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Lot Essay
Dr. Margret Klinge, in a letter of authenticity dated 10 August 1988, dates this picture to the 1650s.
Recorded by Knapton in the list of pictures at Althorp at the death of the Hon. John Spencer in 1746, this work is described by Garlick, loc. cit., as having come to Althorp through the Sunderland collection, formed for the most part by Robert, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1641-1702). Lord Sunderland had an active career as a diplomat, serving as envoy to Madrid in 1671, in 1672 as Ambassador Extraordinary to Paris, plenipotentiary to Cologne in 1673 and again Ambassador Extraordinary to Paris in 1678. During the course of his career, he acquired a number of important works to add to the relatively modest collection of family portraits that he had inherited at Althorp. Amongst his acquisitions were Holbein's Portrait of King Henry VIII (Thyssen Collection), Rubens' David sacrificing before the Ark (Washington, D.C., National Gallery), Bourdon's Deposition and a Martyrdom of Saint Andrew by Lebrun (both Althorp). Through inheritance and marriage he acquired further works by Van Dyck, including the famous double portrait of George, Lord Digby and William, Lord Russell (Althorp) and the Allegorical portrait of Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton as Fortune (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum). Unfortunately no inventory survives from Sunderland's time, and for the most part the exact moment when the majority of his pictures entered the collection is unknown. John Evelyn, visiting the Earl's London house, admired 'the Venus and Adonis of Titian...Moses and the burning bush of Bassano, and several other pieces of the best masters', and described Althorp in 1688 as a palace 'built of brick and freestone, balustred & a la moderne... such as may become a greate prince' (Diary, London, 1818, reprinted, E.S. de Beer, ed., Oxford, 1955, iv, pp. 403-4 and 594).
Lord Sunderland's great-grandson, John, 1st Earl Spencer (1734-1783), further increased the collection, in part through his father's inheritance, in 1744, of much of the collection of his grandmother, the redoubtable Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. From 1755 he employed John Vardy to build Spencer House in London, commissioning James 'Athenian' Stuart in 1758 to provide alternatives to Vardy's proposed Palladian interiors, creating what is today the most important surviving eighteenth-century London town house. The pictures that Lord Spencer acquired for his residences at Althorp and Spencer House included Sacchi's Marc Antonio Pasqualini (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Rosa's Incantation of Witches (London, National Gallery) and Guercino's Samian Sibyl and King David (both Althorp). He also commissioned a remarkable collection of British pictures including several portraits by Reynolds, most notably the Georgiana, Countess Spencer and Lady Georgiana Spencer, later Duchess of Devonshire, as well as portraits by Gainsborough and Batoni and works by Stubbs, that remain almost entirely in the collection at Althorp.
Recorded by Knapton in the list of pictures at Althorp at the death of the Hon. John Spencer in 1746, this work is described by Garlick, loc. cit., as having come to Althorp through the Sunderland collection, formed for the most part by Robert, 2nd Earl of Sunderland (1641-1702). Lord Sunderland had an active career as a diplomat, serving as envoy to Madrid in 1671, in 1672 as Ambassador Extraordinary to Paris, plenipotentiary to Cologne in 1673 and again Ambassador Extraordinary to Paris in 1678. During the course of his career, he acquired a number of important works to add to the relatively modest collection of family portraits that he had inherited at Althorp. Amongst his acquisitions were Holbein's Portrait of King Henry VIII (Thyssen Collection), Rubens' David sacrificing before the Ark (Washington, D.C., National Gallery), Bourdon's Deposition and a Martyrdom of Saint Andrew by Lebrun (both Althorp). Through inheritance and marriage he acquired further works by Van Dyck, including the famous double portrait of George, Lord Digby and William, Lord Russell (Althorp) and the Allegorical portrait of Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton as Fortune (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum). Unfortunately no inventory survives from Sunderland's time, and for the most part the exact moment when the majority of his pictures entered the collection is unknown. John Evelyn, visiting the Earl's London house, admired 'the Venus and Adonis of Titian...Moses and the burning bush of Bassano, and several other pieces of the best masters', and described Althorp in 1688 as a palace 'built of brick and freestone, balustred & a la moderne... such as may become a greate prince' (Diary, London, 1818, reprinted, E.S. de Beer, ed., Oxford, 1955, iv, pp. 403-4 and 594).
Lord Sunderland's great-grandson, John, 1st Earl Spencer (1734-1783), further increased the collection, in part through his father's inheritance, in 1744, of much of the collection of his grandmother, the redoubtable Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. From 1755 he employed John Vardy to build Spencer House in London, commissioning James 'Athenian' Stuart in 1758 to provide alternatives to Vardy's proposed Palladian interiors, creating what is today the most important surviving eighteenth-century London town house. The pictures that Lord Spencer acquired for his residences at Althorp and Spencer House included Sacchi's Marc Antonio Pasqualini (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Rosa's Incantation of Witches (London, National Gallery) and Guercino's Samian Sibyl and King David (both Althorp). He also commissioned a remarkable collection of British pictures including several portraits by Reynolds, most notably the Georgiana, Countess Spencer and Lady Georgiana Spencer, later Duchess of Devonshire, as well as portraits by Gainsborough and Batoni and works by Stubbs, that remain almost entirely in the collection at Althorp.