An important miniature of a gentleman, facing left in black doublet and cloak with high collar, high standing white ruff, tall black hat, beard and moustache; blue background

Details

NICHOLAS HILLIARD (1547-1619)
An important miniature of a gentleman, facing left in black doublet and cloak with high collar, high standing white ruff, tall black hat, beard and moustache; blue background
inscribed and dated in gold 'An D[ni].1577 < .' (upper left) and 'Ætatis Suæ 52:' (upper right)
on vellum
oval, 2 1/16 in. (52 mm.) high, gilt-metal mount within moulded tortoiseshell frame with pierced silver hanging bow

Provenance

Edouard Warneck, Paris; his sale, part IV, Leo Schidlof's Kunstauktionhaus, Vienna, 18 November 1926, lot 26.
Friedrich Neuburg, Litomerice.
Thomas Hugh Cobb.
Bequeathed to Sir Karl T. Parker.
Sir Karl T. Parker (in 1947).
Anonymous sale (Sir Karl T. Parker); Sotheby's, London, 5 December 1955, lot 78 (£620 to Illingworth).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 December 1967, lot 125.

Literature

E. Auerbach, Nicholas Hilliard, London, 1961, pp. 71-72 ('The face is full of determined expression and the portrait shows the same clear and concentrated treatment'), p. 293 no. 32, illustrated pl. 32, p. 72.
L. Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe, Graz, 1964, I, p. 359 (praised twice as 'very good').
J. Murdoch et al., The English Miniature, New Haven/London, 1981, p. 53.
R. Strong, The English Renaissance Miniature, London, 1983, pp. 80, 194 note 48.
M. Edmond, Hilliard and Oliver - The lives and works of two great miniaturists, London, 1983, pp. 66, 198.

Exhibited

London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Nicholas Hilliard 1547-1947, 1947, no. 12, p. 26, illustrated pl. VI.
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Philip Sidney Exhibition, 1954.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Nicholas Hilliard & Isaac Oliver, 1971, no. 12, illustrated.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Auerbach (op.cit., p. 70) points out that 'Since Hilliard stayed in France from autumn 1576 to at least autumn 1578 and apparently did not return to England during these two years, it is probable that the miniatures dated 1577 and 1578 were painted abroad.' Strong (op. cit., p. 80) confirms that the present miniature is one of the 'so few miniatures that can certainly be assigned to his French period', comprising the celebrated small self-portrait, the portraits of Marguerite de Valois, her brother the Duc d'Anjou and Francis Bacon, whilst those of his wife Alice Hilliard née Brandon (1578) and his father Richard Hilliard (1577?) may have been painted in England.
The present portrait is also one of, if not the first miniature of oval shape. Strong (op. cit., p. 76) was the first to comment on the change of shape of the portrait miniature: 'All Hilliard's miniatures up until 1577 are round. Few after that date are. This radical change, to which he was to adhere for the rest of his career and which was to be adopted by his successors, must have come as a result of seeing miniatures by Clouet.'

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