Gaston, duc d'Anjou, later duc d’Orléans, 'Monsieur' (1608-1660) as a Child
studio of Frans Pourbus the younger (Antwerp 1569 – Paris 1622)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1611 - 1612
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1359 x 953 mm (53 1/2 x 37 1/2 in)
Place of origin
Flanders (Belgium from 1830)
Order this imageCollection
Cliveden Estate, Buckinghamshire
NT 766120
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Gaston, duc d'Anjou, later duc d’Orléans, 'Monsieur' (1608-1660) as a Child, studio of Frans Pourbus the younger (Antwerp 1569 – Paris 1622). A full-length portrait of a young child, standing in an interior, wearing a white lace bonnet with a white aigrette, a lace pinafore (bodice embroidered with fleurs-de-lys) over gold embroidered crimson dress, with stand-up lace collar, a jewelled sash, worn from the right shoulder crosses at his waist, he holds a bow in his left hand (the velvet handle embroidered with fleurs-de-lys), an arrow in his right, a quiver on a table at the left which is covered by a green cloth embroidered with gold fringe. Behind the table is a scarlet pillar, a green velvet drape with gold fringe is looped over the top and falls in folds at the right. The floor is composed of square multicoloured marble tiles
Full description
The portrait was unattributed in the two sale catalogues listed above. In the 1950 inventory it appeared as by Gheeraerts, but neither was that artist ever in France, nor was Gaston ever in England (despite his sister, Henrietta Maria, being married to Charles I). Unsurprisingly, given his repeated periods of opposition to the Crown and periods of exile, portraits of Gaston d’Orléans appear to be scarce. The artist is difficult to determine. It would be logical to assume that he was Frans II Pourbus (Antwerp 1569-Paris 1622), who was invited by Marie de’Medici to return to France as court painter in 1609, and remained until his death; and indeed, there do seem to be similarities between this and the greatest surviving (thanks to the French Revolution) set of portraits of the French Royal Family by Pourbus, in the Palazzo Pitti in the Queen’s native Florence (cf. exh. cats. Pittura francese nelle collezioni pubblichi fiorentine, Palazzo Pitti, 1977, nos.91-96; Visiti reali a Palazzo Pitti: Ritratti del XVI al XVIII secolo, Palazzo Pitti, nos. ?-?). There is, however, seemingly a lack of the almost metallic sheen and hardness that characterises Pourbus’s autograph works, so that the present picture should probably be regarded as a product of his studio. The formulae of court portraiture at this period were so standardised that it is difficult to argue for an attribution from the way and setting in which the sitter is represented. There are similarly - chiefly because this is a portrait of a very young child, before its features have taken on a distinctive cast, but also because of the premature death of Henri IV’s second son, Nicolas, duc d’Orléans (1607-1611) - certain doubts as to whether it may not be he, rather than his youngest brother, Gaston, duc d’Anjou, and only much later duc d’Orléans (1608-1660), who is represented - even given the presence of the seemingly early inscription denoting it as the latter, and the fact that a variant of the present portrait, called ‘Nicolas, Duc d’Orléans’, was also in the Hamilton Palace sale in 1882 (lot 1126, along with a third portrait of the same dimensions, called ‘Christine, Duchess de Savioe’, and a whole-length - dimensions not given - of their sister, Queen Henrietta Maria), which was bought by another member of the Baring/Mildmay kin (the Hon. Francis Baring), and later sold from the collection of Miss N. Oswald Smith at Christie’s on 14 March 1952, lot 39; and given that a portrait of a very similar looking child, looking in the same direction, in the Château-Musée de Versailles (cf. Claire Constans, Les Peintures, 2nd edn., 1995, vol.II, p.728, no.4109) from the studio of Pourbus, bears an old inscription denoting the sitter as ‘Monsieur le duc dorléans fils de France, second fils du roy Henri le grand’ = Nicolas. On the other hand, a portrait by or from the studio of Pourbus in the Pitti that is almost the reverse of this (exh. cats. cit., 1977, no.LXII, p.224; and 1995, no.19) is catalogued as being of Gastone d’Orléans. The sitter in this, in turn, looks similar to, but younger than, the one in the portrait in the Pitti unequivocally by Pourbus (exh. cat. cit., no.96, p.150) that must, as catalogued, almost certainly be of Gaston d’Orléans, because it is apparently the pendant of the one of his younger sister, Henriette Marie / Henrietta Maria (1609-1699; exh. cat. cit., no.95, p.149), which, from her age in it, can scarcely have been painted earlier than about 1612, by which time Nicolas was dead (a date of 1612 would also seem to accord with the painting of the main set of French Royal portraits, at ¾-length or whole-length, in 1611: exh. cat. cit., nos. 91-94, pp.145-148). If that suggests that the Pourbus studio portrait in the Uffizi (exh. cat. cit., 1977, no. LXII) is of Nicolas rather than Gaston, that might accord better with a point about whether or not the children in these various portraits are or are not shown wearing the cordon (and, in the case of no.LXII, jewels) of the Order of the Saint-Esprit. The - very young - child in this last portrait is wearing the cordon and jewel, and the child in the similar portrait at Versailles just the cordon; neither of the children in either of the two portraits that were in the Hamilton Palace sale is wearing either. It seems to have been the custom to give both the Dauphin and the duc d’Orléans the Order of the Saint-Esprit virtually at birth, but not subsequent children, or other princes of the blood royal. It therefore seems likely that the Pourbus studio portrait in the Pitti (exh. cat. cit., 1977, no. LXII) and the one at Versailles both represent - as the latter is inscribed - the first duc d’Orléans, Nicolas, and that both the ex-Hamilton Palace portraits show Gaston, before the death of his elder brother in 1611, soon after which he was probably given the place in the Order that was left vacant. There is another type of detail that should give a clue as to which child is represented in the two ex-Hamilton Palace pictures, but which fails to do so: the incorporation of the French royal arms, the three fleurs-de-lys - on the hand-hold of the bow and in the lace of the bodice of the present portrait, and in the coat of arms under a royal prince’s crown on the front of the velvet table-cloth in the picture auctioned at Christie’s in 1952. These should have a mark of difference for whichever of Henri IV’s three sons is represented in each: a label if he were the eldest son, the Dauphin (the future Louis XIII); a crescent for the second son, Nicolas, duc d’Orléans; or a molet (= a five-pointed star) for the third son, Gaston, duc d’Anjou (and only later, d’Orléans). None is to be seen: why not? Were they only added once the younger sons had come of age? or once they had established their own family and line?
Provenance
Hamilton Palace Sale (Christie’s), 8 July 1882, lot 1125; bought Colnaghi; Henry Bingham Mildmay (1828 - 1905); his sale, Christie’s 24 June 1893, lot 54; bought Davis [probably Charles Davis, on behalf of Lord Astor]; presented to the National Trust, with the house and grounds, by Waldorf, 2nd Viscount Astor (1879-1952) in 1942
Marks and inscriptions
Frame bears a label "Depuis Duc D'Orleans ne de 23rd Avril 1608 et qui jusqu a la mort de Nicolas 2 ne porta point le titre de Duc D'Orleans..."
Makers and roles
studio of Frans Pourbus the younger (Antwerp 1569 – Paris 1622), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (Bruges 1561/2 - London 1636), artist