Physical description
Portrait miniature of a man, depicted half-length, seated, turned to the right and looking to right, wearing a black cap and with his hands raised; in his left hand he holds a pair of spectacles; on the right is an easel, and in the background is a window with a view of a house and garden beyond; the upper corners of the painting decorated with gold spandrels; lettered in gold at the bottom.
Place of Origin
Flanders, Belgium (painted)
Date
1558 (painted)
Artist/maker
Simon Bening, born 1483 - died 1561 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum laid down on card
Marks and inscriptions
'SIMÕ . BINNIK . ALEXÃDRI. F 8 / SEIPSV PIGERAT . ANO . AETATIS 75 / 1558'
Dimensions
Height: 86 mm, Width: 58 mm
Historical context note
This miniature or the other version appears among other objects and work of arts in a painting executed by Frans Franken II in 1619 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Inv. 816). The painting represents a selection of objects typically set as a small display in a 17th-century collector's house.
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature, watercolour on vellum, self-portrait by Simon Bening aged 75, 1558.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Miguel Falomir, ed. El retrato del Renacimiento Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008. ISBN: 978-8480-155-9.
Exhibition catalogue
Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620.. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Cat. VI, p. 30. Full citation:
“SIMON BENNINCK
VI Self-portrait, aged 75 in 1558
Victoria & Albert Museum (P.159-1910)
Vellum stuck to an oak panel, rectangular, 86 x 58 mm, 3 3/8 x 2 ¼ in.
Two versions exist of this self-portrait, the second being in the Lehman Collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Both are autographed and signed and technical examination side by side would be the only way of establishing which was the ad vivum portrait and which the repetition. Technical examination of the V&A’s version does not include the Gothic spandrels and thus must be identical with that included in a still-life painting by Frans Francken, dated 1619, now in the Rubenshuis, Antwerp (see S. Speth-Holterhoff, Les Peintres Flamandes de Cabinet d’Amateurs au XVIIe Siècle, Brussels, 1957, p. 69, pl. 9, 10).
30 Limner’s tools and Materials
As the woodcut gradually replaced the illuminated book, illuminators had to develop other lines, of which the portrait miniature was a logical development. Benninck’s self-portrait is important evidence of this phase and he was working producing detailed portrait miniatures in the 1520’s. Paul Wescher in 1946 published a portrait of a monk sitting in a room holding his prayer book and what very reasonably is an earlier self-portrait dated 1525, in the Louvre.
Benninck has depicted himself, at the age of 75, tense, tired and hermetic-like seated at his work easel onto which is pinned the beginnings of a miniature of the Virgin and Child. A window gives onto a view of a house and garden. The form of the easel is of interest. Set up on a table, it is slanted at the usual angle but has a series of racks built into it at the left for holding colours and brushes.
Although this miniature belongs to the history of portrait miniatures of in the Low Countries, it is crucial evidence of the work of Levinia Teerlinc’s father. A comparison with Teerlinc’s Catherine Grey (no. 38) reveals the same thing washing technique. His daughter never inherited her father’s powers as a draughtsman but she must be the vital link that binds Nicholas Hilliard in a line of descent from the Ghent-Bruges School.
INSCRIBED: Below: SIMÕ . BINNIK . ALEXÃDRI. F8 / SEIPSV PIGERAT . ANO . AETATIS 75 / 1558
COLLECTIONS: Acquired at some date by George Salting and passed with his collection to the V&A, 1910.
LITERATURE: W. H. J. Weale, Burlington Magazine, VIII, 1906, pp.355-57.
P. Durrieu, La Miniature Flamande, 1927, pl. 87, fig. 4.
T. H. Colding, Aspects of Miniature Painting, 1955, fig. 101.
Collection Lehman de New York, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1957 (150).
Paul Wescher, “Sanders and Simon Bening and Gerard Horenbout”, Art Quarterly, IX, 1946, pp.207-208.”
Exhibition History
Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered, 1520-1620 (Victoria and Albert Museum 09/07/1983-06/11/19833)
El retrato del Renacimiento (Prado, Museo Nacional del 03/06/2008-07/09/2008)
Materials
Watercolour; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Artist; Spectacles; Table easels; Simon Bening
Categories
Portraits; Paintings; Tools & Equipment
Collection code
PDP
