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.
Ownership & Use
Charles I (1625-1649) employed the Dutch wax-modeller Abraham van der Doort (born around 1575-1580, died 1640) to look after his collection of paintings. This copy by Oliver after a painting by Titian (born around 1485, died 1576) was a highly prized object and stored as such. Van der Doort recorded for Charles that it was 'kept in your new cabinet room within your cupboards...at Whitehall'. Here, it was one of ten miniatures kept in 'double shutting cases with locks and keys and glasses over them'. Titian's original oil painting, of which this is a copy, is now lost. But the miniature matches the description of the Titian in the inventory of Charles I's collection.
Subject Depicted
The miniature depicts the New Testament story of the Flight into Egypt. Joseph is warned in a dream that King Herod is seeking the infant Jesus to kill him. So he flees with Mary and Jesus to safety in Egypt.
Physical description
Miniature painting depicting the Joseph, the Madonna and Child resting in a landscape. Joseph, the donkey behind him, is standing on the left; the Madonna seated at the centre of the scene with the infant Christ in her arms. In the right background a horse and rider. Features of the Madonna and Child in minute, brown blended stipple with slight sanguine touches, especially in the lips; the child in paler and more blended stipple; both on a pale creamy carnation ground; Joseph in dark brown and grey in long wiry hatches over a brown wash, lightened out to the basic cream carnation; hair in brown wash hatched in darker colour; costume in washes of blue and crimson lake, hatched with darker colour and highlighted with white; shadows of Joseph’s cloak hatched in blue and green; touches of metallic gold in Mary’s shawl ends; the landscape in washes of opaque colour, broadly hatched and stippled especially in the sky; details, such as flowers in the foreground left and bushes middle right, minutely washed in opaque greens, yellows, whites, etc.; the rocks, background right, in thick undifferentiated washes of grey over brown, possibly unfinished; a gold marginal stip; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Frame Modern ebonised fruitwood veneer of complex bolection mouldings, replacing a carved and gilded frame in which Jones kept it.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1628 (painted)
Artist/maker
Oliver, Peter, born 1589 - died 1647 (artist)
Titian, born 1480 - died 1576 (after, artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum put down on pasteboard
Marks and inscriptions
'1628 / Pi: Oliuier / Fe [flourish]'
Dimensions
Height: 15.2 cm excluding frame, Width: 24.1 cm excluding frame
Descriptive line
'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt', watercolour on vellum, miniature by Peter Oliver after Titian, 1628.
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 14, pp. 32-34. Full Citation:
"The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
1628
740-1882
Rectangular 164 x 254 mm
Features of the Madonna and Child in minute, brown blended stipple with slight sanguine touches, especially in the lips; the child in paler and more blended stipple; both on a pale creamy carnation ground; Joseph in dark brown and grey in long wiry hatches over a brown wash, lightened out to the basic cream carnation; hair in brown wash hatched in darker colour; costume in washes of blue and crimson lake, hatched with darker colour and highlighted with white; shadows of Joseph's cloak hatched in blue and green; touches of metallic gold in Mary's shawl ends; the landscape in washes of opaque colour, broadly hatched and stippled especially in the sky; details, such as flowers in the foreground left and bushes middle right, minutely washed in opaque greens, yellows, whites, etc.; the rocks, background right, in thick undifferentiated washes of grey over brown, possibly unfinished; a gold marginal stip; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Condition: Very faded, marked with damp spots especially across the Child's leg; some darkening of whites in the sky; the whole laid onto perspex in 1964 and now beginning to lift.
Signed: Lower right, in gold: 1628 / Pi: Oliuier / Fe [flourish].
Frame: Modern ebonised fruitwood veneer of complex bolection mouldings, replacing a carved and gilded frame in which Jones kept it.
Provenance: Recorded by Van der Doort as 'beeing..kept in yor new erected Cabbonett roome within ye Cubboards att this present time att Whitehall', one of ten miniatures kep in 'dowble shutting Cases with Locks and keys and glasses over them'; (1) dispersed with the rest of the Royal Collection and untraced, unless it is The Egyptian Madonna after Tytian, (2) as suggested by Graham Reynolds (3), who cites also the inventory of 1687/8. (4) Vertue also records at Mr Halstead's sale in May 1726 'a limning in a [rectangle of 5 x 8 in] or there/about St. Joseph the Virgin & Child a sleep a copy after…Holbein. Very neatly finished, P.Olivier Fe. 1628.' (5) The miniature was acquired from an unrecorded source by John Jones, and by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1882.
Literature: Williamson 1904, vol. I, p. 28; Catalogue of Miniatures, 1908, p. 27, fig. 8; Goulding 1914-15, p. 45; Long 1923, pp. 88-9, no. 618, pl. 43; Foster 1926, p. 221; Long 1929, pp. 321, 322-3; Long 1930, p. 52, fig. 20; Lister 1951, pl. 18, pl. III; Reynolds 1952, p. 31; Millar 1958-60, pp. 103 (from the Windsor MS), 213 (from the V&A MS), 233; Lister 1963, p. 9; Wethey 1969-75, vol. III (1975), Addenda to vol. I, no. 90, p. 262; Foskett 1972, vol. I, p. 430; Foskett 1979, p. 75; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 42; Murdoch 1981, p. 92, pl. 18b (repro. in colour); Reynolds 1988, p. 32.
As Long wrote 'After a lost painting by Titian…the original and the miniature were in the Collection of Charles I'. (6) Van der Doort's description of the original Titian corresponds closely with the copy:
In the Second & middle Privie Lodginge Roome…Done by Tichian 15 Item the Picture of our Ladie & Christ with = Joseph leaning with his right hand upon a = hill whereby a Landskipp painted where afar of one is catching a young horse in the ffeilds conteyning .3. intire figures halfe Soe bigge as the life. In a Carved guilded woodden frame.
The size is given as 2ft 11 in x 5ft 6 om., i.e., about 89 x 167 cm. (7)
Variants of the composition exist:
1 The closest in subject is the small panel at Longleat (8) which differs from the miniature, however, in many details such as the position of Joseph's head, the posture of the Child and the landscape and background. This version is now regarded as the editio princeps of the subject and is dated c. 1515. (9) According to Wethey, this panel had been in the collection of Rudlof II at Prague. Van der Doort is thought to have served Rudlof before entering the service of Prince Henry in 1612, so he should have known both of these autograph versions of the picture.
2 Closer in size but not in the subject to the Charles I original is the school work in Contini-Bonacossi Collection. (10) Wethey, (11) referring to its 'blurred uncertain brushwork', dismissed it as an enlarged replica of the Longleat picture, but by the time he was composing the Addenda to volume I in 1975 (12) was prepared to hazard that it 'resembles the miniature and therefore must have belonged to the English monarch'. It is not, however, sufficiently close to the miniature to justify this conclusion.
1 Van der Doort, Windsor MS; Millar 1958-60, p. 102.
2 Sold to Embry 21 May 1650 for £50; Millar, 'The Inventories and Valuations of the King's Goods, 1649-51', Walpole Society, XLIII, 1970-2, p. 256, no. 16.
3 Personal communication.
4 Transcribed in Vertue IV, pp. 89 ff.
5 Vertue II, p. 13.
6 Long 1923, pp. 88-9.
7 Van der Doort, Ashmole MS; Millar 1958-60, pp. 16-17.
8 46.3 x 61.5 cm; seen by Jonathan Mayne at the Burlington House Exhibition, Holbein and Other Masters, 1950-1, no. 218.
9 Wethey 1969-75, vol. I, p. 125, no. 90, pl. 17.
10 91 x 160 cm; seen by Carl Winter at the Villa Vittoria near Florence and described in a letter to Graham Reynolds, 29 September 1949, preserved in the department records.
11 Wethey 1969-75, vol. I, p. 125.
12 Ibid., vol. III, p. 262."
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
Mary (Virgin Mary); Joseph (of Nazareth, Saint); Jesus Christ
Categories
Religion; Christianity; Paintings
Collection code
PDP
