History of Art

2007-12-31T12:59:00.000-08:00

I have now moved all my history of art notes to my own website at www.shafe.co.uk/art.

I am attending a four year degree course in the History of Art at Birkbeck College, University of London and I have been taking notes of every lecture for the last three years (2003-6). I will be completing the course this year and my final year options are the Pre-Raphaelites and the Tudors (Art and Architecture).

Essays

2006-08-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

Seurat's Technique

Technical problems of manuscript Illumination

The Depiction of the Female Nude in Sixteenth-century Italian Art

Why did Manet's Olympia so shock the critics of 1865?

The Panel Painter's Workshop

The Wilton Diptych

The Functions of the Academy of Art in Nineteenth Century France

With what justification can Italian architecture of the period 1250-1400 be described as Gothic

Manet, Modernity and Parisian Life

Early Stuarts - Contents

2006-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Early Portrait Miniature

Jacobean Painting

The Jacobean Courtier's House

Henry, Prince of Wales

Nicholas Stone and English Sculpture

Late Jacobean Painting

Van Dyck in England - Part 1

Van Dyck in England - Part 2

Jacobean Masque

Caroline Masque

Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones, Queen's House

Inigo Jones, The Banqueting House

Inigo Jones, Reception & Influence

Collecting at the Court of James I

Collecting at the Court of Charles I

Status of Painters and Architects

Tapestry & Goldsmith's Work

Dissenting Voices

Visual Arts under the Protectorate

19th Century Landscape Contents

2006-08-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Landscape Introduction

The Language of Landscape

A Picture of Britain

Nature and Machine

Figure in the Landscape

The Eye in the Landscape

Landscape Vision

Ruskin's Eye

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Pre-Raphaelite Technique

Seen and Unseen

Oriental

The Crowd

Whistler

Realism

Realism 2

English Impressionism

Pre-Raphaelites

2006-08-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

This section will be created between October 2006 and May 2007.

Tudors

2006-08-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

This section will be created between October 2006 and May 2007.

19th Century Landscape - Realism 2

2006-03-26T06:28:00.000-08:00

19th Century Landscape Synoptic Issues

Idealisation versus naturalism

Patterns

Dissolution of genres and "isms"
Multiplication of training and markets

British Institute
Free Exhibition
1871 Slade
1877 Grosvenor Gallery
Gambert (important to PRB)
Agnews
Durand-Ruel

Technical experimentation and diversity (watercolour and oil)

New oil painting techniques arose out of w/c techniques
Palmer gum arabic technique
Pre-Raphaelite wet-on-white

Artifice - consciousness of artistic input, the paint surface (goes back to Turner and Constable)
Emotional, spiritual aspects of painting arise from close study of realistic landscapes.
Experimentation

Patrons

Coombes - Hunt, Millais
Sheepshank - early - bought Wilkie, Mulready

Realism in England

Result of French influence. Influence of Millet, Angelus exhibited in London by Durand-Ruel in the early 1870s and it was seen by Clausen. Millet prints were available such as "The Walk to Work", 1851, engraved 1861, c.f. Wallis's Stonebreaker. Poetic, romanticization of the labourer.

Jules Breton - Benediction of the Wheat at Artois, 1857 (doing Courbet in an establishment way).

Mason, The Harvest Moon, 1872.

Breton, The Weeders.

Leon l'Hermitte, Payment of the Hay Gatherers.

Bastien Lepage, Les Foins (the Hayfield), 1878, Grosvenor Gallery. A response to photography, blurred background, stress on light and dark, crisp foreground.

William Stott, Girl in a Meadow.

Bastien Lepage, The Wood Gathere, 1881

Stanhope Forbes, A Street in Brittany, 1881. He studied at Monnet's studio, he was an RA and this painting was bought by Liverpool. It is responding to photography and "going away" primitivism and responding to the particular location and models.

Hacker, The Turnip Field, 1882.

Specific location and models pioneered by the PRB.

La Thangue, Boat Builder's Yard, 1882. He was English but trained in France. Bought by James Maddox, a Bradford industrialist.

Bastien Lepage, Pas Meche, 1882. Tooth Gallery, bought by Stanley Spencer.

Stanhope Forbes, The Concert, 1882, RA 1883. In 1883 there was an Impressionist exhibition staged by Durand-Ruel at Dowdeswell's Gallery in Bond Street. Dowdeswells Gallery, 1890.

Clausen, Peasant Girl Carrying a Jar, Quimperle, 1882 (V&A).

There are many sentimental paintings in England at this time with children, e.g. Millais's Bubbles.

Bastian Lepage, 1882, big brush act (brought in by the Impressionists). McConkey says it is honest and democratic as there is only one stroke type.

William Stott, The Ferry, 1882, Salon Medal, exhibited in Paris and won the Third Class Medal.

Newlyn School

Walter Langley, The Breadwinners, 1896, w/c

The pursuit of authenticity, less artificial, no artificial poses.

Turner painted Newlyn, Forbes discovered it but Langley was already there.

Stanhope Alexander Forbes (1857-1947), A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1885. Forbes believed he had to paint in discomfort, the harder it is to paint the better the painting.

Hunt wrote to a friend he was thinking of throwing away Scapegoat as he did not paint it on the spot.

Elizabeth Forbes, The Edge of the Wood, 1894. Better than her husband.

Many of the paintings were done from studies and photographs although this was a controversial idea at the time.

Aesthetically liked:

Japanese prints
Photographs
Engravings of e.g. Millais

Elizabeth Forbes, Blackberrying, 1906.

Thomas Cooper Gotch, Cornfields above Lamorna (w/c)

Tuke, The Bathers, 1885, Newlyn.

New English Art Club (a place to exhibit). First exhibition was around April 1886, the mont before the Summer Exhibition. It allowed more French style paintings to be exhibited.

La Thangue, The Return of the Reapers, 1886.

Painting like the French, i.e. naturistically, i.e. painting from the nude.

Clausen, The Mowers, 1897.

Edward Stott, Changing Pastures, 1893.

PRB Realism

Ford Maddox Brown, Carrying Corn, 1854/5

Hunt, Hireling Shepherd

Millais, The Blind Girl

English Realism

Linnell, Harvest Moon

Cole, Harvesters

Davis, Harrowing

French Realism

Courbet

Legros

Bastian Lepage

L'Hermitte

See the Tate commentary on Walker's The Vagrants, 1868, note the use of the word "real". Why? Note the robin.

See George Vicat Cole, Harvest Time, 1860 (Tate).

Jules Breton, The Weeders, discovered the subject as a "finished picture".

Constructing Nationalism

Maps the land
Shows it occupied
"Traditional" customs
Productivity

Heroization of the working class? McConkey argues the French did but not the English - is this true?

Miles Birket Foster, The Hayfield.

Literary "clap trap", Whistler quote, English painting is too literal.

Langley, Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break.

Early Stuarts - Collecting under Charles I

2006-03-25T05:30:00.001-08:00

Collecting under Charles I

Thomas Howard

2nd (21st) Earl of Arundel, 4th Earl of Surrey, 1st Earl of Norfolk
(b. 7 July 1586, d. 4 October 1646)

Themes

· Collecting in the Early Stuart Period

· Types of Collector

· The Growing Importance of Painting

Collecting

Collections – included curiosities (kunst und wunderkammer), jewels, gold and silverwork, statues, tapestries, furniture, cloth woven with jewels, books and paintings of ancestors and famous people.
Curiosities were becoming old-fashioned—“some little man with a taste for curios…nothing but bric-a-brac”, Galileo Galilei.
Renaissance Italian princes—the Farnese, the Medici, the Gonzaga and the Borghese had defined princely splendour through their collections of classical statuary and beautiful paintings.
The European fashion for collecting painting as prestigious works started about 1600.
English collectors
- Elizabeth – John, Lord Lumley, bibliophile, collection inherited by Arundel
- James I – Prince Henry, Robert Carr (Earl of Somerset), Robert Cecil (Earl of Salisbury), founder of modern collecting Thomas Howard (Earl of Arundel).
- Charles I – Arundel, George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham), James Hamilton (Earl of Hamilton) – The Whitehall Group.
Collectors bought through ambassadors (who worked for more than one patron) and their own agents.
Paintings were affordable
- Labourer £10 a year, lower nobility £5,000 a year.
- The lace alone on Princess Elizabeth’s gown was £1,700.
- Charles’s Raphael tapestries £7,000
- Charles’s Titians were £150-600, and Dürers about £75.
- Cardinal Richelieu’s 250 paintings valued at 80,000 livres, silver 237,000 livres
- Cardinal Mazarin jewels and gold 417,945 livres, paintings 224,873 livres, one gift to the king of 18 diamonds was 1,931,000 livres (1 livre = 1s).
- Charles annual income in 1640 was about £900,000.
- Commonwealth Sale—1,410 pictures sold for £33,690.
Paintings were metaphorical, allegorical and supported scholarly discussion of antiquity.
Paintings were unique although copies were rife, so they involved connoisseurship, were tradable and were sought after by the kings and princes of Europe.

Achievements

Somewhere in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, a remarkable change in taste occurred in England…men began collecting paintings as works of art…

o The Earl of Arundel played a key role in bringing about this change through his deep and distinctive love of Italy, Italian culture and antiquity and he became an exemplary English art collector who established a pattern of collecting that became the model for the next two hundred years. Arundel was part of the cultural change that took place in England in the early Stuart period. His personality, his dedication to collecting and the fortune he spent helped bring about a fundamental change. Arundel made the love of art respectable, particularly morally virtuous art with a classical reference.

o He introduced Renaissance ideas of the value of painting and was the first Englishman to show arts and learning added to honour and dignity (see Machiavelli, The Prince).

o His design [drawing] collection was the greatest in Europe, his collection of statues equal to that of a Prince, and his collection of paintings numerous, particularly his collection of Holbein, which was the greatest in Europe, ‘A Short View of the Life of the Most Noble and Excellent Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel and Surrey’, Sir Edward Walker (1705), one time secretary of Thomas Howard.

o Not the biggest, flashiest collection but the most erudite.

o Produced one of the first books on his collection of sculptures.

Thomas Howard – The Person

o He had a miserable childhood and never saw his father, who was in the Tower. His family was harassed around the country as they were strict Catholics. His grandfather Thomas Howard, 4^th Duke of Norfolk was executed for supporting Mary, Queen of Scots.

o He was old-fashioned and dressed in black clothes.

o He was isolated from the high-life at court and mixed with scholars.

o Rubens described Arundel as “one of the four evangelists of our art”.

o Horace Walpole called him “the Father of Vertú” in England. (Virtú was civility, grace and manners, learning lightly carried, energy and greatness of action and a love of the arts.)

o “Supercilious and proud”, “someone who lived within himself”, “interested in the mysteries of antiquity”, “no one who worked for him got rich”, “without any strong religious conviction”, “large black piercing eyes”, “thin hair and beard”, “clothes that were dark and plain but expensive” and the bearing of the “most venerable nobility”, Earl of Clarendon, ‘History of the Rebellion of Civil Wars in England’ (begun in 1641).

o A “majestical and grave” countenance, “touchingly gentle with the young”, had “patience and dexterity” negotiating, “stately Presence”, Sir Edward Walker.

o “One of the greatest and most enlightened collectors and patrons England has ever known,” Christopher White, Anthony van Dyck: Thomas Howard, The Earl of Arundel (California: Getty Museum, 1995).

What Made Him Distinctive?

His intellectual approach to collecting – he collected works of antiquity that were interesting such as parts of broken sculpture, inscriptions and coins and he had the largest collection of drawings in Europe.
Strong artistic support by his wife and large inheritance from her father.
A personal commitment in terms of time and money.
A network of well managed and competent scholars and agents:
- Rev. William Petty
- Sir Thomas Roe (Constantinople, 1621-4)
- Sir Dudley Carlton (Venetian ambassador, first met him in 1614, by 1616 ambassador in The Hague)
- Met George Gage in Rome (1614)
- Amongst his circle of scholarly and literary friends were James Ussher (Irish scholar who calculated the world was created on Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C.), Sir William Harvey (who discovered the circulation of the blood), John Selden (lawyer and scholar), Sir William Dugdale (antiquarian) and Francis Junius, his librarian, who wrote De pictura veterum in 1637.
A common early Stuart belief was “Do not look for yourself outside yourself” and stoicism and melancholy were fashionable aristocratic poses and these were attributes of Thomas Howard.
He “distained to mingle in the intrigues of court life” and found his chief occupation in the formation of his collection.
However, Roy Strong suggests Arundel was “a strong influence on the decision of the Prince [Henry] in the spring of 1610 to emulate the courts of Europe, regarding the collection of works of art as an essential attribute of princely magnificence”. He also had a good relationship with James I (who is not known to have acquired a single work of art), his wife Anne of Denmark (who was passionate about art like her brother Christian IV of Denmark and became godmother to Arundel’s son) and Charles I.

The Life of Thomas Howard

Year	Age	Event
1586		Born in relative penury at the “parsonage of Finchingfield”, family in disgrace.
1595	9	His father Saint Philip Howard died in the Tower.
1598	12	His sister Elizabeth, “to whom he was devoted” died.
1604	18	Presented himself at James’s Court supported by his relations.
1606	20	Married Lady Aletheia Talbot, daughter the patron Gilbert, 7^th Earl of Shrewsbury who had visited Venice in 1576.
		Met Inigo Jones who designed Essex’s wedding masque Hymenaei and he performed in the masque.
1607	21	Arundel House was returned to him.
1610	24	Joined Henry, Prince of Wales’s court, Arundel “was most particularly favoured”, he called out for him many times from his deathbed.
		Appeared with Henry in Prince Henry’s Barriers at the investiture.
		Earliest reference to Thomas Howard acquiring a picture (a gift to Henry).
1611	25	Made Knight of the Garter with Charles (then Duke of York).
1612	26	Went to Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp, and Spa), Padua and Venice because of threatened consumption.
		Met Van Balen and may have met Rubens (then known as “the god of painters”) and Van Dyck (Van Balen’s apprentice).
		Met Sir Dudley Carlton ambassador in Venice.
		Met Thomas Coke in Italy.
		From Padua rushed back to England for Henry’s funeral.
1613	27	Accompanied Elizabeth and Frederick to Heidelberg with Inigo Jones.
		Went on to Italy for 19 months, the first “Grand Tour”—Milan, Venice, Vicenza, Padua, Florence, Siena and Rome in January 1614.
		Spent six weeks in a monastery learning Italian first.
		Became known as a “comprehensive collector” including Titian and Giorgione.
		William Petty entered his household as tutor, was trained by Arundel and Jones, sent to Italy in 1618 but did not start buying until sent to Constantinople in 1624.
		Started his collection of drawings with Parmigianino, Scamozzi and Palladio.
1614	28	Inigo Jones designed sculpture and picture gallery for Arundel House. It was certainly finished by 1627 when Joachim von Sandrart visited.
1615	29	Received into English Church after being brought up a Catholic.
		Used Sir Dudley Carlton (sent abroad because he was secretary to Gunpowder Plot conspirator Earl of Northumberland) as a buyer. He was in Venice 1610-15, bought 15 Venetian pictures an sculptures for £900 for Somerset just as he was arrested (as his wife had murdered her previous husband Sir Thomas Overbury). Arundel bought the paintings for £200 and Carlton was sent to The Hague where, in 1618, he swapped the sculptures for some Ruben’s paintings.
1616	30	By this date “collecting was looked on as a gauge of greatness in England.”
		Aletheia’s father died, she inherited a third of the estate and his serious collecting started.
1617	31	Inherited part Lumley collection including Holbein’s Christina of Denmark.
1618	32	Daniel Mytens comes to London at Arundel’s invitation.
1620	34	Rubens painted Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel, and Her Retinue in Antwerp when she was on her way to Italy.
		Van Dyck arrived in October on either Arundel’s or Buckingham’s invitation. Arguably Arundel commissioned Van Dyck to paint Continence of Scipio as a wedding gift for Buckingham alternatively he purchased the frieze fragment later. Van Dyck left in February 1621 not returning until 1632.
1621	35	Made Earl Marshal of England (the head of the nobility).
		Commissioned Sir Thomas Roe to find antiquities in Greek and Turkey.
		Sent his Holbein portrait of Sir Richard Southwell to Cosimo d’Medici; a significant gift and a high point in Arundel’s European reputation.
1623	37	Rejected James offer of a new dukedom as he wanted his old one restored.
1626	40	Francis Bacon died in Arundel’s house after inventing the frozen chicken.
		Put in Tower by Charles between March and June because his son had secretly married a kinswoman of Charles without permission.
1628	42	Buckingham assassinated and Arundel returns to Charles’s favour.
1629	43	England had become a leading power in the European art market.
		Arundel published one of the first books on a single collection Marmora Arundeliana by John Selden. In 1637 he planned a similar book on his paintings illustrated by Hollar but it was never published.
		Rubens visits England in June until March 1630. Drew Arundel in red and black chalk.
1632	46	Arundel brought Elizabeth of Bohemia back to England.
		Van Dyck returned to England after 11 years.
1636	50	Travelled to Vienna to negotiate with Emperor Ferdinand II for Elizabeth.
		Purchased the library and paintings of Willibald Pirckheimer for 330 thalers.
		Failed to purchase Ludovisi collection.
		Met Hollar and returned with him to England.
1638	52	Captain general of the Army, first Bishop’s War in Scotland, a humiliating failure.
		Debts threatened ruin, started the Madagascar plan.
1641	55	Accompanied the difficult Marie de’ Medici to Cologne, then on to Utrecht.
1642	56	Accompanied Princess Mary for her marriage to William II of Orange.
		Did not return but went on to Padua alone.
1646	60	Died £100,000 in debt and was succeeded as Earl by his eldest son.
1655		Inventory of his collection made. His youngest and his eldest sons argued in court over the collection and it was dispersed.

Thomas Howard’s – Art Collector and Patron

Arundel commissioned portraits by Daniel Mytens, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Lievens (who shared a studio with Rembrandt, in England 1632-44), and Anthony Van Dyck.

Arundel marbles were the most celebrated part of his collection and the introduction of classical nudes into an English garden was highly distinctive. Francis Bacon is recorded as saying “Coming into the Earl of Arundel’s Garden, where there were a great number of Ancient Statues of naked Men and Women, made a stand, and as astonish’d, cryed out: ‘The Resurrection’.

Wenceslaus Hollar was brought to England by Arundel and left us detailed engravings and drawings of London between the 1630s and 1660s. In the late 1630s Arundel House contained thirty seven statues, 128 busts and 250 inscriptions.

A full inventory was made in 1655 after his wife had died. Different sources give different numbers possibly because some entries are for multiple items, for example, entry 121, Van Dyck “thirty-two portraits in chiaroscuro”. My analysis of Hervey’s list which counts these as multiple items has 799 entries in total of which there are 417 entries for paintings, watercolours and sketches by named artists and 181 entries for the same with no name appended; a total of 598 paintings. He had many more drawings, possibly 5,000. In comparison, Charles had 1,500 paintings when he died.

Arundel’s collection includes Dürer (sixteen paintings and watercolours including Madonna, a present from the Archbishop of Würzburg), Hans Holbein the Younger (in total forty four works including Christina of Denmark, Sir Henry Guildford, Sir Thomas More and Erasmus). In addition, there were many works by Italian painters including twelve works by Correggio, thirteen entries for Raphael, twenty six for Parmigianino, thirty seven for Titian (including Flaying of Marsyas, and possibly the Three Ages of Man), seventeen paintings by Giorgione, ten by Tintoretto, eighteen entries for Veronese and five entries for Leonardo da Vinci. Other artists included Bassano, Bellini, Bronzino, Cranach, van Dyck, van Eyck, Mantegna, Michelangelo, Mytens, Oliver, Palma Vecchio and Rubens.

Arundel tried to preserve his collection in his will for posterity by stating, “all gentleman of virtue or Artists wch are honest” could see it. However, it was bequeathed to his wife and was dispersed after her death. Some of the sculptures were given to Oxford University by his grandson and are now in the Ashmolean Museum. Some of the other works are now at the Royal Library at Windsor Castle and at Chatsworth.

Quote

“He was tall of Stature, and of Shape and proportion rather goodly than neat; his countenance was Majestical and grave, his Visage long, his Eyes large, black and piercing; he had a hooked Nose, and some Warts or Moles on his Cheeks: his Countenance was brown, his Hair thin both on his Head and Beard; he was of stately Presence and Gate, so that any Man that saw him, though in ever so ordinary Habit, could not but conclude him to be a great Person, his Garb and Fashion drawing more Observation than did the rich Apparel of others; so that it was a common Saying of the late Earl of Carlisle, Here comes the Earl of Arundel in his plain Stuff and trunk Hose, and his Beard in his Teeth, that looks more a Noble man than any of us.”
Sir Edward Walker, Arundel’s secretary on his embassy to Germany in 1636

“There is no name more familiar in the history of art than that of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, who is usually looked upon as the pioneer of art collectors, certainly in England, and as equally distinguished for his connoisseurship and the value of the collections which he made.”
L. Cust and M. Cox, Notes on the Collections Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 19, No. 101 (Aug., 1911), pp. 278-286

References

Brown, J. Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (London: Yale University Press, 1992)

Cust, L., Cox, M. L., Notes on the Collections Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, K.G., The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 19, No. 101 (Aug., 1911), pp. 278-286, and Vol. 20, No. 104 (Nov., 1911), pp. 97-100, and Vol. 21, No. 113 (Aug., 1912), pp. 256-258

Downes, K. Arundel’s Quatercentenary: A Book and an Exhibition, Oxford, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 995 (Feb., 1986), pp. 161-162

Ford, B., (ed.) The Cambridge Cultural History of Britain, Volume 4: Seventeenth Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)

Hervey, M., The Life, Correspondence and Collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921)

Howarth, D., Lord Arundel as an Entrepreneur of the Arts, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 122, No. 931 (Oct., 1980), pp. 692-694

Howarth, D., The Arrival of Van Dyck in England, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 132, No. 1051 (Oct., 1990), pp. 709-710

Howarth, D., (ed.) Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel: The Ashmolean Museum November 1985-January 1986 (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1985)

Howarth, D., Lord Arundel and his Circle (London: Yale University press, 1985)

Machiavelli, N., The Prince (Harmondsworth: Penguin Book, 1981), translated by G. Bull

Parry, G., The Golden Age Restor’d: The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603-1642 (Manchester: Manchester University press, 1981)

Shakeshaft, P. ‘To Much Bewiched with Thoes Intysing Things’: The Letters of James Third Marquis of Hamilton and Basil, Viscount Feilding, concerning Collecting in Venice 1635-1639, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 995 (Feb., 1986), pp. 114-134

Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (London: Yale University Press, 1992)

Strong, R., Henry Prince of Wales and England’s Lost Renaissance (London: Pimlico, 2000)

Strong, R., The Arts in Britain: A History (London: Pimlico, 2004)

Sutton, D. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, as a Collector of Drawings-I,II,III The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 89, No. 526/7/8 (Jan./Feb.,Mar., 1947)

Weale, W. H. J., Paintings by John van Eyck and Albert Durer Formerly in the Arundel Collection, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 6, No. 21 (Dec., 1904), pp. 244-245 and pp. 248-249

Wedgwood, C., The King’s Peace 1637-1641 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983)

White, C. Anthony van Dyck: Thomas Howard, The Earl of Arundel (California: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995)

How Collections Were Hung

Allegory with the House of Muses
Alessandro Salucci (1590-1655/60)

Frans Francken (1581-1642),
Sebastiaan Leerse in his Gallery,
Oil on panel, 77 x 114 cm
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

Willem van Haecht (1593-1637),
The Picture Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest,
1628
Antwerp, Rubenshuis

Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640),
Allegory of Sight,
c. 1618, oil on wood,
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Portraits of Arundel

Daniel Mytens the Elder (c. 1590-1647)
Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey
c.1618, oil on canvas,
National Portrait Gallery, London

Daniel Mytens the Elder
Aletheia Talbot Countess of Arundel
c.1618, oil on canvas,
National Portrait Gallery, London

Wenceslaus Hollar
Arundel House,
Royal Library, Windsor

Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641),
Thomas Howard, 2^nd Earl of Arundel
1620-21, oil on canvas, 102.8 x 79.4 cm
The Getty Museum

Peter Paul Rubens,
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
1629-30, Oil on canvas, 122.2 x 102.1 cm
Purchased 1898 from Colnaghi, London
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The head and shoulders Rubens portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery, London

Anthony van Dyck
Thomas Howard, 2^nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey with His Grandson Lord Maltravers,
1635, oil on canvas,
Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle, Sussex

Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait drawing of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel,
1629-30, Pen and brush in brown ink over black and red chalk, washed over with white body-colour, 28 x 19 cm,
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Anthony Van Dyck
Lord and Lady Arundel, the “Madagascar Portrait”
1639, oil on canvas, 135 x 206.8 cm
Arundel House

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Portrait of Thomas Howard, 2^nd Earl of Arundel
1629-30,
National Gallery

Examples from the Arundel Collection

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543),
Christina of Denmark
1538, oil on oak, 179 x 82.5 cm
National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger,
Anne of Cleves
c. 1539,
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Hans Holbein the Younger,
Nicholas Kratzer,
1528, oil on wood,
Paris Musée du Louvre

Hans Holbein the Younger,
William Wareham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
1527, oil on wood,
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Sir Henry Wyatt,
1527, oil on wood,
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Giorgio da Castelfranco (Giorgione, c. 1477-1510) and/or Tiziano Vecelli (Titian, c. 1485-1576)
Pastoral Concert (Fête Champêtre)
1508-9, oil on canvas, 110 x 138 cm
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) after Dürer,
Woman with coiled hair (Portrait of Katharina Frey),
1646, etching, 218 x 173mm
Royal Academy of Arts, London,
Holding two flowers symbolic of love.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528),
Young Woman With Bound Hair (Portrait of Katharina Frey),
c. 1497, Oil on canvas, 55 x 42 cm
Berlin, Gemaldegalerie

Tiziano Vecelli (Titian)
The Flaying of Marsyas
1575-76, oil on canvas, 212 x 207 cm
State Museum, Kromeriz

Tiziano Vecelli (Titian)
The Three Ages of Man,

1513-14, oil on canvas, 90 x 151 cm

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Aletheia Talbot (wife Thomas Howard)

Alethea Howard, Countess of Arundel (1585 - June 3, 1654), née Lady Alethea Talbot, was the wife of Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel.

The youngest daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife Mary, Alethea was the sister of two other countesses: Mary Talbot Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent.

In September, 1606, she was married to Thomas Howard, and they had three children:

James Howard, Baron Maltravers (1607-1624)
Henry Frederick Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel (1608-1652)
William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford (1614-1680)

Aletheia was one of three daughters of one of the richest families in England and when her father died she inherited his wealth. She collected independently of her husband. Her father had travelled in Italy and was an ambassador in Paris. Hardwick Hall was designed by Robert Smythson for her grandmother Bess of Hardwick who died in 1608.

Arundel used her money to buy back Arundel House and she financed their trip to Italy in 1614. In 1620-23 she travelled independently and attempted to go to Spain.

She bought Tart Hall in 1633 and used it to entertain her Catholic friends. Nicholas Stobe was used in the conversion, like the Queen's House for Henrietta Maria, which was also built by Stone. Lady Arundel refused to become Church of England so in 1641 she went into voluntary exile. Somerset House housed a Catholic so she could have used Arundel House but Tart House was more isolated, 1.75 miles away (near what is now Buckingham Palace) close to St. James Palace. Lady Arundel paid for the refurbishments. It was built in 1613 and she converted it and dedicated the third floor to art with two long picture galleries. The only portrait of Arundel was of him as a child in her bedroom. The 1641 inventory showed her collection was mostly Italian, mostly Venetian art and she had 16 landscapes. The house had wall paintings including Pheoton.

She wanted to emulate the Queen. She chose Diana mythology, the huntress. She owned a Titian in 1630, which was unusual and positioned her as a connoisseur interested in Venetian colouring. Her only statues were small bronzes designed to be enjoyed by connoisseurs. Bassano and Cranach were also in the room. There were three painted ceilings, unusually innovative like a Roman villa. Artemisia Gentileschi may have worked for Aletheia. In 1639 Artemisia was in London when her father Orazio died.

Aletheia collected Indian textiles and porcelain and the existence of Tart Hall shows she was independent, she died in 1654. She had broken every convention of court by travelling across Italy on her own.

Older history books say picture collecting started with Charles I, newer books with James I and recent research Elizabeth (see early collecting in Elizabeth's reign by Richard Williams).

See quote 1. It was very unusual to name a painter, a mention of history as a subject (not just portraiture), you will increase your magnificence (i.e. standing at court) by buying this art. Previously magnificence was demonstrated by spending money on expensive clothes not by buying canvas with oil and pigment on it.

Charles collection is well described in the literature but the key themes are:

1625 Rubens called Charles the "greatest amateur of art of all the princes of the world."

From the 1620s he had an interest and started building a collection.

Arundel was put in the Tower.

1622 Venetian ambassador referred to Charles "he loves old paintings especially those of our city." So word was getting around. This was not flattery but a private communication.

1623 he goes to Madrid to woo the Infanta, sister of Philip IV (who was only 16 when he came to the throne) only 18 in 1623 and Charles was only 23.

Charles would have heard of Philips collection, the largest in Europe, with over 2,000 paintings. Charles took the Duke of Hamilton (who was painted by Mytens), he was restrained (he wore black with red stockings), the influence of Spain?

Balthazar Gerbier went (agent for Buckingham) to advise. Endymion Porter also went to advise, his grandmother was Spanish. He arrived in disguise. They put on a tour and Charles made purchases - Titian's Woman in a Fur Wrap, he was also given paintings by Titian by Philip, and Giambologna (in V&A), Veronese Mars and Venus.

The visit exposed Charles to the greatest collection in Europe and the largest collection of Titian's (who had painted for Philip II). His coup in the 1620s was to acquire the collection of hte Duke of Mantua (the greatest in Italy)., the Gonzaga collection. Raphael La Perla (the Holy Family), Caravaggio Death of the Virgin Mary (it had caused a scandal as he used a prostitute as a model). Triumphs of Ceasar by Mantegna - every collector in Europe wanted them so it caused a sensation.

We don't know how the paintings were displayed, were they linked by painter or subject? In Privy Palace in the first room there were 12 pictures, 11 by Titian (including the Pissaro altarpiece), Nude Girl in Fur Wrap, Entombment of Christ, Venus with the Organ Player, all in the same room.