Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport (1597-1665), Lord George Goring (1608-1657) and a Page
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1635 - 1640
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1280 x 1510 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486243
Caption
This picture depicts two Royalist Generals. They are also shown in pictures at the National Portrait Gallery and Knole (National Trust), in a different composition, with the poses reversed and without the page. The page in this picture has been heavily restored. It is not very clear why Newport and Goring should have been portrayed together once, let alone twice. What is puzzling about the Knole and Petworth portraits is that both show the sitters as comrades-in-arms, rather than simply as courtiers, as is the case with Van Dyck's other English double portraits. The Petworth portrait also has the additional motif of the page tying on a crimson (and silver) sash of the Royalists. The pictures – and the Petworth one, in particular - possibly allude to their joint preparations for the campaign of 1639. It seems probable that, rather than each asking for an example of the same portrait, they asked for two separate pictures.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport (1597-1665), Lord George Goring (1608-1657) and a Page by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), 1635/40. Three three-quarter-length portraits, standing with Lord Newport on the left-hand side, his body profile right, and his head three-quarters to the right, his right arm in a silver-white sleeve across the centre, the gloved hand resting on a staff. He is wearing a cuirass, with a green sash and a buff coat and scarlet breeches. Lord Goring is full face, three-quartrers left, in cinnamon, with a page fastening his rose silk sash. The two Royalist officers are portrayed just before the Civil War whihc they both survived. The composition of Lord Goring ironically seems to have been inspired by Robert Walker's portrait of Oliver Cromwell in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Provenance
Acquired by the 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668) and reported at Suffolk House in 1652. Valued at £60 in 1671. Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Marks and inscriptions
LORD MOUNTJOY BLOUNT, EARL OF NEWPORT
Makers and roles
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist
References
Remastered - Bosch to Bellotto: An Exhibition of Petworth's European Old Masters (exh cat) (Andrew Loukes) Petworth House, West Sussex, 9 January - 6 March 2016, cat. 46, p. 17