Physical description
Portrait of a man, turned to left, looking to front and wearing a red cloak. Features in soft, very regular and distinct stipples of pale brown and sanguine blended with grey and blue, with gummy black in the eyes and nostrils and white in the eyes and facial hair on a pale creamy carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash modelled with dark grey and white; collar modelled in grey and brown over a pale grey wash, with some white heightening; cloak in a solid pink wash, modelled in darker colour and with the lights in white; background a solid brown wash floated horizontally; on pasteboard.
Frame: Nineteenth-century rectangular copper-gilt rim, of shallow V-section: toothed copper strips to close back; of the type designed for a push-fit into a velvet-covered board.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1679 (painted)
Artist/maker
Charles Beale, born 1660 - died 1714 (painter (artist))
Anthony Van Dyck, born 1599 - died 1641 (after, painter (artist))
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on pasteboard
Marks and inscriptions
'CCB/1679'
Dimensions
Height: 79 mm, Width: 66 mm
Object history note
Provenance: Putatively at Strawberry Hill (for that provenance see Cat. No. 148); sale 14 May 1842, 18th day, lot 156 (as Archbishop of Antwerp), bt Rodd, £ 1; acquired by the Revd Alexander Dyce, perhaps from Rodd or an intermediary, and by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1869.
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature of Antoine Triest, Bishop of Ghent, watercolour on board, by Charles Beale the younger after Van Dyck, 1679.
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. 149, pp. 255-257. Full citation:
“Antoine Triest, Bishop of Ghent, after Van Dyck”
(b.1578 d.1657)
1679
D132
Rectangular 79 x 66 mm
Features in soft, very regular and distinct stipples of pale brown and sanguine blended with grey and blue, with gummy black in the eyes and nostrils and white in the eyes and facial hair on a pale creamy carnation ground; hair in pale brown wash modelled with dark grey and white; collar modelled in grey and brown over a pale grey wash, with some white heightening; cloak in a solid pink wash, modelled in darker colour and with the lights in white; background a solid brown wash floated horizontally; on pasteboard.
Condition: Some slight flaking and losses in the gummed passages, especially in the shading under the collar; some damp spots; mainly excellent.
Signed: Lower centre left, in gold: CCB/1679 (see B in Appendix 2).
Frame: Nineteenth-century rectangular copper-gilt rim, of shallow V-section: toothed copper strips to close back; of the type designed for a push-fit into a velvet-covered board.
Provenance: Putatively at Strawberry Hill (for that provenance see Cat. No. 148 [555-1905]); sale 14 May 1842, 18th day, lot 156 (as Archbishop of Antwerp), bt Rodd, £ 1; acquired by the Revd Alexander Dyce, perhaps from Rodd or an intermediary, and by him bequeathed to the Museum, 1869.
Exhibited: Geffrye Museum 1975-6, no. 51 (repro.Walsh and Ieffree 1975-6, p. 48).
Literature: Redgrave 1874, p. 11 (as 'after Vandyck; initials unknown'); Catalogue of Miniatures 1908, p. 40 (artist unknown, the signature slightly mis-transcribed); Goulding 1914-15, p. 16 (as by Beale, identifying the C and the CB 'in cypher' signature as Beale's): Foster 1914-16, vol. I, pl. LXIX, no. 175, vol. II, p. 4, no. 9; Long 1929, p. 20; Long 1930, p. 3 (identifying the CCB as Beale's): Reynolds 1952, p. 83; Croft-Murray and Hulton 1960, vol. I, p. 177 (referring to the' characteristic' monogram); Foskett 1963, pl. 47; Schidloff 1964, vol. I, p. 68; Foskett 1979, p.115; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 3; Reynolds 1988, pp. 72-3.
As with the Sir Peter Lely (Cat. No. 148 [555-1905]), the attribution to Charles Beale the Younger was first published by Goulding, who did not, however, comment on the difference between this version of the CBmonogram - a variant of the type identified by Vertue as belonging to Beale the Younger, but with the upper end of the C failing to complete its loop back on to the vertical stroke, and thus failing to make the B clearly; and those which he otherwise recognised. Basil Long (1 930) was aware of the difference but did not dissent from Goulding's judgement. Neither commented on stylistic matters, although prima facie the Lely is painted in a bold, direct hatch with some stipple blended in, while the Triest, which perhaps experimentally even lacks a vellum, is painted predominantly in a soft stipple that blurs rather than accentuates the sitter's features and the fall of light and shade. When taken in combination with the two Lauderdale portraits (Cat. Nos 150 and 151), they give an impression that Beale was an unusually protean artist. All are catalogued here as by Charles Beale the Younger, an attribution that has received the recent support of Elizabeth Walsh and Richard Jeffree (1975-6) and which it does not yet seem possible to question substantially. As Croft-Murray and Hulton (1960) point out, the source for this miniature was probably the 'Bishops picture of Van Dykes' referred to in the diary of Charles Beale the Elder, 20 April 1672: Mr. Lely was here. (meaning I think) to see Mrs. Beal (& her workers) with Mr. Gibson and Mr. Skipwith to see us ... Mr. Lely told me at the same time as he was most studiously looking at my Bishops picture of Van Dykes - and I chanced to ask him how Sr. Anthony could possibly divise to finish in one day a face that was so exceeding full of work & wrought up to so extraordinary a p[er]fection. I believe (sd he) he painted it over 14 times. (2)
There are several versions of the painting from which Charles Beale (the Elder) could have worked, for example one sold at Sotheby's 16 March 1966, lot 20, which may have been the prime version, for it was said to have been formerly in the possession of Antoine Triest's descendants. There is also a drawing in the British Museum series (3), convincingly attributed to Charles Beale the Younger. It would presumably have been copied from the same version of the painting as the miniature. Interestingly, in this drawing, the use of red and black chalks, with some graphite in long, elongated strokes, stumped and rubbed in order to soften the chiaroscuro, relates closely to the technique, despite the difference in medium, of the Lauderdale miniatures. It is closer to them than it is to the copy of the same portrait, the present miniature.
Antoine Triest, 5th Bishop of Bruges, 7th Bishop of Ghent (Gand), was born in 1576 at the Chateau of Ten Walle at Beveren-Waes. He was the son of Philippe, seigneur of Anweghem, by his wife Marie van Royen. He was noticed as a young priest by Ferdinand and Isabella, who made him their Court chaplain and in due course despatched him to Rome to acquire ecclesiastical finish. In 1616/17 he became Bishop of Bruges, where he proved an energetic administrator and improver of the fabric of the Cathedral. In 1620 he was translated to Ghent. He was a man of broad culture, a keen botanist and gardener and an active patron of the arts.
He counted among his friends Rubens, van Dyck, Teniers and their colleagues, and paid generously for the paintings which he commissioned from them. Rubens painted for him the Conversion of St Paul and the Massacre of the Innocents. Van Dyck and Teniers painted his portrait ... he commissioned his own funeral monument from Jerome Duquesnoy for 8000 florins. The Triest mausoleum, finished in 1654, is in the opinion of Kervyn de Volkaersbeke 'the most beautiful work of the national (school of) statuary'. (4)
As well as painting his portrait in large, Van Dyck included Triest among the artists and patrons in the etched and engraved portraits of the Iconographia.
1 Cf. monogram on Cat. No. 148.
2 Vertue IV, p. 168.
3 Croft-Murray and Hulton 1960, no. 112.
4 A-C de Schrevel, in Biographie Nationale, publiée par L'Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, (Brussels 1866 ff), vol. XXV, (1930-2), columns 614-24."
Exhibition History
The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale (Geffrye Museum 1975-1976)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Walpole collected likenesses of famous individuals. 'The collection of miniatures and enamels is, I believe, the largest and finest in any country' wrote Walpole in his guide to Strawberry Hill. [27/03/2003]
Production Note
Signed and dated 1679
Materials
Watercolour
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Bishop; Antoine Triest
Categories
Portraits; Paintings
Collection code
PDP
