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Lot Essay
The costume dates from the 1620s.
We are grateful to Jean-Claude Boyer for the attribution, given on the basis of photographs.
Déruet returned to his native Nancy after a period of training in Rome, to succeed Jacques Bellange as the most important painter in the duchy of Lorraine. For more than forty years he ran a successful workshop that provided mural decorations, portraits, devotional pictures and secular easel painings for the court, nobility and bourgeoisie. Claude Lorrain worked in his studio in 1625-6.
In Nancy Déruet enjoyed the favour and patronage of Duke Henry II (reg. 1608-24) and then his successor Charles IV (reg. 1624-75). His career even prospered during the French occupation of Lorraine, which began with the capture of Nancy in 1633. Around 1640 he painted the well-known set of fantastic scenes representing the Four Elements (Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts) for Cardinal Richelieu. Equestrian portraits were one of Déreuet's specialities - his portrait of Madame de Saint-Balmont on horseback, much smaller in scale than the present picture, also uses the by then somewhat archaic device of depicting the horse in profile.
The traditional identification of the sitter as George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, probably derives from the friendship between Buckingham and the 1st Duke of Leeds, by whom this painting was presumably acquired. Leeds, then Sir Thomas Osborne, Bt., came under the influence of his neighbour George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in the 1650s. It was Buckingham who brought him to Court following the Restoration, and who was to suggest to King Charles II that Osborne should succeed Lord Anglesey, as Treasurer of the Navy. In 1673 Buckingham was again instrumental in arranging for him to succeed Clifford as Lord High Treasurer of England and Chief Minister to King Charles II, after which he was raised to the peerage, initially as Baron Osborne, subsequently being created Duke of Leeds in 1694.
We are grateful to Jean-Claude Boyer for the attribution, given on the basis of photographs.
Déruet returned to his native Nancy after a period of training in Rome, to succeed Jacques Bellange as the most important painter in the duchy of Lorraine. For more than forty years he ran a successful workshop that provided mural decorations, portraits, devotional pictures and secular easel painings for the court, nobility and bourgeoisie. Claude Lorrain worked in his studio in 1625-6.
In Nancy Déruet enjoyed the favour and patronage of Duke Henry II (reg. 1608-24) and then his successor Charles IV (reg. 1624-75). His career even prospered during the French occupation of Lorraine, which began with the capture of Nancy in 1633. Around 1640 he painted the well-known set of fantastic scenes representing the Four Elements (Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts) for Cardinal Richelieu. Equestrian portraits were one of Déreuet's specialities - his portrait of Madame de Saint-Balmont on horseback, much smaller in scale than the present picture, also uses the by then somewhat archaic device of depicting the horse in profile.
The traditional identification of the sitter as George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, probably derives from the friendship between Buckingham and the 1st Duke of Leeds, by whom this painting was presumably acquired. Leeds, then Sir Thomas Osborne, Bt., came under the influence of his neighbour George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in the 1650s. It was Buckingham who brought him to Court following the Restoration, and who was to suggest to King Charles II that Osborne should succeed Lord Anglesey, as Treasurer of the Navy. In 1673 Buckingham was again instrumental in arranging for him to succeed Clifford as Lord High Treasurer of England and Chief Minister to King Charles II, after which he was raised to the peerage, initially as Baron Osborne, subsequently being created Duke of Leeds in 1694.