Physical description
Portrait, half-length, facing to front; the sitter is wearing a pearl necklace, earrings and a pendant on her dress. Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine with slight grey shadow blended with white onto a pale creamy carnation ground; touches of white in the eyes; hair in pale brown wash, freely hatched in opaque browns and yellows; dress in white shadowed with yellow and grey; the jewel in dark grey-blue, hatched with darker colour and some white heightening; robe in blue wash, modelled with darker colour and with pale lights; sky and sea background in opaque washes; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.
Frame
See Cat. No. 85. The frame is overall a smaller and simplified version of that on the James IT; the engraved laurel border is wider, but the centre remains blank, without cypher or inscriptions; on the front of the rim, the two inner rows of leaves are conflated, and separated from the outer laurel border by a plain cavetto moulding; the back has a plain bolection moulding; the hanger is a poor quality modern replacement.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1660-1661 (painted)
Artist/maker
Cooper, Samuel, born 1603 - died 1672 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum, put down on a leaf from a table-book
Marks and inscriptions
'SC'
'Dutches of Orleance [sic]'
Dimensions
Height: 72 mm, Width: 55 mm
Object history note
Provenance
George Salting, by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1910. The earlier history is obscure. Long (l) stated that Salting acquired the miniature in 1893; the information probably came from Salting's notebooks, which are now lost. Foster on the other hand stated that it came from Propert's Collection, but Propert's Henrietta Anne was of the Mignard/ Petitot type (2) and cannot have been this miniature. Foster's no. 258, apparently from the E M Hodgkin Collection, might from his description be compatible with the miniature under discussion, but Foster's possibly unreliable record is that the miniature was still with Hodgkin in 1914-16.(3) Foster also refers to a portrait said to be of Henrietta Anne by Cooper, (4) but he gives no description. A Sotheby provenance, as might be suggested by the frame type, cannot be sustained by the references to a Duchess of Orleans in the Sotheby MSS: (5) Charles Sotheby bought his Henrietta Anne from Whitehead the dealer in 1865, but he is unlikely to have sold an object of this quality soon after buying it.
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature of Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans, watercolour on vellum, painted by Samuel Cooper, 1660-1661.
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. 84, pp.153-155. Full Citation:
84 Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans
(b. 1644 d.1670)
1660-1
P110-1910
Oval 72 x 55 mm
Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine with slight grey shadow blended with white onto a pale creamy carnation ground; touches of white in the eyes; hair in pale brown wash, freely hatched in opaque browns and yellows; dress in white shadowed with yellow and grey; the jewel in dark grey-blue, hatched with darker colour and some white heightening; robe in blue wash, modelled with darker colour and with pale lights; sky and sea background in opaque washes; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.
Condition: Retouched under the nostril, on the breast, on the left side at the shoulder and also in the background; blue in the robe flaking; the margins abraded, and cropped visibly on the left side through the signature.
Signed: Lower left, in black: SC (interlaced). Inscribed in graphite on the back: Dutches of Orleance. For this inscription, cf. Cat. Nos 65 and 90 [P.20-1941; 449-1892].
Frame: See Cat. No. 85. The frame is overall a smaller and simplified version of that on the James II [P.45-1955]; the engraved laurel border is wider, but the centre remains blank, without cypher or inscriptions; on the front of the rim, the two inner rows of leaves are conflated, and separated from the outer laurel border by a plain cavetto moulding; the back has a plain bolection moulding; the hanger is a poor quality modern replacement.
Provenance: George Salting, by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1910. The earlier history is obscure. Long (l) stated that Salting acquired the miniature in 1893; the information probably came from Salting's notebooks, which are now lost. Foster on the other hand stated that it came from Propert's Collection, but Propert's Henrietta Anne was of the Mignard/ Petitot type (2) and cannot have been this miniature. Foster's no. 258, apparently from the E M Hodgkin Collection, might from his description be compatible with the miniature under discussion, but Foster's possibly unreliable record is that the miniature was still with Hodgkin in 1914-16.(3) Foster also refers to a portrait said to be of Henrietta Anne by Cooper, (4) but he gives no description. A Sotheby provenance, as might be suggested by the frame type, cannot be sustained by the references to a Duchess of Orleans in the Sotheby MSS: (5) Charles Sotheby bought his Henrietta Anne from Whitehead the dealer in 1865, but he is unlikely to have sold an object of this quality soon after buying it.
Exhibited: New Haven etc. 1981-2, no. 47.
Literature: Foster 1914-16, vol.II, p. 43, no. 259: Long 1929, p. 88; Long 1930, p. 12 ('supposed portrait of Henrietta']: Reynolds 1952, pLIX (26) ;Whinney and Millar 1957, p. 95; Reynolds 1959, pl. 9 (as 'supposed to be Henrietta' and dated c.1660); Foskett 1974, p. 126, repro. as colour frontispiece; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 9; Murdoch 1981, pl, Bb; Murdoch in 100 Great Paintings (1985), pp. 52-3 (repro. in colour) and on dust wrapper.
The sitter is identified by the inscription as Princess Henrietta Anne, the youngest child of Charles I. She remained close to her brother, Charles II, after the Restoration, having married in 1661 the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV: She was deeply involved in the Catholicising pro-French policies of the later 1660s, and came to England just before her death to be present for the negotiations over the notorious secret treaty of Dover (1670).
I
n the list of portraits enclosed with the letter of Cosimo III to his agent Terriesi in London,(6) there is Madame the late Duchess d'Orleans. The portrait is listed as one of the group stated to be 'of a smaller size' than those believed to be represented by the five unfinished portraits at Windsor.(7) These latter are listed as of the same size as the picture of His Serenity the Grand Duke Cosimo' himself, and this, allowing for their reduction to an oval, seems to apply to the Windsor series. The smaller portraits are not so readily identifiable, but the Hobbes at Cleveland, Ohio, the Cromwell in the Buccleuch Collection, and possibly the Duchess of Cleveland (see Cat. No. 88) may have been included. These, once again allowing for reduction to the oval, would be consistent in scale with this miniature. In Cosimo's list there is no indication that this second, smaller group was unfinished except for the heads, as was the group of larger portraits. Nevertheless, as the Hobbes, Cromwell and Cleveland were unfinished, it is probably right to assume that others of such a group were also, being part of Cooper's stock of spare royal faces and work in progress (or left long uncompleted) at his death.
The Henrietta Anne may have been one of these. Technically, the face-painting has been brought to a lesser state of finish than in the main run of Cooper's finished work of the 1660s. The broad smooth lights across the sitter's complexion were probably intended to be elaborated and made more subtle at a final sitting, when the final glazes to give the sitter the colour of life would have been applied. That said, the treatment of the head, in particular the stark frontal treatment of the face on which little shadow can have been intended to rest, seems perfect and highly deliberate. It is hardly exemplified elsewhere in the oeuvre, (8) and seems to represent a genuinely fresh response by Cooper to the particularity of Henrietta Anne's looks, personality and adopted nationality. As an image it has an iconographic resemblance to French Court portraiture, and also demonstrates the sort of boldness and amorality which were already seen in England as associated with France.
The portrait was evidently cut to an oval, 'signed' by a hand other than Cooper's, and framed at an early date, doubtless in recognition of its inherent beauty and eloquent testimony to Cooper's brilliance, rather than for iconographic reasons. It is nonetheless important iconographically.
As Piper (1963) observed, the portraiture of Henrietta Anne 'is very confused'. The principal portraits seem to be:
1 By Lely, at Goodwood (Beckett 1951, no. 402, pl. 77), datable quite precisely between 2 November 1660 and 25 January 1661.
2 J M Wright, at Windsor,(9) similarly datable 1660-1.
3 Mignard type, c.1665-70; (10) the pattern, according to Piper (1963), is followed in Jean Nocret(?), at Windsor, (11) c.1665, and in Gascars at Goodwood, (12) among others listed by Piper. This is the dominant image of Henrietta Anne and it recurs in:
4 Petitot enamel versions and related miniatures, e.g., enamels in the Jones Collection. (13) NPG, no. 1606; (14) Strawberry Hill sale, 1842, 14th day, lot 52; Chatsworth; (15) Propert Collection; (16) and a miniature in the Propert Collection. (17)
5 Cooper, Mauritshuis, signed and dated 1670. (18) This image is related to the portrait at Exeter, identified as Henrietta Anne and attributed to Lely (19) but treated sceptically by Piper. (20)
See further in O'Donoghue's list, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits (1908-25), vol. n, p. 487-8.
Piper does not refer to this miniature, and Long was sceptical in the Handlist about its identity, exploring even, in notes in the Museum files, the possibility of Catherine of Braganza: the sitter is of course in 'Braganza curls'. Certainly comparison with the Mignard type of Henrietta Anne is discouraging, but this miniature is earlier, dating from 1660-1 and comparable rather with the Lely image of that date. The likeness here is plausible, showing the same full youthful complexion and widely spaced eyes. But the identification is clinched by the inscription on the back, which is a typical Cooper studio inscription, possibly if not certainly in the artist's own hand.
Although the image may indeed be irreconcilable with the Mauritshuis miniature, the latter has only recently been called Henrietta; (21) if right, it would date from the last year of her life, and it is anyway a dull work. The present miniature should thus take its place with the Lely as one of the earliest images, and certainly an ad vivum likeness of the Princess in her prime, at the point of her marriage.
Other versions: Buccleuch Collection; (22) and perhaps Beauchamp Collection (23) the latter is much overpainted and is now an unreliable image. Both of these are inferior to but may derive from this miniature or at least from the same sitting.
1 MS note in department files.
2 Shown by him at FAS 1897, no. 59.
3 Foster 1914-16, vol. 11, p. 43.
4 At Christie's 22 June 1876, lot 93.
5 V&A Library, L2718-1955.
6 15 February 1676/7, printed by Foskett 1974, p. 63.
7 As AM Crino pointed out, Burlington Magazine, XCIX (1957), pp. 16-21, the Windsor sketches could not have been traded by Mrs Cooper to Charles 11 in return for a pension in 1673 and have been the subject of negotiations with Grand Duke Cosimo in 1676/7. The portrait may have passed to the King after Cosimo's reluctance to pay a high price had become clear.
8 Compare Unknown Lady, Philadelphia Museum of Art, NPG 1974, no. 89, repra.
9 Millar 1963, vol.I, no. 286. Reproduced as by Hanneman in Toynbee 1950, pp. 76-9, fig. 15
10 E.g., NPG no. 228; Piper 1963,p. 163, p110f.
11 Millar, 1963, vol.I, no. 304.
12 RA 1960-1, no. 80.
13 V&A 932-1882.
14 Piper 1963,p.163.
15 BFAC 1889, unnumbered, pl. 13.
16 BFAC 1889, unnumbered, p. 99 and pl. 32; FAS 1897, no. 76. 17 FAS 1897, no.59.
18 NPG 1974, no.130, repra.;Foskett 1974, pl. 70. 19 See, for example, RA 1960-1, no. 635.
20 Piper 1963, p. 162, no. 2.
21 Foster lists it as Unknown Sitter, 1914-16, vol. 11, p. 80, no. 55 1. The identification has now, it seems, been finally abandoned; All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: a completely illustrated catalogue, Amsterdam 1976.
22 Mackay 1896,no.N4; Kennedy 1917,p. 36.
23 NPG 1974, no. 77, repro."
Exhibition History
The English Miniature (Yale Center for British Art 1981-1982)
Materials
Watercolour; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Pendant; Pearls; Duchess; Henriette Anne (Duchess of 'Orléans)
Categories
Portraits; Royalty; Paintings
Production Type
Unique
Collection code
PDP
