Sunday, March 13, 2016

European Portraits, 1630-1640

Anonymous painter
Portrait of an unknown woman
ca. 1635
National Portrait Gallery, London

As the 1630s unscrolled, brocade declined, increasingly regarded as elderly-seeming and old-fashioned rather than dignified and opulent. Silk satin began to present itself as the high-status fabric of the future. Painters were not slow to exploit the new taste for shiny surfaces.

Michael Janz van Mierevelt
Portrait of Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon
1631
National Portrait Gallery, London

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait drawing of a lady
1637
Morgan Library, New York

Anthony van Dyck
Double portrait of Thomas Killigrew and William, Lord Crofts
1638
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) is now generally acknowledged as the greatest portraitist of the European 1630s. Curators at the Royal Collection explain that in the double portrait above both Thomas Killigrew and his friend had been recently bereaved by family deaths. The two were painted together as part of their effort to support one another in grief. Van Dyck painted Cesare Alessandro Scaglia (below) in several guises. The Abbé Scaglia had amassed a fortune serving the House of Savoy as diplomat and intriguer. Van Dyck met Scaglia after the latter's retirement (in disgrace) to Brussels. Curators at the National Gallery in London confirm that the compositional outline of Scaglia in Adoration was sketched originally in Italy by Van Dyck from a painting by Titian that has subsequently been lost.

Anthnoy van Dyck
Portrait of the Abbé Scaglia adoring the Virgin & Child
1634-35
National Gallery, London

Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Zeger van Hontsum
ca. 1630
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of an unknown man 
ca. 1630
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Thimbelby and her sister
ca. 1637
National Gallery, London

G. Donck
Portrait of Jan van Hensbeeck with his wife and child
1630s
National Gallery, London


attributed to John Hoskins
Miniature portrait of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland
1630s
National Portrait Gallery, London

Anonymous painter
Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria
ca. 1635
National Portrait Gallery, London

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy
Portrait of a man
1632
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Bartholomeus Sarburgh
Portrait of Belia Claesdr
1630
Rijksmuseum

Paulus Moreelse
A Shepherdess
1630
Rijksmuseum