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SELECTED INVENTORY
Studio of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Portrait of King Charles I
Studio of Sir Anthony Van Dyck
Portrait of King Charles I
c.1638-9
oil-on-canvas
30 x 25 in.
Provenance
Private collection, UK;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2025.
Note
This impressively martial portrait of Charles I is a high quality bust variant of the likeness of the king painted by Van Dyck in 1638-9. The prototype of this portrait is the large equestrian painting showing Charles mounted in full plate armour with a squire offering up his helmet for battle now in the National Gallery, London. Painted on the eve of civil war it is one of Van Dyck’s most metaphysical portraits, displaying the king in control of nature as much of the realm. It is the largest portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck and places the sitter in a royal and imperial portrait tradition beginning with the famous bronze statue of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which would have flattered the king’s pretensions of ruling without Parliament as his period of absolute ‘Personal Rule’ was coming to a close [1].
The portrait became one of the defining images of Charles and the Stuart dynasty and demand by his royalist supporters for reduced engravings, as well as further reduced bust versions of a more universally hangable size, was considerable. The present high quality portrait, as a work painted in Van Dyck’s studio under the artist’s supervision, would have formed part of the range of portraits produced for Charles and his court for various political and diplomatic reasons. The king was passionate about art and was the first British monarch to collect art for its own sake. Ever since his youthful (and comically quixotic) mission to Spain in 1623 to secure the marriage of the King of Spain’s daughter, Charles had dreamed of turning his court into a rival of the great visual displays of Madrid, sparkling with pictures by Titian and Velasquez, as part of a wishful civilising exercise on his disparate and badly administered kingdom. His first route towards that end was to spend lavishly on collections of Old Masters, most notably the Mantua collection secured for about £15,000 in 1628 with the help of Van Dyck’s friend Nicholas Lanier, the ‘Master of the King’s Musick’.(2) Such was Charles’ enthusiasm for buying art that he would often be present at the moment of delivery, insisting that crates delivered at night were immediately unpacked, and playing games of attribution by candlelight.[3]
But it was not enough for Charles to be surrounded by great art; he wanted to be in it. Charles, more than any other English king, fell into the trap of believing that the image of power equated to its reality. The tradition is that when Charles saw Van Dyck’s c.1628 portrait of Nicholas Lanier [Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna] he demanded that the artist be ‘sent for over into England.’[4] Getting Van Dyck to England, however, was no easy task; he needed the inducements of an expensive annual retainer, a studio by the Thames, a large gold chain and a knighthood. There are sixteen recorded varying portrait types or compositions of Charles by Van Dyck and seventeen of his wife, Henrietta Maria. The fact that the majority of these are known both in multiple versions by Van Dyck himself and studio replicas gives a glimpse of how reliant on his talented studio assistants Van Dyck often was.
On one level, the need to circulate Charles I’s image by the best artist possible was obvious – power increases with recognition. In 1504 Henry VII, the first English king to understand the importance of his own image, had the masterstroke of putting his recognisable portrait on the coinage, so that his face was in the pocket and purse of all his subjects. Other images had to visually impress viewers with the majesty and power of the monarch – some who saw Holbein’s 1537 life-size mural of Henry VIII and his family in Whitehall ‘felt abashed, annihilated’, such was its scale and realism.[5] Yet outside the royal palace, royal portraits could assume a subtly different purpose. In private houses, for example, the display of a portrait of Charles I could not only demonstrate the owner’s loyalty to the king but also that they were a person of importance. Inevitably, therefore, there was a considerable demand for replicas of Van Dyck’s royal portraits. The present portrait of Charles I is a fine example of a studio production of a portrait of the king from the peak of Van Dyck’s English career. The head and armoured bust are derived from the famed equestrian portrait of Charles I, yet transform a monumental picture designed for a royal palace into an albeit martial likeness more easily soliciting empathy with the monarch’s person.
Unfortunately, we cannot know which of Van Dyck’s assistants was responsible for the portrait. Unlike Rubens’ studio, we know comparatively little of those Van Dyck employed or what they did. Van Dyck’s studio in Blackfriars lay outside the remit of the City of London and its strict rules on artists and their apprentices. Those whom we believe were employed at some stage in England by Van Dyck include Jan Van Belcamp, Jean de Reyn, David Beek, James Gandy, Henry Stone and Remigius van Leemput.[6]
[1] National Gallery, NG1172.
The painting is the subject of a book by Sir Roy Strong, Van Dyck: King Charles on Horseback (London: Allan Lane, 1972).
[2] The final figure paid for the collection is uncertain. See for example Ian Spink, ‘Lanier in Italy’, in Music & Letters, Vol. 40, no. 3, (July, 1959), pp.242-252.
[3] Charles Carlton, Charles I the Personal Monarch, 2nd edn., (London, 1995), pp.143-144
[4] This phrase comes from a later account noted by Charles Beale after a conversation with Sir Peter Lely and apparently first published by Horace Walpole. See William Hookham Carpenter, ‘Pictorial Notices, consisting of a Memoir of Sir Anthony Van Dyck’, (London, 1844), p.23.
[5] Xanthe Brooke and David Crombie, Henry VIII Revealed, Holbein’s Portrait and its Legacy, exhibition catalogue, January-March 2003, (London, 2003), p.27.
[6] Susan Barnes, Nora De Poorter, Oliver Millar and Horst Vey, Van Dyck – A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings (Yale, New Haven and London, 2004), p.2.
Portrait of King Charles I
c.1638-9
oil-on-canvas
30 x 25 in.
Provenance
Private collection, UK;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2025.
Note
This impressively martial portrait of Charles I is a high quality bust variant of the likeness of the king painted by Van Dyck in 1638-9. The prototype of this portrait is the large equestrian painting showing Charles mounted in full plate armour with a squire offering up his helmet for battle now in the National Gallery, London. Painted on the eve of civil war it is one of Van Dyck’s most metaphysical portraits, displaying the king in control of nature as much of the realm. It is the largest portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck and places the sitter in a royal and imperial portrait tradition beginning with the famous bronze statue of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which would have flattered the king’s pretensions of ruling without Parliament as his period of absolute ‘Personal Rule’ was coming to a close [1].
The portrait became one of the defining images of Charles and the Stuart dynasty and demand by his royalist supporters for reduced engravings, as well as further reduced bust versions of a more universally hangable size, was considerable. The present high quality portrait, as a work painted in Van Dyck’s studio under the artist’s supervision, would have formed part of the range of portraits produced for Charles and his court for various political and diplomatic reasons. The king was passionate about art and was the first British monarch to collect art for its own sake. Ever since his youthful (and comically quixotic) mission to Spain in 1623 to secure the marriage of the King of Spain’s daughter, Charles had dreamed of turning his court into a rival of the great visual displays of Madrid, sparkling with pictures by Titian and Velasquez, as part of a wishful civilising exercise on his disparate and badly administered kingdom. His first route towards that end was to spend lavishly on collections of Old Masters, most notably the Mantua collection secured for about £15,000 in 1628 with the help of Van Dyck’s friend Nicholas Lanier, the ‘Master of the King’s Musick’.(2) Such was Charles’ enthusiasm for buying art that he would often be present at the moment of delivery, insisting that crates delivered at night were immediately unpacked, and playing games of attribution by candlelight.[3]
But it was not enough for Charles to be surrounded by great art; he wanted to be in it. Charles, more than any other English king, fell into the trap of believing that the image of power equated to its reality. The tradition is that when Charles saw Van Dyck’s c.1628 portrait of Nicholas Lanier [Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna] he demanded that the artist be ‘sent for over into England.’[4] Getting Van Dyck to England, however, was no easy task; he needed the inducements of an expensive annual retainer, a studio by the Thames, a large gold chain and a knighthood. There are sixteen recorded varying portrait types or compositions of Charles by Van Dyck and seventeen of his wife, Henrietta Maria. The fact that the majority of these are known both in multiple versions by Van Dyck himself and studio replicas gives a glimpse of how reliant on his talented studio assistants Van Dyck often was.
On one level, the need to circulate Charles I’s image by the best artist possible was obvious – power increases with recognition. In 1504 Henry VII, the first English king to understand the importance of his own image, had the masterstroke of putting his recognisable portrait on the coinage, so that his face was in the pocket and purse of all his subjects. Other images had to visually impress viewers with the majesty and power of the monarch – some who saw Holbein’s 1537 life-size mural of Henry VIII and his family in Whitehall ‘felt abashed, annihilated’, such was its scale and realism.[5] Yet outside the royal palace, royal portraits could assume a subtly different purpose. In private houses, for example, the display of a portrait of Charles I could not only demonstrate the owner’s loyalty to the king but also that they were a person of importance. Inevitably, therefore, there was a considerable demand for replicas of Van Dyck’s royal portraits. The present portrait of Charles I is a fine example of a studio production of a portrait of the king from the peak of Van Dyck’s English career. The head and armoured bust are derived from the famed equestrian portrait of Charles I, yet transform a monumental picture designed for a royal palace into an albeit martial likeness more easily soliciting empathy with the monarch’s person.
Unfortunately, we cannot know which of Van Dyck’s assistants was responsible for the portrait. Unlike Rubens’ studio, we know comparatively little of those Van Dyck employed or what they did. Van Dyck’s studio in Blackfriars lay outside the remit of the City of London and its strict rules on artists and their apprentices. Those whom we believe were employed at some stage in England by Van Dyck include Jan Van Belcamp, Jean de Reyn, David Beek, James Gandy, Henry Stone and Remigius van Leemput.[6]
[1] National Gallery, NG1172.
The painting is the subject of a book by Sir Roy Strong, Van Dyck: King Charles on Horseback (London: Allan Lane, 1972).
[2] The final figure paid for the collection is uncertain. See for example Ian Spink, ‘Lanier in Italy’, in Music & Letters, Vol. 40, no. 3, (July, 1959), pp.242-252.
[3] Charles Carlton, Charles I the Personal Monarch, 2nd edn., (London, 1995), pp.143-144
[4] This phrase comes from a later account noted by Charles Beale after a conversation with Sir Peter Lely and apparently first published by Horace Walpole. See William Hookham Carpenter, ‘Pictorial Notices, consisting of a Memoir of Sir Anthony Van Dyck’, (London, 1844), p.23.
[5] Xanthe Brooke and David Crombie, Henry VIII Revealed, Holbein’s Portrait and its Legacy, exhibition catalogue, January-March 2003, (London, 2003), p.27.
[6] Susan Barnes, Nora De Poorter, Oliver Millar and Horst Vey, Van Dyck – A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings (Yale, New Haven and London, 2004), p.2.
Studio of Domenico Corvi, Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York
Studio of Domenico Corvi
Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York
c.1750
oil-on-canvas
30 x 25 in.
Provenance
With Philip Mould Ltd;
Christie’s, Old Master & British Pictures, 29.10.2008, lot 214;
Private collection, UK;
Until acquired by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2026.
Catalogue Note
This portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, was painted in the studio of acclaimed Italian baroque artist Domenico Corvi at Rome. Henry’s first sitting as a Cardinal was to Corvi in 1747, shortly before he sat to another artist Louis Gabriel Blanchet. This first portrait type from 1747 shows the Stuart prince for the first time exchanging his armour for cardinals robes and the Order of the Thistle for a gold pectoral cross. Such was the popularity of the composition, in which he holds a letter signed ‘Card Duca’ with his new style as the Cardinal Duke,’ that Henry was painted again by Corvi the following year when he had been ordained a priest by Pope Benedict XIV (his godfather) in September 1748.[1] In this latter portrait Henry is depicted wearing a cross mounted with diamonds he inherited from the Polish Crown Jewels vis-à-vis Prince Henry’s maternal grandfather, Prince James Sobieski son of John III Sobieski, King of Poland.[2] Such were the popularity of these images that further versions of both, from full to bust length, were painted in Corvi’s studio in Rome, perhaps most notably being that in the Royal Collection now hanging at Holyrood Palace, Scotland.[3]
Portraits were vitally important to the exiled Stuarts and acted as a means of keeping the cause alive amongst their Jacobite adherents and supportive governments in Europe. For example, pictures of Prince Henry’s father, King James III, had been particularly important, especially when he was a young man. Although James’s father, the exiled James VII & II, lived until 1701, James III’s central political significance lay in the fact that he was a boy, whereas his Protestant sisters, Mary and Anne, who ruled in his and his father’s place, were conspicuously unable to provide any Stuart heirs themselves. Jacobite portraits thus served as visual reminders of James III’s health, vigour, and ultimate determination to regain the throne.[4] The whole family took their portraits seriously; for example, we have a record that Henry, when he was young, sat for ‘about 14 Ours’ for his. Such was the prominence of Jacobite imagery that Henry’s brother, Prince Charles, was obliged to take extra precautions during the preparations for his 1745 rebellion. When in Paris he wrote to his father: ‘Nobody nose where I am… I am obliged very often not to stur out of my room, for fier of some bodys noing my face.’ For the Stuarts themselves, it was miniature portraits that were particularly useful as family mementoes, as one might expect during their increasingly frenetic and peripatetic lives. When Charles found that he missed his family, he wrote ‘with a request which is to have your picture, the Queen’s and the Duke’s in miniature so that since I have the misfortune of not seeing you, the pictures will be of some comfort in the meantime, which I hope in God may not be too long.’
Henry’s appointment as Cardinal had a subtle but important effect on Jacobite portraiture. Until then Jacobite portraits had been invariably political or propagandist in nature, often abounding with the iconography of legitimate kingship. But now Henry’s religious vows and orders precluded such display, including the wearing of the Order of the Garter, which until then had been constantly worn by the exiled Stuarts as an assertion of their legitimacy. Although Henry never renounced his rights to the crown, the changing of his image from before his ordination, as seen in the portraits in which he wears armour, such as the pastel by La Tour in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, to the more pacific and inherently Catholic presentation, may have been seen as a further signal that he believed the Jacobite’s chances of regaining the throne by force were lost. And of course, it demonstrated most emphatically that Henry, the last Stuart male claimant, would produce no heirs.
Despite becoming a Prince of the Church, Henry never renounced his rightful claim to the crown, however. When his elder brother Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then styled King Charles III to his Jacobite supporters, died in 1788 Henry assumed the regnal title of King Henry IX, and insisted on his large household addressing him as ‘Your Majesty.’ Henry even on occasion touched for the King’s Evil, or scrofula, whereby the sick would be miraculously healed through the power of divine right kingship. He petitioned the Pope to formally recognise him as King, but to no avail. However, his adopted motto would spread throughout the courts of Europe on medals proclaiming his right as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, the legend reading ‘Non desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei’ – ‘Not by the choice of man, but by the will of God.’[5]
[1] See Edward Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 1719-1766 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.297-298.
[2] The prime version of second portrait type was previously handled by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2024.
[3] See Royal Collection, RCIN 401252.
[4] See Edward Corp, The King Over the Water (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2001), passim.
[5] See British Museum: BM BNK,EngM.186.
Portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York
c.1750
oil-on-canvas
30 x 25 in.
Provenance
With Philip Mould Ltd;
Christie’s, Old Master & British Pictures, 29.10.2008, lot 214;
Private collection, UK;
Until acquired by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2026.
Catalogue Note
This portrait of Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, was painted in the studio of acclaimed Italian baroque artist Domenico Corvi at Rome. Henry’s first sitting as a Cardinal was to Corvi in 1747, shortly before he sat to another artist Louis Gabriel Blanchet. This first portrait type from 1747 shows the Stuart prince for the first time exchanging his armour for cardinals robes and the Order of the Thistle for a gold pectoral cross. Such was the popularity of the composition, in which he holds a letter signed ‘Card Duca’ with his new style as the Cardinal Duke,’ that Henry was painted again by Corvi the following year when he had been ordained a priest by Pope Benedict XIV (his godfather) in September 1748.[1] In this latter portrait Henry is depicted wearing a cross mounted with diamonds he inherited from the Polish Crown Jewels vis-à-vis Prince Henry’s maternal grandfather, Prince James Sobieski son of John III Sobieski, King of Poland.[2] Such were the popularity of these images that further versions of both, from full to bust length, were painted in Corvi’s studio in Rome, perhaps most notably being that in the Royal Collection now hanging at Holyrood Palace, Scotland.[3]
Portraits were vitally important to the exiled Stuarts and acted as a means of keeping the cause alive amongst their Jacobite adherents and supportive governments in Europe. For example, pictures of Prince Henry’s father, King James III, had been particularly important, especially when he was a young man. Although James’s father, the exiled James VII & II, lived until 1701, James III’s central political significance lay in the fact that he was a boy, whereas his Protestant sisters, Mary and Anne, who ruled in his and his father’s place, were conspicuously unable to provide any Stuart heirs themselves. Jacobite portraits thus served as visual reminders of James III’s health, vigour, and ultimate determination to regain the throne.[4] The whole family took their portraits seriously; for example, we have a record that Henry, when he was young, sat for ‘about 14 Ours’ for his. Such was the prominence of Jacobite imagery that Henry’s brother, Prince Charles, was obliged to take extra precautions during the preparations for his 1745 rebellion. When in Paris he wrote to his father: ‘Nobody nose where I am… I am obliged very often not to stur out of my room, for fier of some bodys noing my face.’ For the Stuarts themselves, it was miniature portraits that were particularly useful as family mementoes, as one might expect during their increasingly frenetic and peripatetic lives. When Charles found that he missed his family, he wrote ‘with a request which is to have your picture, the Queen’s and the Duke’s in miniature so that since I have the misfortune of not seeing you, the pictures will be of some comfort in the meantime, which I hope in God may not be too long.’
Henry’s appointment as Cardinal had a subtle but important effect on Jacobite portraiture. Until then Jacobite portraits had been invariably political or propagandist in nature, often abounding with the iconography of legitimate kingship. But now Henry’s religious vows and orders precluded such display, including the wearing of the Order of the Garter, which until then had been constantly worn by the exiled Stuarts as an assertion of their legitimacy. Although Henry never renounced his rights to the crown, the changing of his image from before his ordination, as seen in the portraits in which he wears armour, such as the pastel by La Tour in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, to the more pacific and inherently Catholic presentation, may have been seen as a further signal that he believed the Jacobite’s chances of regaining the throne by force were lost. And of course, it demonstrated most emphatically that Henry, the last Stuart male claimant, would produce no heirs.
Despite becoming a Prince of the Church, Henry never renounced his rightful claim to the crown, however. When his elder brother Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then styled King Charles III to his Jacobite supporters, died in 1788 Henry assumed the regnal title of King Henry IX, and insisted on his large household addressing him as ‘Your Majesty.’ Henry even on occasion touched for the King’s Evil, or scrofula, whereby the sick would be miraculously healed through the power of divine right kingship. He petitioned the Pope to formally recognise him as King, but to no avail. However, his adopted motto would spread throughout the courts of Europe on medals proclaiming his right as King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, the legend reading ‘Non desideriis hominum, sed voluntate Dei’ – ‘Not by the choice of man, but by the will of God.’[5]
[1] See Edward Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 1719-1766 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.297-298.
[2] The prime version of second portrait type was previously handled by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2024.
[3] See Royal Collection, RCIN 401252.
[4] See Edward Corp, The King Over the Water (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2001), passim.
[5] See British Museum: BM BNK,EngM.186.
'Clopton Type' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
English School
'Clopton Type' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
c.1559
oil on panel
26cm x 21.5-22.2cm
Provenance
With Windles, Old Masters & Period Portraits, West Yorkshire;
Dr Adam Busiakiewicz, Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s, 2024;
Through whom acquired by the present owner.
Note
Portraits of Elizabeth I from early in her reign are rare, and pique public and academic interest when they emerge. This portrait presents an exceptional variation on the well-known ‘Clopton’ type, dated to the first year of the Virgin Queen's reign, and offers a unique example of early Elizabethan portraiture.
Elizabeth I is depicted here dressed in a black gown, with a fur collar, gilt ruff, and black hood or coif, with a large, jewelled necklace on her breast. She wears the striking double-chained jewel at her breast, found in all other Clopton types, and identified by Sir Roy Strong as the ‘Mirror of France’, one of the most famous and recognisable in the Tudor collection.[1] The gilt lettering in the upper left and right-hand corners reads: ‘AN[NO] 1559’ (left) and ‘AETAT[E] I’ (right). ‘Aetate’ translates as ‘age’, though since the sitter is clearly not an infant, it seems plausible to interpret this as an idiosyncratic reference to the first year of Elizabeth’s reign, 1559. UV analysis of the painting shows no sign of overpainting in the upper corners of the panel, indicating that the inscriptions were at least roughly contemporaneous with the portrait itself. Like other Clopton types and the slightly later Barrington type, Elizabeth’s gaze directly meets the viewer. The viewer is confronted not with a gentle and sensitive queen, but England’s Supreme Governor, every bit as confident and uncompromising as her father.
Elizabeth had many reasons to emphasise her solidity and authority in 1559, and this depiction of her ought to be considered against its political and confessional context. Between 25th March (celebrated as New Year’s Day in the ‘old style’ English calendar until 1752) 1559 and 1560, taken as the likely date range for the composition of this portrait, Elizabeth had early on signed herself in the national psyche and achieved a legislative revolution in English politics and religion, and successfully confronted successive assaults on her royal prerogative. Elizabeth’s first Parliament saw the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity passed (albeit by a margin of a single vote), which respectively restored the monarch’s ecclesiastical headship, and implemented a version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal liturgy in England.[2]
In addition to ecclesiastical matters, Elizabeth’s Privy Councillors, MPs, and Lords, were particularly energised by the matter of the Queen’s marriage, and the question of hereditary succession. The matter was particularly exacerbated by the strong claim on the English throne exercised by Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, who was recognised as queen of England by Henri II of France until 2 April 1559. With the threat of invasion from Catholic powers looming, and the risk of losing gains in a hard-fought Protestant reformation to another Catholic ‘restoration’, a Parliamentary commission was formed on 8 February 1558 (o. s.), which instructed Elizabeth to make her plans for marriage clear. Two days later, the Queen responded, and after asserting that her choice of husband would be hers alone, she instructed her MPs that although she would consider the appointment of a suitable heir, she thought it ‘sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned for such a time, lived and died a virgin’.[3] This was far from the response that councillors and MPs hoped for, and though a joint conference of Lords and Commons discussed suitable candidates for marriage, no concrete plans were made.[4] This portrait, like other Clopton types, does not conform with traditional compositions thought to advertise Elizabeth as a marriage prospect. The sitter’s body is obscured by a heavy fur collar and black gown, emphasising the more androgynous character identified in the Clopton type. Such a depiction might be seen to have simultaneously played on traditional themes of virginity and Elizabeth’s control of the marriage question characteristic of the Queen: an ambiguous demurral, in which the answer lay only in Elizabeth’s personal will and authority.
The present portrait is an exceptional example of early-Elizabethan image making, and it presents a rare insight into the developing nature of the royal image in post-Reformation England. It is one of the more interesting variations on the well-known Clopton ‘type’ to come into public knowledge and potentially offers a direct and intimate perspective into the forceful will and political anxieties of England’s young Protestant Queen. This is not the Elizabeth that viewers might find more familiar, with her slim face and glittering costume, but a monarch who appears simultaneously ready to confront the wills of her council, Parliament, and fellow European monarchs, and one anxious to control her public image, majesty, and authority.
[1] Discussion of the Clopton portrait and other variations can be found in Roy Strong, Gloriana: the portraits of Elizabeth I (Thames & Hudson, 1987), pp. 25, 56-57, pl. 8-11.The ‘Clopton’ portrait after which the type was named by Strong, so called due to its provenance from Clopton House, Warwickshire, was held by Philip Mould, the London art dealer. It depicts the Queen holding a slim prayer book downwards, with a pair of gloves. English School (16th Century) Portrait of Elizabeth I ‘The Clopton Portrait’’, c. 1558, oil on oak panel, 26.5 x. 19.125 in., Phillip Mould Ltd.
A similar portrait, which depicts Elizabeth holding a thicker prayer book upwards, is currently owned by Mr Peter James Hall, and is on loan to the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington D.C. Several accounts, including the National Portrait Gallery’s description for NPG 4449, another variation on the Clopton type, have described this portrait as the ‘Clopton’ portrait. English School, ‘Portrait of Elizabeth I’, oil on panel, 67.3 x 47 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (RL/PG.43.2006).
For the significance of the Mirror in the royal collection, and precedent for famous jewels worn in late-Tudor and early-Stuart royal portraiture, see Roy Strong, ‘Three Royal Jewels: The Three Brothers, the Mirror of Great Britain and the Feather’, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 760 (1966), pp. 350-353.
[2] The fullest account of this Parliament is presented in Norman L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559, (Royal Historical Society, 1982).
[3] Sir Simonds D’Ewes, The journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons (London, 1682), p. 46
[4] For further discussion of Elizabeth’s possible consorts, see Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: the courtships of Elizabeth I (Routledge, 2002).
'Clopton Type' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
c.1559
oil on panel
26cm x 21.5-22.2cm
Provenance
With Windles, Old Masters & Period Portraits, West Yorkshire;
Dr Adam Busiakiewicz, Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s, 2024;
Through whom acquired by the present owner.
Note
Portraits of Elizabeth I from early in her reign are rare, and pique public and academic interest when they emerge. This portrait presents an exceptional variation on the well-known ‘Clopton’ type, dated to the first year of the Virgin Queen's reign, and offers a unique example of early Elizabethan portraiture.
Elizabeth I is depicted here dressed in a black gown, with a fur collar, gilt ruff, and black hood or coif, with a large, jewelled necklace on her breast. She wears the striking double-chained jewel at her breast, found in all other Clopton types, and identified by Sir Roy Strong as the ‘Mirror of France’, one of the most famous and recognisable in the Tudor collection.[1] The gilt lettering in the upper left and right-hand corners reads: ‘AN[NO] 1559’ (left) and ‘AETAT[E] I’ (right). ‘Aetate’ translates as ‘age’, though since the sitter is clearly not an infant, it seems plausible to interpret this as an idiosyncratic reference to the first year of Elizabeth’s reign, 1559. UV analysis of the painting shows no sign of overpainting in the upper corners of the panel, indicating that the inscriptions were at least roughly contemporaneous with the portrait itself. Like other Clopton types and the slightly later Barrington type, Elizabeth’s gaze directly meets the viewer. The viewer is confronted not with a gentle and sensitive queen, but England’s Supreme Governor, every bit as confident and uncompromising as her father.
Elizabeth had many reasons to emphasise her solidity and authority in 1559, and this depiction of her ought to be considered against its political and confessional context. Between 25th March (celebrated as New Year’s Day in the ‘old style’ English calendar until 1752) 1559 and 1560, taken as the likely date range for the composition of this portrait, Elizabeth had early on signed herself in the national psyche and achieved a legislative revolution in English politics and religion, and successfully confronted successive assaults on her royal prerogative. Elizabeth’s first Parliament saw the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity passed (albeit by a margin of a single vote), which respectively restored the monarch’s ecclesiastical headship, and implemented a version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal liturgy in England.[2]
In addition to ecclesiastical matters, Elizabeth’s Privy Councillors, MPs, and Lords, were particularly energised by the matter of the Queen’s marriage, and the question of hereditary succession. The matter was particularly exacerbated by the strong claim on the English throne exercised by Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, who was recognised as queen of England by Henri II of France until 2 April 1559. With the threat of invasion from Catholic powers looming, and the risk of losing gains in a hard-fought Protestant reformation to another Catholic ‘restoration’, a Parliamentary commission was formed on 8 February 1558 (o. s.), which instructed Elizabeth to make her plans for marriage clear. Two days later, the Queen responded, and after asserting that her choice of husband would be hers alone, she instructed her MPs that although she would consider the appointment of a suitable heir, she thought it ‘sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned for such a time, lived and died a virgin’.[3] This was far from the response that councillors and MPs hoped for, and though a joint conference of Lords and Commons discussed suitable candidates for marriage, no concrete plans were made.[4] This portrait, like other Clopton types, does not conform with traditional compositions thought to advertise Elizabeth as a marriage prospect. The sitter’s body is obscured by a heavy fur collar and black gown, emphasising the more androgynous character identified in the Clopton type. Such a depiction might be seen to have simultaneously played on traditional themes of virginity and Elizabeth’s control of the marriage question characteristic of the Queen: an ambiguous demurral, in which the answer lay only in Elizabeth’s personal will and authority.
The present portrait is an exceptional example of early-Elizabethan image making, and it presents a rare insight into the developing nature of the royal image in post-Reformation England. It is one of the more interesting variations on the well-known Clopton ‘type’ to come into public knowledge and potentially offers a direct and intimate perspective into the forceful will and political anxieties of England’s young Protestant Queen. This is not the Elizabeth that viewers might find more familiar, with her slim face and glittering costume, but a monarch who appears simultaneously ready to confront the wills of her council, Parliament, and fellow European monarchs, and one anxious to control her public image, majesty, and authority.
[1] Discussion of the Clopton portrait and other variations can be found in Roy Strong, Gloriana: the portraits of Elizabeth I (Thames & Hudson, 1987), pp. 25, 56-57, pl. 8-11.The ‘Clopton’ portrait after which the type was named by Strong, so called due to its provenance from Clopton House, Warwickshire, was held by Philip Mould, the London art dealer. It depicts the Queen holding a slim prayer book downwards, with a pair of gloves. English School (16th Century) Portrait of Elizabeth I ‘The Clopton Portrait’’, c. 1558, oil on oak panel, 26.5 x. 19.125 in., Phillip Mould Ltd.
A similar portrait, which depicts Elizabeth holding a thicker prayer book upwards, is currently owned by Mr Peter James Hall, and is on loan to the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington D.C. Several accounts, including the National Portrait Gallery’s description for NPG 4449, another variation on the Clopton type, have described this portrait as the ‘Clopton’ portrait. English School, ‘Portrait of Elizabeth I’, oil on panel, 67.3 x 47 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (RL/PG.43.2006).
For the significance of the Mirror in the royal collection, and precedent for famous jewels worn in late-Tudor and early-Stuart royal portraiture, see Roy Strong, ‘Three Royal Jewels: The Three Brothers, the Mirror of Great Britain and the Feather’, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 760 (1966), pp. 350-353.
[2] The fullest account of this Parliament is presented in Norman L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559, (Royal Historical Society, 1982).
[3] Sir Simonds D’Ewes, The journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons (London, 1682), p. 46
[4] For further discussion of Elizabeth’s possible consorts, see Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: the courtships of Elizabeth I (Routledge, 2002).
Giuseppe Molteni (1800–1867), Portrait of King Leopold I of Belgium and his mistress Arcadie Claret
Giuseppe Molteni (Milan 1800–1867 Milan)
Portrait of King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865) and his mistress, Arcadie Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven (1826-1897) at the Villa Giulia, Lake Como
c.1850
Oil on canvas
23 ½ x 20 in.
Provenance
Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire (according to label verso);
Chaucer Fine Art, 1980s;
Private collection, London;
Where acquired by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2024.
Literature
Mazzocca, Fernando. Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) E Il Ritratto Nella Milano Romantica. Edited by Lavinia M. Galli Michero, Paola Segramora Rivolta, and Museo Poldi-Pezzoli. Milan: Skira, 2000. Page 238.
Catalogue Note
We are grateful to Professor Fernando Mazzocca for his assistance in cataloguing this work.
Whiteman’s Fine Art are pleased to present this reidentified portrait of Leopold I and his mistress, Arcadie Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven, by the famed Milanese artist Giuseppe Molteni. An important rediscovery for the history of Belgian art, this double portrait represents a significant advancement in the understanding of the personal life of Leopold I. Yet with exceedingly few depictions of reigning monarchs and their maîtresses having survived (their conspicuous absence in royal collections being particularly notable), the present painting also shines new light on the often overlooked but always intriguing sphere of royal mistresses.
This work, which had been later erroneously mistitled as showing Leopold II, in fact depicts King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865, reigned 1831-1865) seated in the neoclassical Villa Giulia which he acquired in 1855. Leopold was born Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duke of Saxony. He had a military career fighting against Napoleon and asked to assume the position of King of Belgium in 1831, following his turning down of the Greek Throne in 1830. His reign was famously liberal and marked by economic modernisation and industrialisation.
Leopold is pictured at ease, without state regalia or the emblems of royalty. This compositionally harmonious work depicts Leopold the man, rather than as the king, allowing the viewer a fleeting glance into the private realm of the distinguished leader. Leopold’s gaze is diverted to the right of the image, perhaps admiring the view of Lake Como, as he was recorded as a noted lover of the lake. This work is bathed in the warm light which beams vertically through the work and illuminates the water and informally geometric flooring alike. To Leopold’s side is his mistress, now reidentified as Arcadie Claret. Whereas Leopold’s gaze is diverted, Arcadie steadily returns the look of the viewer. Her eyes are well-defined against pale skin and an elegantly elongated neck. Her dark hair is worn simply in a style which is similar to photographs of her in her later life, including the image taken by François Deron in Brussels (Figure 1) [1]. Her gaze is unassuming but assertive, showing a woman at ease, in a psychological reflection characteristic only of Molteni’s most exceptional works [2].
Despite considerable and sustained scandal, Leopold and Arcadie were involved romantically for at least twenty years until Leopold’s death in 1865. Arcadie has been described as the ‘Great Love’ of King Leopold’s life [3]. This relationship is evident as Molteni’s figures curve gracefully toward each other, and together form a pyramidal arrangement which positions Arcadie Claret as a vertical parallel to the sturdy Doric pilaster- a stabilising and enduring constant behind the King. This linking of figures is further emphasised in the rings which adorn both figures’ left index fingers: gold bands with almost identical dark stones which glint in the light. Further delicate use of light casts highlights across the sumptuous velvet of Arcadie’s dress, pooling into shadow in the lower plane of the work. In turn, this is equalled by the refined delineation of the transparent veil which falls to the bottom right of the image and is characteristic of Molteni’s more refined style from the mid 1840s [4].
Milenese artist Giuseppe Molteni (1800–1867) was perhaps the most highly regarded restorer of the nineteenth century, alongside being a renowned connoisseur and painter in his own right [5]. Molteni worked as the lead restorer at the Pinacoteca di Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy from 1855 and subsequently became its director in 1861. The Brera collection still holds Molteni’s 1845 Mother Mourning the Death of her Child which was shown at the Paris exhibition in 1855 [6]. Molteni’s distinguished career as a restorer was marked by his lauded 1857-8 restoration of Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin [7]. Further works restored by Molteni can be found in the National Gallery, London [8]. Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, wife of the first director of the National Gallery, wrote that the artist was of “exquisite feeling… skill, charm and wit” and was adored by numerous titled and wealthy friends who could not “live without Molteni” [9].
This exceptional royal portrait exemplifies the late style of Molteni’s career, characterised by subtle psychological insight and richly rendered fabrics. The two figures of a royal and his lover are positioned at ease in the loggia of the Villa Giulia on the shores of Lake Como, bathed in warm light and delicate shadow.
Leopold appears older when compared to the 1856 official state portrait by Nicaise de Keyser in full pomp with the Belgian constitution (Figure 2) [10], evidencing the fact that this work is an unidealized visualisation of a rare moment of leisure in an arcadian setting [11]. The landscape depicted behind Leopold is an exaggerated vision of Lake Como viewed towards Varenna, encapsulating the emphasis on nature in the Italian romanticism of the mid 19th century. Craggy peaks form the horizon over the placid water punctuated by a sailing boat dwarfed by the monumental landscape [12]. The romantic yet sublime picturesque is imbued with the dramatic monumentality which inspired the likes of Wordsworth and Bysshe Shelley [13]. Molteni would have been aware of the 19th century Italian strand of romanticism given his position in intellectual circles in Milan [14]. This work evidences his engagement with the aesthetic and political style of romantic nationalism which would also have been familiar to Leopold, given its place in Belgian culture as well as Italian [15]. The romantic in Italian art is evident in the exhibition La Pittura Lombarda Nel Secolo XIX, featuring four works by Molteni. The catalogue’s preface by Vespasiano Bignami details the philosophical and emotional concerns of the Italian Romantic painters and praises Molteni as a forerunner in the school of poetic painting which was marked by the beauty and vitality which imbues this portrait [16].
This work offers a highly unusual opportunity to gain insight into the interpersonal relationships of Leopold I and highlights the charged identity of a royal mistress. Given that the work has been held in primarily private collections, this is an exciting prospect for scholarship and learnings on nineteenth century women’s identity and agency. This exceptional depiction is without parallel in subject matter and concurrently showcases the technical brilliance of Molteni’s mature works.
[1] Arcadie Meyer (1826-1897), nee. Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven, photographed by François Deron in Brussels, c.1857-1876.
[2] Fernando Mazzocca, Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) E Il Ritratto Nella Milano Romantica, ed. Lavinia M. Galli Michero, Paola Segramora Rivolta, and Museo Poldi-Pezzoli (Milan: Skira, 2000). N. 28, illustrato p. 135.
[3] Victor Capron, Sur Les Traces d’Arcadie Claret: Le Grand Amour de Léopold Ier (Brussels: Capron, 2006).
[4] Mazzocca, Giuseppe Molteni, 2000. N. 28, illustrato p. 135.
[5] Matthew Hayes, The Renaissance Restored: Paintings Conservation and the Birth of Modern Art History in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2021). 82.
[6] Giuseppe Molteni, Mother Mourning the Death of her Child, 1845, oil on canvas, 146 x 116cm. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy. Inventory number 2200.
[7] Cathleen Hoeniger, “The Development of Principles in Paintings Conservation: Case Studies from the Restoration of Raphael’s Art.” In Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas and Uncomfortable Truths, edited by Alison Richmond and Alison Bracker, 100–112. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009.
[8] Jill Dunkerton, 'The Technique and Restoration of Bramantino's "Adoration of the Kings"'. National Gallery Technical Bulletin Vol 14, 42–61.
[9] C. E. Smith (ed.), Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake, 2 vols. (London, 1895), vol. ii, pp. 98–9: 22 August 1858 referenced in Susanna Avery-Quash, “Sir Charles Eastlake, the National Gallery and Milan: A Study in Connoisseurial Networks,” Journal of the History of Collections, March 18, 2024. 3, 8.
[10] Nicaise de Keyser, Portrait of Leopold I, 1856, oil on canvas, 265 cm x 153 cm, Antwerp City Hall.
[11] Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887), Portrait of Leopold I, 1856, oil on canvas, 265 cm x 153 cm, Antwerp City Hall. BALaT object ID: 110448.
[12] Kenneth J McKenzie, “Romanticism in Italy,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 55, no. 1 (March 1, 1940): 27–35.
[13] See William Wordsworth Lake of Como in The Prelude, Book 6 (657-73); and Descriptive Sketches Taken During A Pedestrian Tour Among The Alps, 1791-2. Martha Hale Shackford, “Wordsworth’s Italy,” PMLA 38, no. 2 (June 1923): 236.
[14] Kenneth J. McKenzie, “Romanticism in Italy,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 55, no. 1 (March 1, 1940): 27–35.
[15] Maarten Van Ginderachter and Jon E. Fox, National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 2020).
[16] Vespasiano Bignami, La Pittura Lombarda Nel Secolo XIX (Milan,1900).
Portrait of King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865) and his mistress, Arcadie Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven (1826-1897) at the Villa Giulia, Lake Como
c.1850
Oil on canvas
23 ½ x 20 in.
Provenance
Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire (according to label verso);
Chaucer Fine Art, 1980s;
Private collection, London;
Where acquired by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2024.
Literature
Mazzocca, Fernando. Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) E Il Ritratto Nella Milano Romantica. Edited by Lavinia M. Galli Michero, Paola Segramora Rivolta, and Museo Poldi-Pezzoli. Milan: Skira, 2000. Page 238.
Catalogue Note
We are grateful to Professor Fernando Mazzocca for his assistance in cataloguing this work.
Whiteman’s Fine Art are pleased to present this reidentified portrait of Leopold I and his mistress, Arcadie Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven, by the famed Milanese artist Giuseppe Molteni. An important rediscovery for the history of Belgian art, this double portrait represents a significant advancement in the understanding of the personal life of Leopold I. Yet with exceedingly few depictions of reigning monarchs and their maîtresses having survived (their conspicuous absence in royal collections being particularly notable), the present painting also shines new light on the often overlooked but always intriguing sphere of royal mistresses.
This work, which had been later erroneously mistitled as showing Leopold II, in fact depicts King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865, reigned 1831-1865) seated in the neoclassical Villa Giulia which he acquired in 1855. Leopold was born Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duke of Saxony. He had a military career fighting against Napoleon and asked to assume the position of King of Belgium in 1831, following his turning down of the Greek Throne in 1830. His reign was famously liberal and marked by economic modernisation and industrialisation.
Leopold is pictured at ease, without state regalia or the emblems of royalty. This compositionally harmonious work depicts Leopold the man, rather than as the king, allowing the viewer a fleeting glance into the private realm of the distinguished leader. Leopold’s gaze is diverted to the right of the image, perhaps admiring the view of Lake Como, as he was recorded as a noted lover of the lake. This work is bathed in the warm light which beams vertically through the work and illuminates the water and informally geometric flooring alike. To Leopold’s side is his mistress, now reidentified as Arcadie Claret. Whereas Leopold’s gaze is diverted, Arcadie steadily returns the look of the viewer. Her eyes are well-defined against pale skin and an elegantly elongated neck. Her dark hair is worn simply in a style which is similar to photographs of her in her later life, including the image taken by François Deron in Brussels (Figure 1) [1]. Her gaze is unassuming but assertive, showing a woman at ease, in a psychological reflection characteristic only of Molteni’s most exceptional works [2].
Despite considerable and sustained scandal, Leopold and Arcadie were involved romantically for at least twenty years until Leopold’s death in 1865. Arcadie has been described as the ‘Great Love’ of King Leopold’s life [3]. This relationship is evident as Molteni’s figures curve gracefully toward each other, and together form a pyramidal arrangement which positions Arcadie Claret as a vertical parallel to the sturdy Doric pilaster- a stabilising and enduring constant behind the King. This linking of figures is further emphasised in the rings which adorn both figures’ left index fingers: gold bands with almost identical dark stones which glint in the light. Further delicate use of light casts highlights across the sumptuous velvet of Arcadie’s dress, pooling into shadow in the lower plane of the work. In turn, this is equalled by the refined delineation of the transparent veil which falls to the bottom right of the image and is characteristic of Molteni’s more refined style from the mid 1840s [4].
Milenese artist Giuseppe Molteni (1800–1867) was perhaps the most highly regarded restorer of the nineteenth century, alongside being a renowned connoisseur and painter in his own right [5]. Molteni worked as the lead restorer at the Pinacoteca di Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy from 1855 and subsequently became its director in 1861. The Brera collection still holds Molteni’s 1845 Mother Mourning the Death of her Child which was shown at the Paris exhibition in 1855 [6]. Molteni’s distinguished career as a restorer was marked by his lauded 1857-8 restoration of Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin [7]. Further works restored by Molteni can be found in the National Gallery, London [8]. Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, wife of the first director of the National Gallery, wrote that the artist was of “exquisite feeling… skill, charm and wit” and was adored by numerous titled and wealthy friends who could not “live without Molteni” [9].
This exceptional royal portrait exemplifies the late style of Molteni’s career, characterised by subtle psychological insight and richly rendered fabrics. The two figures of a royal and his lover are positioned at ease in the loggia of the Villa Giulia on the shores of Lake Como, bathed in warm light and delicate shadow.
Leopold appears older when compared to the 1856 official state portrait by Nicaise de Keyser in full pomp with the Belgian constitution (Figure 2) [10], evidencing the fact that this work is an unidealized visualisation of a rare moment of leisure in an arcadian setting [11]. The landscape depicted behind Leopold is an exaggerated vision of Lake Como viewed towards Varenna, encapsulating the emphasis on nature in the Italian romanticism of the mid 19th century. Craggy peaks form the horizon over the placid water punctuated by a sailing boat dwarfed by the monumental landscape [12]. The romantic yet sublime picturesque is imbued with the dramatic monumentality which inspired the likes of Wordsworth and Bysshe Shelley [13]. Molteni would have been aware of the 19th century Italian strand of romanticism given his position in intellectual circles in Milan [14]. This work evidences his engagement with the aesthetic and political style of romantic nationalism which would also have been familiar to Leopold, given its place in Belgian culture as well as Italian [15]. The romantic in Italian art is evident in the exhibition La Pittura Lombarda Nel Secolo XIX, featuring four works by Molteni. The catalogue’s preface by Vespasiano Bignami details the philosophical and emotional concerns of the Italian Romantic painters and praises Molteni as a forerunner in the school of poetic painting which was marked by the beauty and vitality which imbues this portrait [16].
This work offers a highly unusual opportunity to gain insight into the interpersonal relationships of Leopold I and highlights the charged identity of a royal mistress. Given that the work has been held in primarily private collections, this is an exciting prospect for scholarship and learnings on nineteenth century women’s identity and agency. This exceptional depiction is without parallel in subject matter and concurrently showcases the technical brilliance of Molteni’s mature works.
[1] Arcadie Meyer (1826-1897), nee. Claret, Baroness of Eppinghoven, photographed by François Deron in Brussels, c.1857-1876.
[2] Fernando Mazzocca, Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) E Il Ritratto Nella Milano Romantica, ed. Lavinia M. Galli Michero, Paola Segramora Rivolta, and Museo Poldi-Pezzoli (Milan: Skira, 2000). N. 28, illustrato p. 135.
[3] Victor Capron, Sur Les Traces d’Arcadie Claret: Le Grand Amour de Léopold Ier (Brussels: Capron, 2006).
[4] Mazzocca, Giuseppe Molteni, 2000. N. 28, illustrato p. 135.
[5] Matthew Hayes, The Renaissance Restored: Paintings Conservation and the Birth of Modern Art History in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2021). 82.
[6] Giuseppe Molteni, Mother Mourning the Death of her Child, 1845, oil on canvas, 146 x 116cm. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy. Inventory number 2200.
[7] Cathleen Hoeniger, “The Development of Principles in Paintings Conservation: Case Studies from the Restoration of Raphael’s Art.” In Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas and Uncomfortable Truths, edited by Alison Richmond and Alison Bracker, 100–112. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009.
[8] Jill Dunkerton, 'The Technique and Restoration of Bramantino's "Adoration of the Kings"'. National Gallery Technical Bulletin Vol 14, 42–61.
[9] C. E. Smith (ed.), Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake, 2 vols. (London, 1895), vol. ii, pp. 98–9: 22 August 1858 referenced in Susanna Avery-Quash, “Sir Charles Eastlake, the National Gallery and Milan: A Study in Connoisseurial Networks,” Journal of the History of Collections, March 18, 2024. 3, 8.
[10] Nicaise de Keyser, Portrait of Leopold I, 1856, oil on canvas, 265 cm x 153 cm, Antwerp City Hall.
[11] Nicaise de Keyser (1813-1887), Portrait of Leopold I, 1856, oil on canvas, 265 cm x 153 cm, Antwerp City Hall. BALaT object ID: 110448.
[12] Kenneth J McKenzie, “Romanticism in Italy,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 55, no. 1 (March 1, 1940): 27–35.
[13] See William Wordsworth Lake of Como in The Prelude, Book 6 (657-73); and Descriptive Sketches Taken During A Pedestrian Tour Among The Alps, 1791-2. Martha Hale Shackford, “Wordsworth’s Italy,” PMLA 38, no. 2 (June 1923): 236.
[14] Kenneth J. McKenzie, “Romanticism in Italy,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 55, no. 1 (March 1, 1940): 27–35.
[15] Maarten Van Ginderachter and Jon E. Fox, National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe (London: Routledge, 2020).
[16] Vespasiano Bignami, La Pittura Lombarda Nel Secolo XIX (Milan,1900).
En Deuil Blanc Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
English School
‘En Deuil Blanc’ Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
Oil-on-panel
14 x 10 in.
c.1600
Provenance
Christie’s, South Kensington, November, 2011;
Private collection, United Kingdom;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, acquired from the above, 2025.
Note
Mary Queen of Scots was destined to be a royal martyr for Catholics, Scots, and the House of Stuart. One of Britain’s most iconic historical figures of whom portrayals abound from every century since her execution in 1587, Mary would herself presciently write ‘in the end is my beginning.’ The famous ‘en deuil blanc’ (in white mourning) portrait-type, of which the present work numbers, was first painted by the French court artist, François Clouet, in c.1560-1 when the queen wore white mourning dress in the French fashion following the deaths of her father-in-law, Henri II of France, her French mother, Mary of Guise, in Scotland, and finally her husband King François II [1]. Although this finely modelled portrait may have been painted during the Queen’s lifetime, this powerful image critically seemed to many in hindsight to capture the tragedy which later befell her. It is probably therefore an exceptionally rare survival of the en deuil blanc painted in the wake of her execution by the English Crown. With the Scottish Lion Rampant quartered with the fleur-de-lis prominently blazoned, the portrait may be placed within Mary’s extraordinary visual hagiography as an important early example.
The portrait is executed in the lively Tudor tradition epitomised by William Scrots and worked by native artists, with which not only the style but the relatively small size of the panel and tight craquelure (particularly notable in the face), as well as the subtle underdrawings revealed by infra-red photography, are consistent [2]. We are grateful to Dr. Adam Busiakiewicz (Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s) for his analysis, confirming that the sitter of the portrait is Mary, Queen of Scots, based upon the prototype in the Royal Collection, and that the portrait dates to the close of the sixteenth century and was thus poignantly painted during the reign of Mary’s first cousin and final sentencer, Elizabeth I [3].
[1] RCIN 403429 (Mary, Queen of Scots' Bedchamber, Palace of Holyroodhouse).
[2] This is in contradistinction to the often large and romantic later works that did much to familiarise her likeness. The dearth of sixteenth century portraits which certainly depict Mary Queen of Scots outside of institutional collections is notable, the last example being acquired by Hever Castle in 2019.
[3] Ian Tyres (Dedrochronolgoical Consultancy Limited), the scientific authority on panel supports, has been consulted regarding the portrait (28.7.2025). Despite its evident antiquity Tyres concluded the panel cannot be subjected to dendrochronological analysis due to the occlusion of tree rings caused by the wood being ‘very fast grown’ / ‘cut at an acute tangential angle.’
‘En Deuil Blanc’ Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
Oil-on-panel
14 x 10 in.
c.1600
Provenance
Christie’s, South Kensington, November, 2011;
Private collection, United Kingdom;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, acquired from the above, 2025.
Note
Mary Queen of Scots was destined to be a royal martyr for Catholics, Scots, and the House of Stuart. One of Britain’s most iconic historical figures of whom portrayals abound from every century since her execution in 1587, Mary would herself presciently write ‘in the end is my beginning.’ The famous ‘en deuil blanc’ (in white mourning) portrait-type, of which the present work numbers, was first painted by the French court artist, François Clouet, in c.1560-1 when the queen wore white mourning dress in the French fashion following the deaths of her father-in-law, Henri II of France, her French mother, Mary of Guise, in Scotland, and finally her husband King François II [1]. Although this finely modelled portrait may have been painted during the Queen’s lifetime, this powerful image critically seemed to many in hindsight to capture the tragedy which later befell her. It is probably therefore an exceptionally rare survival of the en deuil blanc painted in the wake of her execution by the English Crown. With the Scottish Lion Rampant quartered with the fleur-de-lis prominently blazoned, the portrait may be placed within Mary’s extraordinary visual hagiography as an important early example.
The portrait is executed in the lively Tudor tradition epitomised by William Scrots and worked by native artists, with which not only the style but the relatively small size of the panel and tight craquelure (particularly notable in the face), as well as the subtle underdrawings revealed by infra-red photography, are consistent [2]. We are grateful to Dr. Adam Busiakiewicz (Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s) for his analysis, confirming that the sitter of the portrait is Mary, Queen of Scots, based upon the prototype in the Royal Collection, and that the portrait dates to the close of the sixteenth century and was thus poignantly painted during the reign of Mary’s first cousin and final sentencer, Elizabeth I [3].
[1] RCIN 403429 (Mary, Queen of Scots' Bedchamber, Palace of Holyroodhouse).
[2] This is in contradistinction to the often large and romantic later works that did much to familiarise her likeness. The dearth of sixteenth century portraits which certainly depict Mary Queen of Scots outside of institutional collections is notable, the last example being acquired by Hever Castle in 2019.
[3] Ian Tyres (Dedrochronolgoical Consultancy Limited), the scientific authority on panel supports, has been consulted regarding the portrait (28.7.2025). Despite its evident antiquity Tyres concluded the panel cannot be subjected to dendrochronological analysis due to the occlusion of tree rings caused by the wood being ‘very fast grown’ / ‘cut at an acute tangential angle.’
Studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen, c.1678
Studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680)
Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen
Oil on canvas
20⅞ x 16¾ in.
c.1678
Provenance
Capt. H. A. N. Forte of Polock, West Somerset;
Christie’s, 21st February, 1913, Lot 52;
Christie’s, 24th March, 1922, Lot 93;
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
We are pleased to offer a rare bust length portrait of Lady Anne Stuart (1665-1714), later Queen (1702-1714), from the studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) [1]. Lely was the foremost portrait painter to the English Court, and the leading painter of the restoration period. Praised especially for his portraits of female sitters, this work recalls Lely’s famous Windsor Beauties through the use of weighty backing drapes and dresses of sumptuous silk, glowing through the depiction of light and shadow. The full-length version of Lely’s painting ‘Queen Anne when a child’, c.1678 was known through mezzotint engravings produced in the seventeenth century, but was only rediscovered in a private collection in 2003 [2] (see figs. 1. & 2.). The present work is the only other known version of the full portrait and shows a cropped composition with slight alterations. David A. H. B. Taylor, the co-author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Lely who rediscovered the larger version, has argued that the present ‘smaller picture may have been produced before the larger picture, or simultaneously, and they wouldn’t necessarily be an identical match in terms of modelling and details of clothes.’ And, firmly placing the work within the artist’s studio, Taylor observed ‘good painting in areas such as the modelling of the curls of Anne’s hair’ [3] If this portrait was painted first, it is possible that Peter Lely would have had a direct hand in both its composition and execution, producing a bust more closely relating to the life usable as a preparatory work for the larger version. This would be consonant with Lely’s studio practice of painting the head himself and leaving the drapery and further attributes to his assistants. The quality of the brushstrokes around the face are indicative of this, as well as the work being left unfinished, in turn revealing the delicate modelling. This has arguably created a more lively and direct countenance than in the larger worked up version.
This compelling work shows the youthful Lady Anne in profile and is of particularly high quality. Given the sitter’s age and the suggestively sensuous manner in which it has been painted, it is likely that the work was produced to promote Anne for marriage: her porcelain-pale skin and high forehead mark Anne as a woman of aristocratic dignity, whilst rosy, rounded cheeks are filled with life and speak to her vitality [4]. Chestnut ringlets are beautifully modelled with naturalistic skill in the fashionable ‘hurly-burly’ style, which was fashionable in contemporary royal commissions [5]. Tones of red are reflected in the perimeters of Anne’s hair, repeated in the claret curtain and the rubies which wind around the sitter’s shoulder, creating a pyramidal form which frames and focuses on Anne’s face and delicate features. Further, Anne’s purity and innocence, and therefore her virginity, are attested to by the pearls which adorn the finely modelled neckline of her lilac gown. Dashes of lighter paint are utilised to make these adorning pearls, rubies and gemstones glitter and glint alongside Anne’s intelligent gaze which is enlivened with a mimetic yet subtle speck of white, which reflects the light behind the painter. The classicising drape of red curtain and the silhouetted leaves find completion in the full-length portrait, as an unfinished wreath and large ewer are introduced. This imagery speaks to iconographical promotion of Lady Anne as an educated, eligible and demonstrably impressive young woman, utilising a visual language which was being modelled as a contemporary alternative to the traditional Catholic imagery. This portrait therefore ‘serves to promote Anne as a future wife and mother of Protestant heirs for the Stuarts’ [6].
Anne would be married on the 28th of July 1683 to Prince George of Denmark. Anne was the second daughter of the Catholic King James II & VII who was denounced by many of his Protestant subjects as a tyrant. Following her brother-in-law’s invasion and James’s flight to France, William and Mary were jointly crowned. Upon their deaths Anne succeeded the throne in 1702 not by traditional hereditary right – her brother-in-law was pretending to the title of ‘James III’ in France – but by parliamentary statute law ratified in the ‘revolution settlement.’ The revolution severely limited the power of the monarchy and Anne reigned as a parliamentary, or ‘constitutional,’ monarch. She most notably oversaw the legislative union of England and Scotland as Great Britain and the Peace of Utrecht, both of which cemented the country’s future pre-eminence.
The portrait closely resembles Sir Peter Lely's 'Study for a Portrait of a Woman' from the 1670s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (06.1198) in execution, suggesting that the present picture may be a preparatory study of the larger worked up version recently published in the Burlington Magazine.
Whiteman’s Fine Art gives thanks to David A. H. B. Taylor for his insightful comments regarding this work.
Notes
1 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence based on high resolution images of the artwork, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
2 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4; Engraving by Richard Tompson, 33 x 25 cm.
3 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
4 4 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4: p. 501.
5 As in the portrait of Anne’s older sister: Sir Peter Lely’s Mary II (1662-94), when Princess of Orange, c.1677. Oil on canvas, 126.0 x 102.3 cm. Royal Collection: Chatsworth Room, Hampton Court Palace, RCIN 40258.
6 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
Figures
Fig. 1. After Peter Lely, Queen Anne when a child, c.1678-79. Mezzotint. 33 x 24.9 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Fig.2. Sir Peter Lely, Queen Anne, when a child, c. 1678. Oil-on-canvas. 123.2 x 97.8 cm. (Private collection)
Fig. 3. Sir Peter Lely, Study for a Portrait of a Woman, c.1670s. Oil-on-canvas. 67.3 x 53.7 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1198)
Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen
Oil on canvas
20⅞ x 16¾ in.
c.1678
Provenance
Capt. H. A. N. Forte of Polock, West Somerset;
Christie’s, 21st February, 1913, Lot 52;
Christie’s, 24th March, 1922, Lot 93;
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
We are pleased to offer a rare bust length portrait of Lady Anne Stuart (1665-1714), later Queen (1702-1714), from the studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) [1]. Lely was the foremost portrait painter to the English Court, and the leading painter of the restoration period. Praised especially for his portraits of female sitters, this work recalls Lely’s famous Windsor Beauties through the use of weighty backing drapes and dresses of sumptuous silk, glowing through the depiction of light and shadow. The full-length version of Lely’s painting ‘Queen Anne when a child’, c.1678 was known through mezzotint engravings produced in the seventeenth century, but was only rediscovered in a private collection in 2003 [2] (see figs. 1. & 2.). The present work is the only other known version of the full portrait and shows a cropped composition with slight alterations. David A. H. B. Taylor, the co-author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Lely who rediscovered the larger version, has argued that the present ‘smaller picture may have been produced before the larger picture, or simultaneously, and they wouldn’t necessarily be an identical match in terms of modelling and details of clothes.’ And, firmly placing the work within the artist’s studio, Taylor observed ‘good painting in areas such as the modelling of the curls of Anne’s hair’ [3] If this portrait was painted first, it is possible that Peter Lely would have had a direct hand in both its composition and execution, producing a bust more closely relating to the life usable as a preparatory work for the larger version. This would be consonant with Lely’s studio practice of painting the head himself and leaving the drapery and further attributes to his assistants. The quality of the brushstrokes around the face are indicative of this, as well as the work being left unfinished, in turn revealing the delicate modelling. This has arguably created a more lively and direct countenance than in the larger worked up version.
This compelling work shows the youthful Lady Anne in profile and is of particularly high quality. Given the sitter’s age and the suggestively sensuous manner in which it has been painted, it is likely that the work was produced to promote Anne for marriage: her porcelain-pale skin and high forehead mark Anne as a woman of aristocratic dignity, whilst rosy, rounded cheeks are filled with life and speak to her vitality [4]. Chestnut ringlets are beautifully modelled with naturalistic skill in the fashionable ‘hurly-burly’ style, which was fashionable in contemporary royal commissions [5]. Tones of red are reflected in the perimeters of Anne’s hair, repeated in the claret curtain and the rubies which wind around the sitter’s shoulder, creating a pyramidal form which frames and focuses on Anne’s face and delicate features. Further, Anne’s purity and innocence, and therefore her virginity, are attested to by the pearls which adorn the finely modelled neckline of her lilac gown. Dashes of lighter paint are utilised to make these adorning pearls, rubies and gemstones glitter and glint alongside Anne’s intelligent gaze which is enlivened with a mimetic yet subtle speck of white, which reflects the light behind the painter. The classicising drape of red curtain and the silhouetted leaves find completion in the full-length portrait, as an unfinished wreath and large ewer are introduced. This imagery speaks to iconographical promotion of Lady Anne as an educated, eligible and demonstrably impressive young woman, utilising a visual language which was being modelled as a contemporary alternative to the traditional Catholic imagery. This portrait therefore ‘serves to promote Anne as a future wife and mother of Protestant heirs for the Stuarts’ [6].
Anne would be married on the 28th of July 1683 to Prince George of Denmark. Anne was the second daughter of the Catholic King James II & VII who was denounced by many of his Protestant subjects as a tyrant. Following her brother-in-law’s invasion and James’s flight to France, William and Mary were jointly crowned. Upon their deaths Anne succeeded the throne in 1702 not by traditional hereditary right – her brother-in-law was pretending to the title of ‘James III’ in France – but by parliamentary statute law ratified in the ‘revolution settlement.’ The revolution severely limited the power of the monarchy and Anne reigned as a parliamentary, or ‘constitutional,’ monarch. She most notably oversaw the legislative union of England and Scotland as Great Britain and the Peace of Utrecht, both of which cemented the country’s future pre-eminence.
The portrait closely resembles Sir Peter Lely's 'Study for a Portrait of a Woman' from the 1670s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (06.1198) in execution, suggesting that the present picture may be a preparatory study of the larger worked up version recently published in the Burlington Magazine.
Whiteman’s Fine Art gives thanks to David A. H. B. Taylor for his insightful comments regarding this work.
Notes
1 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence based on high resolution images of the artwork, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
2 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4; Engraving by Richard Tompson, 33 x 25 cm.
3 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
4 4 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4: p. 501.
5 As in the portrait of Anne’s older sister: Sir Peter Lely’s Mary II (1662-94), when Princess of Orange, c.1677. Oil on canvas, 126.0 x 102.3 cm. Royal Collection: Chatsworth Room, Hampton Court Palace, RCIN 40258.
6 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
Figures
Fig. 1. After Peter Lely, Queen Anne when a child, c.1678-79. Mezzotint. 33 x 24.9 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Fig.2. Sir Peter Lely, Queen Anne, when a child, c. 1678. Oil-on-canvas. 123.2 x 97.8 cm. (Private collection)
Fig. 3. Sir Peter Lely, Study for a Portrait of a Woman, c.1670s. Oil-on-canvas. 67.3 x 53.7 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1198)
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896), Studies for Captive Andromache, c.1888
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896)
Studies for Captive Andromache
With the artist studio stamp (Lugt 1741a) (lower left); inscribed 'Andromache' (lower right)
c.1888
Charcoal and white chalk on buff paper laid down on card
10 x 13.7/8 in. (26.6 x 35.2 cm.)
Provenance
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (no. 29773) (label verso);
With Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (label verso);
With Christopher Wood, London, 7th January 2003 (label verso; sales receipt included);
With Martin Beisly Fine Art, London (label verso);
Private Collection, Belgravia, London.
Exhibited
London, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art, 1840-1920, Autumn 1998.
Literature
Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton (1975) no. 334.
This preparatory drawing for Leighton’s 1888 Captive Andromache offers a rare opportunity to own a piece of the material history of a masterpiece. Captive Andromache (Fig.1), at over four metres in length, is the largest work of Leighton’s late period, and has been called the ‘last and greatest of Leighton’s great processional paintings’ [1]. The painting was purchased by Manchester Art Gallery for £4000 in 1888 – a record price for a Leighton painting during his lifetime. The painting remains in the Manchester collection, whilst Leighton’s first major work, Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna, was purchased by Queen Victoria and is now held in the National Gallery, London.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896) spent his early years in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, being educated from 16 at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, where he was tutored by Eduard von Steinle [2]. Leighton is remarkable in having received a complete education in continental Europe, where most of his contemporaries only spent a year [3]. This may be observed in his flair for depicting classical subjects in academic style. In this accomplished preparatory drawing, Leighton studies the female form alongside a Greek storage jar. His focus is on the torsion within a figure, paused in motion whilst holding these vases. By the completion of the final work, the pottery has changed into specific pelikai (or kalpis [4],) and hydriai [5], with scenes delineated in both red and black figure styles. The final vases reference specific examples in the British museum collection, some which had been recently acquired. Yet it is possible that Leighton observed them from secondary sources during his drawing [6]. Ian Jenkins notes that, when rendering the vases, his living models likely posed with ‘whatever was to hand among the bric-à-brac of Leighton House’ [7].
Classical references can be seen in this drawing’s deeply delineated al antica drapery which reflects Leighton’s ‘increasingly sculptural style’ [8], which sought to reiterate the ‘ideal beauty inspired by Classical statuary… to resurrect past epochs of artistic achievement and an academic working-method associated with the “Old Masters”’ [9]. This ideal beauty coincides with an attention to naturalism as in this drawing the artist utilises white chalk to mark the play of highlights, which cascade across the classical drapery [10], situating the figures in the physical space of the viewer- and yet just out of reach. This sense of a liminal longing is expanded on in the final painting. Leighton was inspired by Homer’s Iliad and centres the present work around Andromache, former wife of the Trojan hero Hector killed in the Trojan war. Subsequently captured by the Greeks, she became the concubine of the conquering Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. The final work depicts her arrival in Epirus, and Leighton’s rendering of her mournful figure dressed in black contrasts with the vibrant frieze of colourfully clothed people surrounding her, including the figures drawn here, thus indicating Andromache’s isolation. In a typically Greek reversal of fortune, Andromache is reduced to the humble status of a water bearer, the occupation studied within the present work. Leighton’s treatment of Andromache is arresting: with her head bowed, she looks silently towards the baby to the bottom right of the painting, observing what she could have had and yet completely alienated from the warmth of the interaction before her. This sense of sadness was evidenced in 1888, when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy [11], accompanied by lines from Leighton’s friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, contemporary translation of the Iliad: Some standing by, Marking thy tears fall, shall say ‘This is she, The wife of that same Hector that fought best Of all the Trojans when all fought for Troy’ [12].
This work bears, on the reverse, the artist’s studio stamp (lower left) and the inscription ‘Andromache’ (lower right). These studies offer fascinating insights into the artist’s process. The left-most figure (Fig.2), depicted leaning over a vase with an arm outstretched, is visible on the far right of the final painting, clothed in orange with a hand pressed against the wall. The outline of the figure behind her is loosely sketched in the study. The right-hand figure wears brown drapery in the final painting, and stands between Andromache and the group of
women near the wall (Fig.3). The right-hand figure shown here is translated in the final work to stand just behind Andromache. This further evinces the ultimate importance of draughtsmanship to Leighton, as he places a firm focus on disegno in this work [13]. In this drawing, we can see several positions for the woman’s feet being worked through, in order to achieve the delightfully balanced contrapposto which is found in the painting. This technical excellence was well recognised by Leighton’s contemporaries: having moved to London in 1860, Leighton became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1864, an Academician from 1868, and was made president in 1878. In 1896, just a day before his death, he became Baron Leighton of Stretton – the first painter to be given a peerage. He was the ‘late Victorian period’s most institutionally powerful artist’ [14], and ‘an academic painter par excellence’ [15]. His draughtsmanship continues to be recognised, receiving significant attention in the touring exhibition of Leighton’s works in 2006-2008 [16]. Leighton attributed a great deal of importance to his drawings, some of which he displayed in his studio, and which he intended to be preserved [17]. A number of similar studies for Captive Andromache are housed in Manchester Art Gallery, including female figure studies holding vases (such as A.N. 1983.59 and A.N. 1977.166), and a male figure study (A.N. 1982.137) which displays the artist’s attention to muscle definition and the human form.
In Study for Captive Andromache, a fascinating allusion to materiality is made. The figure to the left shows Leighton perfecting the positioning of this figure, moving the head and the angle of the arm and feet to realise the position of the figure which can be found leaning against the wall to the right of the finished painting. This is, in the words of Christopher Newall, ‘expressed with fluent manual dexterity, and his impressive fecundity of invention, evident in the repeated variants tried and discarded’ [18] Similarly, this drawing with charcoal and chalk allows a rare glimpse of the artist’s hand. An interrogation of materiality is used to gesticulate the immateriality of this vision depicted. Charcoal and chalk become paint and then flesh, and yet the classicising drapery hints at sculptural, and even architectural detail [19]. This transience of material and creation mean that when following the delicate lines of this page, one can follow the artist’s thought process as we witness the creation of a masterpiece.
We would like to thank Professor Liz Prettejohn for her opinion on the present the work, which she deemed ‘a classic example to me, on brown paper (as is typical for drawings of this date) and obviously part of Leighton's preparatory work for Captive Andromache. [20]’
Notes
[1] Edward Morris, Public Art Collections in North-West England: A History and Guide (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001). Page 118.
[2] Leonee Ormond, 'Frederic Leighton and the Illustrations for Romola,' The George Eliot Review, no. 45 (2014): 50–56. Page 50.
[3] Christopher Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton (Phaidon Press, 1990). Page 9.
[4] Ian Jenkins, 'Frederic Lord Leighton and Greek Vases,' The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 967 (October 1983): 596–605. Page 598.
[5] ibid. Page 597.
[6] ibid. Page 598.
[7] ibid. Page 601.
[8] Karl Kilinski II, 'Frederic Leighton’s "Daedalus and Icarus": Antiquity, Topography and Idealised Enlightenment,' The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1237 (April 2006): 257–63. Page 257.
[9] Keren Rosa Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 1–14. Page 5, 3.
[10] Elizabeth Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' in Margot T. Brandlhuber and Michael Buhrs, eds., Frederic, Lord Leighton, 1830-1896 (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2009). Pages 35-77. Page 43.
[11] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Page 4.
[12] Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton. (1990). Page 116.
[13] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton" 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,' The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149; Christopher Newall, Leighton the Academic, in Stephen Jones and Royal Academy of Arts, Frederic, Lord Leighton: Eminent Victorian Artist (New York: H.N. Abrams; London, 1996). Pages 55-68. Page 62.
A related study is at the Leighton House Museum: Studies for 'Captive Andromache': Drapery for Female Figures, c.1887, Black and white chalk on brown paper, 52.4 x 37.0 cm, Leighton House Museum, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, reference number: LHO/D/0683, https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/lordleightonsdrawings/ldcollection/drawingrecord.asp?workid=1226.
[14] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Introduction.
[15] Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' (2009). Page 36.
[16] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton' 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,” The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149.
[17] Sally Woodcock, 'Leighton and Roberson: An Artist and His Colourman,' The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1121 (August 1996): 526–28. Page 527.
[18] Newall, Leighton the Academic. (1996). Pages 55-68. Page 64.
[19] Ciarán Rua O’Neill, 'Column Bodies: The Caryatid and Frederic Leighton’s Royal Academy Sketchbooks,' Sculpture Journal 25, no. 3 (2016): 421–32. Page 431, 423.
[20] Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn, email correspondence on having seen a digital copy of the work, Friday 8th November 2024. Professor Prettejohn further identified a similar piece with which to compare it, A sheet of studies for 'Captive Andromache', 10½ x 13¾ in. Christie’s, ‘Victorian and British Impressionist Art’, 15th June 2011, Lot 8.
Figures
Fig. 1. Captive Andromache, Frederic, Lord Leighton, c. 1888, oil on canvas, 77.1/2 × 160.1/4 in. Manchester Art Gallery.
Fig. 2. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Fig. 3. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Studies for Captive Andromache
With the artist studio stamp (Lugt 1741a) (lower left); inscribed 'Andromache' (lower right)
c.1888
Charcoal and white chalk on buff paper laid down on card
10 x 13.7/8 in. (26.6 x 35.2 cm.)
Provenance
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (no. 29773) (label verso);
With Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (label verso);
With Christopher Wood, London, 7th January 2003 (label verso; sales receipt included);
With Martin Beisly Fine Art, London (label verso);
Private Collection, Belgravia, London.
Exhibited
London, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art, 1840-1920, Autumn 1998.
Literature
Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton (1975) no. 334.
This preparatory drawing for Leighton’s 1888 Captive Andromache offers a rare opportunity to own a piece of the material history of a masterpiece. Captive Andromache (Fig.1), at over four metres in length, is the largest work of Leighton’s late period, and has been called the ‘last and greatest of Leighton’s great processional paintings’ [1]. The painting was purchased by Manchester Art Gallery for £4000 in 1888 – a record price for a Leighton painting during his lifetime. The painting remains in the Manchester collection, whilst Leighton’s first major work, Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna, was purchased by Queen Victoria and is now held in the National Gallery, London.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896) spent his early years in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, being educated from 16 at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, where he was tutored by Eduard von Steinle [2]. Leighton is remarkable in having received a complete education in continental Europe, where most of his contemporaries only spent a year [3]. This may be observed in his flair for depicting classical subjects in academic style. In this accomplished preparatory drawing, Leighton studies the female form alongside a Greek storage jar. His focus is on the torsion within a figure, paused in motion whilst holding these vases. By the completion of the final work, the pottery has changed into specific pelikai (or kalpis [4],) and hydriai [5], with scenes delineated in both red and black figure styles. The final vases reference specific examples in the British museum collection, some which had been recently acquired. Yet it is possible that Leighton observed them from secondary sources during his drawing [6]. Ian Jenkins notes that, when rendering the vases, his living models likely posed with ‘whatever was to hand among the bric-à-brac of Leighton House’ [7].
Classical references can be seen in this drawing’s deeply delineated al antica drapery which reflects Leighton’s ‘increasingly sculptural style’ [8], which sought to reiterate the ‘ideal beauty inspired by Classical statuary… to resurrect past epochs of artistic achievement and an academic working-method associated with the “Old Masters”’ [9]. This ideal beauty coincides with an attention to naturalism as in this drawing the artist utilises white chalk to mark the play of highlights, which cascade across the classical drapery [10], situating the figures in the physical space of the viewer- and yet just out of reach. This sense of a liminal longing is expanded on in the final painting. Leighton was inspired by Homer’s Iliad and centres the present work around Andromache, former wife of the Trojan hero Hector killed in the Trojan war. Subsequently captured by the Greeks, she became the concubine of the conquering Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. The final work depicts her arrival in Epirus, and Leighton’s rendering of her mournful figure dressed in black contrasts with the vibrant frieze of colourfully clothed people surrounding her, including the figures drawn here, thus indicating Andromache’s isolation. In a typically Greek reversal of fortune, Andromache is reduced to the humble status of a water bearer, the occupation studied within the present work. Leighton’s treatment of Andromache is arresting: with her head bowed, she looks silently towards the baby to the bottom right of the painting, observing what she could have had and yet completely alienated from the warmth of the interaction before her. This sense of sadness was evidenced in 1888, when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy [11], accompanied by lines from Leighton’s friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, contemporary translation of the Iliad: Some standing by, Marking thy tears fall, shall say ‘This is she, The wife of that same Hector that fought best Of all the Trojans when all fought for Troy’ [12].
This work bears, on the reverse, the artist’s studio stamp (lower left) and the inscription ‘Andromache’ (lower right). These studies offer fascinating insights into the artist’s process. The left-most figure (Fig.2), depicted leaning over a vase with an arm outstretched, is visible on the far right of the final painting, clothed in orange with a hand pressed against the wall. The outline of the figure behind her is loosely sketched in the study. The right-hand figure wears brown drapery in the final painting, and stands between Andromache and the group of
women near the wall (Fig.3). The right-hand figure shown here is translated in the final work to stand just behind Andromache. This further evinces the ultimate importance of draughtsmanship to Leighton, as he places a firm focus on disegno in this work [13]. In this drawing, we can see several positions for the woman’s feet being worked through, in order to achieve the delightfully balanced contrapposto which is found in the painting. This technical excellence was well recognised by Leighton’s contemporaries: having moved to London in 1860, Leighton became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1864, an Academician from 1868, and was made president in 1878. In 1896, just a day before his death, he became Baron Leighton of Stretton – the first painter to be given a peerage. He was the ‘late Victorian period’s most institutionally powerful artist’ [14], and ‘an academic painter par excellence’ [15]. His draughtsmanship continues to be recognised, receiving significant attention in the touring exhibition of Leighton’s works in 2006-2008 [16]. Leighton attributed a great deal of importance to his drawings, some of which he displayed in his studio, and which he intended to be preserved [17]. A number of similar studies for Captive Andromache are housed in Manchester Art Gallery, including female figure studies holding vases (such as A.N. 1983.59 and A.N. 1977.166), and a male figure study (A.N. 1982.137) which displays the artist’s attention to muscle definition and the human form.
In Study for Captive Andromache, a fascinating allusion to materiality is made. The figure to the left shows Leighton perfecting the positioning of this figure, moving the head and the angle of the arm and feet to realise the position of the figure which can be found leaning against the wall to the right of the finished painting. This is, in the words of Christopher Newall, ‘expressed with fluent manual dexterity, and his impressive fecundity of invention, evident in the repeated variants tried and discarded’ [18] Similarly, this drawing with charcoal and chalk allows a rare glimpse of the artist’s hand. An interrogation of materiality is used to gesticulate the immateriality of this vision depicted. Charcoal and chalk become paint and then flesh, and yet the classicising drapery hints at sculptural, and even architectural detail [19]. This transience of material and creation mean that when following the delicate lines of this page, one can follow the artist’s thought process as we witness the creation of a masterpiece.
We would like to thank Professor Liz Prettejohn for her opinion on the present the work, which she deemed ‘a classic example to me, on brown paper (as is typical for drawings of this date) and obviously part of Leighton's preparatory work for Captive Andromache. [20]’
Notes
[1] Edward Morris, Public Art Collections in North-West England: A History and Guide (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001). Page 118.
[2] Leonee Ormond, 'Frederic Leighton and the Illustrations for Romola,' The George Eliot Review, no. 45 (2014): 50–56. Page 50.
[3] Christopher Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton (Phaidon Press, 1990). Page 9.
[4] Ian Jenkins, 'Frederic Lord Leighton and Greek Vases,' The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 967 (October 1983): 596–605. Page 598.
[5] ibid. Page 597.
[6] ibid. Page 598.
[7] ibid. Page 601.
[8] Karl Kilinski II, 'Frederic Leighton’s "Daedalus and Icarus": Antiquity, Topography and Idealised Enlightenment,' The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1237 (April 2006): 257–63. Page 257.
[9] Keren Rosa Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 1–14. Page 5, 3.
[10] Elizabeth Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' in Margot T. Brandlhuber and Michael Buhrs, eds., Frederic, Lord Leighton, 1830-1896 (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2009). Pages 35-77. Page 43.
[11] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Page 4.
[12] Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton. (1990). Page 116.
[13] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton" 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,' The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149; Christopher Newall, Leighton the Academic, in Stephen Jones and Royal Academy of Arts, Frederic, Lord Leighton: Eminent Victorian Artist (New York: H.N. Abrams; London, 1996). Pages 55-68. Page 62.
A related study is at the Leighton House Museum: Studies for 'Captive Andromache': Drapery for Female Figures, c.1887, Black and white chalk on brown paper, 52.4 x 37.0 cm, Leighton House Museum, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, reference number: LHO/D/0683, https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/lordleightonsdrawings/ldcollection/drawingrecord.asp?workid=1226.
[14] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Introduction.
[15] Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' (2009). Page 36.
[16] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton' 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,” The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149.
[17] Sally Woodcock, 'Leighton and Roberson: An Artist and His Colourman,' The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1121 (August 1996): 526–28. Page 527.
[18] Newall, Leighton the Academic. (1996). Pages 55-68. Page 64.
[19] Ciarán Rua O’Neill, 'Column Bodies: The Caryatid and Frederic Leighton’s Royal Academy Sketchbooks,' Sculpture Journal 25, no. 3 (2016): 421–32. Page 431, 423.
[20] Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn, email correspondence on having seen a digital copy of the work, Friday 8th November 2024. Professor Prettejohn further identified a similar piece with which to compare it, A sheet of studies for 'Captive Andromache', 10½ x 13¾ in. Christie’s, ‘Victorian and British Impressionist Art’, 15th June 2011, Lot 8.
Figures
Fig. 1. Captive Andromache, Frederic, Lord Leighton, c. 1888, oil on canvas, 77.1/2 × 160.1/4 in. Manchester Art Gallery.
Fig. 2. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Fig. 3. Detail of Captive Andromache.
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