Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Sixteenth-Century Portraits by Flemish Painters

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Walshe
1589
oil on panel
York City Art Gallery

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1575-80
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Portrait of William Paget,
1st Baron Paget de Beaudesert

1549
oil on panel
National Trust, Plas Newydd, Wales

Antonis Mor
Two Canons of Utrecht Cathedral
1544
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Antonis Mor
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1560-70
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Antonis Mor
Portrait of Hubert Goltzius
1576
oil on panel
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

Frans Pourbus the Younger
The Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia,
Archduchess of Austria

ca. 1598
oil on panel
Groeningemuseum, Bruges

Frans Pourbus the Younger
Portrait of the Wife of Nicolas de Hellincx
1592
oil on panel
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Frans Floris
Head of a Bearded Man
ca. 1565
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Catharina van Hemessen
Portrait of a Lady
1551
oil on panel
National Gallery, London


Adriaen Thomasz Key
Portrait of a Family
1583
oil on panel
Museo del Prado, Madrid

attributed to Adriaen Thomasz Key
Portrait of a Lady
1564
oil on panel
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

Adriaen Thomasz Key
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1585
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes

Willem Key
Portrait of a Lady
1543
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
 
Hans Eworth
Allegorical Portrait of Sir John Luttrell
1550
oil on panel
Courtauld Gallery, London

As I sit staring out of my window
Wasting time which the traffic does not waste,
Nor any of the passers by in the street
Who keep time with time as they go
Measuring the seconds with their feet, 
In their minds riding the crested tide
On white horses of pursuant days
I think of you, James, at another window
With your stubby hands relaxed and your blue gaze
Invaded by a sense of emptiness,
Startled as if a gust of air
Had blown through the interstices
Of your mind and hair,
Ruffling your forehead with a puzzled despair.
        But I have learned lately that the spaces
And the timeless loneliness
Of the unfruitful waste places,
The desert, the untidy room, and the hour
Between waking and sleep,
Are windows opened onto power 
When we become most what we are,
When the conscious eye and ear
Are severed from what they see and hear
And in the hollow silent blackness deep,
Living tunes and images flower.

– Stephen Spender (1940)