21 Nov 2007
14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street
Fine Portrait Miniatures, including the Collection of an American Gentleman formed over thirty five years
Back to auction 15265
Fine Portrait Miniatures, including the Collection of an American Gentleman formed over thirty five years
Back to auction 15265
Richard Gibson (British, 1615-1690)
A pair of three-quarter length portraits of James II (1633-1701), as Duke of York and Mary Beatrice of Modena (1658-1718); he, wearing full armour, blue sash of the Order of the Garter and white lace jabot, he holds a staff, his plumed helmet on red drapery to his right; she, wearing brown dress with white underslip, strand of pearls across her breast held at her corsage with a jewelled brooch, blue cloak over her right shoulder and pearl necklace, dark brown curtain with gold fringe and carved frieze with putti behind her.
Watercolour on vellum, gilded wood frames.
Rectangular, 184mm (7 1/4in) high (2)
Watercolour on vellum, gilded wood frames.
Rectangular, 184mm (7 1/4in) high (2)
Sold for
£6,600
inc. premium
Footnotes
- James II was the second son of Charles I and brother of Charles II. Having spent the years of the Civil War and Commonwealth in captivity, and then subsequently in exile on the Continent, James returned to England at the time of the Restoration in 1660, when he took his place at Court as the Duke of York. From his first marriage to Anne Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, James had two daughters, Mary and Anne. To the consternation of many in England, he also converted to Catholicism. Upon his accession in 1685 he alienated both Parliament and people with his ill-judged attempts to create religious liberty for his fellow-Catholics and his belief in the concept of absolute monarchy. His adversaries saw their opposition to James as a way to preserve traditional British liberties.
England's only ever Italian queen, Mary was the daughter of Alofonso IV of Modena and married James in 1673. For all her abundant beauty and charm, she was a Roman Catholic and her presence at Court ignited suspicions that her heirs might eventually bring about a general return to Catholicism. On June 1688, she gave birth to a son, an event which provided the catalyst for the so-called 'Glorious Revolution', when the Whigs ousted James and installed his elder daughter Mary, and her Protestant husband, William of Orange, on the throne.
Upon the death of James II, in exile in France in 1701, it was his widow who convinced Louis XIV to recognise her son, also called James, as the rightful King of England, thus planting the seeds for the Jacobite intrigues that would persist well into the eighteenth century. Mary of Modena died of breast cancer in 1718.
It was through the patronage of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke that Gibson encountered Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) after whose portraits the present lot were copied. Patronage of both artists was continued by Herbert's grandson Charles, 2nd Earl of Carnavon from 1650 to circa 1677. Lely's portraits were a popular image of the Duke and his wife and a number of copies, both in large and in miniature exist. The Duke of Portland's collection at Welbeck Abbey includes a number of copies of different scale and format by the miniaturist Nicholas Dixon. Interestingly in the present portrait of Mary, Gibson has chosen not to include the spaniel that appears in Lely's original.
Category: Fine Art / Portrait Miniatures
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