TWO artists, two paintings, the same subject and shared assumptions: in 1608, English miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard accepted a royal commission to paint James I’s second son, Charles; two years later, Hilliard’s best-known pupil, Isaac Oliver, also painted the future Charles I. No more than a passing resemblance links the two images of the sandy-haired prince. At eight and 10 years old, Charles is depicted as a diminutive adult dressed in the costly clothing of his royal rank.
In his portrait of Lady Leicester’s family, Marcus Gheeraerts gives the two sons and four daughters distinct personalities, so the portrait becomes more than a mere statement of dynastic security
Some three decades earlier, in 1574, Arnold Bronckhorst had executed a similar portrait of Charles’s father: James VI of Scotland dressed for hawking aged eight. A bird of prey rests on his gauntleted hand, on his head is a plumed cap; only a determined expression on the pale, childish face conveys intimations of character. As are Hilliard and Oliver’s miniatures and the gold-leaf-enriched, full-length portrait of five-year-old Charles that Robert Peake had painted early in 1605, now in Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bronckhorst’s image is more concerned with status than psychological insight or private identity.
And thus it had been for centuries. Historically, children’s portraiture—one of the focuses of the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters this year —objectified children as reflections of the adult world of their parents. Mostly confined to royal and noble subjects, these paintings presented their sitters to the viewer as embodiments of grown-up ambition: links in a genetic chain, the latest incarnation of dynastic aspiration.
Denne historien er fra May 05, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 05, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
