An Unknown Man
studio of Rogier van der Weyden (Tournai c.1399 – Brussels 1464)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1460 - 1469
Materials
Oil on panel (oak)
Measurements
200 x 152 mm (7 7/8 x 6 in)
Place of origin
Netherlands
Order this imageCollection
Upton House, Warwickshire
NT 446772
Caption
This panel was probably the right wing of a diptych, the other being a painting of the ‘Madonna and Child’. The attribution to Van der Weyden is still a matter of some debate. It is probably the work of an assistant, possibly the same hand which painted the portrait of ‘Charles the Bold’, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Certainly, this artist had learned to emulate very closely his master’s style, but falls short of him in skill and subtlety. The dress of the sitter has led scholars to date it to the last years of Rogier’s life – the first half of the 1460s – when such assistance may have been more likely.
Summary
Oil painting on oak panel, An Unknown Man, studio of Rogier van der Weyden (c.1399-1464), 1460s. A bust-length portrait of a young man, facing half left, wearing a dark dress with plain collar, his hands joined in prayer, a ring on the little finger of the left hand. Turquoise background. Probably the right wing of a diptych, of which the corresponding panel would have been the Madonna and Child. The painted surface only reaches to the edge of the unbevelled panel at the bottom; at the top and sides it stops 1/8 in. short of the edge of the panel and has therefore not been cut at these three sides. Inscribed - R. Hen VI (on back of panel, later inscription).
Provenance
No certain history known before 1920 (if brought to Britain from Canada before 1914, as claimed by Hulin de Loo, it must have been taken there and brought back by members of the Bulwer family), when it was bought by Knoedler, together with Parrish Watson of New York, from the executors of the Bulwer family, Norfolk, i.e. from descendants of the Cotman collector and friend (and onetime curate of Blickling and Aylsham), amateur artist, antiquarian, and author, the Reverend James Bulwer (1794-1879), who got his protégé Frederick Sandys to make a copy of it in oils (now in Fitzwilliam Museum) possibly before 1850; shortly after 1917, acquired by Lord Bearsted. given with Upton House to the National Trust by Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted (1882 – 1948) shortly before his death
Credit line
Upton House, The Bearsted Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
R. Hen VI. (On back of panel, later inscription)
Makers and roles
studio of Rogier van der Weyden (Tournai c.1399 – Brussels 1464), artist Rogier van der Weyden (Tournai c.1399 – Brussels 1464), artist
Exhibition history
New Light on Old Masters, Squash Court Gallery, 2013