AFTER SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK | Portrait of Philip Herbert, 1st Earl of Montgomery and 4th Earl of Pembroke (1584-1650)

Commissioned by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-74), for his gallery at Clarendon House, London;

By descent to his son, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon (1638-1709), at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire; 

Purchased by his brother, Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester (1642-1711), together with Cornbury Park and all its contents, in 1697;

By descent at Cornbury, and later The Grove, Hertfordshire, to his son, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Rochester and later 4th Earl of Clarendon (1672-1753);

By transfer to his son, Henry, Viscount Cornbury (1710-53) in 1749, who died without issue;

By inheritance to his niece, Lady Charlotte Capel (1721-90), who married Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1709-86) of the second creation, and transferred to The Grove, Hertfordshire;

Thence by direct descent to the present owner.

Clarendon State Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Bodleian MS Clarendon 92, ff. 253-54, no. 35;

Sir W. Musgrave, List of Portraits, BM Add. MS 6391, f. 77, no. 38;

G.P. Harding, List of Portraits, Pictures in Various Mansions in the United Kingdom, London 1804, vol. II, p. 210;

Lady T. Lewis, Lives of the friends and contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon: Illustrative of portraits in his Gallery, London 1852, vol. III, pp. 255, and 320-22;

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854, vol. II, p. 457;

P. Toynbee, 'Horace Walpole's journals of visits to country seats, &c', in The Walpole Society, vol. XVI, Oxford 1927, p. 38 (listed at The Grove in 1761);

G. Glück, Van Dyck, Leipzig 1931, p. 564;

Sidney, 16th Earl of Pembroke, The Paintings and Drawings at Wilton House, London 1968, p. 61;

R. Gibson, Catalogue of the Portraits in the collection of the Earl of Clarendon, privately published 1977, no. 113;

O. Millar et al., Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 569 (as a copy).

A noted patron of the arts, literature and theatre, Pembroke was, together with his elder brother, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, one of the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's works was dedicated in 1623. Both brothers made an early impact at Court during the reign of James I, performing frequently in masques and at tilts and barriers, and were prominent members of the group of leading connoisseurs that Oliver Millar dubbed 'The Whitehall Group', during the reign of Charles I. The activities of this group, other members of which included Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as well as the King himself, produced what has been described as the most spectacular but short-lived episode in British connoisseurship and introduced a taste for Italian Old Masters into England. Pembroke, according to his contemporary John Aubrey, 'exceedingly loved painting and building, in which he had singular judgement' and as well as amassing a spectacular collection of Italian Old Masters he was one of Van Dyck's greatest patrons, of whose work he had 'the best collection of any Peer in England.'¹

Among numerous other appointments Pembroke served as Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King James I and under Charles I he succeeded his brother as Lord Chamberlain (1626-41), as well as being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Cornwall. Despite his prominent position at Court, at the outbreak of the Civil War Pembroke sided with the King's enemies and subsequently held a number of important offices on behalf of parliament, though he refused to participate in the King's trial in 1649. As a result, he was the only member of the Whitehall Group whose art collection survived the Civil War intact, and to this day Wilton House and its contents bear witness to the magnificence of his patronage. 

The present painting is a copy after the portrait by Van Dyck at Wilton House in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke.²

1 See Millar 2004 p. 570.

2 See Millar 2004, no. IV, cat. no. 181