Portrait of James Stewart, 1st Duke of Richmond, 4th Duke of Lennox (1612-1655), full-length, wearing the Star and Sash of the Order of the Garter

Details

After Sir Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of James Stewart, 1st Duke of Richmond, 4th Duke of Lennox (1612-1655), full-length, wearing the Star and Sash of the Order of the Garter
with identifying inscription 'DVKE OF RICHMOND' (lower left, on the base of the column)
oil on canvas, unlined
86 ¾ x 51 in. (220.3 x 129.5 cm.)
in a seventeenth-century carved giltwood auricular frame

Provenance

Probably commissioned by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), Clarendon House, London, and by descent (see lot 141 for full provenance).

Literature

Clarendon State Papers, Bodleian MS Clarendon 92, ff 253-254, no. 13.
G. P. Harding, List of Portraits, Pictures in Various Mansions in the United Kingdom, unpublished MS, 1804, II, p. 210.
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, London, 1831, III, p. 474, under no. 837.
Lady T. Lewis, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, London 1852, III, pp. 254, 328-330.
G. F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London, 1854, II, p. 454.
R. Gibson, Catalogue of Portraits in the Collection of the Earl of Clarendon, Wallop, 1977, p. 109, no. 120, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, British Institution, 1861, no. 2.
Plymouth, City Art Gallery, Paintings from the Clarendon Collection, 1954, no. 21.

Brought to you by

Maja Markovic

mmarkovic@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2090

Lot Essay

This portrait of James Stuart, copied for the Earl of Clarendon in the 1660s, follows a portrait painted in around 1638 by van Dyck, now in the collection of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Richmond was a Privy Councillor to Charles I, his cousin, and a devoted Royalist, contributing large sums of money in support of the King during the Civil War. He sat for van Dyck on a number of occasions, along with other members of his family, such as for the celebrated portrait of his two younger brothers, Lord John and Lord Bernard Stuart (London, National Gallery). Here, the Duke is represented wearing the same embroidered black slashed doublet and black cloak (onto which the star of the Order of the Garter is sewn), as he is in van Dyck’s portrait of him in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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