DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63299#0075
THE PICTURE GALLERT OF CHARLES 1. 65
patron of the portrait-painters. Janies II. ’s collection contains apparently,
according to the vaguely-worded catalogue of its contents, many items
which we cannot at present identify as having belonged to his father, and
as to the provenance of which we must apparently be content to remain
in uncertainty. At the same time we have no record showing James a
buyer of pictures, apart from the official commissions which, as Lord
High Admiral, he gave to the two Van de Veldes to commemorate naval
victories. The presumption that pictures by Holbein, and others then
deemed to be “ in the manner of Diirer,” could have found their way into
the royal collections after the dispersion and partial reconstitution of that
of Charles I., cannot in any case be regarded as a very strong one. Yet
another picture as to which it may safely be assumed, though the learned
authors of the Hague catalogue are silent on the point, that it was one
of those taken over by William III. and vainly claimed back by his
successor, is the Portrait of Maria Henrietta of England (Princess of
Orange} in a Fancy Dress, No. 479, in the new Hague Catalogue-
formerly given to Hanneman, but now restored to Johannes Mytens.
Her head-dress, ornamented with pearls mixed with feathers, red and
white, and her mantle composed of the plumage of South American birds,
are, according to Sir Augustus Franks, borrowed from the costume of
the natives inhabiting the banks of the Amazon. In King James II.’s
catalogue the picture appears as “ No. 94. The Princess of Orange in a
feathered mantle, half length, by Hanneman." 1
CHAPTER IV
It is time after this too long digression, leading us not exactly away
from our subject but into a sidepath skirting the straight road, to return
to King Charles’s collection, and to cast into the groups to which they
naturally belong some of its most interesting pieces, so far as these can
at present be identified.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The sole work representing this early time is the famous Diptych now
in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House, showing
1 Identified by the present Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Mr. Lionel Cust.
E
patron of the portrait-painters. Janies II. ’s collection contains apparently,
according to the vaguely-worded catalogue of its contents, many items
which we cannot at present identify as having belonged to his father, and
as to the provenance of which we must apparently be content to remain
in uncertainty. At the same time we have no record showing James a
buyer of pictures, apart from the official commissions which, as Lord
High Admiral, he gave to the two Van de Veldes to commemorate naval
victories. The presumption that pictures by Holbein, and others then
deemed to be “ in the manner of Diirer,” could have found their way into
the royal collections after the dispersion and partial reconstitution of that
of Charles I., cannot in any case be regarded as a very strong one. Yet
another picture as to which it may safely be assumed, though the learned
authors of the Hague catalogue are silent on the point, that it was one
of those taken over by William III. and vainly claimed back by his
successor, is the Portrait of Maria Henrietta of England (Princess of
Orange} in a Fancy Dress, No. 479, in the new Hague Catalogue-
formerly given to Hanneman, but now restored to Johannes Mytens.
Her head-dress, ornamented with pearls mixed with feathers, red and
white, and her mantle composed of the plumage of South American birds,
are, according to Sir Augustus Franks, borrowed from the costume of
the natives inhabiting the banks of the Amazon. In King James II.’s
catalogue the picture appears as “ No. 94. The Princess of Orange in a
feathered mantle, half length, by Hanneman." 1
CHAPTER IV
It is time after this too long digression, leading us not exactly away
from our subject but into a sidepath skirting the straight road, to return
to King Charles’s collection, and to cast into the groups to which they
naturally belong some of its most interesting pieces, so far as these can
at present be identified.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The sole work representing this early time is the famous Diptych now
in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House, showing
1 Identified by the present Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Mr. Lionel Cust.
E