Lord Arundel's Collections

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Anne Cresacre
ca. 1527
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Royal Collection, Windsor

"In two respects, however, London collections were outstanding in Europe during the first half of the seventeenth century, and this was entirely the result of Lord Arundel's very idiosyncratic tastes. 'Old Master drawings' had been collected well before his birth, of course, but, with rather rare exceptions, they tended to be acquired by artists or by writers on artists (Giorgio Vasari fell into both categories) or by connoisseurs of somewhat limited means.  Arundel was among the earlier princely collectors in Europe, and certainly the earliest in England, to amass drawings on a major scale.  In 1632 his son claimed that 'he chiefly affects drawings,' and it seems probable that nine years later, when the Civil War broke out, his was the greatest collection of drawings in Europe.  Arundel was as proud of his drawings as he was of his ancient inscriptions.  He was delighted to show them to visitors, and he had many of them engraved – not only finished works but also rapid sketches.  From these and other sources it becomes clear that among his many thousands of drawings the ones he cherished most were by Leonardo and Parmigianino: he had reason to be satisfied because he owned, among much else, a volume containing six hundred drawings by Leonardo.  It was, however, the quantity and quality of Arundel's drawings and paintings by Holbein that would probably have astonished foreign visitors to English collections more than anything else."   

 – Francis Haskell, The King's Pictures (Yale University Press, 2013)

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Charles de Solier, Sieur de Morette
(French Ambassador to England)
ca. 1534-35
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Charles de Solier, Sieur de Morette
1647
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford
1527
oil on panel
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Saint Louis Art Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford
1647
etching
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
ca. 1542
oil on panel 
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil

Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
ca. 1640-50
etching
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Dr John Chambers
(physician to Henry VIII)
1543
oil on panel
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Dr John Chambers
1648
etching
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan
1538
oil on panel
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Derich Born
1533
oil on panel
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Royal Collection, Great Britain 

Wenceslaus Hollar after Leonardo da Vinci
Heads of Two Women
ca. 1645
etching
(after separate drawings in the Arundel Collection)
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Ancient Roman Culture
Standing Woman
1st century BC (head)
2nd century AD (body)
early 17th century (elements combined) 
marble
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Ancient Roman Culture
Togatus Figure
2nd century AD
(head and arms are 17th-century additions)
marble
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Cornelis Schut
Allegory on the Death of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
1646
drawing
(print-study, directed by Lady Arundel)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Wenceslaus Hollar after Cornelis Schut
Allegory on the Death of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
1646
etching
(design directed by Lady Arundel)
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Ancient Roman Culture
Sleeping Eros
2nd century AD, with modern additions
marble
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

 

Lord Arundel's Collections

Giulio Romano
Design for Quatrefoil-Shaped Goblet with Acanthus Stem
before 1546
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Giulio Romano
Design for Quatrefoil-Shaped Goblet with Acanthus Stem
ca. 1637-42
etching
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
before 1546
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
ca. 1637-42
etching
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
before 1546
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
ca. 1637-42
etching
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
before 1546
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Giulio Romano
Design for Salt Cellar
ca. 1637-42
etching
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Giulio Romano
Vessel with Three Spouts and Infant Triton
before 1546
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Giulio Romano
Vessel with Three Spouts and Infant Triton
ca. 1637-42
etching
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Cherub in Spandrel with Rabbit and Cupid
before 1540
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Morgan Library, New York

Hendrik van der Borcht after Parmigianino
Cherub in Spandrel with Rabbit
1637
etching
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht after Parmigianino
Cupid
1637
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Lucretia
before 1540
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Royal Collection, Windsor

Hendrik van der Borcht after Parmigianino
Lucretia
ca. 1638
etching
British Museum

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Sleeping Venus with Cupids
ca. 1527-30
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Royal Collection, Windsor

Hendrik van der Borcht after Parmigianino
Sleeping Venus with Cupids
ca. 1638
etching
British Museum

Hendrik van der Borcht the Younger (1614-ca. 1666) – Painter and printmaker, originally from Frankenthal, then Frankfurt.  Taken into service by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel in 1636 and sent first to train in Italy, then to London in 1637 where he acted as keeper of the collections.  Accompanied the collections to Antwerp when they were moved there in 1642-44, and continued working for Lady Arundel until her death in 1654.  Then returned to Frankfurt where he helped his brothers in the family art-dealing business.  Probably died of plague in 1666.  – British Museum

Lord Arundel's Collections

Raffaellino del Garbo
St Roch flanked by St Anthony Abbot
and St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1485-95
ink and gouache on paper
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giorgio Vasari
Design for Vasari Family Altar in Arezzo
ca. 1561-62
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Rowland Lockey after Hans Holbein the Younger
The Family of Sir Thomas More
1592
oil on canvas
(copy of now-lost Holbein painting, formerly in the Arundel Collection)
National Trust, Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire

Anonymous Venetian Artist
Design for Chalice
15th century
 ink on vellum
(formerly in the Arundel Collection
incorrectly attributed to Mantegna)
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar
Chalice
ca. 1640
etching
(after drawing in the Arundel Collection
incorrectly attributed to Mantegna)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Wenceslaus Hollar after Jan Brueghel the Elder
The Four Windmills
1650
etching
(after a painting in the Arundel Collection)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Albrecht Dürer
Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer
1524
engraving
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

The portrait engraving above is mounted on the inside front cover of a book printed in 1516, De Natura Deorum of Cicero.  The engraving, printed in 1524, thus became a bookplate identifying the volume's owner as Willibald Pirckheimer, a Nuremberg worthy and, in his day, a famous patron of the arts.  A century later Lord Arundel owned Pirckheimer's book along with the Dürer engraving pasted into it.  

Hans Holbein the Younger
Design for Chimney-Piece for Henry VIII
ca. 1537-43
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Anonymous Italian Artist
Standing Youth holding a Spear
15th century
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Morgan Library, New York

Girolamo Siciolante
Adoration of the Child
before 1575
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Andrea del Sarto
Study for the Head of St Joseph
ca. 1526-27
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Wenzel Jamnitzer
Design for Dagger and Sheath
with motif of Mucius Scaevola
ca. 1550-60
drawing
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar after Albrecht Dürer
Lion
1649
etching
(after a drawing in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar after Albrecht Dürer
Stag
1649
etching
(after a drawing in the Arundel Collection)
British Museum

Anonymous Dutch Artist
Beetle, Cricket and Spider
early 17th century
watercolor and gouache on paper
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

follower of Albrecht Dürer
Illuminated Initial A excised from a printed Greek Lexicon
ca. 1499
bodycolour and gold on paper
(formerly in the Arundel Collection, credited to Dürer)
British Museum