Object Type
Miniature painting in England was predominantly a portrait art. But from the late 1620s Peter Oliver (possibly born in 1594, died 1647) also painted subject pictures in miniature. These are called 'Histories in limning' (limning was the traditional word for miniature) in Edward Norgate's treatise on miniature painting, entitled Miniatura; or, The Art of Limning. Norgate (born in the 1580s, died 1650) was a contemporary of Oliver.
People
As Norgate explained in his treatise, such subject miniatures were unknown in England until 'of late years it pleased a most excellent King to command...some of his own pieces, of Titian...to be translated into English limning, which indeed were admirably performed by his Servant, Mr Peter Oliver'. Charles I (ruled 1625-1649) was a great connoisseur and collector. He had a magnificent collection of oil paintings. His command to have them copied in miniature reflects the value he placed on both his collection and miniature painting, a highly prized and exquisite watercolour art.
This miniature is a copy of a picture that was in the collection of Charles I and is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Charles I employed the Dutch wax-modeller Abraham van der Doort (born around 1575-1580, died 1640) to look after his collection of paintings. Van der Doort described the painting as by Titian, the Venetian painter (possibly born around 1485, died 1576). It has recently been suggested that the painting may be by Palma Vecchio (born around 1479, died 1528). Interestingly, the original oil has been repainted at some point so that Lucretia's chemise covers her breast.
Subject Depicted
The subject is taken from ancient Roman history. Lucretia informed her family that she had been raped by Tarquin, son of the Roman tyrant. She then virtuously took her own life. The incident led to a rebellion against Tarquin's family.
Physical description
Lucretia, turned to front and looking to left, with Tarquin standing behind, his head over her left shoulder and hand on her right arm. Features of Lucretia in short, delicate and highly blended hatches of pale brown and sanguine and grey, with dark brown for the eyes, her hair in transparent ochre wash, lined and shaded in darker colour and brown; both over a pale carnation ground; Tarquin's head in short dark brown and sanguine hatches, on a deep warm carnation ground; his hair stippled on the vellum with dark brown; the costumes in washes modelled with transparent hatching of darker colour; the blade of Lucretia's dagger in metallic silver and the hilt in gold over brown; the background in deep gummy brown shading to black, and taken out to right to create light; a gold marginal strip; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Frame: Nineteenth-century rectangular copper-gilt rim of V-section, the glass fitted into a rebate and the back closed by strips of toothed copper bent over the backing of the miniature.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1630-1640 (painted)
Artist/maker
Oliver, Peter, born 1589 - died 1647 (artist)
Titian, born 1480 - died 1576 (possibly after, artist)
Palma, il Vecchio, Jacopo, born 1474 - died 1528 (possibly after, artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum put down on pasteboard
Marks and inscriptions
'P. Oliuier. / Fe:'
'P Oliver fect.'
Dimensions
Height: 11.5 cm, Width: 9.9 cm
Object history note
Provenance: Recorded in the 'Inventory of Goods Tapistryes Jewells pictures Statues. at the several palaces of the Kings Whitehall. St. ]amess Windsor & c.1687/8'; then apparently unrecorded until purchased by the Museum from a Mr Helliar, 27 November 1869, for £4.
Descriptive line
Miniature painting depicting Tarquin and Lucretia. Watercolour on vellum by Peter Oliver, possibly after Titian or Palma Vecchio, 1630-1640.
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. 15, p.35-37. Full Citation:
"15 Tarquin and Lucretia, after Titian or Palma Vecchio
1630-40
1787-1869
Rectangular 114 X 94 mm
Features of Lucretia in short, delicate and highly blended hatches of pale brown and sanguine and grey, with dark brown for the eyes, her hair in transparent ochre wash, lined and shaded in darker colour and brown; both over a pale carnation ground; Tarquin's head in short dark brown and sanguine hatches, on a deep warm carnation ground; his hair stippled on the vellum with dark brown; the costumes in washes modelled with transparent hatching of darker colour; the blade of Lucretia's dagger in metallic silver and the hilt in gold over brown; the background in deep gummy brown shading to black, and taken out to right to create light; a gold marginal strip; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Condition: The miniature shows the effects of restoration, much scraping on Lucretia's bosom and her dress at the left, presumably to remove old blackened lead-white; the silver of the dagger blade blackened; zinc-white retouches on the dress; evidence of damp damage and gum accretion at the top; abrasions passim, but no major distortion of the overall effect.
Signed: In gold, upper right: P.Oliuier./Fe: (see C in Appendix 2). Inscribed on the back by a nineteenth-century hand: P Oliver fect.
Frame: Nineteenth-century rectangular copper-gilt rim of V-section, the glass fitted into a rebate and the back closed by strips of toothed copper bent over the backing of the miniature.
Provenance: Recorded in the 'Inventory of Goods Tapistryes Jewells pictures Statues. at the several palaces of the Kings Whitehall. St. ]amess Windsor & c.1687/8'; (1) then apparently unrecorded until purchased by the Museum from a Mr Helliar, 27 November 1869, for £4.
Exhibited: New Haven etc. 1981-2, no. 35.
Literature: Catalogue of Miniatures, 1908, p. 26; Goulding 1914-15, p. 45; Long 1 929, p. 321 ; Long 1930, p. 52;Vertue IV, p. 89; Wethey 1969-75, vol. HI, pp. 219, 220, pl. 184; Foskett 1972, vol.I, p. 430 (as The Rape of Lucrece after Titian); Foskett 1979, p. 75; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 42; Murdoch 1981, p. 92, pl, 18a (repro. in colour); Reynolds 1988, p. 32; P Rylands, Palma Vecchio, Cambridge Studies in the History of Art (1992), pp. 309-10.
The miniature is a copy of the picture that was in the collection of Charles 1(2) and is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Referred to confidently by Van der Doort (3) as by 'Tichin", it was accepted as by Titian until Waagen, Crowe, Cavalcaselle et al. advanced the attribution to Palma Vecchio, which has since generally been preferred. The Oliver copy has been held to record the appearance of the Vienna picture before the latter was bowdlerised by the repainting of Lucretia's chemise to conceal her breast. (4)
More recently, however, Philip Rylands has given the Vienna picture back to Titian, commenting that the paint is 'quite unlike Palma's comparatively dry manner ... The parted lips and the upward gaze of the Lucretia give her a dramatic force which cannot be found in any of Palma's women.' He also takes a more sanguine view than Wethey of the soundness of the picture surface, denying that Lucretia's left breast has been bowdlerised. Instead, Oliver 'wilfully raised the girl's armpit and painted a nipple somewhat above the chemise'." Rylands's view appears to be supported by another early copy of the painting, in plumbago by David Paton, dated 1668, (7) in which the chemise decently covers Lucretia's nipple. The latter cannot however have been copied directly from the painting, because by 1668 the painting had left the country.
Van der Doort refers also to a limned copy after it by Sir James Palmer which is not now known." Roy Strong (9) has suggested that the present miniature is itself the missing Palmer, being in his view of much poorer quality than the rest of the Oliver copies in the Royal Collection and having also had 'a very early Oliver signature' substituted for the original Palmer monogram which putatively would have been removed from the patch of disturbed background above Tarquin's shoulder.
Although the application of Occam's razor is always tempting, in this instance it is difficult to accept that there were not two miniatures, the Palmer having broken up and been replaced by the Oliver. Van der Doort dearly says that the Palmer was already in bad condition when he catalogued it in the 1630s: 'which by vernishing the greene Cullors over flowen and the ground wrinckled'. Evidently Palmer had adapted the flooded-wash technique normally used for red-curtain backgrounds to achieve a suitable effect for the fabric of Lucretia's dress. To gain added lustre he had probably used too much gum, which had then cracked and perhaps contracted some part of the carnation ground. Although there is no mention of a second copy in Van der Doort, it is a sensible assumption that Oliver's version was intended to replace this unsound copy by Palmer. There is no evidence of any experimental or especially lavish use of medium in the present miniature, and certainly no evidence of massive repainting. Stylistically, in the softness of the stipple and the lack of linear definition to the forms, the miniature seems to relate satisfactorily to Oliver's latest works. It could even have been painted by Oliver for the King after Van der Doort's death in 1640, and not been formally inventoried - as other and greater events supervened until 1687 /8.
The subject of Tarquin and Lucretia must anyway have seemed increasingly uncomfortable at Court as the 1630s proceeded. The story is originally from Livy and celebrates the fortitude and virtue of Lucretia, the fall of the Roman monarchy and the foundation of Republican liberties. Lucretia, the daughter of the Roman citizen Lucretius and wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, attracts the lust of Sextus Tarquin, the son of Tarquinius Superbus, King of Rome. One night Sextus forces her to submit to his desires by threatening to kill both her and a slave, and by threatening to tell her husband that he had found them in bed together. In the morning Lucretia reports this to her husband and father, charges them to avenge her and stabs herself. On hearing of her fate, the citizens of Rome rise up against their oppressive monarchy and establish in its place the Republic.
Despite the wide currency of the story in Renaissance and subsequent literature (not least through Shakespeare), misinterpretation of this scene has occurred. The problem is that both men, the husband and the rapist, bear the name of Tarquin, and both the major scenes of the story - the rape and the suicide - accordingly tend to be called 'Tarquin and Lucretia'. Titian did indeed paint the rape scene' (10) but here he (or Palma) paints the suicide. Lucretia takes the knife to stab herself. The sad and sensitive face looking over her shoulder is that of the virtuous husband Tarquinius Collatinus.
1 Transcribed in Vertue IV, p. 89.
2 Ex Gonzaga; purchased for the Archduke Leopold wilhelm at the Whitehall sale in 1651.
3 Ashmole MS; Millar 1958-60, p. 22.
4 Wethey 1969-75, vol.. III p. 219, no.s 219 and X33.
5 P Rylands, Palma Vecchio, Cambridge Studies in the History of Art (1992), pp. 309-10, no. A30; see also pp. 96-7.
6 Ibid., p. 309.
7 Ham House, HH406-1948.
8 Windsor and V&A MSS; Millar 1958-60, pp.120, 214.
9 Personal communication, January 1981.
10 E.g., Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum; Wethey 1969-75, p. 180, no. 34"
Exhibition History
The English Miniature (Yale Center for British Art 1981-1982)
The English Miniature (Yale Center for British Art 1981-1982)
The English Miniature (Yale Center for British Art 1981-1982)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
TWO COPIES IN MINIATURE OF OIL PAINTINGS
These miniatures are copies of Italian paintings owned by Charles I. His great art collection helped to promote his reputation as a wealthy and sophisticated patron. He may well have commissioned Peter Oliver to make such copies as portable reminders of some of his favourite paintings. After Charles's execution in 1649 many of his paintings were sold off by the Commonwealth Government. [27/03/2003]
Materials
Watercolour; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Lucretia; Tarquin
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
