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Portrait miniature - An Unknown Woman
  • An Unknown Woman
    Cooper, Samuel, born 1603 - died 1672
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An Unknown Woman

  • Object:

    Portrait miniature

  • Place of origin:

    England, Great Britain (painted)

  • Date:

    1662-1665 (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

  • Museum number:

    448-1892

  • Gallery location:

    Portrait Miniatures, room 90a, case 18

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This miniature painting is one of a group of 17th-century unfinished miniatures on tablets of vellum originally interleaved into the blank pages of a leather-bound book traditionally called ‘Samuel Cooper's Pocket Book’. This book was acquired by the V&A in 1892, when all the works were believed to be by Samuel Cooper. It is now agreed that four are by Cooper and the other ten, except one, are by Susannah Penelope Rosse. These are self-portraits and portraits of family and neighbours. Like most artists, Cooper left a number of unfinished miniatures in his studio when he died. These were eagerly sought after by art collectors such as King Charles II and the Florentine Cosimo III, who admired the direct, graphic quality of these works by such an internationally renowned artist. It is possible that this ‘Pocket Book’ actually belonged to Susannah Rosse and her husband, Michael Rosse, a wealthy jeweller. Susannah Rosse was the daughter of Cooper's fellow miniaturist, Richard Gibson, and she grew up in London only a few streets from Cooper’s house. She admired Cooper's work, and the sale of Michael Rosse's collection of art in 1723, over 20 years after Susannah's death, included original works by Cooper and also acknowledged copies of Cooper by Mrs Rosse. Examples such as this, one of Cooper's unfinished works, would have allowed Susannah Rosse to study closely Cooper's technique.

Physical description

Unfinished portrait of a woman, head and shoulders, facing to left. Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine, with some pale opaque grey for the shadow round the eyes and a darker grey for the eyeballs, on a very pale carnation ground; hair washed and slightly hatched in brown and grey over a paler initial wash; a slight pink wash over the shoulder and bosom; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (painted)

Date

1662-1665 (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

'Cooper'
'Cath'e of Braganza'

Dimensions

Height: 93 mm sheet, Width: 70 mm sheet, Height: 76 mm drawn oval, Width: 63 mm drawn oval

Object history note

Provenance
Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1 723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892.

Descriptive line

Portrait miniature, unfinished, of an unknown woman. Watercolour on vellum by Samuel Cooper.

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

Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London: The Stationery Office in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997.
Cat. 89, p.165. Full Citation:

"89 Unknown Woman
1662-5
448-1892

Rectangular 93 X 70 mm (irregular) with a drawn oval 76 X 63 mm (the right side is incomplete)

Features delicately hatched in brown and sanguine, with some pale opaque grey for the shadow round the eyes and a darker grey for the eyeballs, on a very pale carnation ground; hair washed and slightly hatched in brown and grey over a paler initial wash; a slight pink wash over the shoulder and bosom; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.

Condition: Engrimed, and some small condensation damages, as on sitter's chin below her mouth.

Signed: Not signed. Inscribed on the back, in graphite: Cooper, apparently in a late seventeenth-century hand; and Cath'e of Braganza, perhaps in a later hand.

Provenance: As for Cat. No. 88 [Presumably acquired from Cooper's estate by the Rosses, or perhaps by Priestman (see Rosse, Cat. No. 143) and perhaps in the Michael Rosse sale, 2 April 1723; eventually purchased by Edwin [Durning] Lawrence before 1862, and sold by him to the Museum for £525 in 1892].

Exhibited: As for Cat. No. 88 [South Kensington 1862, no. 2531 (the set as Cooper); BFAC 1889, p. 133, case XLI, nos 1-15 (Cooper); V&A 1983, unnumbered]; and by itself, New Haven etc. 1981-2, no. 48.

Literature: As for Cat. No. 88 [Williamson 1904, vol. I, pp. 51-2 (on the set, reproducing four by Rosse); Foster 1898, p. 40; Foster 1903, vol. I, p. 53 (tentatively attributing the set to Flatman); Foster 1908, p. 184 (as attributed to Cooper, but Foster would give some to Dixon; he now states that some give the poorer ones to Flatman); Catalogue of Miniatures , 1908, pp. 9-10 (as formerly attributed to Cooper); Goulding 1914-15, p. 49 (as Rosse); Long 1929, p. 377 (Rosse); Long 1930, pp. 65-6 (as by Rosse); Reynolds 1952, pp. 81-2 (Rosse); Foskett 1963, pp. 77-8; Foskett 1972, vol I, p. 481 (Rosse); Foskett 1974, p. 91 (Rosse); Reynolds 1975, specifically p. 9, no. 1, pl. 13; Foskett 1979, pp. 125-6 (following Reynolds 1975); Summary Catalogue , 1981, p. 9 (Cooper); V J Murrell, 'The Craft of the Miniaturist' , Murdoch 1981, p. 12, fig. 14 (as Cooper); V J Murrell, 'Technique and Practice', Strong 1983, p. 28, no. 1; Reynolds 1988, p. 78 and specifically pp. 59 and 78]; and by itself, Foster 1903, vol. I, pl. XXVIII, no. 48 (as by Cooper, though contradicted in the text, p. 53); Reynolds 1975, p. 10, no. 2, p. 14; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 9; Murdoch 1981, col. pl. 23c.

The 'relatively recent' identification as Catherine of Braganza was rejected by Reynolds (see above) on the advice of Sir Oliver Millar; in fact this miniature had never been properly accepted into the iconography of the Queen, being omitted from Piper 1963 and from all NPG records. The Cooper image of Catherine, one of the 'Windsor sketches', is held to dispose of this conclusively as a likeness.

The sitter nevertheless wears the Braganza curls, and the date is therefore after Catherine's arrival in England, 13 May 1662, and probably before 1665. If not Catherine herself, the sitter is likely to have been one of the household.”

Exhibition History

Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered, 1520-1620 (Victoria and Albert Museum 09/07/1983-06/11/19833)
Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures (Burlington Fine Arts Club 1889-1889)
Special Exhibition of Works of Art at the South Kensington Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 1862-1862)
The English Miniature (Yale Center for British Art 1981-1982)

Materials

Watercolour; Vellum

Techniques

Painting

Subjects depicted

Woman

Categories

Portraits; Paintings

Production Type

Unique

Collection code

PDP

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Qr_O75007
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