Charles Beale 'the Elder'
Portrait Miniature
1664 (painted)
1664 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This portrait by Thomas Flatman of his close friend Charles Beale, husband of the artist Mary Beale and father of the miniature painter Charles Beale Jr, is typical of Flatman's distinctive painting technique. His brushwork is often thought of as dry and scratchy, and the overall effect unsympathetic and harsh. This has often been interpreted as a failure of technique--using brushes that were too fine--and a reflection of his semi-amateur rather than professional status as a miniaturist.
Flatman was a lawyer and poet and was not dependent on his art for a living. However, he may have intended the effect, deliberately coarsening his brushstrokes to give a scratched, quick result. The purpose would have been to avoid the professional norm of smooth and blended brushwork and the impression of a lingering vanity given by more finished products. Flatman was in effect drawing attention to the techniques and materials of his art, deliberately aiming for a form of rough, graphic honesty. This portrait of Beale is typical of Flatman's unflattering style, in which he neither ignores nor disguises Beale's three warts.
The miniature is inscribed on the back, giving it a date of 1660. The miniature is however also dated on the front, lower left, 1664. It is catalogue number 117 in John Murdoch “Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum” (1997). (Murdoch incorrectly notes the date on the front as "1660").
Flatman was a lawyer and poet and was not dependent on his art for a living. However, he may have intended the effect, deliberately coarsening his brushstrokes to give a scratched, quick result. The purpose would have been to avoid the professional norm of smooth and blended brushwork and the impression of a lingering vanity given by more finished products. Flatman was in effect drawing attention to the techniques and materials of his art, deliberately aiming for a form of rough, graphic honesty. This portrait of Beale is typical of Flatman's unflattering style, in which he neither ignores nor disguises Beale's three warts.
The miniature is inscribed on the back, giving it a date of 1660. The miniature is however also dated on the front, lower left, 1664. It is catalogue number 117 in John Murdoch “Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum” (1997). (Murdoch incorrectly notes the date on the front as "1660").
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Charles Beale 'the Elder' (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book |
| Brief description | Portrait miniature of Charles Beale the elder, watercolour on vellum by Thomas Flatman, 1660. |
| Physical description | Portrait of a man, half-length, facing front. Features in long, firm hatches of brown and sanguine, with blue and grey in the shadows and with white heightening, on a warm, creamy carnation ground; hair in brown wash, hatched and lined in darker colours and with pale gouache for the lights; collar in pale grey wash, modelled in darker grey and white; robe in dark grey wash, modelled in black and with pale grey lights; background to the left a pale greenish-brown stippled sparely with dark brown, and to the right a sky in washes of blue, grey, white and ochre; on vellum put down on a leaf from a table-book. Frame: Nineteenth- or twentieth-century silver-gilt locket with convex back and rounded sides, the shallowly convex glass held in a bezel by its bevelled edge; the hanger of teardrop form made from wire of triangular section, bifurcating and turning back into reversed loops on each side of the hanger before going into diminishing spirals of seven turns. Engraved on the back with a not wholly accurate transcription of the dedication above, including a reading of the date as 1668. A label of the ]oseph Collection inscribed: <i>26/ Thomas Flatman/portrait of himself.</i> |
| Dimensions |
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| Content description | Portrait of a man with a landscape in the right background. |
| Styles | |
| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Credit line | Given by Mrs Emma Joseph |
| Object history | Provenance: Acquired by S S Joseph from an unrecorded source; Mrs Emma Joseph, his widow, by whom presented to the Museum, May 1941. |
| Production | The miniature is inscribed on the back, giving it a date of 1660. The miniature is however also dated on the front, lower left, 1664. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | This portrait by Thomas Flatman of his close friend Charles Beale, husband of the artist Mary Beale and father of the miniature painter Charles Beale Jr, is typical of Flatman's distinctive painting technique. His brushwork is often thought of as dry and scratchy, and the overall effect unsympathetic and harsh. This has often been interpreted as a failure of technique--using brushes that were too fine--and a reflection of his semi-amateur rather than professional status as a miniaturist. Flatman was a lawyer and poet and was not dependent on his art for a living. However, he may have intended the effect, deliberately coarsening his brushstrokes to give a scratched, quick result. The purpose would have been to avoid the professional norm of smooth and blended brushwork and the impression of a lingering vanity given by more finished products. Flatman was in effect drawing attention to the techniques and materials of his art, deliberately aiming for a form of rough, graphic honesty. This portrait of Beale is typical of Flatman's unflattering style, in which he neither ignores nor disguises Beale's three warts. The miniature is inscribed on the back, giving it a date of 1660. The miniature is however also dated on the front, lower left, 1664. It is catalogue number 117 in John Murdoch “Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum” (1997). (Murdoch incorrectly notes the date on the front as "1660"). |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | P.13-1941 |
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| Record created | February 24, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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