Exhibition Brochure | Brochure Images | Exhibition Information17 September 2000 - 19 February 2001
Devotional Portraits | Political Portraits: 1 | 2 | Intimate Image: England
Intimate Image: France | Dutch Contribution
Political
Portraits (continued)
Most seventeenth-century painted miniatures of English royalty, including
John Hoskins the Elder's Queen Henrietta Maria, served as a sign
of political allegiance. This tradition had become well established during
the reign of Elizabeth I: courtiers carried her portrait as a sign of
devotion to the Virgin Queen. Hoskins' elegant portrayal of Henrietta
Maria, the wife of King Charles I, reflects the influence of Anthony van
Dyck, who had come to the English court in 1632.
While
English sovereigns relied primarily on the power of the portrait likeness to
achieve their political ends, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French kings
regularly had themselves portrayed with the attributes of Olympian gods. Humanistic
culture, with its celebration of Greek and Roman mythology, was more widespread
in France than in England. France's Henry IV, for example, liked to be portrayed
as Mars, god of war, or as Jupiter, the gods' confident ruler. A statuette datable
to the years just before 1610, when Henry was assassinated, depicts the king
in this later guise. Even more than the presence of Jupiter's powerful eagle
at his feet, Henry's fit soldier's body and dignified bearing convey the image
of invulnerability that the king hoped to project to his contemporaries.
Portraits
of all sizes were in great demand at the seventeenth-century court of King Louis
XIV as fawning demonstrations of loyalty. Some portraits continued to play a
political role after the king's death; for instance, a century after Louis
XIV was painted by the Swiss-born Jean Petitot, the portrait was incorporated
into a splendid tortoiseshell and gold snuffbox. During the political upheavals
of the late eighteenth century, small enamel portraits of Louis XIV were prized
by monarchists, and a vogue developed for incorporating them into luxury items
of personal use.
Intimate Image: France | Dutch Contribution