RKD STUDIES

So what about English portrait painting during the reign of James I and Charles I? Did the Dutch court painters establish a precedent? Or did van Dyck’s work put everything else in the shade? Mention must be made here first of Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585-1627), an amateur and dilettante.¹ He clearly absorbed the Dutch portrait style of Michiel van Mierevelt and Jan van Ravesteyn (fig. 38/99) [1]. Traces of Cornelis Ketel can be detected here and there in his work. A number of his self-portraits have survived. One of the best and most vivid is the Self-portrait with Dog, which he must have made around 1625 (collection of the Earl of Verulam, Gorhambury) [2].² The pose is reminiscent of Dirck Hals, while the painterly treatment is very similar to that of Mierevelt. The self-portrait of the artist in the National Portrait Gallery is concise and austere [3], whereas the flowery costume in another one brings Honthorst and van Ravesteyn to mind (collection of Sir Bryan Godfrey-Fausett) [4].³ Hence there are obvious links with Holland in his work, even though the pale cold, watery surface finish is typically English. There is an astounding correspondence between the large kitchen still life attributed to him, which is also in Gorhambury [5], and similar paintings by Cornelis Jacobsz. Delff and Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck.

1
Nathaniel Bacon
Portrait of Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627), c. 1619
Gainsborough (Lincolnshire), Gainsborough Old Hall, inv./cat.nr. GANOHL 74

Portraits by the Scottish painter, George Jamesone (1589/90-1644), were also greatly influenced by the Dutch art of portraiture, as is evident from the signed portrait of Robert Erskine in the collection of the Earl of Buchan [6]. A line can be traced from portraits by Jan van Ravesteyn and Daniel Mijtens to Jamesone’s work.⁴ Even in a late painting (dated 1640; portrait of John Duff, auctioned in London on 18 July 1924, no. 101) [7] his style remains simple and austere, far removed from the affected elegance of van Dyck’s work.⁵ In so far as they were active before 1650, the members of the de Critz family, whose individual hands are hard to distinguish, belong to the group of artists who painted in the Dutch style. Mention has already been made of the portrait of Phineas Pett (painted in 1613, National Portrait Gallery, no. 2035) which is attributed to John de Critz (c. 1551/2-1642) as a work by a successor to Cornelis Ketel.⁶ A portrait of James I (Earl of Verulam, Gorhambury) [8] resembles a formal work by Ravesteyn.⁷ The portraits of Hester and John Tradescant of 1645 (Oxford), which are attributed to Emmanuel DeCritz (1608-1665) are treated in a softer, more painterly manner in the Honthorst style [9-10]. Others approximate more closely to Marcus Gheeraerts II’s Flemish style.⁸

6
attributed to Jan van Ravesteyn
Portrait of a man, probably Colonel Alexander Erskine of Cambuskenneth (died 1640), dated 1627
Edinburgh (city, Scotland), National Galleries Scotland, inv./cat.nr. NG 1973

Some artists, whom we can only touch on here, appear Dutch for the sole reason that they lack van Dyck’s elegance. Among their works are the Shakespeare portraits attributed to the actor Richard Burbage (1568-1619) (Dulwich College and elsewhere)⁹ and pictures by the rare T. Traill (active 1620),¹⁰ Goddard Dunning (c. 1614-1678) (Sentencing of Charles I, not painted until 1677?) [11],¹¹ John Carleton (active 1635-1638) [12] and Edward Bower (1597-1667), whose work is very uneven.¹² Some of the portraits of Charles I at Belvoir Castle and at All Souls College in Oxford [13] are plain and unsubtle,¹³ while others reminiscent of Gerard van Honthorst [14] and Hendrick Pot [15] are more lively and of higher quality. This group of artists also includes the largely unknown John Eykes (a Fleming?), among whose works is a successful portrait of Sir John Vaughan in the style of Mijtens, which once formed part of the Oxenden Collection [16],¹⁴ and a portrait of Robert Kerr, 1st Earl of Ancrum (1578-1654), which is in the possession of Lord Lothian [17]. A pair of portraits dated 1630, hitherto ascribed to Mijtens, was recently reattributed to this minor master [18-19].¹⁵

11
Goddard Dunning after Edward Bower
Portrait of Charles I (1600-1649), dated 1649
Great Britain, private collection The Royal Collection, inv./cat.nr. RCIN 404124

The Dutch style persisted for a long time outside the major cities, as the following portraits of Oxford scholars testify. Around 1630 William Fletcher (died 1644) painted a portrait of Bishop Ussher (Bodleian Library, Oxford) [20] which looks thoroughly Dutch, somewhat like the Leiden portraits by David Bailly. In about 1655 Christopher Simpson had his portrait painted by John Carwarden (active 1636-after 1660) [21] whose style echoes that of Nicolaes Maes, as is apparent from a number of portraits on display at auctions or on offer from art dealers.¹⁶ John Taylor II (c. 1630-1714) is deemed to be the author of a large number of portraits of Oxford professors, all painted during the first half of the century and (like many anonymous works) in the Dutch style.¹⁷ Dutch painters will also have settled in Oxford, although in only one instance is there any documentary evidence to that effect.¹⁸

Of greater artistic quality, generally speaking, were the miniaturists who built on a good English tradition in which the influence of Dutch models is readily apparent. Occasionally they painted small-scale pictures which cannot really be deemed miniatures. Peter Oliver (c. 1589-1647) is roughly on a par with Michiel van Mierevelt [22] and Honthorst,¹⁹ and Samuel Cooper (1608-1672) went to Holland, where he must have studied the works of Gerard ter Borch and Caspar Netscher. A small male portrait that he painted, which is in Frits Lugt’s collection [23], might be taken for a work by Karel Slabbaert, were it not for the monogram.²⁰ His brother, Alexander Cooper (1609-c. 1660), whom Sandrart called the ‘world famous Ceuper’,²¹ was in Amsterdam for a short time after entering the service of Queen Christina of Sweden.

20
William Fletcher
Portrait of James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, dated 1644
Oxford (England), Bodleian Library (University of Oxford), inv./cat.nr. LP 125

21
John Carwarden
Potrait of Christopher Simpson (1602/6–1669), late 1650s
Oxford (England), University of Oxford, inv./cat.nr. FMI.37

It is assumed, or tradition has it, that Cornelius de Neve (1594-1678) and John Hayls (died 1679) studied under Michiel van Mierevelt at The Hague. I could find no indication of this at all in the portraits that I had the opportunity to study (Oxford; National Portrait Gallery) [24-25].²² Van Dyck’s style seems to have had a far greater impact on these two, as it did on many Dutch artists in England. Gilbert Jackson (active c. 1621-1643) was another artist in an in-between position of this kind. It was van Dyck who finally enticed him away from the van Somer-Mijtens tradition, to which he had long adhered. We will ignore the real successors to van Dyck here, although there were many artists in whose work the Mijtens-Honthorst style is combined with touches of van Dyck elegance, which means they occasionally come close to the style of Cornelis Jonson. This can be seen in the works of the rather insipid F. How (Portrait of a Clergyman, collection of the Earl of Leicester [26]; other pictures in Dulwich and the collection of H.H.V. Lane),²³ T. Leigh (active c. 1643-1656) (portrait of the Countess of Derby, auction in London, 3 July 1936, no. 123, et al.) [27] and John Souch (1593/4-1645) of Chester (Manchester, museum) [28]. William Sheppard (c. 1602-after 1660) and William Dobson (1610/11-1646) were artistically more important.²⁴ Both are generally classified as successors to van Dyck, although there are many vestiges of a Dutch/English tradition in their work. Worthy of note in Sheppard’s oeuvre is the portrait in the Proby collection in Elton Hall which was formerly attributed to Mijtens [29]. His portrait of Thomas Killigrew (collection of the Duke of Bedford) [30] has the soft, painterly modelling that is typical of the Dutch school. Dobson is less refined and more vigorous. Early portraits such as that of his wife (Sutton auction, London, 12 February 1926, no. 114) [31] and the portrait of Sir Thomas Browne and his family [32] (collection of the Duke of Devonshire) are reminiscent of de Critz.²⁵ A portrait of Robert Phelips dated 1632 (auction in London, 29 November 1929, no. 38) [33] is still very much in the Dutch style.²⁶ Van Dyck did not arrive in London until 1632. This explains why various works by these two artists from their early period ‘before van Dyck’ can be considered Dutch.

28
John Souch
Portrait of Sir Thomas Aston at the Deathbed of His Wife, dated 1635
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, inv./cat.nr. 1927.150

We have moved a little too far ahead here and there, given that our intention was merely to trace the influence of the first Dutch portrait painters under James I and Charles I. However, there is no disputing that their work did leave a mark on English painting, although, on the other hand, the impact of these portrait painters should not be overestimated, since no Dutch artist ever occupied a position comparable to that of van Dyck at the English court or in English society. The simple fact is that none of them had the talent of a van Dyck. We have already noted that van Dyck’s arrival and success in England resulted in the departure of several Dutch artists from court. Van Dyck outdid all his Dutch predecessors and fellow artists in the sheer number of portraits that he painted in England, to say nothing of the many portraits by his studio, and the copies. Thus, it is not in the least surprising that his style largely dominated in subsequent years. That his influence did not last longer is mainly attributable to the unfavourable political situation that followed the execution of Charles I, which temporarily put an end to all interest in art at court. And van Dyck’s work was first and foremost court art.

33
attributed to Hendrick Pot
Portret van Robert Phelips (1586?-1638), dated 1632
London (England), National Portrait Gallery, inv./cat.nr. 3790