Unknown Man, perhaps Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury  thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Portrait Miniatures, Room 90a, The International Music and Art Foundation Gallery

Unknown Man, perhaps Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury

Portrait Miniature
1666-1670 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Portrait, turned to right and looking to front. Features in a firm free hatch of sanguine and brown shadowed with blue-grey, the flesh blended with white over a creamy carnation; the hair in brown washes, hatched with darker colour with much pale gouache heightening; the costume in gouache washes, hatched and heightened with metallic gold and silver decoration; plain opaque brown wash background, blending to the right into a dark sky and clouds in various grey washes; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleUnknown Man, perhaps Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on vellum, put down on a leaf from a table book in a gilt locket
Brief description
Portrait minaiture of an unknown man, perhaps Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury, in a gilt locket. Watercolour on vellum, by Samuel Cooper, 1666-1670. Oval gilt copper locket with wire spirals, supplied by E J Shewry, 1968.
Physical description
Portrait, turned to right and looking to front. Features in a firm free hatch of sanguine and brown shadowed with blue-grey, the flesh blended with white over a creamy carnation; the hair in brown washes, hatched with darker colour with much pale gouache heightening; the costume in gouache washes, hatched and heightened with metallic gold and silver decoration; plain opaque brown wash background, blending to the right into a dark sky and clouds in various grey washes; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book.
Dimensions
  • Height: 83.5mm
  • Width: 66mm
Content description
Portrait miniature of a man with long hair, turned to the right.
Styles
Production typeUnique
Object history
Provenance: Notionally (but see below) in the possession of the Earls of Shaftesbury at St Giles near Cranborne, Dorset; sold to Samuel Addington c.1860, and by him to J Heywood Hawkins c.1865; C HT Hawkins, his sale, Christie's 10-17 May 1904, lot 916 (as Duke of Monmouth 'in the manner of Cooper but signed P.c.') , bt Gall, 71 gns, and sold to J Pierpont Morgan. Certainly at his sale, Christie's 24 June 1935, lot 25 (the entry copied from Williamson 1906-8), bt Spink, 735 gns, on behalf of Queen Mary who gave it to George V for the Royal Collection at Windsor; sold 1968 by private treaty with the Museum.
Subject depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings Accessions 1968 London: HMSO, 1969
  • Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Collection
Accession number
P.66-1968

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Record createdJuly 3, 2003
Record URL
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