Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lübeck 1646-1723 London)

Portrait of King William III (1650-1702), full-length, in robes of state, beside a table with the crown and orb; and Portrait of Queen Mary II (1662-1694), full-length, in robes of state, by a draped table on a terrace

Details

Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lübeck 1646-1723 London)
Portrait of King William III (1650-1702), full-length, in robes of state, beside a table with the crown and orb; and Portrait of Queen Mary II (1662-1694), full-length, in robes of state, by a draped table on a terrace
oil on canvas
96 x 58 in. (243.8 x 147.3 cm.) (2)

Provenance

(Presumably) James, Earl of Fife, Duff House, Banffshire, or Rothemay House, and by descent to
Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, K.G., K.T., G.C.V.O., Duff House, Banffshire; his sale, Christie's London, 7 June 1907, lot 68 and 71 respectively, as 'Sir G. Kneller' (30 gns. and 45 gns. to Cohen).
Acquired from Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, in 1913, by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray.

Literature

(possibly) Catalogue of the Portraits & Pictures in the Different Houses belonging to James Earl of Fife, privately printed, 1807, where possibly the portrait of King William III recorded at Duff House [no 27: Large Drawing- Room] or p. 75, that recorded at Rothemay House [no. 2: Dining-Room].
Cowdray Park Catalogue, London, 1919, p. 5, no. 18, and p. 6, no. 19 as 'Sir Godfrey Kneller' (in the Buck Hall).
C. Anson, A Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Collection of The Viscount Cowdray, London, 1971, p. 3, nos. 11 and 12, as 'Sir Godfrey Kneller' (in the Buck Hall).
J. Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery, Later Stuart Portraits 1685-1714, London, 2009, p. 331, in which the portrait of King William III recorded as a version of the Windsor portrait.

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Lot Essay

These portraits relate to Kneller's official state portraits of King William III and Queen Mary II now at Windsor Castle (for which see O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 1963, pp. 142-4, nos. 335 and 338, II, pls. 335 and 338). King William III and Queen Mary are recorded as having sat to Kneller at Kensington Palace on the 17th and 20th March 1690. Kneller's finished full-length portraits of the King and Queen, which are perhaps those mentioned in an order of 16 July 1691 for a payment to Kneller of £200 for portraits of the King and two of the Queen, were hanging in the Council Chamber at Kensington Palace by 1697 and remained there until they were sent to Windsor Castle in 1795. These portraits were almost immediately regarded as the approved official likenesses of William and his Queen, and Kneller and and his studio were required to produce numerous copies of them for despatch to the King's ministers, friends, representatives abroad and foreign sovereigns and governments. Among the collections in which other paired copies are recorded are those at Hatfield, Narford, Penshurst, Grimsthorpe and Welbeck.

Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, who was born in Edinburgh and was the grandson of the 3rd Earl of Fife, was the husband of Princess Louise of Wales, the eldest daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. He was created the Duke of Fife in 1900. The Duke of Fife accumulated a considerable collection of historical portraits.

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