Dutch Gift
The Dutch Gift of 1660
Most of the paintings and all the Roman sculptures were from the
Some decades later, there was a reverse movement when 36 paintings from the English
The gift
The collection was promised to Charles II at a party in
The gift seems to have included the
The 24 Italian paintings and the 12 sculptures had been part of the Reynst Collection assembled by Gerrit Reynst (also known as Gerard Reynst) and his brother Jan Reynst, who had been based in
In 1660 this group and twelve Roman sculptures were presented to Charles II, augmented by four non-Italian works. The gift seems to have been organized by Amsterdam regents, especially the powerful Cornelis de Graeff and his younger brother Andries.[9] The sculptures for the gift were selected by the pre-eminent sculptor in the Netherlands, Artus Quellinus, and the art-connoisseur Gerrit van Uylenburgh, advised on and accompanied the purchase. (Much later he was to flee from financial difficulties to England and become Surveyor of the King's Pictures to Charles, from 1676 until his death three years later.[10]) The gift was unpopular with many of the Dutch, and became a bone of contention between the Dutch political factions.[11]
In July 1660
Predecessors
Previous diplomatic "Dutch Gifts" had been presented to
The Italian paintings
Fourteen important Italian paintings from the Dutch Gift, all previously in the Reynst Collection, remain in the Royal Collection,[16] including:[17]
- Titian's Portrait of Jacopo Sannazaro, c. 1514–18, and The Virgin and Child in a landscape with Tobias and the Angel (with his workshop, c. 1535–40) – this last was Charles' favourite, according to the Dutch ambassadors sent with the gift.[18]
- Lorenzo Lotto's portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527, and his Portrait of a bearded man, c. 1512–15
- Andrea Schiavone's Judgement of Midas, c. 1548–50, and Christ before Pilate.
- Giulio Romano, Portrait of Margherita Palaeologa, c.1531[19]
- Parmigianino, Pallas Athene, c. 1531–8
- Paolo Veronese and workshop, The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1562–9.
- Attributed to Vittore Belliniano, The Concert, c. 1505–15 (then attributed to Giorgione[20])
- Giovanni Cariani, Reclining Venus,[1] the only work in the Dutch gift which can be traced back to the Vendramin collection.[21]
The Reynst collection included a Genius of Painting attributed to
Paintings no longer in the Royal Collection include a
Two religious works, besides the Bassano, were recorded in an inventory of 1688/9 as being in Catherine's apartments, one "said to be Raphael" of the Holy Family with a lamb, and a group attributed to Titian of "Our Saviour with his feet on a cushion, The B. Virgin St John and St Elizabeth". These may have returned with her to Portugal in 1692.[25]
The other works
Of the four non-Italian works, two were by
A heavily damaged version of The Mocking of Ceres by
The fourth non-Italian painting was a work by
The Gift included with a yacht,
Notes
- ^ See below for earlier gifts
- ^ Royal Collection, paintings acquired by Charles II
- ^ Emil Jacobs, "Das Museo Vendramin under die Sammlung Reynst", Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 46 (1925:15–38), noted in Denis Mahon I p. 303 note 1. Mahon notes that the Reynst collection was as well known for its antiquities as for its paintings (Mahon p 304 note 14). See also Halbertsma on the sculpture, and Logan on the collection as a whole.
- ^ The tradition that many of the paintings had previously been in Charles I's collection, disseminated by George Vertue in the eighteenth century and often repeated was laid to rest by Denis Mahon 1949 — see Mahon I.
- ISBN 0-947645-89-6
- ^ Lloyd, p. 75
- ^ Israel, J. I., The Dutch Republic; Its rise, greatness, and fall 1477–1806 (Oxford 1998), pp. 749–750.
- ^ Mahon I, p.303
- ^ Israel, J. I., The Dutch Republic; Its rise, greatness, and fall 1477–1806 (Oxford 1998), pp. 749–750.
- ^ Church Times, August 11, 2006
- ^ Broekman and Helmers
- ^ European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies, ed. Frances Gardiner Davenport, Charles O. Paullin, p. 73
- ^ Thiel, P.J.J. (1965) Het Nederlandse geschenk aan koning Karel II van Engeland 1660, p. 6.
- ^ J. G. van Gelder, "Notes on the Royal Collection — IV: The 'Dutch Gift' of 1610 to Henry, Prince of 'Whalis', and Some Other Presents", The Burlington Magazine 105 No. 729 [December 1963:541–545]
- ^ J. G. van Gelder, "Notes on the Royal Collection — III: The 'Dutch Gift' to Charles I", The Burlington Magazine 104 [1962:291–94].
- ^ Mahon III, 12. Not all the paintings were included in the engravings of the Reynst collection, and some of these provenances remain highly probable rather than certain.
- ^ Whitaker and Clayton: pp. 31–2 describe the gift in general, and the individual paintings listed immediately below all have full catalogue entries, except the Schiavone Christ before Pilate and the Cariani, which are not covered by Whitaker and Clayton.
- ^ See Whitaker and Clayton, pp. 194–7, who justify the attribution to Titian, sometimes questioned in the past.
- ^ Catalogued in 1666–7 as a Raphael. Whitaker & Clayton, 136.
- Royal Collection Trust. Inventory no. 400025.
- ^ Grove Art
- ^ Levey, 93 (nos 582, 583), also pp. 19, 39
- ^ Hawley, John (1 December 2016). "Semiramis Receiving Word of the Revolt of Babylon". MFA Boston. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ Say Whitaker and Clayton, p. 41, n 113. National Gallery. See Penny 13–14 for more detail on the tangled status of the paintings in Catherine's "custody".
- ^ Penny, 13–14
- ^ Thesis by Denise Giannino, p.14, n. 37 Archived September 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Greg Beaman, Nature, Nurture, Mythology. pp. 52–56 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Maurithuis". Archived from the original on 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
- ^ "Etherington". Archived from the original on 2012-04-22. Retrieved 2011-11-25.
- ^ Klessmann, pp. 138–145, 198, 205 (the last two on the provenance, on which the authors seem not wholly in accord)
- ^ Halbertsma, 10, note 12
- ^ Identified by Ellis Waterhouse and published in a note in The Burlington Magazine 92 No. 569 (August 1950:238) by Denis Mahon.
- ^ Penny, 471
- ^ Whittaker and Clayton: pp. 31–2 for the art, Gleissner for the furniture and yacht. The yacht was the gift of the Dutch East India Company, according to Liverpool Museums (with model) Archived July 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, or the City of Amsterdam according to other sources.
- ^ "Garden Descriptions, From the Diary of John Evelyn", Gardenvisit.com
References
- Bruyn, J.; Millar, Oliver, Sir, "Notes on the Royal Collection, 3: The 'Dutch gift' to Charles I", 1923– 1962
- Broekman, Inge, Helmers, Helmer, 'Het hart des offraers' – The Dutch Gift as an act of self-representation, Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Winter 2007)
- Gleissner, Stephen, Reassembling a royal art collection for the restored King of Great Britain, Journal of the History of Collections 1994 6(1):103–115
- Halbertsma, R. B. (2003), Scholars, Travellers, and Trade: The Pioneer Years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, 1818–1840, Routledge, p. 9–10
- Rüdiger Klessmann and others, Adam Elsheimer 1578–1610, 2006, Paul Holberton Publishing/National Galleries of Scotland; ISBN 1-903278-78-3
- Levey, Michael, Pictures in the Royal Collection, The Later Italian Pictures, 1964, Phaidon Press, London
- Mahon, Denis, Notes on the 'Dutch Gift' to Charles II:, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 91, Part I in: No. 560 (Nov. 1949), pp. 303–305, Part II in No. 561 (Dec. 1949), pp. 349–350, Part III No. 562 (Jan. 1950), pp. 12–18. (All on JSTOR: Pt I, Pt II, Pt III and a letter.)
- Thiel, P. J. J. Van, Het Nederlandse geschenk (Dutch gift) aan Koning Karel II van Engeland 1660, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1965
- ISBN 1-85709-913-3
- Lucy Whitaker, Martin Clayton, The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection; Renaissance and Baroque, Royal Collection Publications, 2007, ISBN 978-1-902163-29-1
Further reading
- Griffey, Erin, "More on the 'Dutch Gift' to Charles II", The Burlington Magazine, vol. 153, no. 1301, 2011, pp. 521–522., JSTOR.
- Logan, Anne-Marie S., "The 'Cabinet' of the Brothers Gerard and Jan Reynst" (Amsterdam, 1979).