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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case RMC, Shelf 1, Box C

Charles I, perhaps when Prince of Wales

Portrait Miniature
ca.1616 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This miniature is by an amateur miniature painter, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, which explains its somewhat rough and awkward quality. Gerbier was born in the Netherlands, and while his education is unknown he clearly had training in the accomplishments required of a courtier, including the useful art of drawing. He entered the service of Prince William of Orange in 1615. Having been sent to England in an ambassadorial train in 1616, he transferred his service to the Earl (later the Duke) of Buckingham, an intimate friend of King James I, becoming his domestic architect and adviser on art. In the early 17th century in England some gentlemen became interested in miniature painting as a complement to their gentlemanly knowledge of heraldry, also painted in watercolour on vellum (fine animal skin). Heraldry enjoyed a special prominence under the early Stuart monarchs, and to the ambitious Gerbier a knowledge of miniature painting techniques must have seemed useful. He entered the service of King Charles I in 1628, just after Buckingham’s assassination, and was knighted in 1638. This youthful portrait of the future Charles I shows him after he had been made Prince of Wales. Here the new heir to the throne is wearing the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter. This miniature is a version of another portrait, rather than having been painted from life.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleCharles I, perhaps when Prince of Wales (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour and wash on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book
Brief description
Portrait miniature of Charles I, perhaps as Prince of Wales, watercolour on vellum, painted by Balthasar Gerbier, ca.1616.
Physical description
Portrait, head and shoulders, to right and looking to left. The sitter is wearing a ruff and a blue ribbon around his neck. Features in delicate stipple of sanguine, brown and dark grey, with some blue for the shadows, white in the eyes, and gummed lake in the lips, on a pale carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash, lined with dark brown and streaks of gummed black; collar in white over grey wash; costume in grey wash, worked over with black and with lights in pale grey, and with metallic gold decoration ribbon in blue wash curtain in wet lake washes, shaded with darker colour and black and heightened with pale gouache, and with more gold decoration; a gold marginal strip; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Frame: Nineteenth-century silver frame, flat-backed; channelled arris with rolled edge bezel; the loop made up of wire of rectangular section flanked by two detached scrolls of flat wire.
Dimensions
  • Height: 50mm
  • Width: 39mm
  • Case (with loop) height: 72mm
  • Case (without loop) height: 65mm
  • Case width: 44mm
  • Case depth: 6mm
Dimensions taken from John Murdoch Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Styles
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'BG' (Signed in gold)
  • (Marked with illegible diagrammatic remains on the back of the support)
Gallery label
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars label texts: Charles I as Prince of Wales About 1616 England By Sir Balthazar Gerbier Watercolour on vellum, stuck to a leaf from a table-book Purchased with funds from the Captain H.B. Murray Bequest. V&A P.47-1935
Credit line
Puchased with funds from the Capt. H. B. Murray Bequest
Object history
Provenance: According to Williamson 1906-8 'from the Bignor Park Collection'; J. Heywood Hawkins; C H T Hawkins, his sale Christie's 16 May 1804, lot 1023 (as Henry Prince of Wales), bt Hodgkin £31.10s.; J Pierpont Morgan, his sale, Christie's 24 June 1935, lot 94, bt Agnew for the Museum with funds from the Capt. H B Murray Bequest.
Subjects depicted
Summary
This miniature is by an amateur miniature painter, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, which explains its somewhat rough and awkward quality. Gerbier was born in the Netherlands, and while his education is unknown he clearly had training in the accomplishments required of a courtier, including the useful art of drawing. He entered the service of Prince William of Orange in 1615. Having been sent to England in an ambassadorial train in 1616, he transferred his service to the Earl (later the Duke) of Buckingham, an intimate friend of King James I, becoming his domestic architect and adviser on art. In the early 17th century in England some gentlemen became interested in miniature painting as a complement to their gentlemanly knowledge of heraldry, also painted in watercolour on vellum (fine animal skin). Heraldry enjoyed a special prominence under the early Stuart monarchs, and to the ambitious Gerbier a knowledge of miniature painting techniques must have seemed useful. He entered the service of King Charles I in 1628, just after Buckingham’s assassination, and was knighted in 1638. This youthful portrait of the future Charles I shows him after he had been made Prince of Wales. Here the new heir to the throne is wearing the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter. This miniature is a version of another portrait, rather than having been painted from life.
Bibliographic reference
Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Collection
Accession number
P.47-1935

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Record createdFebruary 22, 2003
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