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Home » Collection » Prince Hercule-François, Duc d'Alençon
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography
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Inscription

upper left: . FRANCOIS . DVC . DALENCON . / . EAGE . DE . XVIII . ANS LE.XIX.E / . IONR . DE . MARS . AN . 1572 . / . FILS . DE . HENRY II.EDE CE . / NO M . ROY . DE . FRANCE .

Provenance

John Stuart Bligh, 6th earl of Darnley [1827-1896], Cobham Hall, Kent, by 1851;[1] by inheritance to his son, Edward Henry Stuart Bligh, 7th earl of Darnley [1851-1900], Cobham Hall; by inheritance to his brother, Ivo Francis Walter Bligh, 8th earl of Darnley [1859-1927], Cobham Hall; (Darnley sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 1 May 1925, no. 57, as by François Pourbus); purchased by (M. Knoedler & Co., New York) and (P. & D. Colnaghi, London and New York);[2] sold November 1925 to Otto H. Kahn [1867-1934], New York;[3] his heirs; on consignment from 1942 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., New York, London, and Paris, as by Pieter Pourbus the Elder);[4] purchased 1947 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, as Attributed to François Clouet;[5] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Manuscripts, 3 vols., London, 1854: 3:18, states that he visited the collection in 1851. His description is detailed enough to identify the Gallery's painting, and this is the earliest, secure record of its provenance, although Elizabeth Goldring, "The Earl of Leicester and Portraits of the Duc d'Alençon," The Burlington Magazine 146 (February 2004): 109, proposes a connection with the collection of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (?1532-1588). Both the prospectus provided to the Kress Foundation by Duveen Brothers (copy in NGA curatorial files), and correspondence in the dealer's records (Getty Research Institute Library, Los Angeles, accession no. 960015, reel 86, box 231, folder 21; copies in NGA curatorial files), incorrectly place the painting in the collections of "Count Liechtervelde[sic]" of Ghent and George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746-1816). The Warwick connection was made because of a painting consigned by the Earl and listed as a portrait of the Duc d'Alençon by Pourbus, dated 1574, that was bought in at two Christie's sales in London, on June 1, 1801 (no. 65) and May 1, 1802 (no. 122). The connection to Graave Lichtervelde very likely stems from George Redford's incorrect citation of the Pourbus painting as being bought by Warwick at Lichtervelde's 1801 London sale (Art Sales: A History of Sales of Pictures and Other Works of Art, 2 vols., London, 1888: 2:315), an error repeated by Ralph N. James, Painters and Their Works…, 3 vols., London, 1897, 2:422. The Lichtervelde sale was in fact held at Christie's in London on May 29-30, 1801, just before the June 1 sale that actually included the Pourbus, and no painting by that artist was included in the May sale. The confusion is reflected in Colin Eisler's inaccurate combination (Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian, Oxford, 1977: 258) of the title of the Lichtervelde sale with the date and lot number of the 1801 sale in which the Earl of Warwick's painting appeared. See also F.G. Stephens, "On the Pictures at Cobham Hall," Archaeologia Cantiana XI (1877): 181-182, in which he describes in the large dining room "a whole length of François, Duke of Alençon, son of Catherine de Medici, inscribed with his age, "22," and the date "1572;" it is a tall, slender figure clad in hose of cloth of silver, puffed breeches, and a tight, slashed jacket, and the painting suggests a work of the school of Clouet III..."

[2] Martha Hepworth, Provenance Index, Getty Art History Information Program, letter to Suzannah Fabing, September 24, 1987 (in NGA curatorial files).

[3] See note 2.

[4] Information and photocopies from the Duveen archive, then at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, were provided by Walter Liedtke in a letter of 17 June 1993 to John Oliver Hand. Additional Duveen material was acquired after the archive became publicly available in 2002; see in particular the letter of 13 March 1942 from Duveen Brothers to Kahn's Mogmar Art Corporation (Duveen Brothers Records, Getty Research Institute Library, Los Angeles, accession no. 960015, reel 219, box 364, folder 1). All copies of the Duveen material are in NGA curatorial files.

[5] Invoice from Duveen Brothers, 31 October 1947, p. 20, Samuel H. Kress Foundation Archives, New York, copy in NGA curatorial files supplied by Gail Bartley in a letter of 12 April 1996 to John Oliver Hand. The painting was on deposit at the Gallery from the Foundation beginning in 1956.

Exhibition History
1946
Exhibition of Old Masters, Duveen Galleries, New York, 1946, no. 6, as by Frans Pourbus.
1951
French Painting 1100-1900, Carnegie Institute, 1951, no. 45, as School of François Clouet.
1984
William de Zwijger (William the Silent), Stedelijk Museum "Het Prinsenhof," Delft, The Netherlands; Musée de la Ville "Maison du Roi," Brussels, 1984, no 6.14.
2015
Les Tudors, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2015, no. 84, fig. 136.
Bibliography
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 334, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 53
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 45, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 136, repro.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 257-258, fig. 240.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 227, no. 281, color repro., as by French School.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 24, repro.
2004
Goldring, Elizabeth. "The Earl of Leicester and portraits of the duc d'Alençon." The Burlington Magazine 146 (February 2004): 108-111, fig. 36.
2005
Fahy, Everett, ed. The Wrightsman Pictures. New Haven, 2005: 18, under cat. 5, fig. 1.
2009
Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 48, 224-228, color repro.
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