Cornelis de Man and Jacob van Spreeuwen Portrait of an Artist framed by Putti 1642 oil on panel Dorset County Museum |
Cornelis de Man Group Portrait in a Chemist's House ca. 1670-80 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
Leendert van der Cooghen Portrait of Berber Ruertsdr van Juckema 1660 oil on canvas Museum Catharijnconvent, Utrecht |
Lodewijk van der Helst Self Portrait ca. 1650 oil on canvas Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin |
Jacob Fransz van der Merck Regents of the Loridanshofes in Leiden 1658 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
Jan Mytens Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1660-65 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
Gerrit van Honthorst Portrait of Elizabeth, Princess Palatine 1650 oil on panel National Trust, Ashdown House, Oxfordshire |
Gerrit van Honthorst Portrait of Princess Henrietta Maria of the Palatine 1650 oil on panel National Trust, Ashdown House, Oxfordshire |
Gerrit van Honthorst Portrait of Princess Sophia of the Palatine, later Electress of Hanover 1641 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
Princess Sophia was the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart, known as the Winter Queen, sister of King Charles I of England. As the niece of Charles I, and first cousin to Charles II and James II, Princess Sophia (along with her many brothers and sisters) represented a northern European outpost of the British Royal Family in the later seventeenth century. After the two daughters of James II had both ruled (as Queen Mary and Queen Anne) and had both died with no surviving heirs, the British government determined that their nearest living Protestant relative was the son of Princess Sophia and her husband, the Elector of Hanover. That son (who spoke only German) became King George I of Great Britain in 1714. The present Royal Family descends directly from him, and thus from Princess Sophia of the Palatine.
Werner van den Valckert Portrait of a Gentleman 1616 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Werner van den Valckert Portrait of a Goldsmith 1617 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Regentesses of the St Elisabeth's Gasthuis, Haarlem 1641 oil on canvas Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem |
Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Portrait of a Gentleman 1641 oil on canvas Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky |
Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Portrait of a Gentleman 1641 oil on canvas Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem |
Marcellus Laroon the Elder Portrait of William Savery of Slade 1690 oil on canvas The Box, Plymouth, Devon |
The Gaze
The Everywhere's keen glance of innocence,
Pretending history has never been,
With alps and orchards glittering through events,
Takes charge of the results that drape the bone:
And dawn, a fire that burnt the past, now comes
With the vast brow, with large clean hands of winds,
And turns upon our rumors and our drums
The look that cauterizes all the wounds.
And while the soldiery of ignorance
Drag smoking gunwheels up a sloped surmise,
And death from thickets of the present tense
Aims airplanes at the grandeur in those eyes,
We feel it on us, though our days are halved,
That cloudless gaze in which we are resolved.
– Oscar Williams (1940)