After Sir Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria...

Property from Ollerton Grange: an Interior by Robert Kime

After Sir Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), half-length, wearing a black dress with a lace collar and cuffs

oil on canvas
unframed: 76.4 x 63.3 cm.; 30⅛ x 24⅞ in.
framed: 98.2 x 86.5 cm.; 38⅝ x 34 in.

Condition Report:
The canvas is lined. The paint surface is relatively clean and the varnish is clear, but it has become uneven and slightly yellow in parts. No losses to the paint surface can be noted. Two spots of retouching are visible to the naked eye, just above the sitter’s head. Inspection under ultraviolet light confirms these as retouchings, while also revealing a spot on the left margin, some strengthening in the bows that adorn the sitter’s dress, and in a couple of minute spots to the left of and beneath her chin. Overall, the painting is in good condition. It presents well and is ready to hang.

Catalogue Note:
This painting closely relates to Van Dyck's portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria in the collection of the Earls of Radnor, which is dated 1632.1 While the Queen is depicted in three-quarter-length in the Radnor picture, holding a rose to her stomach which is believed to have alluded to the future birth of her third child, she is portrayed wearing the same dress, jewelry, and hairpiece as in the present painting. The composition is thought to have been devised in the first few months after Van Dyck's arrival in London and is considered among the artist's most gentle likenesses of the Queen, on account of her conventional attire and the delicacy of the lace details.

1 Oil on canvas, 107.3 x 82.6 cm., inscribed upper right with the Queen's initials, HMR, in monogram with the date 1632, all under a crown; S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 519, no. IV.113.

Provenance:
The collection of Lord Godolphin;

By whom sold, London, Christie's, 13 December 1957, lot 44 (as follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck), for £40, to Cleeves;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 6 September 2006, lot 3, for £5,040.