Prince Hercule-François, Duc d'Alençon

1572

French 16th Century

Attributed to

A clean-shaven, pale-skinned man wearing all white, a black-speckled white fur cape, and brimless black hat stands and looks at us in this full-length, vertical portrait painting. The man’s body and face are angled to our right, but he looks at us from the corners of his brown eyes under dark, curved brows. He has a slightly bulbous nose, the suggestion of a cleft chin, and his thin, pink lips are closed. His brown hair is cut short under the cap, which has a high crown. The hat is lined with jeweled gold medallions and pearls around the bottom edge, and the barbs of the white feather flicker like a busy flame. The lace-edged ruff, which is pleated in figure eights, hugs his chin and the back of his neck. The high-collared, white, long-sleeved jacket is textured in narrow, horizontal bands. A narrow black belt decorated with silver trim and pearls loops around his waist, and a sword hangs from the far hip. The white-on-white patterned breeches puff out at the waist and are gathered high on the thigh, like puffy shorts. He wears smooth, cream-white stockings and the same color slippers. The hip-length fur cape hooks over the far shoulder, and that hand rests on the pearled hilt of a thin sword. His other elbow is bent, and he holds a pair of gold and brown-colored gloves in that hand. The first two fingers are extended to lie along the fabric of his pants. The wall behind the man is earthy green and the floor a rosy peach. Gold text in the upper left corner of the painting reads, “FRANCOIS DVC DALENCON EAGE DE XVIII ANS LE XIXE IONR DE MARS AN 1572 FILS DE HENRŸ II DE CE NO ROŸ DE FRANCE.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 188.6 x 102.2 cm (74 1/4 x 40 1/4 in.)
    framed: 214.6 x 128.3 x 7.9 cm (84 1/2 x 50 1/2 x 3 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1961.9.55

Artwork history & notes

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 (see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1732). The painting was on deposit at the Gallery from the Foundation beginning in 1956.

Associated Names

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

1854

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss.. 3 vols. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. London, 1854: 3:25.

1920

  • Errera, Isabelle. Répertoire des peintures datées. 2 vols. Brussels and Paris, 1920-1921: 1:134.

1931

  • Kelly, Francis M. "On a miniature in the Jones Collection at South Kensington." Apollo 13 (1931): 17-19, repro.

1942

  • Kelly, Francis M. "Caveat Emptor! II -- Some Pitfalls in Portraiture." The Connoisseur 110 (October 1942): 28, repro.

1946

  • Breuning, Margaret. "Masters of Yesteryear." Art Digest 20, (15 February 1946): 7.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. “Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery.” Art News 44, no. 20 (February 1946): 33-34, repro.

1951

  • Washburn, Gordon Bailey. "Eight Centuries of French Painting." Carnegie Magazine (June 1951): 224.

1958

  • Sterling, Charles. Great French Painting in the Hermitage. New York, 1958: 232 n. 19.

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

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 45, repro.

1973

  • Cazaux, Yves. Guillaume le Taciturne, comte de Nassau, prince d'Orange. Anvers, 1973: 412, 413, repro.

1974

  • Fehl, Philipp P. "Vasari's 'Extirpation of the Huguenots.' The Challenge of Pity and Fear." Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 84 (November-December 1974): 267-268, 269, 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.

1989

  • Tortora, Phyllis G., and Keith Eubank. A Survey of Historic Costume. New York, 1989: 134, repro.

1992

  • Hall, Nicholas H. J., ed. Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi, New York. New York, 1992: 134.

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.

Inscriptions

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 .
On stretcher: paper sticker from the 1951 exhibition French Painting 1100-1900, at the Carnegie Institute,Pittsburgh; torn, partial red bordered sticker, "C. 1262".

Wikidata ID

Q20176757

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