A Man, probably Sir George Heron

Physical description

Portrait, head and shoulders, to left and looking to front; wearing a high collar and armour. Features delicately stippled in brown and sanguine with touches of blue and yellow, heightened with white, on a thin pale carnation ground; the hair a brown wash with semi-opaque yellow for the curls; collar in white over a grey ground, and the armour in grey/black with white and gold highlights; a plain blue background; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Frame: Early seventeenth-century gold locket, the flat back enamelled with dark green translucent enamel, on a ground divided into eight segments each tooled with radial strokes, within a border of dark blue champlevé enamel (lengths of which are missing). The sides are channelled above the arris and the rounded section above is enamelled also in dark blue on transverse hatching. At the top a channelled loop, partly filled with enamel, bifurcates into divergent wavy and diminishing ribbons. Opposite are three hinge barrels for the missing cover, which has been replaced by modern glass; at the bottom the catch for the former cover has been filed off, and probably also a ring for suspension of a pearl.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (painted)

Date

ca.1634 (painted)

Artist/maker

Hoskins, John (I), born 1585 - died 1665 (artist)

Materials and Techniques

Watercolour on vellum put down on pasteboard.

Marks and inscriptions

'IH'

Dimensions

Height: 55 mm, Width: 45 mm

Object history note

Provenance: According to Durlacher, 1 from the Propert Collection; presumably bought by Salting from Durlacher and bequeathed to the Museum, 1910.

Descriptive line

Portrait miniature of a man, probably Sir George Heron, watercolour on vellum, painted by John Hoskins, ca.1634.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Cat. 24, p.51. Full Citation:
"24 Probably Sir George Heron
(d. 1644)
c.1634
P128-1910

Oval 55 x 45 mm

Features delicately stippled in brown and sanguine with touches of blue and yellow, heightened with white, on a thin pale carnation ground; the hair a brown wash with semi-opaque yellow for the curls; collar in white over a grey ground, and the armour in grey/black with white and gold highlights; a plain blue background; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Condition: The carnation rubbed through to the vellum on the nearer cheek; small losses in the collar and one small pitted area in the background (caused by condensation), which has been retouched; some marginal abrasion.
Signed: Lower centre left: IH (see D in Appendix 2).
Frame: Early seventeenth-century gold locket, the flat back enamelled with dark green translucent enamel, on a ground divided into eight segments each tooled with radial strokes, within a border of dark blue champlevé enamel (lengths of which are missing). The sides are channelled above the arris and the rounded section above is enamelled also in dark blue on transverse hatching. At the top a channelled loop, partly filled with enamel, bifurcates into divergent wavy and diminishing ribbons. Opposite are three hinge barrels for the missing cover, which has been replaced by modern glass; at the bottom the catch for the former cover has been filed off, and probably also a ring for suspension of a pearl.
Provenance: According to Durlacher, (1) from the Propert Collection; presumably bought by Salting from Durlacher and bequeathed to the Museum, 1910.
Literature: Goulding 1914-15, p. 38; Foster 1914-16, vol. II, p. 134, no. 103; Long 1930, p. 37; Murdoch 1978, p. 287, fig. 25; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 31; Murdoch 1981, p. 99, pl, 15f (repro. in colour); Reynolds 1988, p. 40.

No evidence for the identification has come down with the miniature, and the identity of 'Sir George Heron', which may be a nineteenth-century invention, is by no means certain. The most likely family would be that of the Baronets of Chipchase in Northumberland (2) one of whose ancestors, some of whom were knighted, was Colonel George Heron: he 'lost his life at Marston Moor in defence of his king and country, temp. Car. I. (3) No other portraits of him are recorded.
Stylistically the miniature is interesting as a Hoskins work of the mid-1630s, showing little influence from Van Dyck, yet signed with a form of monogram usually associated with such directly Van Dyckian portraits as the 4th Earl of Dorset (Cat. No. 35) and Catherine Howard (Cat. No. 29). It is hardly possible, however, to see Sir George Heron as by the same hand as the former, with its especially bold and aggressive hatching. The similarities of handling are with the latter and with the Katherine Bruce (Cat. No. 27), both of which are later, and particularly show the subsequent development of (presumably the elder) John Hoskins' delicate polychrome stipple through the late 1630s and 1640s.
1 Note by Long in V&A acquisition file, recording Salting's notes of information from the dealer Durlacher, contained in the lost notebooks.
2 Cr. 1662. extinct 1801.
3 Thomas Wotton, The English Baronetage, Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of all the English Baronets now Existing (1741) , vol.IV, p. 391."

Materials

Watercolour; Vellum

Techniques

Painting

Subjects depicted

Man; Armour

Categories

Portraits; Paintings

Collection code

PDP