Continental European before 1800, Dress and Textiles 32 Who painted this portrait of two children?

Portrait of Two Children
Topic: Artist

This looks like it could be by Corneille de Lyon, however the date 1580 would be a bit late for him.

Laura Schwendinger, Entry reviewed by Art UK

32 comments

Ian Welland,

Could be El Greco. Looks very Spanish to me.

Jacinto Regalado,

They must be siblings. The picture looks more Dutch or Flemish to me. This is not El Greco's sort of subject, and it is not in his style.

Elisabeth Lee,

Stylistically it appears Northern European. Tiles on the floor appear in Dutch portraits and the white sleeves on the girl is found in portraits of Augusta of Denmark and Sofia Duchess of Saxe-Lauenberg. These appear to be noble not royal children. It is also similar to this unknown woman 1580 by Dutch painter Anthonie Blocklandt.

1 attachment
Tim Williams,

Quite close to Daniel van den Queborn.

Jacinto Regalado,

The fact the boy is holding a halberd suggests his father may have been a military man and intended his son to pursue a military career.

Curiously, the question not being asked is: 'Who are the sitters in this double portrait?' While the answer to that would be interesting in any case, it could provide a clue as to authorship or at least the place of production.

This painting is one of a group of portraits purchased from the Earl of Plymouth, in 1986 (?), for St Fagans Castle - from the 1940s one of several sites constituting the National Museum of Wales. St Fagans had been a seat of the Earls of Plymouth, whose line of descent goes back through three creations of the earldom to the Barons Windsor: Andrew Windsor had been created 1st Baron in 1529. I suggest that the (presumed) brother and sister in the present portrait, dated 1580, might have some connection with the Windsor family. Frederick Windsor was 4th Baron from 1574 to 1585.

Jacinto Regalado,

If the children were to be British, then the most likely attribution would be someone belonging to the Anglo-Dutch School. That is possible, but I tend to favor this is Dutch picture.

Howard Jones,

Art UK describes the painting as 'on canvas ?' The vertical lines or splits suggest oil on panel but the vertical lines look unusually straight for 16th century wood. Once again perhaps the view of the back of the painting might be helpful.

Adri Mackor,

As an archival scientist (mostly), I have tried to approach this problem from another point of view. The children are a boy of 5, therefore born in ca. 1575 and a girl of 3, born ca. 1577. They are apparently of high social class, so I went looking for the highest possible: crown prince Diego Félix of Asturia (1575-1582) who is portrayed here as the bearer of arms, in a period in which his father Philip II, considered him as the future king of Portugal. I do not know who the girl is, but I noted that she is carrying some flowers. Therefore she may be brought forward as the future (unknown) bride of the crown prince?
"Si non e vero, e bene trovato", I think

Osmund Bullock,

I'm pretty sure it's on panel, Howard. If the Collection had a budget for such things (which I'm sure they don't), an analysis of the timber might indicate whether it's likely of British origin or not.

The beaded ?caul (and hairstyle) of the little girl is remarkably similar to those worn by the sisters in Isaac Oliver's well-known pair of slightly later (1590) miniatures at the V&A ( https://bit.ly/3tSpL8h ). Sadly, nothing is known of the two sisters' identity or even status; but it's perhaps worth noting that though Oliver was born in France, and well-connected with the Continent, I don't think he ever worked outside England...but then many fashions were much the same on both sides of the North Sea.

EDIT: Ah yes - to reinforce the last point, see https://bit.ly/2RZhtNH

Jacob Simon,

Yes, the picture appears to be on panel, as Howard and Osmund suggest. However the picture does not appear to be British. Timber analysis would be very unlikely to be helpful vis-a-vis a British origin because most panels used for painting in Britain were imported.

Jacinto Regalado,

The picture looks like a continental work. In reference to Adri's comment, below is a portrait of the one-time heir of Philip II, Diego, Prince of Asturias (the Spanish equivalent of Prince of Wales), at the age of 2:

https://bit.ly/3sQltwD

However, our picture does not look like Spanish royal portraiture of the period, which is typically stiffer and more formal. Ours looks a little too "homey" and relatively relaxed (i.e., more Dutch).

Osmund Bullock,

Thanks for the snippet about imported panels, Jacob - I had a feeling that might be so even as I wrote my wrote my daft comment, but was too lazy to follow it up.

Louis Musgrove,

I think Adri has got something.I have looked at other portraits of Philip II's children and I detect some similarity. If so who would have been a court painter in 1580?? Unfortunately Antonis Mor died in 1577 .Alonso Coello or Sofonisba Anguissola perhaps????.

However, if we were to assume (as suggested by Adri and Louis) that the double portrait showed the Infante Diego Felix when he was ‘breeched’ aged 5 in 1580, he should be wearing a pair of hose similar in style to those worn by his father Philip II as seen in the portrait of the King c. 1580 in London’s National Portrait Gallery as here https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw04978/Philip-II-King-of-Spain, i.e. hose worn well above his knee. But the boy in the Earl of Plymouth’s portrait wears ballooning pantaloons to below his knee. The girl’s costume, especially her head-dress and ruff also do not appear similar to those worn by Diego’s sisters the Infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia & Catalina Micaela of c.1575 in the Prado portrait by Alonso Sanchez Coelllo https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-works?searchObras=infantas isabel clara eugenia and catalina micaela.
Therefore, I don’t think we are looking at children from the Spanish royal family. Instead I suggest they are more likely to be from a Dutch or Flemish family, but I don’t know enough about Dutch and Flemish dress of the period to confirm that.
It might also be a good idea as suggested by Richard Green to search into the antecedents of the Earl of Plymouth and their collections.

Jacinto Regalado,

I quite agree, Xanthe. The girl's dress is certainly not that of a Spanish royal child of the period.

Elisabeth Lee,

I do like Tim's suggestion of Daniel van den Queborn, who did a number of children's portraits, including of the House of Orange. They tend to stand on tile floors. Perhaps he also did portraits of noble children or someone in his circle did.

Jacob Simon,

It'd be good if Tim or Elisabeth could signal firmly identified examples of Daniel van den Queborn's children's portraits. Our double portrait seems rather different to those illustrated in Edward Town and Jessica David, "Daniel van den Queborn, painter to the House of Orange and its English allies in the Netherlands" in Lucy Wrapson et al. (eds), Migrants: Arts, Artists, Materials and Ideas Crossing Borders, 2019.

Jacinto Regalado,

Queborn is surely not the only painter who produced such pictures during the period in question in the Low Countries. No doubt there are other candidates, though I am not an expert in the field. Ideally, we will get Dutch or Belgian input.

Tim Williams,

Yes there are other painters Jacinto, I merely intimated it was close to his work.

https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/images/record?filters[kunstenaar]=Queborn,+Daniël+van+den&query;=&start=3

Two children could fit the ages are the children of Elisabeth of Nassau-Dillenburg and Count Conrad of Solms-Braunfels: Philip born 1575 and Juliana born 1578 (Aetatis Suae can mean both their actual age in that year or the year of their age).

Though I'm sure there are other contenders.

Jacinto Regalado,

They are highly likely to be noble children. There was, of course, no actual Dutch royalty in 1580, even if one were to consider a stadtholder the equivalent of a king.

Jacinto Regalado,

The couple mentioned by Tim above had seven living children in 1580 (excluding one who was born and died that year). Of those seven, Philip and Juliana were the two youngest. I am not familiar with Dutch customs regarding portraits of noble children when there were many siblings, a probably common occurrence.

Jacinto Regalado,

Perhaps, by 1580, the five older siblings had all had portraits painted and these two had not, so it was their turn, so to speak.

Jacinto Regalado,

Tim, in case my comment about Queborn was misinterpreted, I did not mean to imply that you thought he was the definitive choice, let alone the only possible one. I was responding to Jacob's comment immediately preceding mine.

Kristof Van Pottelbergh,

Stylistically it seems related to the Bruges painters around 1580: the Claeissens family, the Pourbus family.
The bouquet of flowers that the girl is showing/offering: are these carnations? Carnations could mean that these (young) children are engaged?

Jacinto Regalado,

The red-pink flowers could be carnations; the orange one is probably not.

Marcie Doran,

I believe the artist of this work might be the Dutch painter Cornelis Ketel (1548 – 1616).

Please find below the link to a double portrait from 1604. Of course they are different children but there are many similarities with our picture including: the intricate pattern in the marble tile floor, the size of the sitters, the girl’s caul, the boy’s pantaloons, red hose and black shoes, the girl’s black dress with non-black sleeves, and the way the children are portrayed holding objects.

“Double Portrait of a Brother and Sister”
Cornelis Ketel
c. 1604
On Wikipedia at: https://tinyurl.com/4xrnsvwp

I have attached a composite, for easier comparison.

Tim Williams,

According to the RKD, the attribution of Ketel to the Antwerp painting was rejected in 2000.

Jacinto Regalado,

To me, nothing about this picture looks English, but it definitely looks Dutch/Flemish.

Please support your comments with evidence or arguments.

jpg, png, pdf, doc, xls (max 6MB)
Drop your files here
Attach a file Start uploading
 

Sign in

By signing in you agree to the Terms & Conditions, which includes our use of cookies.