RKD STUDIES

7.2 Italianate Frames and the Emergence of Leatherwork and Kwab

... tres, with paired foliate s-scrolls and tripartite corners. The dates of manufacture for the pattern appears to be within the second half of the 1630s. Of the seven examples known, three contain paintings by or after Van Dyck but the earliest is on a portrait by Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen the elder (1593-1661).23 All of these examples have been overgilded but may originally have been blue and gold.Examination of two full-length examples of the same pattern at Knole, both adjusted in size and over-gilded for their present paintings, has confirmed they were originally blue and gold. One of these, now on the portrait of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Cleveland, has remnants of its original blue background visible in areas where later gilding has flaked off [5-5a]. This demonstrates how the appreciation of Italianate part-gilded frames was eclipsed by that of all-over gilding once Leatherwork frames developed. Its pine front frame, joined with mason’s mitres, was nailed from the front onto its pine back frame that was joined with mortice and tenon....

... but additionally they have counterflowing scrolls and masks at the top and bottom centres – also ornaments derived directly from Italian frames.These examples, and many other English Italianate frames of the period – though not yet ‘auricular’ – were already likely to have been considered by contemporaries as being carved at least partly in imitation of leather. This suggests that the concept of ‘Leatherwork’, in respect of 17th-century English frames, emerged possibly slightly before they incorporated distinctly ‘auricular’ characteristics. If this is so, then perhaps Leatherwork frames should be considered more distinctly from kwab, rather than them comprising two aspects of one common style, and both being appraised directly to the work of Netherlandish goldsmiths....

... rtouche with two putti and a drapery, presently given a broad dating by the Rijksmuseum of between 1630 to 1672, has an oval cartouche with irregular inner and outer edges and screaming masks [12]. It has visual similarities to a celebrated early frame now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. This is the carved and gilded Leatherwork frame, by an unknown maker, is on Sir Anthony van Dyck’s last Self-portrait, of about 1640/1 [13-13a]. The frame has strong Italianate and kwab characteristics – motifs at its vertical and horizontal centres, irregular inner and outer edges, masks, scrolls, and the evocation of cut, twisting and overlapping skins.This frame has been researched by Jacob Simon, who considers that Van Dyck possibly had a strong influence on frame designs in England.27 The frame is generally considered to have been made for the Self-portrait, however, it might be a few years earlier than the painting’s date of 1640/1, since it is a closely similar design to the frame in a representation of Van Dyck’s double portrait of himself with Endymion Porter in a Mortlake tapestry at Knole – and new examination of this tapestry’s border suggests it was not woven after about 1636.28 Such a date would make this one of, or the earliest known auricular Leatherwork frames and reinforces the importance of Van Dyck to frames in England....

... is not possible to see whether they were originally painted and gilded, or over-all gilded.The possibly original frame on the Portrait of a Young Lady dated 1643 is also in a carved Sansovino frame. It is similar to fig. 15 but narrower and with a mask at the top centre.The frame on a Portrait of a Young Gentleman, date unknown, has a slip-frame added between the painting and frame perhaps indicating reuse for this painting. The frame shows a close relationship with the Sansovino form of the last three examples, with paired scroll centres, scrolls at each corner, and masks at the top and bottom centres – however, the sillouette is more complex, the motifs look more supple, contorting away from the inner edge, and the seed pods are becoming claws. The Sansovino form had started to become auricular....

... ioned to design works of art to be executed by others. Alternatively, his use of the auricular may have inspired artists working in different media’.31 However, the frames in Figs 14-19 show this frame’s design most likely evolved incrementally and quickly in England from an Italianate Sansovino pattern.The portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck’s studio of the late 1630s at Kingston Lacey [20], exhibits some of the features of the last few frames, but while the side members retain perhaps a suggestion of concave centres they are no longer limited by symetry about them. These last seven examples [Figs 14-20] indicate the swift evolution of just one English Italianate frame pattern into the auricular – other types of English Italianate patterns made the same incremental development around the same time – together creating a new ornamental language for frames, directly related to, and yet quite distinct from, their predecessors....

9.1 Retailing India Goods

... t and highest-ranking members of the late Stuart nobility [8].30 At least nine itemised and receipted bills, dating from 1692 to 1714, can be found among her personal papers in the Petworth House Archives.31 Queen Mary II herself was a customer (she also continued to patronise retailers in The Hague), and there is an itemised bill among the privy purse accounts outstanding at her death in December 1694.32 Another bill, from 1708, is made out to Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Baron Raby (1672-1739), later 1st Earl of Strafford, and another, from January 1718, is among the papers of Lydia, Lady Davall (1693-1750), later Duchess of Chandos.33 Mostly written in Van Collema’s own hand, the bills list the goods purchased, the date of purchase, and the price of each individual item [9]. Together with newspaper advertisements advertising the sale of his stock after his death, they provide a great deal of information about the goods he offered and the shopping behaviour of his customers....

... lso sold a range of lacquerware, art objects, small furnishings and personal items, the great majority of which were also imported from China and Japan. Lacquer cabinets and chests were among the most prized furnishings of the period. Van Collema sold ‘a fine Right Japan Cheste’ to Mary II for the large sume of £77, the term ‘Right Japan’ term signifying genuine Japanese lacquer rather than European imitation lacquer [14].43 There were several ‘fine old Japan cabinets’ among his stock at his death, including one bequeathed to his friend Mary Liddell (dates unknown), described as ‘a right Japan cabinett and ffram on which is raisd work on the door of a cuffelo and Rider on the other door an India fashioned house’.44 ‘Raisd work’ suggests that this was Japanese lacquer, rather than the less-prestigious incised Chinese ‘Coromandel’ that had dominated the market since the early 1690s, when supplies of Japanese lacquer had largely dried up. He sold small lacquered items for personal use, such as the ‘Rt japan sett for a toylet’ sold to the Duchess of Somerset in May 1707 and the red lacquer standish supplied to Queen Mary in August 1694.45 Occasionally he stocked works of art. He sold ’20 long Indian pictures’ to the duchess in 1701, and among the goods advertised after his death were ‘three Chinese Bronze Figures, of excellent Workmanship, inlaid’.46 Finally, Van Collema sold many different types of fan, at least some of which were imported from Asia, supplying them to Mary II and Queen Anne (1665-1714), as well as the Duchess of Somerset.47...

4.5 Conclusion

... failed to resonate with a sufficient body of patrons. The number of portraits that he produced was small and he could never compete with the silky skills or status of Lely. Even when he identified ‘lovely maidens’ as something distinctive about English portraiture [25], only one painting [26] of this type by him is known.81 Similarly, his surviving letter rack paintings are relatively rare, and it was only later with Collier that these trompe l’oeils became popular with the picture-buying public. Van Hoogstraten’s perspective paintings may have been the most impactful and there is some evidence in the sources that these at least were commercially lucrative for him.82 His latter years in London, bracketed by plague and fire, must have been disruptive for the Dordrecht artist, and hastened his final departure.83...

1.2 Dataset Selection Criteria

... rmous amount of work, with the help of an army of assistants. Yet the time he spent in England was relatively short. In between, he also spent several years in Italy and visited France, always returning to the Southern Netherlands, which he undoubtedly considered his home.29On the other hand, the totally unknown portrait painter F. van Hees was assigned two 'nationalities', both Northern Netherlandish and British. A few paintings by this artist are known, but his name has not yet surfaced in the archives. We know his Dutch-sounding name because of the clear signatures on portraits from the years between 1655 and 1660 [4], all of which are in British private collections. Van Hees probably travelled from castle to castle in England in search of portrait commissions. The style of his paintings suggests that he came from the Dutch Republic. His work is in keeping with that of Hague painters such as Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1604-1671) and Johannes Mijtens (c. 1614-1670), as can be seen, for example, in the Group Portrait of William Penn (1628-1693) and his wife Sarah Shallcross († 1698) with their Four Children from c. 1660 [5]. The name of F. van Hees was first spotted as a Dutch painter in Horst Gerson's well-known 1942 publication.30 The author had seen photographs of two pendant portraits by the artist that the owner wanted to have auctioned at Christie's in London in 1933; incidentally, these remained unsold and thus remained in the family collection.31Of the artists in the dataset, 43 (5.13%) were identified as both Northern Netherlandish and Southern Netherlandish. These are artists who were either born in one area and active and established in the other, or artists whose origins are unknown from which part of the Netherlands they came. These artists figure in the statistics under both categories, which inevitably creates a slight bias in the data....

10.2 His Notes on Prints: Names and Monograms

... also found on prints (fol. 13r, with as heading ‘Markes of ye Best prints’) [8]; on this page there are also seven more names, nos. 162-168. The last side (fol. 13v) has been left blank. This list was probably a draft, intended to be written up properly, ordered alphabetically.16...

... (or Dutch) art in the particular spelling in which he wrote them. But this manner of writing them does appear in inscriptions on prints. It is also clear that Cartwright only partially understood what he was copying: he gave his list the title ‘Italian masters’, but it also includes publishers (indicated with ‘for’ or ‘form’) whose contribution was merely possession of the copperplate from which the print was made. Judging from the prints by the listed artists, Cartwright knew what pinx(it), delini(avit), f(ecit) and invent(it) meant, as he never includes those words. But he probably did not know what ‘for’ or ‘form’ meant.Cartwright noted 168 names, listed in alphabetical order by the forename – 161 of them on the first four pages and 7 on the fifth page. As much as 35 of these are double entries, which means that there are only 134 artists, of which 22 could not be identified: 112 names, of which 31 are Northern or Southern Netherlandish. It is may be understandable that Cartwright used the title 'Italian masters' for his notes, because Italians are by far the majority:...

... century, and 5 from the 17th century)12 Northern Netherlandish (6 from the 16th century, 5 from the 17th century, and 1...

... ists. There are 21 recognizable entries:...

... rom the 16th century, and 1 from the 17th century)3 Southern Netherlandish (all three from the 16th century)1 French (from the 16th century)...

... or printmaker but of the publisher (the ones where ‘for’ or ‘form’ is added):...

... ish12 German5 French...

... lian artists are well represented: from the canonical masters of the 16th and 17th centuries only Caravaggio and Salvator Rosa seem to be missing. This is not the case for the Northern and Southern Netherlandish artists (see table 1 and table 2) [12-13]. The few names of 16th- and 17th-century Northern and Southern Netherlanders provide a very imperfect picture of the artists of those regions. For the French there are only five names from the 16th and 17th centuries: one publisher (Antonio Lafreri, 1512-1577), three engravers (Jacques Callot [1592-1635], Léon Davent [fl. 1540-1556] and Gabriel Perelle [1604-1677]), and one painter, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). Neither the painter and printmaker Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) or any of the typical French portrait engravers such as Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678) appear....

... s, but also ones by Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533) and Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) and the four pages indexing Italian masters to one album of Italian masters or historical scenes. The content of the other four albums could have been French masters, German masters, Netherlandish masters and British masters. Or might those albums have been filled more according to subject matter – such as portraits, landscapes, seascapes, ‘Anticks and drolls’, or the topography of London, the subjects we see represented in Cartwright’s painting collection? Many portrait engravings were being made in London at the time, often using the new mezzotint technique (as explained in John Evelyn’s Sculptura of 1662), and foreign artists then working in London such as Marcellus Laroon I (c. 1648/9-1702) and Wenzel Hollar (1607-1677) were busy producing prints. It is probable that Cartwright also owned prints by them, or at least that he traded in them.We do not know how his other four albums of prints were organized,19 just as we do not know how his bookstore functioned – or, indeed, whether he really dealt in prints. It was not unusual for a bookseller in the 17th century to do so, judging from the two drawings that Salomon de Bray (1597-1664) made in the 1620s of a bookshop, probably in Haarlem, where paintings, prints and/or drawings hang on the wall and there are two globes on a shelf [14-15].20...

... Lievens. The 4 who lived in the 15th century were all Germans: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Master MZ (fl. c. 1500), Israhel van Meckenem (c. 1440/45-1503) and Martin Schongauer (1430/50-1491).Throughout the 17th century, all over Europe, we can see print collectors and print sellers making lists like these in order to map their holdings. It was not until 1699, 13 years after Cartwright’s death, that the first publication on monograms, to identify the artists hiding behind those enigmatic initials, would appear. This first reference work was Cabinet des singularitez d’architecture, peinture, sculpture et graveure; ou, introduction à la connoissance des plus beaux arts (1699-1700), published by the Parisian artist and print dealer Florent le Comte (c. 1655-c. 1712).32I will discuss two earlier lists of monograms, not because Cartwright knew them but to show what was known about artists’ monograms elsewhere in Europe in the 17th century. The first is the inventory of the Amsterdam estate of the painter and art dealer Jan Bassé (1572-1636),33 dated 6 January 1637, and the second is the publication by Michel de Marolles of 1672.The possessions of Jan Bassé were auctioned from 9 to 30 March 1637. The auction has attracted the attention of several Rembrandt scholars, since many prints by Rembrandt were offered in it, and Rembrandt himself was a buyer at the sale. The inventory of Bassé’s estate had been drawn up two months before the auction. It was partly published in Strauss and Van der Meulen’s book of Rembrandt documents of 1979 [21].34It is striking that in Bassé’s inventory we see some of the same monograms that were later recorded by Cartwright: those of Heinrich Aldegrever, (Hans) Sebald Beham, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Georg Pencz. But the Amsterdam compilers of that inventory, no doubt aided by information from the deceased himself, knew, fifty years before Cartwright, which artists were hiding behind these monograms, whereas Cartwright seems to have been in the dark.35The Parisian collector Michel de Marolles (1600-1681), who twice assembled collections of more than 100,000 prints, can be regarded as a connoisseur. He published a catalogue of his first collection in 1666.36 After he had sold that to the French King Louis XIV (1638-1715) in 1667, he built up a new collection, of which he published a catalogue in 1672 in which he also noted monograms.37 This publication is disappointing. While De Marolles included images of monograms and listed a whole series of artist’s names in his text, he did not link images with texts: that was left to the reader. If Cartwright had known the publication, it would not have helped him much in deciphering the monograms on his ‘best prints’....

10. The Print Collection of William Cartwright (1606-1686): a Reconstruction

... that give artists’ names will be transcribed (Appendix 1), analysed and compared with other lists of European artists from the same period, as will the single page with monograms (Appendix 2). The five pages will be used to reconstruct Cartwright’s print collection, as well as the framed prints that Cartwright had hung among his paintings, and the paintings that were made after prints. I will also make some suggestions about the role the prints may have played in Cartwright's life as a collector and bookseller. Four other 17th-century London collections will be discussed for comparison with Cartwright’s collection: three collected by wealthy connoisseurs – Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), William Courten, alias Charleton (1642-1702), and Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) – and one by a more modest collector, Thomas Betterton (c. 1635-1710), who followed the same professions as Cartwright (albeit in reverse order; he was initially a bookseller and later an actor).8First, however, Cartwright’s life and legacy will be discussed....

... ity College London), Jasper Hillegers (Amsterdam), Helen Hillyard (Dulwich Picture Gallery), Erik Hinterding (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Sander Karst (University of Amsterdam), Rieke van Leeuwen (RKD), Calista M. Lucy (Dulwich College), Arthur MacGregor (London), Robert Schillemans (Amsterdam), Charles Sebag-Montefiore (London), Jaap van der Veen (Ouderkerk), Freddie Witts (Dulwich College), Joyce Zelen (...

7.1 A Preliminary Note on Terminology

... rland pattern can be characterised by its irregular outer and inner edges, lion cartouche at top centre, interwinding scroll at each top corner and then, down either side and around the bottom corners, a complex series of reversing scrolls with foliate and ribbed elements, finally meeting one of a few alternative masks at the bottom centre. ‘Sunderland’ has become commonly used to describe English auricular frames in general, including many patterns not found at Althorp. It would be clearer to use the ‘Sunderland’ term for the specific pattern seen at Althorp and elsewhere [Figs. 1 & 36], and to use ‘Leatherwork’ as the overall term for all English auricular frames.‘Strapwork’ ornament – derived from stiff, cut, interweaving and scrolling leather – had been well established in Britain since the sixteenth century, and was influenced directly by prints from the Netherlands. A drawing by Sir Balthazar Gerbier (1592-1663) of about 1616 [2] indicates the evolution of strapwork into the softer auricular. Baarsen states that ‘portrait engravings featuring auricular cartouches began to be published in England itself from about 1617; most of those were indeed produced by designers or engravers who either came from the Netherlands or had close contacts there’.15 Gerbier, a designer, courtier and diplomat, was born in Middelburg and moved to England in 1616, becoming an agent for the Duke of Buckingham, and buying pictures for him in Italy.16 He is an example of the kind of person well-placed to facilitate exchange between Italy, England and the Netherlands....

Bibliography

... is Hayman, New Haven 1987...

... istory of the Painter-Stainers Company of London, London 1923 (reprinted 1950)...

... ister, R. Jones and O. Meslay, Young Gainsborough, London (National Gallery) 1997...

... ose: A study of technique in British art, London (Tate Gallery) 19...

... x27;s Great Theatre of the Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses, The Hag...

... ish Medieval Wallpainting, London 2003...

... y to make paint sparkle’’, in: Foister et al. 1997, p. 19–26...

... is painting room’, in: Rosenthal/Myrone 2002, p....

... istics (vol. 2), London 1994...

... ish picture restorers, 1600-1950, London 2009/2015 (online)...

... ational Gallery Technical Bulletin 33 (2012), p. 4-26...

... isitions, 2011, London (Rafael Valls Ltd) 2011...

... ish Century Painters in Oils and Crayons, Woodbridge (Suffolk) 1981...

12.2 The Technique of Gainsborough’s Early Paintings

... ying an opaque colour that could be glazed over when dry with translucent paint to enrich or modify it, they often mixed opaque and translucent pigments together in one application.16 Despite that similarity, however, Hayman’s paint, together with that of their British contemporaries, differs from Gainsborough’s in that individual pigments are largely obscured by the amount of opaque lead white in the mixture; only a few particles are large enough to remain visible in the matrix. In the Gainsborough sample, by contrast, the pigment particles are able to exert their full complement of functions – their colour, their texture, whether they are large or small, translucent or opaque, dull or sparkly. Gainsborough is very unusual amongst his British contemporaries in being so appreciative of all these aspects of a pigment....

... n like Keating were mixing ground glass with their paint as a cheap extender. At very high magnification, small quantities of ground glass can be seen in many paintings by Gainsborough’s British contemporaries, including Hayman’s. In some of Gainsborough’s early paintings, however, the quantity of glass or pale smalt in all the colours is too large to have been anything but a deliberate choice, and this is shown to great effect in The Charterhouse of 1748 [9].19 Figure [10] shows a detail at high magnification of the brick wall at the lower left of the composition; the paint is translucent, containing not only red ochres, vermilion and red lakes mixed together to produce the overall brick red tone, but also a large proportion of smalt to render it bright and translucent.20 The translucency allows the brick red colour to be enriched by the underlying orange-coloured ground, which can be seen at the extreme left of the illustration.21...

... the work of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) and Jan Wijnants (1632–1684).34 An understanding of all the qualities of pigments, such as we have seen in Gainsborough’s paintings, was a product of the workshop tradition that still prevailed on the continent but which, as we have seen, was much diminished in Britain. All the unusual pigments that Gainsborough used would have been more readily available on the continent than in London; the author has found none of them in the work of British painters in the 1740s and early 1750s. In thinking about how Gainsborough might have acquired his knowledge and unusual materials, it is vital to bear in mind that the unaided eye cannot discern the presence of ground glass in a painting nor analyse the pigment mixtures. While we know that Gainsborough’s landscapes in this period derived much stylistically from 17th-century Dutch painters, especially Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9–1682) and Jan Wijnants, he cannot have learned the minutiae of their technique simply by looking. Gainsborough must have been taught to mix his colours in this Netherlandish way. In searching for Netherlandish painters working in London in the 1740s and who travelled to and from the continent, the Griffier family fits the bill....

14.2 Dutch Modern Artists in Britain (1780-1830): an Analysis

... en 1826 and 1875. She exhibited 5 works at the Royal Academy: a still life in 1831, a portrait of a lady in 1833, in 1835 again a (or the same) portrait of a lady and a ‘view of an ancient castle of the counts of Flanders in Ghent, and the birth-place of John of Gaunt’, and in 1843 again a still life from nature.25As was common, many practiced several disciplines. Painters also worked as engravers, illustrators or draughtsmen, some specialised in miniature or decorative painting. Some had other professions outside the artworld. Jan van Rijmsdyck (c. 1730-c. 1788) was a doctor and art collector who was active for some time as a portrait painter. His son Andreas van Rijmsdijck (1753-1786), however, made name as a (miniature) painter and engraver. Jean Charles Bentinck (1763-1833), was an officer at the British army and an amateur draughtsman and etcher. Johannes Swertner (1746-1813) moved to England as a preacher, but also worked as a printmaker and miniature painter. Some of his etchings are kept in the collection the British Museum; topographical views of London [7], but also two views of country estates, printed by William Wilson as an illustration to A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester, 1795 by John Aikin (1747-1822).26 In all, painters – often working as draughtsmen or watercolourists on the side- and printmakers form the majority. Their activities in London will be discussed in the following sections. It will become clear that the British artworld offered more possibilities for these Dutch immigrants than opportunities for artistic creation alone....