Sunday, October 11, 2020

Renaissance and Mannerist Portraits

Hans Besser
Portrait of Ludwig, Count Palatine, aged 10
(later Ludwig VI, Elector Palatine,
champion of the Lutherans)
1549
oil on panel
Compton Verney, Warwickshire

Hans Eworth
Portrait of a Gentleman of the Selwyn Family
1572
oil on panel
Wallace Collection, London

Jan Gossaert
Portrait of a Young Princess
holding an Armillary Sphere

ca. 1530
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Cornelis Ketel
Portrait of a Gentleman holding a Flower
1579
oil on canvas
Temple Newsam House, Leeds

Cornelis Ketel
Portrait of Sir John Smythe of Westenhanger, Kent
1579
oil on panel
Yale Center for British Art

"Sir John Smythe has remained an obscure figure in comparison with his father [Thomas], the customer of London [collector of customs duties], his young brother Thomas, who became governor of the East India Company, and his son, also Thomas, who was given a peerage by Charles I.  For the most part he left the family's business interests to his brother, he himself enjoying the life of a country gentleman on the estates which his father had acquired in Kent, either through marriage or financial acumen.  . . .  Smythe succeeded to his father's property, apart from provision made for the widow, on Thomas's death in June 1591.  The principal manors were at Ostenhanger (now Westenhanger), near Hythe, and Ashford, which Customer Smythe had inherited from his father-in-law, but there were also at least half a dozen more manors and much other property scattered throughout Kent.  In addition, Smythe acquired in 1592, through his wife, the manor of Herne in north Kent and other Fyneux lands in the county.  With these extensive estates he became one of the richest men in Kent."

The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1558-1603, edited by P.W. Hasler (Boydell and Brewer, 1981)

attributed to Willem Key
Half-Length Portrait of a Gentleman
ca. 1560
oil on panel
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Master of the Countess of Warwick
Portrait of Thomas Knyvet
(Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I)
ca. 1569
oil on panel
Compton Verney, Warwickshire

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli
Allegorical Portrait of Alessandro Farnese 
embraced by Parma

ca. 1560
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

"Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, general, statesman, and diplomatist, governor-general of the Netherlands under Philip II of Spain, was born at Rome on the 27th of August 1545, and died at the Abbey of St. Waast, near Arras, on the 3rd of December 1592.  He was the son of Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Margaret of Austria, natural daughter of Charles V.  He accompanied his mother to Brussels when she was appointed governor of the Netherlands, and in 1565 his marriage with the Princess Maria of Portugal was celebrated in Brussels with great splendour.  Alessandro Farnese had been brought up in Spain with his cousin, the ill-fated Don Carlos [subject of Verdi's opera], and his uncle Don John of Austria, both of whom were about the same age as himself, and after his marriage he took up his residence at once at the court of Madrid.  . . .  In 1586 Alessandro Farnese became Duke of Parma by the death of his father.  He applied for leave to visit his paternal territory, but Philip would not permit him [to leave his post as governor-general of the rebellious Netherlands].  . . .  Philip's whole thoughts and energies were already directed to the preparation of an Invincible Armada for the conquest of England, and Parma was ordered to collect an enormous flotilla of transports and to keep his army concentrated and trained for the projected invasion of the island realm of Queen Elizabeth." 

 Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)

Quentin Metsys
Portrait of a Gentleman
ca. 1510-20
oil on panel
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Antonis Mor
Portrait of Sir Henry Lee
(courtier to Queen Elizabeth I)
1568
oil on panel
National Portrait Gallery, London

Giambattista Moroni
Portrait of Giovanni Pietro Maffei
(Jesuit and Professor of Rhetoric at Genoa)
ca. 1560-65
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

"No accounts at present accessible to us establish the date of the first importation of tea by the Portuguese, but the article is mentioned in one of the earliest privileges or licences accorded to them for trade.  It is not until the expiration of more than half a century from the beginning of that trade that we find a distinct account from an European pen of tea as a beverage.  "The inhabitants of China, like those of Japan," writes Giovanni Pietro Maffei in his Historiæ Indicæ, "extract from an herb called chia a beverage which they drink warm, and which is extremely wholesome, being a remedy against phlegm, langour, and blearedness, and a promoter of longevity."  Elsewhere he tells us that the Japanese are very careful to have their tea well-made, and that the most distinguished persons prepare it for their friends with they own hands, and even have rooms in their houses especially devoted to that service."

 Encyclopædia Britannica (1860)

William Scrots
Anamorphic Portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VI
1546
oil on panel
National Portrait Gallery, London

William Scrots
Portrait of King Edward VI
1552-53
oil on panel
King Edward VI College, Stourbridge, West Midlands

Cosmè Tura
Portrait of a Young Man of the Este Family
ca. 1470-80
tempera on panel
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York