Regular readers will know by now that English Civil War portraiture is my ‘thing’, and as as result I have, over the years, created an impressive (if slightly nerdy) personal database of pictures from the mid 17th century, in an attempt to make sense of exactly who was painting whom, when, and sometimes, why.

When I first began researching, most pictures were listed as by an unknown artist, by the British/English School, ‘after Van Dyck’, or, in far too many cases, dumped in the pocket of either William Dobson or Robert Walker, the attributor being too lazy to search any further for another name. Yet in trying to catalogue these images, alongside the hundreds of unknowns, I have found over 25 named painters (so far), some well-known and foreign, others British natives working in their own small village or town, with only a single work attributed to them today. Clearly art didn’t stop because of the war, and while a vast number of canvases are of those directly involved in the conflict – armour-clad soldiers, courtiers, royalty, MPs, etc – there were still plenty of domestic, more personal portraits being produced in spite of it. Of course, even in wartime, life goes on.

If I had a time machine, I would use it to hunt down artists of the past, and sternly suggest they sign their portraits, as well as write somewhere on the back who their sitters were. How much easier our research would be today! Sadly, in the absence of such technology, we are left with countless orphaned canvases, their sitters almost mocking us as they look out from the paint, as if to say ‘well, I know who I am! You work it out!’

And so we try. Occasionally we have a clue, perhaps in the provenance, an inscription on the frame, or a passing reference in an old art book, but at other times there is very little to go on.

Take this gentleman, for example.

I found him on an online auction site, the short biography describing ‘A MID 17TH CENTURY ENGLISH HALF LENGTH PORTRAIT Of a gentleman wearing a lace collar and black silk tunic, contained In a heavy gilt frame. (69cm x 81cm) Condition: good‘. He could do with a decent clean, and the provenance would have been lovely had the seller provided it, but at present, he remains only an unknown man in black, painted at some time around the period of the Civil Wars.

Or this lady, also unknown, attributed to someone of the ‘British /English School’ – an easy go-to label given to countless other orphans – but at least in safe hands in the National Trust collection at Lacock, Wiltshire.

Then there are the ones that tease us with multiple names, convoluted histories or old assumptions that serve only to confuse us even more. We’ve previously discussed Sir Charles Lucas, and the countless paintings that have come to auction over the last 400 years carrying his name. Given that there is only one portrait commonly acknowledged to be of him, and of which none of the others shares even a passing resemblance, it illustrates the difficulties modern historians have, not only in the pure research of digging into archives or catalogues to identify a sitter/artist from physical records or factual documents, but also having to first wade through the layers of flat-out nonsense people have written and repeated over the centuries, that only serves to obscure the truth.

An example of this comes from the gentleman below, a Dobson work, currently residing at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. (Visit! It’s a great day out!)

He has been variously described as a Royalist (as at the NMM), a Royalist officer, a maritime commander, a man in a pink shirt, and of course, inevitably, Sir Charles Lucas.

So what DO we know? The props usually provide a clue as to an occupation. Armour might suggest a soldier, while quills, ink and paper can show an academic, or perhaps a writer or publisher. This man carries a sword and a blank piece of paper, and stands in front of an allegorical female figure holding a globe and dividers, common symbols for the sea, used to represent a sailor or traveller. It’s been argued that the paper he holds might be his naval commission, or perhaps a sea chart. The globe is taken to mean he must have served on the water, and even the blue material draped over his left arm signifies, to some, the colour of the sea.

Yet look again and it’s not so simple. The paper is blank. It could be anything: a private letter, or a note of introduction for our man to present overseas. People other than sailors travelled the world: merchants, diplomats and private businessmen. And does he look like a man who worked at sea?

A discussion about his identity can be found on Art UK’s Art Detective site, where it is suggested he could be a diplomat, the watery clues pointing to a man whose business was across the sea, rather than on it. I lean more towards this ambassador theory and hope the discussion continues, as I’d love one day to see his true identity added to the frame.

Finally, another that popped up on an auction site, in a very sorry state.

Bizarrely, this has been traditionally identified as a young King Charles I, and while I don’t think anyone who has ever seen a portrait of the King would believe this is him, it does illustrate yet again how messy the task of identifying a painting or artist can be. In this instance a big dose of ‘buyer beware’ should be applied before purchasing such a work purely on the basis of such a questionable attribution.

Yet even if we aren’t in the presence of royalty, we still have a very interesting painting. Who could he be? Excitingly, here is where my nerdy database may be of use. Although the paint is badly cracked and probably filthy, on first viewing our man he reminded me of one I’d already catalogued (source: http://www.historicalpaintings.com). The two paintings are, in my view, not dissimilar in composition.

What do readers think?

A rare portrait of two 17th century ladies is under threat of being sold abroad, if no UK buyer can be found within the next month. An export ban has been placed on it by the UK Government, in hopes that a museum or institution will step up and save it from leaving the country.

Called Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies wearing Beauty Patches, 1650s, British School, it was sold at auction in 2021, having been passed down by descent in the family of Tyrell-Kenyon, Barons Kenyon of Gredington.

The rarity of such a portrait lies in how few early paintings of this type are known, where the sitters are of equal status (or at least, nothing indicates to the contrary), but one is white and one is black. It immediately puts me in mind of another, later portrait, of Dido Belle, the illegitimate daughter of an African slave and a British naval captain, raised in a titled family in Georgian Britain. In her portrait, she poses with her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, and there has been much discussion over the relationship between the two, and Dido’s life as a mixed-race girl growing up in privileged 18th-century aristocracy.

In the period from which our painting comes, black faces on canvas were usually depicted as servants or attendants, such as those in William Dobson’s portrait of Lord Byron, or Peter Lely’s later picture of the Duchess of Lauderdale (a different Elizabeth Murray!), so it is not surprising that this one, of two apparently equal young women, is considered important enough to try to keep in the country.

In our picture, which is presumed to be allegorical rather than based on any real individuals, the two young women mirror each other with their dress, hair and jewellery. Facial patches were a fashionable adornment at the time, but here they are used to condemn the sin of pride, according to an inscription above. Such opinion was common, and with this statement likely the intended focus of the painting, rather than the sitters themselves, the suggestion it is allegorical and entirely fictional would seem to be a good one.

This is a fascinating point, and one that perhaps illustrates a difference between their time and ours. To modern eyes, the sitters’ different ethnicities would be what draws the curious eye, not the patches. In our world, race is a subject that in many ways dominates our societies, in terms of equality, discrimination and visibility, so when we look at this picture, that is what we see. Yet to this 17th-century artist the ethnicity of either woman seems irrelevant, and it is the patches that hold the meaning.

So if the sitters are truly fictional, and not based on actual people, why did the artist choose the characters s/he did? Does this suggest race was an irrelevant or less important matter to this individual or their circle, and painting fictional women of different ethnicities instead of only white, as the majority would do, was simply an artistic or stylistic decision?

It is a compelling painting, for so many reasons. Yet almost nothing is known about it, save for the stated provenance, and what we can glean from the Government website announcing its sale. Further research could uncover so much more about it, from a study of the family that owned it, to technical investigations (X-rays, paint or brush-stroke analysis, etc) and a deeper understanding of the social and cultural world in which it was created. However, all of this may be lost if it is allowed to be sold abroad, so I do hope there are institutions planning on fighting for it to keep it where it belongs, here in the UK.

On this day in 1649, King Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, accused of treason against his own people.

As he stood on the scaffold, attended by Bishop Juxon, he removed his cloak and the blue-ribboned Order of the Garter. Handing the Garter to Juxon, he is said to have told him, simply, “Remember”. It’s believed this referred to an earlier instruction to see it into the hands of his exiled eldest son, Prince Charles, after the King’s death.

It was clearly a precious item to the King. Years earlier, it was immortalised in one of Anthony Van Dyck’s most famous paintings, Charles I in Three Positions (the Triple Portrait of Charles I), 1635-1636. (©Royal Collection)

This wasn’t the first time the jewel was seen on canvas, however. As part of the King’s public image, it featured in many portraits during his reign.

Even at his trial, Charles tried to maintain this image of majesty. Here, he is portrayed in the last months of his life, by the artist Edward Bower, probably from drawings made up at Westminster Hall. (©Royal Collection)

My research hasn’t yet found what became of the King’s final gift to his son. Can any reader enlighten me? Did it find its way across the sea to the exiled prince, and has it survived to this day?

Wherever it ended up, one of the last words from the King has taken on a poignant double meaning. Remember the gift, and remember this day.

It’s been several months since the last post, and I hope readers will forgive the delay in updating caused by the unprecedented events of this year. I hope also that you are all well, and that you and your loved ones have remained healthy and safe, wherever you are.

The times we’re all living through in 2020 would certainly give the unpredictable 1660s a run for their money.  Our 17th century ancestors contended with wars, plagues and fires all at once, while our own modern ‘plague’ is no less devasting as it continues to cause mayhem across the world.

The real heroes of our time are surely the doctors and nurses who have worked tirelessly to save lives, while selflessly putting their own on the line,  so I thought a fitting first post back would be to look at a pioneer of medicine from the past.

Thomas Sydenham was an English physician, born in 1624, whose many textbooks and treatises on medicine earned him the posthumous title of “The English Hippocrates”. Alongside his numerous published works on a whole range of medical matters, his achievements include the discovery of a disease, which was named after him, while even the medical phrase “First, do no harm” was claimed by some to have been his.

His studies began at college in Oxford, from the age of 18, but these were interrupted by the onset of the English Civil Wars, in which he served as a Parliamentarian officer. It wasn’t until his own son was an undergraduate at Cambridge thirty years later, that he himself graduated as an MD.

He seems to have been a man of common sense and ethics that were ahead of the time. At a period where much of medicine still relied on superstition and old beliefs that did little or nothing to aid the patient, Sydenham purportedly said, “The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with drugs.”

This sympathetic portrait was painted in 1688 by the famed Mary Beale, and is part of the National Portrait Gallery collection in London.

In the kind of news that makes my blood boil, we’re being told that thieves have stolen Van Dyck’s c.1616 “Soldier on Horseback” from the Christ Church Picture Gallery at the  University of Oxford.

Also stolen were works by Salvator Rosa and Annibale Carracci. An investigation is under way, but who knows if we’ll ever seen them again,  given the sad history of art theft. You only have to look at the empty spaces left as memorials on the walls of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, after the 1990 break-in that deprived us of  great works by Vermeer and Caravaggio, to see that art theft is about so much more than just the stealing away of a canvas.

It’s too early to suggest why these particular works were taken, but I’ve read several books about the murky world of art theft, and there are countless reasons people commit this kind of crime. ‘Artnapping’ is one, where a piece is held until a ransom is paid. At other times, pieces are stolen to order, or perhaps because someone just wants it on their wall to hoard and keep for themselves. Much of the time, however, rare and valuable works are taken to use as collatoral against loans, or as part of underworld or gang-related crimes. They are rarely, if ever, seen again outside those circles.

The loss of any art is heartbreaking because it is the nature of art to be fleeting, the capturing of a moment in time that will never be repeated. Van Dyck’s soldier is a study, a preliminary sketching of thoughts for a bigger commission. His genius shows here, in his use of quick black lines and dapples of white to create the impression of a man on horseback without needing to detail every curve or muscle. With just two colours (I know, it can be argued that black and white aren’t actually colours, but that’s another argument), the eye fills in the rest. The stirrups are barely there, and the horse’s features fade even further as your eyes move downwards. Nevertheless, Van Dyck has told a story with his few lines, creating movement and drama.

Stealing such a work from a public institution is stealing from all of us. With every theft, our ability to learn, and to study and understand the painter and their world is lessened, as we can no longer stand in front of the canvas and fit the pieces together for ourselves, we can only view the brushstrokes through inferior copies, one step removed from the precious item the artist actually touched. That connection is so important in art, which makes taking it away from us all the more despicable, especially if simple greed is the motive.

We can only hope that whoever is chasing down the Oxford thieves will catch them soon, before the works disappear into the grubby underworld of stolen art, but unless there is a lead on who is behind it, and why, I’m not at all optimistic they will be retrieved. Boston is still waiting for its lost art to come home, 30 years after the theft. Will Christ Church have to wait that long? Let us hope not.

BBC News

My latest book indulgence is “1666: Plague, War and Hellfire” by Rebecca Rideal, which tells of the events that took place during one extraordinary year in the reign of King Charles II.  I realised as I was reading that a lot of the main protagonists during this period left portraits, so here are some of the faces that shaped, or simply managed to survive, 1666.

The first of the three notorious events that year was the return of plague.  Ever present, it reared its head again in 1665 and continued into the early months of 1666, causing panic, desperation and evacuation from the capital before the epidemic finally died down, having killed a reported 68000 people in London alone.

When Cambridge University was temporarily closed because of the sickness, one student survivor who returned home to wait it out was the scientist and mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton, whose famous apple story came from this period of exile. How different would scientific history look today, had he become just a plague statistic?

Sir Isaac Newton by Godfrey Kneller, 1689

The second big news of the year was the continuation of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, a series of naval battles between the English and the Dutch, with reports of its victories and (often embarrassing) losses keeping the printing presses of the capital occupied for several years.

Many big names were present at these encounters, including famed Civil War Royalist and cousin to the King, Prince Rupert….

Prince Rupert c.1665, by Peter Lely (NMM Greenwich)

…and George Monck, 1st Duke of Albermarle, who had been integral to the plot to restore Charles II to the throne, and now served the King in numerous roles. During the plague outbreak in London he had remained in the city to keep order, before heading  out to face the Dutch with Prince Rupert and the English fleet.

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albermarle, by Sir Peter Lely
after 1660 (National Galleries of Scotland)

It was the third major event of the year, however, that has left the greatest mark in England’s history. Most people will know the outline of events: a September fire in Thomas Farriner’s bakery blazed for 5 days and burned down a considerable part of the city. With citizens yet again fleeing the capital, and little effort employed to fight the fire, it fell to the King himself, and his brother, James Duke of York (future King James II), to quell the panic, take charge and save their city.

King Charles II by unknown artist, c.1665 (NPG London)

James II when Duke of York, by Peter Lely, c, 1665 (Royal Coll.)

James was put at the head of the relief effort when the Lord Mayor panicked and fled his post, and the royal brothers spent the next few days amongst the people, working alongside them to create fire-breaks and keep order until the flames were finally under control.

The many dramas and everyday tales of 1666 are known to us today, thanks to the presence of two great diarists and social commentators, Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, who survived both plague and fire, and whose diaries provide vivid accounts of life and death during the Restoration.

Samuel Pepys, c, 1690, attrib. John Riley (NPG London)

John Evelyn by Godfrey Kneller, 1687

In the great span of history, England has suffered fire and destruction, feast and famine, and war and peace in abundance, but surely few years (excepting perhaps those of the 20th century’s two World Wars)  can claim to have hosted so much upheaval and uncertainty all at once?

As readers will know by now, I love a good art mystery, and unravelling this one might simply depend on good eyesight and a talent for reading old handwriting.

7

Described by the seller only as ‘a military commander’ of the English Civil War, there are no identifying features within the image itself, by use of props, background or clothing. From the pared down simplicity of his dress, not to mention his rather forbidding expression, I’d hazard a guess that he may be intended as Parliamentarian, but that can only be speculation.

Although dated by the seller to the 17th century, I could be persuaded it is a later creation. Something in the execution suggests a later copy, or perhaps a work of the imagination, depicting a generic, fictional soldier of the period?

The answer may lie (or be hinted at) in the old label and its faded, incomplete inscription on the reverse, which the seller has kindly included and invited others to decipher.

I think I can read ‘his son Col.[?] Robert’ on the lower portion, and perhaps ‘1689’ in the top one, but that’s all. If anyone has ideas as to the rest, please do let me know in the comments section. I’d love to know what readers think!

Ebay auction page

The way in which 17th century artists depicted death or dying is a strangely fascinating study.  It provides an insight into people’s innermost thoughts, feelings and beliefs about their own mortality in the 1600s.  Whether it be imagined deathbed scenes,  mourning clothes and jewellery, or the inclusion of dead relatives amongst sitters still living (at least at the time of painting), we can learn much about how this inevitable part of life was understood at the time.

Take this very unsual deathbed portrait of Sir Edward Widdrington, painted by an unknown artist of the English School, circa 1671.

Offered for sale at auction in 2016, the catalogue describes this painting as:

A full-length study of the deceased Sir Edward Widdrington, Bt., wearing a friar’s habit, recumbent in bed, a table by his feet with crucifix and candles…..painted in the habit of a Friar of the Third Order, that is to say a patron rather than a religious or lay brother. Therein lies its uniqueness as a proud display of Catholic recusancy in a time of persecution.

It continues:

Sir Edward Widdrington of Cartington was a member of an ancient Northumbrian family who gave their name to (or took their name from) the village of Widdrington near Morpeth, Northumberland. A strongly Royalist family during the 17th century they were rewarded with Baronetcies in England and Nova Scotia.

The anonymous artist has given Sir Edward an expression of peaceful serenity, with no hint of pain or suffering in his face, and in his colouring and pose he seems more asleep than recently deceased. I particularly like the comfortable, over-sized pillow, which only adds to the feeling of respect and love for Sir Edward that those who commissioned the picture must have wanted to convey.

The painting’s provenance shows it descended within the family, and remained with them until its sale only a few years ago.  Where did it hang, once the paint was dry? Was it placed defiantly in an outer room of the family home, where any visitor might see and understand its Catholic meaning? Or was it kept privately,  safe from persecuting eyes, and created for his loved ones’ sight alone? A portrait was not an unusual item to have, but in such times of religious intolerance it would certainly have raised eyebrows for it to openly declare and celebrate the man’s faith, even after death.