Friday, January 15, 2016

Paintings from the English royal collection sold in the 1650s

follower of Cornelis Massys
Landscape
ca. 1550
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Yesterday's paintings were sent out of England by force during the 1650s and they never returned. Today's paintings also belonged to Charles I and also were seized by the Parliament after the King's execution. Chance decreed that these too would be dispersed during the revolutionary period, but would in time return by a variety of routes to the Royal Collection, and remain there.  

Jacopo Bassano
Journey of Jacob
ca. 1561
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Paulus Bril
Landscape with Goatherds
ca. 1620
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Denis Calvaert
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1605
Royal Collection, Great Britain

In the Royal Collection, hanging in a special-built gallery of their own at Hampton Court Palace, are nine large tapestry cartoons by Andrea Mantegna from the late 1400s with imaginative yet historically-documented recreations of Roman Triumphs. Four are shown below. Commonwealth officials had listed all nine to be sold, along with the Raphael cartoons of scenes from the New Testament. At the last minute both sets were retained in London, not because of their present-day status as masterpieces of Renaissance painting, but because Oliver Cromwell had a fondness for tapestries, and it was thought these designs might be useful for weaving new ones. That diligent and wise art historian Francis Haskell (1928-2000) tells the full story and many others of equal oddness and irony in The King's Pictures : the Formation and Dispersal of the Collections of Charles I and his Courtiers (New Haven : Yale University Press, 2013).

Andrea Mantegna
Roman Triumph : Elephants
ca. 1484-92
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Andrea Mantegna
Roman Triumph : Paintings 
ca. 1484-92
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Andrea Mantegna
Roman Triumph : Sculpture
ca. 1484-92
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Andrea Mantegna
Roman Triumph : Vases
ca. 1484-92
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Hans Holbein
Portrait of William Reskimer
ca. 1532-33
Royal Collection, Great Britain

workshop of Giulio Romano
Nero Fiddling while Rome Burns
ca. 1536-39
Royal Collection, Great Britain

workshop of Giulio Romano
Sacrifice of a Goat to Jupiter
ca. 1536-39
Royal Collection, Great Britain

workshop of Giulio Romano
The Omen of Claudius's Imperial Power
ca. 1536-39
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Peter Paul Rubens
Self-portrait
1623
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Peter Paul Rubens
Peace & War (Minerva protects Pax from Mars)
1629-30
National Gallery of Art (U.K.)

Philip Fruytiers
Four of the Children of Peter Paul Rubens with Two Maids
1638-39
Royal Collection, Great Britain