Week 4: The Sale of Charles I’s Collection & Its Aftermath

Seizure of the Pictures.

The first “authorized moves” (Haskell) may have been carried out at the end of October, 1642. Nine months after the King left London, parliamentary troops seized Windsor Castle and removed the magnificent silver plate made by Christian van Vianen for the ceremonies of the Order of the Garter lost, presumably melted down. From early 1643 onwards, more systematic confiscation and destruction followed and an inventory was made of Queen’s “hangings and household stuff.” A Rubens’s altarpiece may have been thrown in the Thames and it may have had some connection with James I’s Catholic Secretary of State, Sir George Calvert.[1] This Crucifixion by Rubens definitely hung in the Queen’s Chapel, and it seems to have been a victim of Puritan anger. It is known that instructions were given to deface “superstitious” paintings in the chapel of St James’s Palace, but it is not known which, although it looks like Rubens’s altarpiece was destroyed by an enraged Parliamentary commissioner in March 1643 on site rather than being thrown in the river.[2] Despite this vandalism, the King’s pictures survived the war “relatively unscathed.” The King’s collection became a target for the Puritans in whom it aroused anger because of the large sums spent on it, at a time when Charles was engaged in levying taxes without summoning Parliament.

Sir Anthony van Dyck, Charles I, King of England at the Hunt, 1635, Oil on canvas, 266 x 207 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Att to Sir Anthony van Dyck, Crucifixion, c. 1615, 333 x 282 cm, Museé du Louvre, Paris.

Unknown, Sir George Calvert, Secretary of State.

Paulus van Somer, King James I of England, Oil on canvas, 196 x 120 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Late King’s Goods & the Sale of His Collection.

Charles I was executed on 30^th January 1649, and two days later the Commons appointed a special committee to look after his possessions and have them locked up. A few weeks later Parliament authorized the Council of State to sell them off to pay the King’s debts, “reserving only what was necessary for the State, though this was not to exceed £10,000 in value.” Commissioners with extensive powers were appointed to draw up full inventories and to put a valuation on individual items so that these could be sold, and it was acknowledged from the first that prices would be much higher if works of art were sold abroad. The first £30,000 to be raised from these sales was to be lent to the navy, which would have to pay that sum back within about 18 months. The remaining profits were to be used to settle the debts owed to the King’s servants. The actual sales were to be conducted in the great hall of Somerset House, which had been one of the royal palaces. Contrary to what is often believed, there was never any question of an auction.[3]  As Haskell says, it is “difficult to reconstruct the exact management of affairs.”  There were large consignments to Somerset House because we know in May 1650 “some 250 paintings and 150 tapestries were available to shoppers visiting the palace.” (Haskell, 144). We are told that the pictures were in sections (in alphabetical sequence) placed in galleries “running around the room at a high level.” This made them difficult to see properly, also not helped by their condition- badly carried for and dusty.Initially, responses to the sale were disappointing as “times were bad, money was short and people were uneasy about acquiring the property of the late King.”[4]  In the first months 38 individuals bought 375 pictures between them, but mostly at the lower end of the market which meant that by May 1650 only £7,750 had been raised from this source. This affected the King’s “Civil Servants” who were to be beneficiaries of the sale. So Parliament drew up a list of those most in need, to be paid in cash, if absolutely essential, but preferably in goods (furnishings and pictures) from Charles’s estate. So for example, a royal plumber who was owed £903 for repairs to various palaces and the Tower of London was given £400 in cash and then allowed to choose up to £500 of pictures, including Titian’s Saint Margaret Triumphing over the Devil.” Obviously, this suited Parliament,- but the plumber with a family to feed would want to turn the Titian into cash quickly. Among the “first-list” we find his silkman, his cutler, his linen-draper. There was a Second List of the King’s Creditors. More in this case was to be settled not in cash, but in goods. Because of this most of the creditors “organized themselves into 14 syndicates (which were called Dividends), under the leadership of one named individual, which in collaboration with the Trustees for the Sale, chose what to acquire up to a limit of £5,000 in the interests of his group. Within each syndicate, the objects were divided among members through the casting of votes; thus, in theory, each member became the owner of some painting or item of furniture, and could do what he liked with it.[5] However, most members recognised that it wasn’t easy to turn a Correggio into hard cash, so they tended to leave it to the head of the syndicate and ask him to arrange a sale on their behalf, possibly on the basis of a commission. These syndicates managed to acquire some of the King’s masterpieces. The one led by Thomas Bagley, the King’s glazier, obtained not only rich saddles to the value of £2,000 and 22 antique statues but also Correggio’s the Education Of Cupid, valued then at £800. Edward Bass, a minor under the Great Seal of the Realm, his syndicate was allocated Raphael’s La Perla valued at £2,000 and St George (Washington). The Eleventh Dividend (led by the King’s embroiderer, Edmund Harrison) were awarded Titian’s Pesaro and St Peter, Rubens’s Peace and War. The second syndicate, presided over by David Murray (the King’s Tailor) acquired not only many furnishings but Correggio’s Venus and Satyr (Louvre). Haskell says this is “perhaps the single most extraordinary episode in the history of English art collecting, or indeed that of any other nation.”[6] Haskell compares the English situation with the distribution of pictures in Holland and the Low Countries concluding that “The English market was not so democratic but neither was it aristocratic, or even oligarchic. It did not, however, last for long.”

Jacob de Formentrou (active Antwerp 1640-59), A Gallery of Pictures, 1659, Royal Collection

Raphael, The Holy Family, or La Perla, 1518-20,Oil on wood, 114 x 115 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

Attributed to Caravaggio, (here rejected), c. 1602-4, The Calling of Sts Peter and Andrew, oil on canvas, 140.1 x 170 x cm

Raphael, St George and the Dragon, 1505-06, Oil on wood, 28.5 x 21.5 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cromwell’s Share.[7]

A number of works were reserved by Cromwell for the State, but as Haskell said, it is “…very difficult to discern any taste or guiding principle at work in the making of these choices.”[8] A sum of £10,000 was put aside for this selection with another £10,000  to come later. Some of this was used for furnishings; Cromwell learned to live in “royal splendour” at Whitehall. Naturally, both Royalists and Parliamentarians were “alarmed” to discover that Cromwell had reserved for himself two pictures by Guilio Romano and his workshop- Omen of Claudius’s Imperial Power and Nero fiddling while Rome burnt. He also owned portraits of the King and Queen of France and the French Ambassador; the only other portrait was one of the royal jesters! However, Cromwell chose not to keep Titian’s Salome (Prado).[9]  We also know he had an Infant Christ and Saint John Embracing (att to Parmigianino) called “two naked boys” to cloak its religious content. Additionally, Cambiaso’s Assumption of the Virgin was acquired by Cromwell under its correct title of “Mary Ascention wth ye Apostles looking on.” After the Reformation it is described as “part of the Assumption of the B. Virgin and the Apostles standing by about the Tombe.” The upper half may have been removed when it belonged to Cromwell. Francis Haskell says it was an “odd choice for him in the first place” as were two other pictures (untraced): Schiavone’s Mary, Elizabeth and Child or a Madonna with many angels and one with a scourge.

Sir Peter Lely, Portrait of Oliver Cromwell, Oil on canvas, 73 x 61 cm, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

Workshop of Giulio Romano, Omen of Claudius’s Imperial Power, 1536-9, oil on panel, 121.4 x 93.5 cm, Royal Collection

Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: 5. The Elephants, 1484-92, Tempera on canvas, 270.0 x 280.7 x 4.0 cm

Raphael, Death of Ananias, 1515, Tempera on paper, mounted on canvas, 385 x 440 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Collections Built up During the Interregnum. 

 Emanuel de Critz (1608-1665) was the son of a sarjeant painter to Charles I, included in the second list of the King’s creditors; he became head of three syndicates (first, fifth and fourteenth). Acquired Bernini’s Head of Charles I. Pictures in his collection included Tintoretto’s Esther before Ahasuerus and VD’s Charles I, Henrietta Maria with their Two Eldest Children “Great Peece”. In his house at Austen Friars (near Liverpool St Station), de Critz kept three rooms of the King’s pictures (some stored on behalf of other acquirers). He painted mediocre portraits while storing the Bernini and VD in another room. De Critz despised Cromwell because after he was awarded two antique busts from the royal collection, each valued at £120, these were retained by the government as part of its scheme for refurbishing Whitehall Palace for the Lord Protector, which affected him financially. Brought to account for his part in the Dividend scheme, De Critz reminded Charles II that he had rescued an Antinous (commissioned by Charles I) after a “fanatical Quaker” had threatened to smash it with a hammer. It sounds like a story invented to save the painter’s skin.

Colonel John Hutchison (bap. 1615 d 1664) as revealed through the testimony of his wife Lucy. In Farancis Haskell’s words, “Mrs Hutchison’s most revealing comment about her husband is that although he always remained loyal to his Puritan upbringing and abominated the ‘false, carnall, and Antichristian Doctrines of Rome’, nonetheless he ‘ had greate judgment in paintings [en] graving, sculpture, and all excellent arts, wherein he was much delighted…and would rather chuse to have none than meane jewells or pictures.”[10] Hutchison won fame in the Civil War for his strong defence of Nottingham against the royalists. He was one of the judges who sentenced the King to death on 27th January, 1649, and nearly nine months later he buys £160 worth of the King’s pictures on the first day of his posthumous sale. These included “various still lives” and surprisingly, given his Puritan background a Naked Venus and Cupid by Palma Giovane. A week later he became more ambitious and he bought three pictures attributed to Titian, including the Venus del Pardo (Louvre), the picture that Philip IV had given to the Prince of Wales soon to become Charles I. It had been valued at £500 but Hutchison had to pay £600 to get it. Then he added Holbein’s Johann Froben to his collection. IN all he spent £1,349 in cash- more than any other purchaser- for about twenty pictures, in addition sculpture, tapestries and furnishings. (179). He took his possessions to his house at Owthorpe in Nottinghamshire “intending a very neate Cabinet for them, and together “with the surveying of his buildings, and emprooving by enclosure the place he liv’d in”, they “employed him at att home…and [he] pleas’d himselfe with musick and againe fell to the practise of his violl.” Haskell says that Hutchison’s situation is important because it sheds light on the origin of the country house collection; and it shows that not every collector in those times was a courtier.  Hutchison kept the Venus del Pardo for four years despite the Spanish Ambassador was keen to get hold of it. By December, 1653  it was being offered for sale at £6,000, but within three days the price had risen to £7,000. Monsieur de Bordeaux, Mazarin’s representative thought this was expensive, especially as £2,000 had to be put down at once. Colonel Hutchison thought it was reasonable because he was selling it for the sum he had paid for it.[11] Haskell asks if Hutchison was a genuine admirer of high quality art, or was he just selling for speculation? After the Civil War Hutchinson escaped execution but was discharged from the army and made ineligible for public office of any kind (and later imprisoned for alleged plotting). Hutchison was also denounced to the Lord’s Committee for possessing one of Charles I’s pictures, a Titian Holy Family (now att to Palma Giovane, Royal Coll). 

 

Philip Lord Lisle. In his youth, Philip Lord Lisle (1619-1698) had accompanied his father (Lord Northumberland) on embassies to Copenhagen and Paris. He supported Parliament during the Civil War, but refused to serve as a judge at the trial of Charles I. He acquired between 50- 60 paintings and nearly 30 pieces of sculpture, more than any other single collector in England. Northumberland according to Haskell was the only person in the country trying to build up a collection of Old Masters from scratch. This meant he bought at either second, or even third hand, either for purchasers for cash at the initial sale such as Colonel Webb, from whom he bought Francesco Bassano (att) Summer and Boas or from royal servants like David Murray (Charles I’s tailor) Guilio Romano’s Chiron and Achilles. Lord Lisle selected works that caught his fancy rather than rely on learned opinion. He had panels by Polidoro di Caravaggio’s including his Putti with Goats, Jacopo Bassano’s The Good Samaritan and Holbein’s William Reskimer.[12] He returned these with reluctance, like his uncle, Lord Northumberland who faced a conflict of interest because he was on the picture restitution Committee. Unlike the lowly tradesmen, Lord Lisle haughtily declared that “conceiving that some Pictures and Statues are in his Custody which might be the late King Majesty’s, that he would keep them in Safety, and be ready at His Majesty’s Command, or at the Command of this House, to deliver them as he shall de directed.” The absolute final date for the return of the King’s goods was September 1660. Lord Lisle’s two batches were sent on 8^th and 10^th September.[13] 

Sir Justinian Isham. Isham was a cultured man who inherited Lamport Hall in which he hung a full-size copy of Van Dyck’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles I. This landed him in hot water with the parliamentary authorities who arrested him. Released he continued to build and collect art; he also had copies of other Van Dycks and Titian’s Portrait of Cardinal Armagnac.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their two eldest children, Prince Charles and Princess Mary (“The Great Piece”), 1631-32, oil on canvas, 303.8 x 256.5 cm, Royal Collection

Hans Holbein the Younger, Johannes Froben, 1522, oil on panel, 48.8 x 32.4 cm, Royal Collection

Polidoro da Caravaggio, Putti with Goats, c. 1527-8, oil on pine panel, 31 x 120 cm, Royal Collection

Att to, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Justinian Isham (1610-75), oil on canvas, 60 x 47 cm, Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire

Restoration and Restitution.

Army officials were appointed to seize goods that had belonged (or thought to have belonged) to Charles I. Their methods could be brutal resulting in innocent citizens suffering. The committee had two important instruments: official document relating to the sales held on behalf of the King’s creditors between 1649 and 1653; it offered to reward “any of our well affected subjects or others who shall discover unto us any of the said Goods willfully concealed.” There were a lot of denunciations, mostly anonymous. Amongst the informers was the Flemish painter George Geldorp (d 1665) and a close friend of Van Dyck. Geldorp may have been telling the truth when he said that the pictures of Charles I were there for safe-keeping but he had a dubious reputation. The Earl of Pembroke stated that he had in his possession “four of five pictures which possibly did belong to the King”, but he said that he had bought one from Geldorp. One of Geldorp’s least charitable acts was to shop the Merchant Mr Trion who had Van Dyck’s Portrait of Charles’s I Children (Royal Coll); and M Vaeytchell who had VD’s Portrait of the Young Duke of Buckingham and his Brother. Other owners gave up their pictures voluntarily, like some of the King’s creditors including Edmund Harrison, the King’s embroiderer who lived in Grub Street (his cache included Myten’s Portrait of Christian, Duke of Brunswick. Harrison didn’t refer to the great pictures he had sold to the Spanish (Titian’s Pope Alexander VI Presenting Jacopo Pesaro to St Peter; and Rubens’s Peace and War).  As for these lowly born men, Harrisons, Samwells, Merridays and Beesomes, it was a financial catastrophe. During the Restoration, their receipts from the King’s sale stating that their new goods and chattels would be theirs “for ever, to all intents and purposes whatsoever” were ruthlessly torn up and they were unable to recoup money owed to them.

Sir Anthony van Dyck, The Five Eldest Children of Charles I, 1637, oil on canvas, 163.2 x 198.8 cm, Royal Collection

Sir Anthony van Dyck, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628-87), and Lord Francis Villiers (1629-48), 1635, oil on canvas, 186.7 x 137.2 cm

Titian, Pope Alexander VI Presenting Jacopo Pesaro to St Peter, 1506-11, Oil on canvas, 146 x 184 cm, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

George Geldorp, Portrait of a Lady, oil on canvas, 225 x 150 cm, Chequers Court.

Slides.

1)      Sir Anthony van Dyck, Charles I, King of England at the Hunt, 1635, Oil on canvas, 266 x 207 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.[14]
2)      Att to Sir Anthony van Dyck, Crucifixion, c. 1615, 333 x 282 cm, Museé du Louvre, Paris.
3)      Unknown, Sir George Calvert, Secretary of State,
4)      Paulus van Somer, King James I of England, Oil on canvas, 196 x 120 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.[15]
5)      After Raphael, Christ’s Charge to Peter, Tapestry, Vatican Museum.[16]
6)      Nicholas Briot, Portrait medal of Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, silver medal, 1625, Fitzwilliam Museum.[17]
7)      Jacob de Formentrou (active Antwerp 1640-59), A Gallery of Pictures, 1659, Royal Collection.[18]
8)      George Geldorp, Portrait of a Lady, oil on canvas, 225 x 150 cm, Chequers Court.
9)      Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their two eldest children, Prince Charles and Princess Mary (“The Great Piece”), 1631-32, oil on canvas, 303.8 x 256.5 cm, Royal Collection.[19]
10)   Sir Anthony van Dyck, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628-87), and Lord Francis Villiers (1629-48), 1635, oil on canvas, 186.7 x 137.2 cm.
11)   Emmanuel de Critz, John Tradescant the Younger with Roger Friend and a Collection of Exotic Shells, Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford, oil on canvas, 107 x 132 cm.[20]
12)   Sir Anthony van Dyck, The Five Eldest Children of Charles I, 1637, oil on canvas, 163.2 x 198.8 cm, Royal Collection.[21]
13)   Attributed to Caravaggio, c. 1602-4, The Calling of Sts Peter and Andrew, oil on canvas, 140.1 x 170 x cm.[22]
14)   Attributed to Caravaggio, The Annunciation, 1609-10?, oil on canvas, 285 x 205 cm, Museé des Beaux-Arts, Nancy.[23]
15)   Daniel Mytens, Duke of Brunswick, 1624?, oil on canvas, 220.6 x 140 cm, Royal Collection.[24]
16)   Titian, Pope Alexander VI Presenting Jacopo Pesaro to St Peter, 1506-11, Oil on canvas, 146 x 184 cm, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.[25]
17)   Raphael, The Holy Family, or La Perla, 1518-20,Oil on wood, 114 x 115 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
18)   Raphael, St George and the Dragon, 1505-06, Oil on wood, 28.5 x 21.5 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington.[26]
19)   Sir Peter Lely, Portrait of Oliver Cromwell, Oil on canvas, 73 x 61 cm, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence.[27]
20)   After Sir Anthony van Dyck, Title Page to L’Estrange’s History of Charles I, 1654.
21)   After William Faithorne, O Cromwell Crushing Babylon, i.e. the Stuart Court, etching, 17^th century.
22)   Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: 1. The Picture-Bearers, after 1486, Tempera on canvas, 270.3 x 280.7 cm, Royal Collection, Hampton Court. [28]
23)   Andrea Mantegna, The Triumphs of Caesar: 5. The Elephants, 1484-92, Tempera on canvas, 270.0 x 280.7 x 4.0 cm.[29]
24)   Raphael, Death of Ananias, 1515, Tempera on paper, mounted on canvas, 385 x 440 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[30]
25)   Titian, Salome, about 1555, oil on canvas, 87 x 80, Prado, Madrid.[31]
26)   Workshop of Giulio Romano, Omen of Claudius’s Imperial Power, 1536-9, oil on panel, 121.4 x 93.5 cm, Royal Collection.[32]
27)   Andrea dal Sarto, Madonna della Scala, 1522-3, Oil on panel, 177 x 135 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.[33]
28)   Unknown, Portrait of Colonel John Hutchinson.[34]
29)   Hans Holbein the Younger, Johannes Froben, 1522, oil on panel, 48.8 x 32.4 cm, Royal Collection.[35]
30)   , c. 1522-23, oil on panel, 48.8 x 32.4 cm, Royal Collection.[36]
31)   Hans Holbein the Younger, William Reskimmer, c. 1532-34, oil on panel, 46 x 33.5 cm, Royal Collection.[37]
32)   Polidoro da Caravaggio, Putti with Goats, c. 1527-8, oil on pine panel, 31 x 120 cm, Royal Collection.[38]
33)   Jacopo Bassano, The Good Samaritan, 1545-50, oil on canvas, 64.8 x 84.2 cm, Royal Collection.[39]
34)   Att to, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Justinian Isham (1610-75), oil on canvas, 60 x 47 cm, Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire.[40]
35)   Lamport Hall.[41]
36)   After Anthony van Dyck, Charles I (1600-49) on a White Horse, after 1633, oil on canvas, 361 x 274 cm, Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire.[42]
37)   Titian, Cardinal Armignac and his Secretaries, oil on canvas, 104 x 114 cm, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.[43]  

---

[1] On Calvert and his involvement in the commissioning of a lost Crucifixion by Rubens, subsequently given to the Duke of Buckingham, see Albert J. Loomie, “A Lost Crucifixion by Rubens”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 138, No. 1124, Nov (1996), 734-739.

[2] Rubens’s Crucifixion was a victim of the Puritans’ attack on the Queen. A document relating to the Capuchins provides an eye-witness account of the destruction of the work probably done after Henrietta Maria returned from a year’s sojourn in the Netherlands in 1643. Despite protests from two French aristocrats, agents for Louis XIII, the doors of the Queen’s Chapel were battered down and an onslaught begun on the religious art. Loomie published a subsequent article on this elusive altar: “The destruction of Rubens’s Crucifixion in the Queen’s Chapel, Somerset House”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 140, No. 1147, (Oct 1998), 680-682.

[3] Haskell says that the “prices assigned to by the Commissioners to the huge number of works of art they had to dispose of were not intrinsically unreasonable and certainly not incoherent,” The King’s Pictures, 137.

[4] Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 67f.

[5] Francis Haskell, The King’s Pictures, 146.

[6] Haskell, 150: “Great masterpieces painted by Correggio and Titian, by Raphael, Holbein, by Rubens and van Dyck, for kings and princes, cardinals and courtiers were now to be found in small houses scattered through London and the countryside belonging to haberdashers and glaziers, cutlers, musicians and painters.”

[7] “In this manner did the neighbour princes join to assist Cromwell with very great sums of money…while they enriched and adorned themselves with the ruins and spoils of the surviving heir (the Prince of Wales). Lord Clarendon

[8] Haskell, The King’s Pictures, 138.

[9] Haskell, The King’s Pictures, (142-3) says that “what is so astonishing about the pictures that Cromwell did keep is not so much the fact that, with the exception of portraits by the Dutchman Paul van Somer and one seascape by Jan Porcellis, every single one of them is by an Italian artist, but that so many are of subjects that one would have thought of as dangerously provocative.”

[10] Haskell, The King’s Pictures, 177-8.

[11] Haskell, The King’s Pictures, 180. “The reason why the Colonel was able to make a profit of more than 1,1000 per cent on the picture was simple enough, and M. de Bordeaux fully grasped it. Competition from his rival Alonso de Cardenas meant that both ambassadors were now facing a seller’s market.”

[12] Haskell, The King’s Pictures, 186: “Thus Lisle proved to be the only nobleman to come to prominence during the war who was emulating the achievements of the previous generation in aiming to build up a family collection of old masters. In doing so he was reversing the situation of the last few years: pictures once again resumed their conventional course to, rather than from, the walls of the nobility.If the political situation had not changed so dramatically Lord Lisle would therefore surely have earned a noteworthy place in the history of art collecting. But the situation did change, and he found himself instructed to return all his carefully selected pictures to the restored monarchy.”

[13] Haskell (188). “Why, when so much was available to him did he buy what he (Lisle) did? His Bassanos were good as were his Polidoros. But there were Titians on the market and Correggios and Rubenses. Was it a question of money, or timing (though he seems to have been already collecting by 1650) or predilection? I cannot even to begin to answer a single one of these questions, but just to ask them does seem to me to throw some light on the achievements of Lord Arundel and the dukes of Buckingham and Hamilton, even if we exclude the King because of his very special position.”

[14] Collection of Louis XIV, purchased in 1775 from Madame du Barry.

[15] Example of Oath of Allegiance. “I, A.B., do truly and sincerely acknowledge, &c. that our sovereign lord, King James, is lawful and rightful King &c. and that the pope neither of himself nor by any authority of Church or See of Rome, or by any other means with any other, has any power to depose the king &c., or to authorize any foreign prince to invade him &c., or to give licence to any to bear arms, raise tumults, &c. &c. Also I do swear that notwithstanding any sentence of excommunication or deprivation I will bear allegiance and true faith to his Majesty &c. &c. And I do further swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical this damnable doctrine and position,--that princes which be excommunicated by the pope may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or by any other whatsoever. And I do believe that the pope has no power to absolve me from this oath. I do swear according to the plain and common sense, and understanding of the same words &c. &c. &c" (3 James I, c. 4).”

[16] See the catalogue to the exhibition of the cartoons and tapestries held at the V & A in London, 2010.

[17] Acquired by the Art Fund in 2003. More information on this collector by Karen Hearn, “A Question of Judgement: Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, as Art Patron and Collector” in The Evolution of English Collecting, 221-239.

[18] All the pictures are named on the RC website- link

[19] From the RC website: “The painting was known as 'The Greate Peece' at the time and Charles hung it prominently in the Palace at Whitehall. What sets the picture apart from other paintings of the period is the apparently effortless way in which Van Dyck seemed able to combine the formal demands of official state portraiture with the informalities of family domesticity. Its size, the acres of shimmering silk and the grand classical column lend the image official gravity. Yet at the same time the King and Queen are seated, Charles has placed his crown on one side and two tiny dogs play between the royal couple. The composition is in essence, a royal conversation piece of a kind that was to be perfected by Johann Zoffany in the mid-18th century.” More- link

[20] Catalogue of Paintings in the Ashmoleon Museum, (1980), 29: “Presented by Mr Elias Ashmole in 1683”.

[21] Millar, The Age of Charles I, No. 105. Mary, Princess Royal, Later Princess of Orange, James, Duke of York, later James II, Charles, Prince of Wales, later Charles II, Elizabeth and Anne. 

[22] From RC website: “Bought by Charles I from William Frizell in 1637; valued at £40 by the Trustees for Sale and sold to De Critz and others on 18 November 1651; recovered at the Restoration.” For my part, I think we are dealing with a copy- this design is known to have 12 of a lost original. Proposed as an original by Maurino in 1987. For the arguments about attribution, follow this link.

[23] For the pro-attributionists, the odd blue colour that appears in the Calling of Peter and Andrew also appears in the Nancy Annunciation, for which see Caravaggio: The Final Years, (London, 2005), No. 15 and bibliography.

[24] Possibly painted for James 1.

[25] Exhibitions: Titian: Prince of Painters (Washington and Venice, 190-91), No. 4; Titian (London, 2003), No. 3.

[26] Thought to have been a gift brought over with Castiglione for Henry VII; Hermitage outbid by Mellon in 1931. For the picture’s history, see Joanna Pitman, The Raphael Trail: The Secret History of One of the World’s Most Previous Works of Art, (Ebury Press, 2006).

[27] Cromwell famously said he wanted to be painted “warts and all.”- link

[28] Andrea Mantegna (London and New York, 1992), No. 108.

[29] Andrea Mantegna, No. 112.

[30] The Cartoons were valued £300 for the lot, London, 2010, No. 4.

[31] From the Cavallini to Veronese website:  Salome. Canvas, 87 x 80. “A variant of the picture in Berlin – in which the girl, once said to represent Titian’s daughter Lavinia, holds up a dish of fruit rather than the head of the Baptist on a charger. Traditionally dated about 1555. Acquired by Philip IV in 1665 at the auction of the estate of the Marqués de Leganés.”

[32] From RC website: “‘The Omen of Claudius’s Imperial Powers’ was painted to hang beneath Titian’s ‘Claudius’ on the east wall of the Cabinet of Caesars. The subject is taken from Suetonius’s ‘Twelve Caesars’ (V, 7): Claudius, created a consul by his nephew the Emperor Gaius, received an omen of his future greatness, ‘as an eagle that was flying by lit upon his shoulder’. The eagle was the symbol of Imperial Rome, and also appeared on the coat of arms of the Gonzaga family, which is presumably why this incident was chosen and why the eagle here has its wings outstretched in such a heraldic fashion.” More- link

[33] Purchased by Colonel William Wetton- “very well done and held in great esteem as being a very worthy piece.” Wetton bought it for £230 and sold it for £300. Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 76.

[34] Colonel John Hutchinson (1615–1664) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1648 to 1653 and in 1660. He was one of the Puritan leaders, and fought in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War. As a member of the high court of justice in 1649 he was 13th of 39 Commissioners to sign the death-warrant of King Charles I. Although he avoided the fate of some of the other regicides executed after the Restoration, he was exempted from the general pardon,only to the extent that he could not hold a public office. In 1663, he was accused of involvement in the Farnley Wood Plot, was incarcerated and died in prison. Link.

[35] From RC website: “Purchased, together with RCIN 403036, by the 1st Duke of Buckingham from Michel Le Blond. Presented to Charles I by the Duke. Sold for £100 to Colonel Hutchinson 24 May 1650. Recovered at the Restoration.”

[36] Froben was a publisher that Holbein knew in Basle.

[37] Reskimmer became Page of the Chamber to Henry VIII in 1526. Presented to Charles I by Sir  Robert Killigrew. Probably dates from Holbein’s second visit to England- see Holbein in London (Tate Britain, 2006), No. 34.

[38] From the RC website: “On the left a herm under a tree, a cupid feeding a she-goat and a putto playing (?) pipes; in the centre two goats are fighting; on the right a putto leads a ram, another is riding on a sack and wearing a hooded cape. This ornamental frieze by Polidoro da Caravaggio forms part of a series of nine panels, made up of three large scenes from the story of Cupid and Psyche and six narrow friezes. They are first recorded when acquired in 1637 by Charles I. There is no documentation of the original commission and no way of telling if the set of nine is complete, although the three Psyche scenes make what could be a stand-alone group of highlights from the story. The panels are obviously decorative and were probably painted in situ for an item of furniture or the panelling of a room; they were perhaps part of the decoration of a bed, the love story of Cupid and Psyche being an appropriate subject for a bedchamber- link.

[39] From RC website: “The painting is very well preserved with unusually little repainting. It is thinly painted and several pentimenti are visible; the Samaritan’s hand with its bandage was painted over the completed thigh of the nude and the mule’s foreleg, and the small white figure of the priest was added after the landscape was painted. The figure of the Samaritan is based on the same drawing which served (in the same direction) for the kneeling shepherd in the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ (RC405772), and (in reverse) for shepherds in the ‘Adoration of the Kings’ (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh). The town visible in the background is Bassano, with Monte Grappa behind it. There is a closely related painting in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, and other versions of the subject by Bassano are in Prague and the National Gallery, London.” Link

[40] From Wikipedia: “He was admitted a fellow-commoner at Christ's College, Cambridge, on 18 April 1627.Isham was a man of culture, building a library at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire. Brian Duppa was a frequent correspondent of his; and he kept in touch with Seth Ward in Oxford. He was a patron of Alexander Ross. Loans to the king as well as fines to the parliament had greatly injured the Isham estates, when in 1651, Sir Justinian succeeded to the Isham baronetcy. He had been in prison for a short time during 1649, as a delinquent, and he was now forced to compound for the estate of Shangton in Leicestershire. After the Restoration he was elected M.P. for Northamptonshire in the parliament which met in 1661. Gilbert Clerke dedicated to him a 1662 work of natural philosophy. With Henry Power he was elected to the Royal Society, shortly after its 1663 charter came into force. He died at Oxford, on 2 March 1675, and is buried in the family burial place on the north side of the chancel in Lamport Church, where there is a Latin inscription to his memory.

[41] House built in 1568. “The Ishams have lived at Lamport since 1560 and during the succeeding centuries have taken unusual care of their family papers. These give a particularly complete picture of an old country family in the third quarter of the 17th century when the first Sir Justinian was squire, revealing the sense of uncertainty hanging over the gentry during the Commonwealth, and details of their financial difficulties and arrangements. Oliver Hill and John Cornforth, English Country Houses: Caroline 1625-1685 (Country Life, 1966), 97. 

[42] Copy of Van Dyck equestrian portrait of Charles I acquired in 1655 for £250 from the dealer Maurice Wase. “The position of the portrait of Charles I was probably specially prepared for it, and being hung close to the floor, follows Van Dyck’s baroque intention when he painted the original for the gallery in St James’s. Maurice Wase’s letter relating to this picture is dated 24^th May, 1655, and it was on the 9^th of June that Isham was arrested.” (English Country Houses, 100).

[43] Cavallini to Veronese: Georges d’Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez, was French ambassador to Venice from 1536 to 1539, when this portrait was presumably painted. His secretary was Guillaume Philandrier (a pupil of the architect Serlio). The picture – one of the first by Titian to come to England – was acquired in France by the Duke of Buckingham in 1624. It was apparently appropriated by the Earl of Northumberland after Buckingham’s pictures were confiscated during the Civil War, and it has remained at Alnwick since 1671.”