Physical description
Miniature portrait, head and shoulders, turned slightly to right and looking to front. The sitter is wearing a ruff and has a blue ribbon over his shoulders. Features in short hatches of grey, brown and sanguine, with dark grey especially around the eyes and in the facial hair; some white heightening in the eyes; all on a very pale carnation ground; hair hatched in grey and brown with white lights over a pale brown wash; the ruff washed in pale grey and embossed with white; doublet in gouache washes with touches of gold, and silver in the buttons; background curtain in the flooded crimson manner (wet- in -wet); gold margin; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Frame: A possibly eighteenth-century ebony portrait-box, each half of which is turned with a double rose on the reverse, the sides curving outward to an arris formed of a torus moulding with narrow fillets on each side; within each half, a screw thread in the sides and the flats turned with a series of torus mouldings culminating in a triple wavy-edged oval forming the opening for the miniature. In the other half is set, with no apparent iconographic point, a portrait of Catherine of Medici attributed to Clouet.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
ca. 1620-1625 (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'
'27'
Dimensions
Height: 54 mm, Width: 43.5 mm
Object history note
Provenance: Purchased from Mr H E Backer, October 1954; earlier provenance unknown.
This miniature was received in one half of a 17th century turned wood box: in the other half was a portrait of Catherine de Médicis by François Clouet (P.26-1954).
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature of James I, watercolour on vellum, painted by John Hoskins, ca.1620-1625.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings Accessions 1954 London: HMSO, 1963
The full text of the entry is as follows:
"HOSKINS, John (died 1665)
Miniature portrait of James I.
Signed with monogram IH.
On vellum. Oval P.27-1954
Note: This miniature was received in one half of a 17th century turned wood box: in the other half was a portrait of Catherine de Médicis by François Clouet (P.26-1954)."
Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Cat. 21, p.48. Full Citation:
"21 James I
(b.1566 d.1625)
1620-5
P27-1954
Oval 54 x 43.5 mm
Features in short hatches of grey, brown and sanguine, with dark grey especially around the eyes and in the facial hair; some white heightening in the eyes; all on a very pale carnation ground; hair hatched in grey and brown with white lights over a pale brown wash; the ruff washed in pale grey and embossed with white; doublet in gouache washes with touches of gold, and silver in the buttons; background curtain in the flooded crimson manner (wet- in -wet); gold margin; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Condition: Flesh faded, multiple small losses in the ruff and background; water damage in the centre of the lips; marginal abrasions; the silver blackened.
Signed: Centre left, in gold: IH (see C in Appendix 2). Inscribed in graphite on the back: 27.
Frame: A possibly eighteenth-century ebony portrait-box, each half of which is turned with a double rose on the reverse, the sides curving outward to an arris formed of a torus moulding with narrow fillets on each side; within each half, a screw thread in the sides and the flats turned with a series of torus mouldings culminating in a triple wavy-edged oval forming the opening for the miniature. In the other half is set, with no apparent iconographic point, a portrait of Catherine of Medici attributed to Clouet.
Provenance: Purchased from Mr H E Backer, October 1954; earlier provenance unknown.
Literature: Summary Catalogue, 1981 , p. 31.
Evidently an original ad vivum likeness by Hoskins, not known in any other versions. The closest analogue is the Van Somer portrait of James at Holyrood(1) dated 1618, which was a source both of Van Dyck's later reinterpretation for the series of royal portraits commissioned by Charles I and of a Hoskins miniature(2) apparently datable c.1618-20 but documented in Van der Doort(3) as included in a large square frame in 1635, both now at Windsor. Logically, as it is from a different sitting and not earlier than the Van Somer type, the present V&A miniature should be later, and a date between 1620 and 1625 would be consistent with the evidence of the sitter's appearance and costume. In terms of date, the closest comparison would be with the Mytens/Palmer type of 1623 (see Palmer, Cat. No.4 [P.12-1958]). For the iconography of James I, and the omission of miniature portraits by Hoskins and Palmer from the literature, see also Cat. No.4.
Stylistically the miniature belongs to a coherent group Signed with the IH monogram and dating from the 1620s. Compare for example Cat. Nos 20 and 22 [P.32-1941; FA 679]; also Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke in the Beauchamp Collection, Lady Shirley at Welbeck Abbey, Dudley, 3rd Baron North in the Evans Collection(4) and various portraits of unknown sitters, photographs of which are in the Museum files. The group accounts for Hoskins' manner in his early maturity when all the miniatures that bear his initials show the same strong stylistic connection with the tradition of Hilliard and the Olivers. The present miniature in addition shows Hoskins already working directly for the King.
1 Millar 1963, vol.1, no. 103, pl.43.
2 Ibid., fig. 7.
3 Millar 1958-60, p. Ill, no. 35, see also p. 216 [2]: Graham Reynolds (personal communication) now takes the view that this Windsor miniature was eventually copied c. 1635 by Hoskins from the Van Somer of 118.
4 Not catalogued here: lent by the National Gallery to the NPG; Reynolds 1952, pl.VII (repro.)"
Materials
Watercolour; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Man; Ribbon; King; Ruff; James (I of England and VI of Scotland)
Categories
Portraits; Royalty; Paintings
Collection code
PDP
