LOT DETAILS

Materials:

oil on panel

Measurements:

48.27 in. (122.60 cm.) (height) by 38.66 in. (98.20 cm.) (width)

Exhibited:

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, An Exhibition of Pictures from the Althorp Collection, 1947, no. 41.

Literature:

G. Brice, Description de la Ville de Paris, 1713 (6th ed.), pp. 168-70. [J.] Richardson Senior and Junior, An Account of the Statues Bas-Reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy etc, 1722, p. 21. Dubois de Saint-Gelais, Description des Tableaux du Palais Royal, 1727, p. 206. Catalogue of the Pictures of Althorp made in November 1802, printed in Garlick, see below, p. 121. T. Dibden, Aedes Althorpianae.. 1822, p. 225. Catalogue of the Pictures at Althorp House.. 1836, p. 26, no. 331 G. Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England, 1, 1838, Appendix B, p. 338, as 'Jacob Jordaens, The Portrait of the Duke of Alba'. Catalogue of the Pictures at Althorp House..1851, no. 211. V. Champier and G. Roger Sandoz, Le Palais Royal, 1, 1900, p. 520. C. Stryienski, La Galerie du Régent, Philippe Duc d'Orléans, 1913, pp. 12-3 & p. 189, no. 487. J. Canova, Paris Bordon, 1964, p. 79 & fig. 116 (under Harewood House, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art). J. Müller Hofstede, 'Rubens und Tizian: Das Bild Karls V', Müncher Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, XVIII, 1967, p. 64, fig. 33, pp. 70 and 92, no. 146. K. Garlick, 'A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp', The Walpole Society, 45, 1974-76, 1976, p. 74, no. 572 (211). F. Baudouin, Pietro Paulo Rubens, 1977, pp. 294 & 296. J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, A Critical Catalogue, 1, 1980, under no. 269 (date of the Kassel picture). J.S. Held, The Collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Flemish & German Paintings of the 17th Century, 1982, pp. 84-5 and pp. 94-102. A. Lowenthal et al. (eds.), Rubens and his Circle Studies by Julius S. Held, 1982, p. 61, no. 29. R.A. d'Hulst & M. Vandenven, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, III, The Old Testament, 1989, under no. 45. M. Jaffé, Rubens, Catalogo Completo, 1989, under no. 208. M. Daz Padrón & M. Royo-Villanova, David Teniers, Jan Brueghel y Los Gabinetes de Pinturas, Museo del Prado, 1992, p. 210, no. 11, under no. 26. E. Corp, 'Melfort 'A Jacobite Connoisseur'', History Today, 45, October 1995, pp. 40-6. K. Renger and C. Denk, Flämische Malerei des Barock, 2002, no. 997 (date of the Münich picture). P.C. Sutton, catalogue of the exhibition, Drawn by the Brush - Oil sketches by Peter Paul Rubens, 2004, p. 87, under no. 1, (entry by M.E. Wieseman).

Provenance:

(Possibly) Cornelis van der Geest (1577-1638), the successful spice merchant and Maecenas, and on display by 1628 in the Huis de Keizer, Mattenstraat, Antwerp, backing on to the Werf on the Scheldt; his main heirs were Cornelis de Licht, Cornelis Hecx and Adriaan Radmaecker. (Possibly) John Drummond, 1st Earl of Melfort (c. 1650-1715), the Jacobite statesman and collector, created 1st Duke of Melfort or Duc de Melfort (1692/1701), by whom acquired after his exile to France in 1688, and hung either in his apartment in the Château de Saint Germain or later, in Paris, in the Hôtel de Soissons, or his house in the rue des Petits Augustins, and by inheritance to his wife,. (Possibly) Euphemia, Duchess of Melfort (died 1743), by whom possibly sold or given with five other pictures, after the 1st Duke's death, to (Possibly) Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, Regent of France (1674-1723), at the Palais Royal, Paris, where catalogued by Dubois de Saint-Gelais as by Jacob Jordaens, 'Un Homme Armé Peint sur bois, haut de trois pieds huit pouces, large de trois pieds [118.8 x 97.2 cm.], fig. de grandeur naturelle. Il est jusqu'aux genoux armé de toutes piéces, tenant un Bâton de Commandant, aiant le bras gauche apuié sur un page. Un jeune homme qui est à côté de lui porte son casque. Le fond du tableau est brun' (Stryienski states that it was one of a group of eight pictures brought by Orléans from Melfort in 1707 for 40,000 livres), and by descent to. (Possibly) Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duc d'Orléans (1747-1793), and listed in the Palais Royal in the inventories of 1724 and 1785, made after the deaths of the Regent and Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, valued at 320 and 1500 livres respectively, until acquired by. (Possibly) Thomas More Slade, acting on behalf of a syndicate consisting of George, Lord Kinnaird, William Morland and Mr. Hammersley, 1792, having previously been listed as part of the consignment of northern school paintings destined for sale in England by J.B. Le Brun as 'Jacques Jordaens un homme armé à coté de lui est et un homme qui tient son casque'. (Possibly) offered for sale in The Orléans Gallery, exhibited in the Great Rooms late The Royal Academy, no. 125 Pall Mall, London, April 1793, lot 112, as 'Portrait of the Duke of Alva by Rubens' (sold for £80 to an unidentified purchaser). (Possibly) with Michael Bryan (1757-1821), connoisseur and dealer; sale, Michael Bryan, London, 27 April [= 1st day] 1796, lot 103, as 'The Duke of Alva in armour, attended by his Pages -- painted in the finest manner of that great master -- from the Orleans collection'; Peter Coxe, Burrell and Foster, London, 'at Mr. Bryan's celebrated gallery in London', 18 May [=2nd day] 1798, lot 38, as 'Rubens The Duke of Alva arming, attended by his pages, painted in the best manner of that great master - from the Orléans collection' (sold for 37 gns. to an unidentified purchaser). George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834), at Althorp, Northamptonshire, by 1802, when listed, as part of a group of pictures hung in the 'Picture Gallery over the door from the Anti Chamber': 'Charles Vth School of Rubens'; listed by Dibdin in 1822 as in the '5th Apartment left hand side of the Great Staircase', as 'Portrait of Charles V, Emperor, and King of Spain - School of Rubens'; by 1836 it was in the Long Library (no. 331); in 1851, it was catalogued as School of Pourbus, and by descent to the present owner.