Old Master Paintings
Old Master Paintings
Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Henrietta Maria, three-quarter length, wearing a blue dress and holding flowers in her left hand, her right arm resting on a table on which lies a crown
Lot Closed
April 6, 02:06 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Henrietta Maria, three-quarter length, wearing a blue dress and holding flowers in her left hand, her right arm resting on a table on which lies a crown
oil on canvas
unframed: 121.2 x 92.4 cm.; 47¾ x 36⅜ in.
framed: 146 x 112 cm.; 57½ x 44⅛ in.
By descent in the Ashburnham family until sold, London, Sotheby’s, 15 July 1953, lot 156;
With Philip Mould, London;
From whom acquired by the present owner.
S. Barnes, et. al., Van Dyck, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 635, under no. IV.A19 (as a copy).
This portrait is based on Van Dyck’s lost original of circa 1636.1 Studio versions are found in the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego,1 and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.2Born in 1609 as the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de Medici, Henrietta Maria was proposed as a suitable candidate for a match with the future Charles I from an early age. Married by proxy in May 1625, she landed in England the following month and began her life as Queen of England at the age of sixteen. As a devout French Catholic in a self-consciously Protestant English court, the Queen’s first years in England were not happy ones, and the unprecedented union of a Catholic Princess with the heir to a Protestant throne was greeted with considerable trepidation on both sides of the Channel. Her religious convictions, coupled with Lord Buckingham’s attempts to turn Charles against her made relations with her husband increasingly uncomfortable until Buckingham’s death and their subsequent reconciliation in 1628. The birth of the future Charles II followed soon after in May 1630. She subsequently became the mother of Mary (1631), James, Duke of York (1633), Elizabeth (1636), Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1640), and Henriette Anne, Duchess of Orleans (1644).
Note on Provenance
The Ashburnhams were a fiercely royalist family during the civil war who were also patrons of Van Dyck. John Ashburnham, grandfather of the 1st Baron Ashburnham, and his wife were painted by the artist in circa 1637. John Ashburnham both fought for the King and lent him considerable sums of money, for which he was viewed with great suspicion during the Commonwealth. He spent five years in close imprisonment in London, and was three times banished to Guernsey Castle.