King Henri IV of France, but returned unsuccessful in January 1592. He was a Privy Councillor between 1593 and 1595, during which time he focused on foreign policy, European intelligence gathering and correspondence. Enjoying a high public profile, Essex received as many dedications as the queen during the 1590s and was a key patron of portraiture, poetry and music, as well as being a poet himself.
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The genesis of the earl’s demise as a result of forthright and irresponsible actions began only a couple of years after he was painted by Gheeraerts. He was created Earl Marshal in 1598. That same year, however, after an argument with the queen over the choice of a new Lord Deputy of Ireland, he removed himself from court. In 1599, as the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Essex sailed there to command the queen’s forces against the Earl of Tyrone (as part of the Nine Years’ War, 1594 – 1603), but contrary to the monarch’s orders, conferred a large number of knighthoods on his soldiers, wasted funds, and garrisoned his men, all of which resulted in several defeats. Sensing that victory was no longer in his grasp, Essex reached a truce with Tyrone, independent of orders from the Crown. Although he was ordered not to return to court, he did, and was subsequently imprisoned. On 5 June 1600, Essex was charged with acts of insubordination whilst in Ireland and detained under house arrest, but granted his liberty on 26 August. Ruined, after the source of his basic income - the customs on sweet wines - was not renewed, disappointed and worried that the queen was being misadvised, following a controversial interpretation of Shakespeare’s Richard II, he led a band of three hundred men to march into the City in an attempted coup against the government. He had hopes of re-invigorating his position under the queen, as well as to convince her to consider James VI of Scotland as her rightful heir. However, the gates were shut, and Essex and his core band of men were arrested. His actions were misinterpreted as an attempt to overthrow the monarch; thus he was tried for treason and condemned to death. Essex was beheaded at the Tower of London on 25 February 1601 – the last person ever to be beheaded there. It could be argued that Essex was one of the few courtiers to experience the dramatic extremes of being at once at the height of the Queen’s favour, close enough to be regarded as her lover, and then absolutely cut off, literally executed. His reputation posthumously, however, remained a good one, and recent historians have praised his military strategy, intelligence gathering and patronage of eminent scholars. The portrait once formed part of the notable collection of Elizabethan paintings formed by Eric Bullivant, including other important portraits by Marcus Gheeraerts and Robert Peake, works now in Tate Britain and the Yale Center for British Art.
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8. An Etched Demi-Shaffron c. 1590-1600 Northern Italy Steel, gold, brass, leather. Length: 38 cm. / 15 in. Width max: 23 cm. / 9 in. Provenance Hollingworth Magniac Collection; Christie, Manson and Woods, 2 July 1892, lot 747; Edwin Brett Collection; Christie, Manson and Woods, 18-21 and 26 March 1895, Lot 446; Private collection, Europe; Private collection, USA.
The shape of this shaffron and the distinctive styling of its upper and lower terminal points suggests a manufacturing date close to 1600. In all of these respects this example compares with a shaffron in the Wallace Collection, London (A 355). The etched bands of trophies of armour and weapons are characteristic of the Italian armour workshops both in Milan and Brescia; the surviving gilding intended to give brilliance to the etched decoration gives an impression of the original splendour of the full armour for which this shaffron was worn in matching accompaniment. DESCRIPTION: The main plate and the poll-plate each embossed with a prominent medial ridge of single overlapping scales edged with cabled bands, etched with leaf ornament and tapering towards both ends, the main plate tapering to a fleur-de-lys point and fitted with a pair of standing pointed ear-defences, the poll-plate rising to a tri-lobate terminal, decorated throughout with etched and gilt bands of trophies of armour and weapons within linear borders, the edges with etched and gilt beadwork and guilloche border strips developing into scrolling foliage over the lower point, and studded throughout with brass rivets of domed cruciform heads. 42
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9. Attributed to Sir William Segar (c.1554 – 1633) Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532 – 1588) Oil on panel: 35 x 29 ¾ in. (88.9 x 75.6 cm.) Painted circa 1587 Provenance Possibly with Horatio Rodd, London, 1827; Lady Heaton, Ipswich; Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, 18 December 1968, lot 67; bt. by F.M. Carbonaro; Private collection, Italy.
This striking portrait of one of Elizabeth I’s most trusted and daring courtiers, Robert Dudley, derives from the prime three-quarter-length portrait of the sitter by William Segar, thought to be the last ad vivum portrait of the Earl. A proud and successful figure in Elizabethan politics and court life, the 1st Earl of Leicester was, after the Queen, the most regularly depicted figure of his time. The number of portraits which survive reflect Leicester’s political importance and his boundless preoccupation with the propagation of his own image. Several other versions of the Segar portrait exist, ranging from bust to three-quarter-length, and can be seen at Hatfield House; Warwick Castle; Parham Park; Penshurst and Knole. Ours is closest to that in the Marquis of Salisbury’s collection at Hatfield House. The type can be dated to c.1587, after Leicester’s return to England from the United Provinces. In 1585, Elizabeth had entrusted him with the English army to assist the United Provinces in their struggle with Spain, but he showed such incompetence and so angered the Queen by his own adoption of the title ‘Governor of the Netherlands’ that he was recalled in 1587. Nonetheless, he was sufficiently in favour that only a year later, during the Armada crisis, Elizabeth appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the troops at Tilbury to oppose the Spanish invasion. He died suddenly that year, with some suspicion of poison.
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Here the Earl of Leicester can be seen holding the white lord steward’s staff (stave) in his right hand whilst his left hand grips the handle of his sword. Although Leicester was appointed the Lord Stewardship in 1584, it was only recognised on his return to England in 1587, thus providing a terminus post quem for the portrait. A slight variation from the prime portrait, around his neck we see a long blue ribbon with the Order of the Garter of St George. His white satin doublet is embroidered with gold thread and punctured with black studded buttons. His large black velvet robe is lined with fur, possibly a souvenir from his time in the United Provinces. Robert was the second son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Protector of England during the reign of Edward VI. His father was executed for his part in the cause of Lady Jane Grey and the Wyatt insurrection. Dudley was tried on the same account but pleaded guilty and was imprisoned – though his life was spared. With the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Dudley’s fortunes rose. He was given a position in the Queen’s household as Master of the Horse, and was soon touted as a royal suitor. By 1561, with the death of his wife (in mysterious circumstances), he had become consort apparent. However, the marriage was never to happen and instead Leicester became, as a counterweight to Lord Burghley, one of Elizabeth’s two most important members of Council. He was further rewarded with appointments as Knight of the Garter, Privy Councillor, High Steward of the University of Cambridge; then in 1546, Elizabeth created him the first Earl of Leicester. Having finally given up hope of marriage to the Queen, in 1578 he secretly married Lettice Knollys, the widow of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex; an act which resulted in Elizabeth’s furious displeasure. William Segar was a man of numerous talents; initially admitted to practice law at Gray’s Inn in 1579, his career took a slightly different path when he was introduced by Sir Thomas Heneage to the College of Arms and plausibly to Leicester. Here Segar would rise through the ranks, from Portcullis Pursuivant in 1585 to Norroy King of Arms in 1593 – apparently endorsed by Robert Dudley. It is surprising to consider that Segar was not far into his service at the College of Arms when Dudley requested that he join him in the Netherlands to serve as the Master of the Ceremonies in the earl’s St George’s Day festivities held in Utrecht in April 1586. Dudley had already employed him as early as April 1584, and it would seem likely that Leicester also wanted a capable portraitist to paint him at the height of his achievements. 46
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10. A French Gorget, c. 1610
France, Paris or Moulins Steel, gold, leather, textile, bullion wire. Height: 29 cm. / 11 1/2 in. Width: 29 cm. / 11 1/2 in. Provenance Private collection, USA; Private collection, France. This gorget was made to be worn independent of armour, perhaps with a coat of buff leather, and indicated the owner was an officer. The emblematic composition of the etched design is inspired by the Italian, German, Flemish and French books of mannerist engravings of symbolic subjects published in the second half of the 16th century. These were popularly used as pattern books across the range of French decorative arts beyond the first quarter of the next century. The use of warrior figures wearing armour in the fanciful Roman antique style, called all’antica, is typical of the period. The central figure in the present gorget’s design is undoubtedly a personification of bravery. The town of Moulins in the Auvergne region, seat of the Dukes of Bourbon, was second only to Paris in its renown for manufacturing fine etched armour and this gorget could only have been created in the workshops of these two cities. A comparable French etched gorget or colletin dated circa 1600 is in the Royal Collection at Windsor (RCIN 38793); its etched composition similarly draws on figural themes. An Italian embossed gorget of circa 1610 with a frontal plate shaped very similarly to the present is in the Wallace Collection (A 238).
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11. Pieter Isaacsz. (1568 – 1625) An Unknown Danish Nobleman Oil on canvas: 38 ¾ x 30 ½ in. (101.5 x 72.8 cm.) Painted circa 1610 – 1614 Provenance Private collection, USA.
This portrait can be attributed with confidence to the Danish-born painter, Pieter Isaacsz., and dated to around 1614. The sitter’s red and gold embroidered sash is very similar in fashion to one seen in the Isaacsz. portrait of Christian IV at Frederiksborg and could, therefore, indicate that the sitter is Danish. Although few Danish noblemen in the first decades of the seventeenth century were painted in military costume, the year 1614 was significant because the first conscripted Danish Army led by Danish officers was organised. Our sitter, with his exceptionally fine rapier and companion dagger, exquisitely decorated and embellished with gold, must have been very high-ranking with intimate connections to the court. A possible contender could be the Marshall of the Realm, Jørgen Lunge, who died in 1619. After the king, the marshall was the highest ranking officer, and although no painted portrait of Lunge is known, a comparison between a statue at his tomb in Our Lady’s Church in Aalborg, Jutland, reveals some common features. Other contenders include one of the Skeel brothers; Jørgen Skeel, who followed Jørgen Lunge as Marshall, or his brother Albret, who became admiral of the realm. Both had light hair and beards. Apart from the great sensitivity with which Isaacsz. has captured the sitter’s fine features, and the bravura skill with which he has rendered the differing textures and materials of the costume, perhaps the greatest virtuosity is found in the brilliantly detailed weapons and sword-belt. The exceptionally fine rapier and its companion dagger would have been made in Italy and are both exquisitely decorated and embellished with gold. They are of the very highest quality and would have been highly expensive to purchase. Their cost would have lain not 52
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merely in the precious metal employed in their decoration, but in the many hours of skilled and patient labour to create them. The ornamental and figurative designs used would have been inspired by the Mannerist pattern-books of the late sixteenth century, skilfully adapted to the flowing forms of the elegant hilts and pommels of both the rapier and matching dagger. Such pieces were prized as a form of masculine jewellery as much as they were weaponry, and the emphasis given to them here clearly reflects the sitter’s wealth and status. Below his fine ruff he wears a protective steel gorget over a padded buff jacket called a ‘gambeson’ or ‘arming doublet’, fastened together by a chain. The thick buff coat, likely made of ox hide, is deceivingly simple, but this is no regular militia man. Draped over his left shoulder is a red silk sash elaborately embroidered with gold and blue thread and at his side is depicted a pot helmet with a decorated rib. The sash is stylistically similar to that seen in Isaacsz.’ portrait of Christian IV at Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen, and red and white are the colours of Denmark. Pieter Isaacsz. (1569 - 1625) was Danish-born but of Dutch descent, and due to the nature of his father’s profession as art agent for King Frederik II of Denmark, and to the Danish nobility, the Isaacsz. family moved constantly between Holland and Denmark before settling in Amsterdam in 1581. There, Isaacsz attended school before starting his apprenticeship with Cornelis Ketel and later with Hans von Achen. In 1608 he travelled to Copenhagen and took over his father’s position as an agent for the Danish king. He received several commissions from Christian IV and two of his principal portraits of Christian IV and his Queen Anna Catherine are kept at Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. He represents one of the more remarkable painters during the so-called Dutch Golden Age, for he was more than just a court painter in the service of King Christian IV of Denmark. His role as court portraitist and his associations with the Dutch state facilitated a simultaneous career as an international art trader. His favourable positioning in Danish courtly circles also made him an appealing candidate as a spy for the Swedish Realm. After years of cunning political meddling from Amsterdam to Rome, Isaascz. returned home to Denmark and subsequently died of the plague.
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12. An English Rapier, c. 1635 England Steel, silver, wood, copper. Length: 115 cm. / 45 1/4 in. Provenance Private collection, United Kingdom; Private collection, USA.
This hilt construction incorporates a range of English design characteristics of the period 1620- 50. It is, however, an unusual variation in that it does not include a knuckle-guard, while in all other respects it conforms within the variety of structures of the hilt type 73 identified by A.V.B. Norman. This type is dated within the 1630’s on the basis of evidence in English portraiture of the period. A notable developmental feature of the type, which is included on the present hilt, is the strengthening of the cup-guard by the addition of bars shaped as C-scrolls, which are in turn joined to the ring-guards. The openwork cup-like construction of symmetrically scrolling slender flat bars is typically English and it appears on a range of rapier hilts up to about 1645. The Inclusion in the present hilt of the pronounced mouldings at the quillon tips, which are then repeated as a central feature of the outer ring is an attractive refinement. The strong form of the pommel is similarly impressive, lending itself well as a large surface for the silver decoration. This style of silver damascening, referred to as ‘encrusting’ because it stands in low relief, is the subject of considerable debate. The techniques and the majority of the designs post-dating the 1620’s are essentially common to both England and German hilts of the second half of the 17th century. The detailed repertoire seems to have no national boundary, suggesting in the case of obviously English hilts (such as this present one), that the silver work was done by migrant German craftsmen. For a highly detailed commentary on this subject the reader is referred to the catalogue of the arms collection at Waddesdon Manor, in which a number of silver-encrusted hilts in the collection are discussed.
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13. Frans Badens (1571 – 1618) Gerard Reynst (c.1568 – 1615), 2nd Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Oil on canvas: 76 5⁄8 × 46 7⁄8 in. (194.5 × 119 cm.) Painted in the first half of 1613 Provenance Presumably commissioned to commemorate the sitter’s appointment as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies on 20 February 1613; likely by descent to his daughter Wijntje Reynst (b.c.1600) and her husband Isaack Coymans (1581 – 1640), Amsterdam; transferred to his brother-in-law Samuel Bloemaert (1583 – 1651), Amsterdam; thence by descent to Joan Cornelis Reynst (c.1856 – 1942), The Hague; probably acquired by David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford and 10th Earl of Balcarres (1871 – 1940), Balcarres House, Fife; to his son David Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford and 11th Earl of Balcarres, K.T., G.B.E. (1900 – 1975), Haigh Hall, Wigan; until his sale Christie’s London, 11 October 1946, lot 156 (as ‘Sustermans, Portrait of Admiral Spinola’); Captain A.C. Moller (of Furny’s, Antique Dealer), London; by whom sold at Christie’s London, 8 December 1961, lot 185; with Dent, London; Private collection, Verona. Literature E.W. Moes, Iconographia Batava, Amsterdam 1905, vol. II, p.272, no.6403.
Formerly in the prestigious collection of the Earls of Balcarres, where it was mistakenly identified as General Ambrogio Spinola by Justus Sustermans, this important and impressive full-length portrait, has survived in an excellent state of preservation.
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Our research has revealed that the sitter is actually Gerard Reynst (1568 – 1615), an influential and successful merchant from Amsterdam, who served as the second Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, and that the artist is Frans Badens (1571 – 1618), arguably one of the most respected painters active in Amsterdam at the time, but now little-known. The identification of the portrait, which was painted in 1613 in commemoration of the sitter’s appointment as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies on 20 February of that year, is confirmed by an engraving and two poor quality bust-length copies, all three of which are today in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (figs. 1 & 2).
Fig.1 After Frans Badens (1571 – 1618) Gerard Reynst (c.1568 – 1615) © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Fig. 2 Matthis Balen (1684 – 1766) Gerard Reynst (c.1568 – 1615) © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Though Reynst was from the merchant class, for this full-length Badens uses the international style of court portraiture previously created and developed in the 16th century for the portrayal of royalty and nobility by artists such as Anthonis Mor (c.1516/21 – c.1576) and Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569 – 1622). Reynst is presented in a grand tiled marble hallway, beyond which is a large doorway leading into an airy room decorated with classically inspired renaissance pilasters, which may well represent the main chambers of East India House (‘Oost-Indisch Huis’) in Amsterdam. 62
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To the right of the sitter is a table covered with an elaborate Ispahan rug from the last quarter of the 16th century, on which sits an ornate Italian helmet (cabasset) decorated with an engraved badge, likely depicting the mythological Roman soldier Marcus Curtius. Marcus Curtius was admired in the 17th century as the very model of a hero who dies for his fatherland. A more ornate cabasset, from c.1575, depicting the same scene is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Should the medallion indeed represent the heroic Curtius, one could parallel his sacrificial deed to the similarly courageous Reynst when he accepted the post of Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in 1613; the very nature of the job, that of charting unknown, foreign lands and seas on the other side of the globe, exposed to bizarre and often fatal exotic diseases as well as indigenous peoples, was potentially a death-sentence to the post-holder. Indeed, Reynst’s term as Governor-General would be short-lived, for he died suddenly in Djakatra on 7 December 1615, after barely more than a year’s service. Another significant feature is the long gold chain worn by the sitter. To encourage Reynst to accept the position of Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, the Heren XVII (the seventeen delegates from the Seven Provinces who governed the VOC) – offered him the then substantial monthly salary of 700 guilders and an annual sum of 1000 guilders 'table money'. They also promised him the leadership of the Amsterdam Chamber on his return should he serve a full term of five years in the East Indies – which was not to include the time spent travelling. Upon his acceptance, the States of Holland presented him with a golden chain worth 1000 guilders and ‘a beautiful honorary medal of the same metal’. The gold medallion is likely a remuneration medal, created by Coenraad Bloc in 1604, depicting the stadtholder Prince Maurice of Orange-Nassau, the figurehead of the United Provinces, and which would have been actively worn during diplomatic meetings with world leaders. Those in the Far East, like the Japanese Shogun, took hierarchy very seriously and would only deal with individuals who represented an appointed figurehead equal to them, which was normally the king in Western cultures. Although the VOC was inherently republican, they strategically misrepresented the stadtholder as the ‘king of Holland’ to enable an audience in Far Eastern courts. Wearing this medal would have allowed Reynst to use Prince Maurice’s ‘distant presence to structure subsequent exchanges’.
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Fig.3 Frans Badens (1571 – 1618) Gunmen of the Company of Cpt. Arent ten Grootenhuys and Lt. Jacob Floriszn. Cloeck c.1608 © Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam.
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Gerard Reynst (Gerrit Reijnst) was born c.1568 to Pieter Reijnst (b.c.1510), a merchant in ashes for the soap industry. In 1588, he married in Haarlem Margaretha Nicquet (1566 – 1603). A decade later, by now a wealthy merchant and shipper who envisaged the great potential of global trade, Reynst cofounded the (New) Brabant Company, which grew into the United Company of Amsterdam (Vereenigde Compagnie van Amsterdam). In 1602, this company was consolidated with other city trade companies, forming the Dutch East India Company, arguably the largest European trade conglomerate of its type. In 1603, Margaretha died during childbirth, leaving Reynst to care for his nine children. Two of Reynst’s sons, Gerard and Jan, went on to become passionate art collectors; they famously built their own museum in Amsterdam composed of paintings imported from Venice in particular, where Jan Reynst and his uncle Jacques Nicquet were based as merchants. In 1660, Gerard Reynst II's widow sold some of the best of the Italian paintings to the Dutch state, who then in turn gifted them to King Charles II to celebrate his restoration to the British throne. Frans Badens (1571 - 1618) was born in Antwerp, where he presumably served his apprenticeship. After a sojourn in Italy from c.1593 – 1596, he seems to have spent all his working life in Amsterdam, where he died in 1618. Amazingly, despite his apparent contemporary celebrity and success, Badens’ oeuvre is almost completely untraceable, with only a handful of works presently attributed to him. Our attribution is based on the evident stylistic match with his large group portrait depicting The Gunmen of the company of Captain Arent ten Grootenhuys and Lieutenant Jacob Floriszn Cloeck (Amsterdam Museum), from c.1608 (fig. 3). The luminescent colouring, glistening flesh tones and highly mannered pose of his sitters are the most noticeable original qualities shared by our portrait with the Amsterdam group. Very possibly our portrait remained in the Reynst family until the early twentieth century, though there was an auction of some of the sitter’s goods, including fifteen paintings, sold to benefit his family after his death. In 1631, Isaac Coymans, one of Reynst’s son-in-laws, transferred most of his possessions to his brother-inlaw Samuel Blommaert for safe-keeping as he had been accused of embezzlement by the Church. One of the paintings listed was ‘The portrait of Gerard Reynst in his life[time] General in the East Indies in a gilded frame’). Blommaert was also a son-in-law of Reynst, having married his daughter Catharina in 1612. In 1905, the Dutch art historian Ernst Moes mentioned a portrait of Gerard Reynst that was in the collection of The Hague-based Reynsts. 66
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14. A Pair of Rowel Spurs, English, about 1630 English Iron, silver. By the beginning of the 17th century the shape of spurs began to change away from those often with straight necks to ones in which the neck arched up and then down, although the rowel was still held comfortably away from the wearer's heel. Riding was an essential everyday activity for many and ordinary working spurs were commonplace, but they also offered opportunities for the display of wealth and fashionable good taste so, as in past centuries, spurs were often made in complex forms and given a variety of natures of decoration. This fine pair of spurs represents the epitome of style and quality for an English gentleman in the 1630s. Such spurs would have been worn over riding boots, their front leather strap (now lost of course), having a broad additional butterflyshaped leather panel threaded over it, usually of the same colour as the boots, to cover and protect the front of the wearer's ankle. These spurs have five-pointed rowels on necks of an elegant inverted U-shape, and have large decorative buckles. They are decorated overall with silver encrustation, a technique which became very popular in England by the early years of the 17th century. This involved carefully chiselling shaped recesses into the surface of an iron object, then hammering pieces of silver into these and then shaping the silver so that it stood slightly proud of the iron surface. The contrast of this applied silver decoration on a background of blackened iron was found visually pleasing and the technique was used on a wide variety of domestic and other objects, especially sword and dagger hilts, the handles of cutlery and, as in this case, spurs. As a demonstration of his wealth and taste such spurs would have appealed to a fashionable gentleman of the 1630s, indeed a similar pair can be seen being worn by King Charles I in a portrait of him by Daniel Mytens, painted in 1631 (National Portrait Gallery, London, No.1246).
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15. Cornelius Johnson (1593 – 1661) Colonel Robert Hammond (1587 – 1650) Oil on canvas: 28 1/8 x 24 ¾ in. (76.5 x 62.9 cm.) Signed with monogram and indistinctly dated lower right: ‘C.J. fecit/ ..6’ Painted 1636 Provenance By family descent at St. Alban’s Court, Nonington, Kent, until c.1790s; Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted (1853 – 1927), The Mote; Christie’s, London, 13 December 1929, lot 86 (120 gns. to Leggatt); acquired from Leggatt Brothers, London, 1931, by Harold Pearson, 2nd Viscount Cowdray (1882 - 1933); thence by descent Michael O. W. Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray (b. 1944); until his sale Christie’s, London, 13 September 2011, lot. 147. Literature C. Anson, A Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Collection of The Viscount Cowdray, London, 1971, p. 29, no. 86 (in the North Gallery).
Until recently this sitter was considered unknown, however, another portrait by the same artist, which clearly depicts the same gentleman, at Canterbury’s Royal Museum & Art Gallery (fig.1), has enabled us to identify our sitter as Colonel Robert Hammond, a Royalist cavalier, here depicted in his officer’s uniform. Hammond’s family were prominent land-owners in East Kent, with an estate in St. Albans Court, Nonington. Although they moved on the fringes of court circles at the time, with a typical annual income for parochial gentry (£254 p.a. compared with Kent peers at £4,089 p.a.), they were clearly prosperous enough to commission portraits by Johnson.
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Robert was part of Sir Walter Raleigh’s second unsuccessful South American expedition to search for the fabled city of Eldorado – an expedition which ultimately resulted in Raleigh’s beheading in 1618. However, he does not appear to have suffered any punishment for his part in the failed expedition, instead entering military service. His elder brother, Francis (b. 1584), served abroad in the bloody Thirty Years War and it is more than likely that Robert may have done the same. The present portrait, and the one in Canterbury’s Royal Museum & Art Gallery, therefore provide an important visual testament to his military background. We do know that Hammond was at the centre of Royalist plotting throughout the Interregnum. By 1648 there are records of his direct involvement in the Kentish Revolt. Later that year he took part in the defence of Colchester when it was besieged by Parliamentarian forces from July 1648 until the defeat of Royalist forces at the Battle of Preston in August. Within a year or so Robert took up duties as the Royalist governor of the castle at Gowran in Co. Kilkenny in Ireland. Cromwell began a campaign in Ireland against Royalist forces in the autumn of 1649 and by March 1650 Gowran castle was surrounded by Parliamentarian troops. Hammond refused Cromwell’s terms of surrender, forcing a siege. As a result of this, he and his officers were subsequently handed over to the Parliamentary forces and Cromwell ordered their summary execution by firing squad.
Fig.1 Cornelius Johnson (1593 – 1661) Colonel Robert Hammond (1587 – 1650) © Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury.
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16. An English Gold-encrusted Small-Sword and Scabbard, by Charles Bibb, Newport Street, London c. 1735-40 England Steel, gold, gilt-brass, wood, fishskin. Length: 97.2 cm / 38 1/4 in. Provenance Private collection, Europe. By the latter decades of the 17th century the small-sword had effectively taken on the status of male jewellery, it having become an essential element of a gentleman’s dress when about town. This fashion brought about the continuing development of richly ornamented hilts and in London Society the taste for carrying an elegant sword in St. James’s and the Mall saw out the end of the 18th century. The styling of small-sword hilts evolved over the course of the 18th century, the pair of arms projecting immediately behind the shell-guard lost their original function of fitting the grip of two fingers and consequently became smaller. The reduced but still bold shape of the of the arms of the present hilt reflects this transition beginning prior to 1720. In the present instance also, the slight swell at the base of the quillon-block is residual from an earlier feature and already considered conservative by 1735-40. There is no concealing the grandeur of this gold-encrusted hilt and it must have been among the finest to leave Charles Bibb’s workshop. Other known sword hilts attributed to Bibb are made entirely of silver, or giltbrass, and create less visual impact.
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The so-called ‘encrusting’ of precious metals onto base metal is distinguished from the general process of damascening in that the resulting gold or silver inlay stands proud of the base metal surface and can itself be engraved in detail. This low relief work literally heightens the scope of the artist. As in the present example, a complex decorative scheme can be a c h i e v e d a n d f re q u e n t l y f ro m a b o u t 1 7 1 5 - 2 0 t h i s i n v o l v e d figural vignettes. The present hilt displays, again somewhat conservatively, a series of figural subjects from classical mythology, the allegorical moral messages taken from these being very familiar to all classically educated gentlemen of the period. The designer has in this instance, however, cleverly updated the overall effect by suspending these subjects within a profusion of more frivolous rococo shell and floral motifs, then at the height of fashion. The contrasting effect of a blued ground would have been superb. The relatively delicate scabbard is a rare survivor, its chape and the suspension hook which projects from the locket are each decorated with a scaled matching version of the work on the hilt. The cutler has typically pricked his signature on the reverse of the locket (gilt-brass being expedient in a part unseen when suspended in a carrier). Charles Bibb (1702-77) was a prominent London sword-cutler working at “Ye Flaming Sword Great Newport Street”, off St. Martin’s Lane, Westminster. He had been born into a dynastic family of London cutlers: his father Thomas Bibb (I), working at New Street, near Fleet St. from 1710; his grandfather John Bibb (II) gained freedom of the Cutlers’ Company in 1660; and his great-grandfather, John Bibb (I), free of the Cutlers’ Company in 1638. In the autumn of 1735 Charles Bibb succeeded Joseph Le Febure, to whom he had been indentured since 1717, at his premises (“next to ‘The Porcupine’ in Newport Street”.). In working outside of the city of London there was no legal necessity for Charles Bibb to obtain freedom of the Cutlers’ Company. Bibb remained in business here for the next fortytwo years, until his death aged about 74. Charles Bibb was succeeded by his son, also Charles, and by two daughters, thereupon the business came to an abrupt end. 77
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DESCRIPTION: With iron hilt formed of a pair of boldly shaped arms, horizontal rear quillon with globular terminal and knuckle-guard all issuant from the quillon-block, the latter swelling slightly towards its base, a symmetrical double shell-guard and an ovoid pommel rising to a button; the grip binding of patterned gold wire and ‘Turk’s head’ knots is an expert restoration. Richly decorated throughout with a rococo scheme of engraved gold-encrusted deities and related figures from classical mythology, all in low relief on a contrasting blued ground, now mostly age-patinated to russet. Involving the figure of Athena on the pommel, designs of putti, bouquets, trophies and rocailles differing over the respective sides of the knuckle-guard, the quillon-block with the figure of Hygieia goddess of Health on one side and with a further chariot-borne female deity on the other, the figures of Leda and Venus on respective sides of the shell-guard, the four vignettes on the shell suspended within a field of elongated wavy ballflower tendrils, and the entire arrangement segmented and enclosed within encrusted minutely beaded linear borders. With slender hollowtriangular blade etched and gilt with small scrollwork motifs on a blued panel at the forte. In its original wooden scabbard covered in white fishskin, with iron chape blued and gold-encrusted en suite with the hilt, and with gilt-brass locket decorated with chased panels of scrollwork on the outer side, pricked with the cutler’s signature ‘Bibb Newport Street’ on the inner face, fitted with suspension ring, and with iron suspension hook blued and gold-encrusted en suite with the hilt also.
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17. Adriaen Hanneman (1603 – 1671) An Unknown Dutch Officer Oil on canvas: 32 x 26 in. (81.3 x 66 cm.) Signed and dated upper left: ‘Ano, 1656, / Adr: Hanneman. F’ Provenance Mrs. E. Gunn; her sale Christie’s, London, 26 April 1912, lot 127; bt. by Shepherd Knoedler & Co., London, by 1912; Sotheby’s New York, 2 June 1989, lot 19; Private collection, Greenwich (CT), USA. Literature C.H. Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters: A Study of English Portraiture before and after Van Dyck, London 1912, vol. I, p. 88 (illus.). O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman 1604 – 1671: een haags portretschilder, p. 92, cat. no. 42 (illus. fig. 54).
This characterful portrait of an unknown officer in Dutch armour was painted in 1656, the same year as Hanneman’s renowned self-portrait, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In near-pristine state of preservation, it is a rare example of the artist’s signed work of the period, and is painted with the confidence and assured brush-work for which Hanneman was much sought after. The sitter’s resplendent curls and gathered collar reveal a man of fashion, as well as action. His armour, carefully rendered with strong highlights across the breast-plate and to the visor of his helmet (just visible in his left hand), are typical of Hanneman’s Van Dyckian style.
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Adriaen Hanneman (1603 - 1671) was born in The Hague, where he later became a pupil of the portraitist, Jan van Ravesteyn. Around 1626 he moved to London, where it is possible that he worked for some time as an assistant in the workshop of Sir Anthony van Dyck, whose bravura and loose style he absorbed with alacrity. Around 1638 he returned to The Hague, where he joined the Guild of St. Luke and married his old master’s niece, Maria van Ravesteyn. The purchase of a house in fashionable Nobelstraat in The Hague in 1641 and an adjoining property in 1657 indicate that Hanneman prospered. He played a major role in establishing Van Dyck’s aristocratic Anglo-Flemish portrait style in The Hague. His patrons included members of the Princely House of Orange, as well as wealthy burghers and government officials. Due to the English Civil War, from the late 1640s onwards, large numbers of exiled British royalists began to settle in the Stadtholder court in The Hague, with Hanneman painting portraits of some of the key figures of the period, including Charles II, when still Prince of Wales, and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (NPG, London).
Fig.1 Adriaen Hanneman (1603 - 1671) Self-portrait, 1656. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
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18. A Flemish Shaffron, c. 1520-30 Belgium, Flandern. Steel. Length: 67 cm. / 26 3/8 in, Width: 30 cm. / 11 7/8 in., Depth: 17 cm. / 6 11/16 in. Provenance Private collection, Europe.
The shaffron is of a distinctively Flemish fashion of about 1520-30. It relates to - and may possibly derive from - a large quantity of Flemish horse armour imported into England in the time of King Henry VIII and stored in the Tower of London Armouries in readiness for its use by his cavalry. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries Flanders rivalled Northern Italy and Southern Germany as a major centre for European armourproduction. Although the armourers of Flanders like those of much of Europe looked to Northern Italy and Milan in particular, to provide the models for their own styles, they tended to adapt those models to Northern European tastes by introducing forms and decorative details that imbued them with a recognisable character of their own. The earliest surviving shaffron to which a Flemish origin can confidently be assigned is one in the Real Armeria, Madrid (cat. no. A. 11), associated with an armour of the Flemish-born Philip I, the Handsome”, King of Castile (1478 - 1504/1506) which bears the mark of an unidentified armourer known to have worked for him in Flanders. The shaffron, moreover, bears engraved decoration from the hand of Paul van Vrelant of Brussels, which was perhaps applied in 1505 when he was paid for the decoration of various items of equestrian equipment for the King. Very close to it in style, and therefore presumably in date as well, is an undecorated shaffron in the same collection (cat. no. F, 110).
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The Flemish armourer Guillem Margot is recorded as having worked between 1494 and 1530 for Philip the Handsome, Charles V and the latter’s younger brother Archduke Ferdinand, who for a time served as governor of the Burgundian Low Countries. The records show that horse armours formed a significant part of his output. Two further horse armours bearing Margot’s mark are among the remains of the personal armoury of King Henry VIII of England, preserved in the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London. Both are decorated by Paul van Vreland. One of them may have formed part of a gift of armour made to the King by the Emperor Maximilian I in 1514, while the other appears to have been decorated by van Vreland in England between 1514, when he took up employment with the King, and 1519. Flemish armour was evidently much appreciated in England around that time, as is shown by the fact that in 1511 King Henry brought over two armourers from Brussels, Copyn de Watt and Peter Fevers, to work for him in a royal workshop that he set up in his palace at Greenwich. However, much munition armour of Flemish manufacture was also imported into England in Henry’s time, including substantial quantities of horse armour that are still to be seen in part among the remains of the former national arsenal of the Tower of London, and are now distributed between there, the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, Windsor Castle and Hampton Court. Shaffrons form a significant part of those remains. Viewed collectively, they show a clear relationship in both form and detail to the Flemish examples in Madrid, discussed above. Persistent among their features are the boxing of their sides, and the decoration of those sides and the ear-defences with cascaded fluting of the kind seen on the shaffron under discussion. Although some of the Henrician shaffrons are likely from their close resemblance to the Philip the Handsome example of c. 1505 to date from the earliest years of the King’s reign (1509 - 47), others of a bolder form and with roped edges clearly date from a later part of it.
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DESCRIPTION: The shaffron is formed of a main plate protecting the brow and front of the horse’s face, a pair of gutter-shaped ear-defences, a pair of flanged eyedefences, a pair of side-plates and a bulbous nose-defence, all rigidly riveted to one another. Attached by a screw to the centre of the brow is a small radially fluted decorative roundel that partly conceals beneath is upper edge a plume-tube of rectangular section attached by rivets. The main plate is boxed at each side. It and the nose-defence are in each case decorated with a boldly roped medial ridge. Flutes diverge from either side of the ridge of the nose-defence. The ear-defences and sideplates are each decorated with cascaded flutes. The upper edges of the eye-defences and the lower edge of the nose-defence are each formed with plain inward turns accompanied by recessed borders. The shaffron, although originally bright in colour now possesses a dark overall patina. It has suffered some damage at the apex of the medial crest of its main plate and to both side-plates, the left of which has become detached.
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19. John Michael Wright (1617 – 1694) Lord Henry Howard, later 6th Duke of Norfolk (1628 – 1684) Oil on canvas: 52 ¾ × 41 ½ 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. Literature 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. Exhibited 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.).
This 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.’ Painted around 1660, it is the prime original of which several other studio replicas are recorded, and it is one of a number of portraits of sitters in similar ceremonial armour, painted by Wright in this decade.
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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. 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. 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. 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, and in two famous chieftain full-lengths from the 1680s – that of Sir Neil O’Neill and of Lord Mungo Murray. 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. 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. 93
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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. 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. 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 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 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. 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, 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’. He worked for both Royalist and Parliamentarian clients, and must have been an affable as well as mercurial character. 94
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20. (a) An Important Highland Officer’s Decorated Silver Basket-Hilted Broadsword The hilt by John Radborn, London, dated 1767 The Blade German (Solingen), early 17th century English, London. Silver, steel, wood, gilding and fish-skin Length: 99 cm. / 39 in. Inscribed: ٠CLEMENS٠ HORNN٠ I٠ /٠MEFECIT٠SOLINGE n٠PVGNA٠PRO٠PATRIA٠ / ٠SOLI٠DEO٠GLORIA٠B. Provenance Private collection, United Kingdom.
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20. (b) A Highland Officer’s Silver Basket-Hilted Backsword, c. 1745 English, probably London Silver, steel, wood, fish-skin and woollen cloth Length: 98 cm. / 38 ½ in. Marked with a H and two stamps resembling the symbol of infinity.
Provenance
Earlshall Collection. This is one of very few known examples of a hilt of this form made in silver. The root of the quillon is struck on its inner face with a mark like a capital letter H and with two stamps resembling the symbol of infinity.
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21. Antonio David (1694 – 1750) Prince James Edward Stuart, The Old Pretender (1688 – 1766), a ricordo Oil on canvas: 17 ¼ x 13 in. (44 x 33 cm.) Painted circa 1717 - 18 Provenance Presented by the artist to Sir David Nairne (1655 – 1740) in February 1718; sent to his eldest daughter in Paris in March 1718; by descent to his younger daughter Marie, Lady Ramsay (1701 – c.1761/1776); by whom bequeathed to John Nairne, Scotland; by descent through his extended family; possibly gifted or sold to John Charles Ogilvy-Grant, 7th Earl of Seafield (1815 – 1881), Cullen House, Banffshire; by whom bequeathed to Major William Baird (1879 – 1933), Lennoxlove House; thence by descent. Literature Dr. E. Corp, The Jacobites at Urbino, London 2009, pp. 23-25, 68, 87 & 90. Exhibited Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, The Palace of History: Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, 1911.
Of significant historical interest, our small-scale portrait of Prince James Edward Stuart is a ricordo of a larger prime version. As in the case of the original, this was painted by Antonio David, and commissioned by one of the Old Pretender’s close supporters. As an icon of the Jacobite cause, James Francis Edward Stuart was the subject of numerous works of art during his lifetime. Few however, stand as singularly vibrant as the outstandingly accomplished portrait by David.
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As an official portrait painter of the exiled Jacobite court in Rome, David formed a close acquaintance with the Stuarts after they decamped to Rome in early 1717. Pre-eminent amongst Italian portraitists, David worked almost exclusively for the House of Stuart for nearly twenty years, also painting the Old Pretender’s two children Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender (1720 – 1788) and Prince Henry Benedict, Cardinal York (1725 – 1807), both painted circa 1732 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh). This half-length portrait, painted at the inauguration of David’s association with the Pretender, features him in a fashionably high-peaked wig and donning a lacy cravat above a highly-sheened ceremonial breast-plate. An appearance of splendour is increased by the red velvet and fur cloak on which are incorporated the sitter’s distinctions: the blue of the Garter and the rich greens and gold of the Thistle. With David’s emphasis on texture, opulence and colour he achieves a representation which epitomises kingly magnificence and rivals the portraiture of James’s French contemporary, Louis XV; more pertinently, it would have also successfully eclipsed the comparatively lacklustre likenesses of Queen Anne and George I across the channel. The incorporation of James’s Orders would seem to facilitate the dating of this portrait to post c.1717. Having returned from his unsuccessful campaign in Scotland in 1716, and wishing to recognise the efforts of his Jacobite supporters, James for the first time chose to display the Order of the Thistle as well as the Order of the Garter on his chest. Where previously these Orders were incompatible if worn together, new regulations issued from Avignon in April 1716 decreed that the Thistle could now be worn with the Sash. After secretly arriving in France with his mother, Mary of Modena in 1688, James Edward, who was the only son of James II (1633 – 1701), spent his earliest years under the protection of Louis XIV. After his father’s death in 1701 James Edward was declared King by Stuart supporters and later attempted officially to claim his title by landing in Scotland in 1715. On his failure, he was offered refuge in Rome by Pope Clement XI, and given the Palazzo Muti as his residence. Continuing their legacy of artistic patronage the Stuarts made their court in Rome an important centre for painting, employing the greatest Italian portraitists, not only including David, but also Francesco Trevisani, Louis-Gabriel Blanchet and Rosalba Carriera. Portraits were a central ingredient of the long campaign of political propaganda to win support for the Jacobite cause, and were disseminated throughout Europe to James’s supporters. 102
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22. A Small-Sword, c. 1770-74 Paris, France Silver, gold, steel, and wood. Silver discharge mark for 1768-74, fourbisseurs silver mark with initials: FAC Length: 92 cm. / 36 1/8 in. Blade: 75.5 cm / 29 3/4 in. Provenance Private collection, France. From the latter decades of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century the small sword became increasingly light and delicate, lending itself to ever more sophisticated decoration, but remained the essential and most splendid accessory to a gentleman’s wardrobe. In 18th century pre-revolutionary France silver sword hilts were in general made by sword cutlers (fourbisseurs) rather than by silversmiths concerned with the creation of domestic silver wares; it is certain also that a lesser number were made by jewellers. Regrettably, and in contrast to French silversmiths, very few of the makers’ marks used by the 18th century master fourbisseurs are identifiable today: the maker of the present hilt being a case in point. The marine themed design of this hilt shows considerable imagination and artistic flair in addition to its technical excellence. Typical among Paris makers of hilts for small-swords and of the mounts for luxury firearms, the master signed F A C has selected themed decorative motifs inspired by classical art and architecture with which to appropriately frame his composition of vignettes. The vignettes are for the most part nautical, or at least involving nautical trophies, and those larger ones on the shell guard and on the grip appear to belong to a single series, most probably closely inspired by a series of French engravings or marine paintings from the first half of the 18th century. A theme such as this is unusual in comparison with the ever popular trophies of war, of sport, of the sciences and of the Liberal Arts all variously employed by the Paris cutlers in the decoration of hilts. In the instance of the hilt under discussion, its very fine workmanship and the deliberate choice of subjects suggest that this sword was made either for a senior French naval officer, or for one who owed his fortune to sea trade. 104
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The blade would have been bought-in by the Paris cutler, a frequent 18th century practice, and it bears the mark of a bladesmith attributed to the internationally renowned German blade manufacturing centre of Solingen. Once more, however, the maker is not identifiable from the mark, but the mark is seen on the blades of a variety of French swords, including examples with later styled hilts dating from the First Empire period. DESCRIPTION: With silver-gilt hilt cast in relief and finely hand-finished with chiselled, pounced and polished work. Decorated throughout with an elaborate scheme of minutely detailed marine vignettes all within a framework of Victorious laurel garlands, scrolling acanthus and classical coin mouldings on a pounced matted ground. Including large double-shell guard, its inner and outer faces each centring on pairs of large ovals enclosing differing sea vignettes, each with a Sea God mask prominent above and with entwined pairs of dolphin supporters flanking the base. With short rear quillon, knuckleguard and a pair of C-scroll arms all issuant from a moulded quillon-block, the quillon with monster’s head terminal cast in the round, and the medial block decorated with a small oval vignette over its respective sides. Eggshaped pommel decorated en suite, and the grip carrying further larger pairs of oval vignettes between banded mouldings of laurel and acanthus at both ends, and the ovals each supported by a scallop shell beneath and surmounted by a further Sea God mask beneath a cap of entwined dolphins. Mounted with Solingen blade of slender hollow-triangular form, etched and gilt with trophies, scrolls and swags on a blued panel at the forte, and including a small gilt panel filled with the bladesmith’s etched device, N K, a bunch of grapes and a flower between. In very fine untouched condition throughout, the hilt of the high quality typically associated with the leading Paris fourbisseurs and preserved with little evidence of use.
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THE WEISS GALLERY
59 Jermyn Street London, SW1Y 6LX +44(0)207 409 0035 info@weissgallery.com
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38-39 Duke Street St James’s London, SW1Y 6DF +44(0)207 839 5666 gallery@peterfiner.com 110