Object Type
The term 'miniature' is a description of a watercolour technique rather than the size of a painting. So although this painting may seem quite large, it is a miniature because it is painted in watercolour on vellum (fine animal skin). Such large miniatures are today called 'cabinet miniatures'. This is a recent term for miniatures that would have been kept in a cupboard or a room hung with other small paintings. Both spaces were then called 'cabinets'.
People
Richard Sackville (1590-1624) succeeded as 3rd Earl of Dorset in 1609. He married Anne Clifford, daughter of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. Her diary records the many extravagances that led the mortgaging of his house, Knole in Kent. Sackville was a prominent figure in the tiltyard (where a horseman with a spear would charge at a mark or person). His interest in such chivalrous pastimes is reflected in the pieces of armour on the table and floor.
Materials & Making
This is one of the biggest and most important of Isaac Oliver's large-scale miniatures. For Dorset no expense was too great. Here the painter used the three most important blue pigments: costly ultramarine (lapis lazuli) for his breeches spangled with moons and suns; blue bice (azurite) for the side curtain, pelmet and stockings; and smalt (a pigment made from cobalt-coloured glass) for the greyish curtain behind the sitter.
Physical description
Portrait miniature of a man, full-length, standing in an interior.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1616 (painted)
Artist/maker
Oliver, Isaac, born 1558 - died 1617 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum, stuck to plain card
Marks and inscriptions
'Isaac. Olliuierus. fecit.; and: 1616.'
Dimensions
Height: 23.5 cm, Width: 15.3 cm
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature of Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset, watercolour on vellum, painted by Isaac Oliver, 1616.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Cat. 276, p. 166. Full Citation:
‘ISAAC OLIVER
Richard Sacville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, 1616
Victoria & Albert Museum (721-1882)
Vellum stuck to plain card, rectangular, 239 x 157 mm, 9 7/16 x 6 3/16 in.
Richard Sackville, (1590-1624), who succeeded as third Earl in 1609 was categorized as “a man of spirit and talent, but a licentious spendthrift”. He married Anne Clifford, daughter of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland and her diary records his extravagances, so that by his death he had mortgaged Knole.
One of the biggest and most important of Oliver’s large-scale miniatures. Dorset’s prodigality was famous and is here reflected, as V. J. Murrell has observed, in the use of the three most important blue pigments: the costly ultramarine (lapis lazuli) for the trunk hose; blue bice (azurite) for the side curtain, pelmet and stockings; and smalt (a pigment made from cobalt-coloured glass) for the greyish curtain behind the sitter.
This miniature is a rare instance where the clothes worn can actually be identified in a contemporary inventory. In 1617 “An Inventorie of the rich wearing Apparrell of the right honourable Richard Earle of Dorset” was compiled, in which Sacville’s attire is identifiable:
“Item one paire of Bullen hose of Scarlett and blew velvet the panes of Scarlett laced all over with watchett silk silver and gold lace and the puffs of blew velvett embroidered all over with sonnes Moones and stares of gold
Item one paire of longe watchet silke stockings embroidered.”
The suit in the inventory consists of only five items, whereas normally it would have been made up of eleven. By 1617 parts of it must have already been given away or dismantled for upholstery at Knole, as was the case of most of the clothes and caparisons in the inventory.
Dorset was a prominent figure in the tiltyard and his interest in chivalrous pastimes is reflected in the pieces of armour on the table and floor. No other miniature corresponds so closely with the formalized portraits ascribed to William Larkin (no. 277). The miniature, however startling a feat of virtuosity, is so uncharacteristic of Oliver in its composition and multicoloured tonality that it must reflect the dictates of the sitter. It is in remarkably brilliant condition, apart from losses to the curtains and helmet crest and the inevitable oxidization which, in the case of the armour, has resulted in the unsightly highlights.
INSCRIBED: Signed bottom right: Isaac. Olliuierus. fecit.; and: 1616.
COLLECTIONS: Presumably commissioned by the sitter; first recorded in the collection of Jeremiah Harman; C. Sackville Bale collection; sold 24th May 1881 (lot 1424); acquired by John Jones; bequeathed by him, 1882.
LITERATURE: A. Waagen, Art Treasures in Britain, 1854, II, p. 332.
V&A, 1947 (195).
Winter, Elizabethan Miniatures, pl. XV.
E. K. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790, London, 1962 ed. p. 27, pl. 24.
Peter and Ann MacTaggart, “The Rich Wearing Apparel of Richard, 3rd Earl of Dorset”, Costume, XIV, 1980, pp. 41-55.’
Exhibition History
Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered, 1520-1620 (Victoria and Albert Museum 09/07/1983-06/11/19833)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Richard Sackville was described as 'a man of spirit and talent, but a licentious spendthrift'. The sumptuous clothes worn here are recorded in an inventory of 1617, down to the 'paire of Roeses edged with gold and silver lace' on his shoes. The blue pigments used for this miniature would have been expensive, echoing the fabrics depicted. [27/03/2003]
Production Note
Signed and dated 1616
Materials
Watercolour; Cardboard; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Man; Armour; Helmet; Plumes; Gauntlet; Breast plate; Dorset, Richard Sackville (3rd Earl of)
Categories
Portraits; Clothing; Paintings
Collection code
PDP
