Lot 103
103
FLEMISH SCHOOL, LATE 16TH CENTURY
FLEMISH SCHOOL, LATE 16TH CENTURY
FLEMISH SCHOOL, LATE 16TH CENTURY
2 More
This lot has been imported from outside of the UK … Read more PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
FLEMISH SCHOOL, LATE 16TH CENTURY

Portrait of Karl II, Count von Mansfeld zu Friedeburg (1543-1595), half-length, in armour, holding a commander's baton

Details
FLEMISH SCHOOL, LATE 16TH CENTURY
Portrait of Karl II, Count von Mansfeld zu Friedeburg (1543-1595), half-length, in armour, holding a commander's baton
oil on canvas
29 x 20 ½ in. (73.6 x 52.1 cm.)
Provenance
(Possibly) Mr. [J or T] Norman, Plymouth Dock, Plymouth, Devon; Hickman, London, 16 May 1818, lot 26a, as 'Sancheo Coello, Portrait of the Duke d'Alba', where possibly acquired by the following,
with Urbino Pizzetta, Foley Place, London; Christie's, London, 26 May 1820, lot 89, as 'Sanchez Coello, Portrait of the Duke of Alva', where unsold and possibly subsequently acquired privately by the following,
William Beckford (1760-1844), Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire; Christie's, Fonthill Abbey, 16 October 1822 [=7th day], lot 31, as 'Coello, Portrait of the Duke of Alva in a Cuirass, and with a Mareschal's Baton – very highly finished', the entire contents of the sale were sold by private treaty with the house prior to the auction to,
John Farquhar (1751-1826), merchant and entrepreneur, Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, where listed in the Eastern Yellow Drawing Room; Phillips, on the premises, 10 October 1823 [=24th day], lot 26, as 'Coello [amended to 'Merevelt' in one copy of the catalogue], Portrait of the Duke of Alva in a Cuirass, and with a Mareschal's Baton,- highly finished’, lot 73 (30 gns. to John Swabey, on behalf of the following),
William Beckford (1760-1844), Lansdown Tower, Bath, hung in the back drawing room, and by inheritance to his son-in-law,
William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton, 9th Duke of Brandon, 2nd Duke of Châtelherault (1845-1895), Hamilton Palace, South Lanarkshire; Christie's, London, 8 July 1882 [=10th day], lot 1141, as 'Coello, Portrait of the Duke of Alva, in white dress and ruff, and partly-gilt breastplate, holding a baton in his right hand' (400 gns. to Agnew on behalf of the following),
Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, 7th Bt. of Greenock and Blackhall (1826-1903), and by descent at Fonthill, through his third son,
Walter Richard Shaw-Stewart (1861-1934), and the latter's second daughter,
Irene Beatrice (1901-1971), wife of Brigadier Reginald Gordon Ward Rimington (1891-1941), and by descent to their son,
Niel Rimington (1928-2009); (†) Christie's, London, 6 July 2010, lot 25.
Exhibited
New York, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture; and London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, 18 October 2001-4 April 2002, no. 130, as 'Anonymous, possibly Flemish' (entry by J. Chapel).
Special notice
This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Sale room notice
We are grateful to Monsieur Benoît Reiter for identifying the sitter as comte Charles de Mansfeld (1543-1595), eldest son of comte Pierre-Ernest de Mansfeld (1517-1604).

Brought to you by

Lucy Speelman
Lucy Speelman Junior Specialist, Head of Part II
+44 207 752 3074

Lot Essay


This portrait of a military leader, in a richly decorated cuirass and grasping a commander's baton, has been identified in the past as a portrait of the Duke of Alba, and attributed to Alonso Sánchez Coello (1531/2-1588). Already in 1823 the annotator of a copy of the Phillips Fonthill sale catalogue saw in it the hand of a Netherlandish artist, proposing an attribution to Michiel van Mierevelt, who indeed painted foreign dignitaries as well as Dutch sitters. Another proposed identity for the sitter was François Le Vasseur, seigneur de Moriensart and 9th Greffier of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

More recently, a most compelling argument for the sitter's identity has emerged. Monsieur Benoît Reiter, to whom we are grateful, has pointed out a striking connection with a double portrait of Karl II, Count von Mansfeld zu Friedeburg (1543-1595), and his brother Octavien in the Prado collection (on deposit at the Museo de Salamanca). Karl von Mansfeld was born in present-day Luxembourg, eldest son to Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort (1517-1604), Governor of the Spanish Netherlands and Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and his first wife Margaretha van Brederode (c.1520-1554).

Karl von Mansfeld fought under Philip II of Spain, and was appointed a general and admiral in the navy of the Spanish Netherlands. He was then dispatched to Hungary where he participated in the siege of Esztergom in 1595 during the Long War; he died shortly thereafter, probably of his wounds, in Komárom.

The B-shaped symbol which appears several times on the sitter’s armour is a briquette, one of the emblems of the Order of the Golden Fleece, depicted here with the saltire cross of Saint Andrew, patron saint of the order; the red of his sash is also representative of the Order as its official colour. In 2010 it was noted by Jan Peeters that the decoration on the sitter's breastplate is similar to that in the Portrait of Phillip II by Anthonis Mor van Dashorst (Utrecht 1516/20-?1576 Antwerp), painted in 1557 on the occasion of the Battle of St. Quintin (Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial). The King's breastplate shows the same emblem of a saltire cross flanked by B-shaped briquettes, with the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception at the centre.

A note on the provenance:
Famed collector William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, probably acquired the picture in 1820 from the London-based Italian dealer Urbino Pizzetta, from whom he had also purchased the Madonna and Child by Perugino now in the National Gallery, London. However, it is also known that Beckford had met the 13th duquesa de Alba, Goya's great patroness, in 1787, and it has been suggested that alternatively he may have acquired this picture directly from the Alba collection, as an Alba provenance may explain the subsequent misidentification of the sitter; or indeed that the portrait may have been amongst the works sold by the heirs of the 13th duquesa in 1808 and brought to England by the dealer William Buchanan in 1813 (Chapel, loc. cit.).

More from Old Masters Part II

View All
View All