Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny

c. 1638

Sir Anthony van Dyck

Artist, Flemish, 1599 - 1641

A woman with a pale, peachy skin stands wearing a voluminous rose-pink, silk dress and holding a wreath of pink and white roses and greenery in this vertical portrait painting. Shown from the hips up, her body faces our right in profile, and she turns to look at us from the corners of her dark gray eyes. Her light brown hair is pulled up but curls frame her oval face and pointed chin, and falls in ringlets to the base of her neck. She has gently curved eyebrows, a straight nose, and her small pink lips are closed. There may be some red flowers in her hair, but these are lost in the nearly black background. She wears a short necklace made of large, round pearls and large, teardrop pearl earrings hang from her lobes. Her long pink dress is cut low across her bust and wraps around her shoulders and across her back. A pearl adornment is affixed to her dress at the shoulder we can see. The sleeve of her right arm, closer to us, billows to her forearm, which ends with a wide, white, ruffled cuff. She holds the rose wreath with her right hand up at chest height. A sash of stiff, crinkled, tan, sheer fabric loosely wraps around her chest and back. The inscription “LADY AVBIGNY” is painted in tan lettering against the dark brown background at the woman’s waist level on our right.

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Fashionably attired in a rose-colored dress with low-cut bodice and flowing sleeves, Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny, looks over her shoulder with a proud and forthright gaze as she holds a floral wreath in her right hand. One of the many English aristocrats who commissioned portraits from Anthony van Dyck after he settled in London in 1632, Catherine Howard was the daughter of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk, and Elizabeth, daughter of George Lord Hume, Earl of Dunbar. She thus belonged to one of the wealthiest and most distinguished families in England.

It is probable that Van Dyck received this commission in 1638 at the time of Catherine's secret marriage to Lord George Stuart, Seigneur d'Aubigny. In the Arcadian ambience of the Stuart court, the floral wreath would have been recognized as a symbol of love and marriage. Stylistically, the portrait is also similar to other refined portraits of elegant women that Van Dyck executed in 1638, particularly in the delicate modeling of her ivory flesh and the flickering highlights of her silk dress.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 106.7 × 85.4 cm (42 × 33 5/8 in.)
    framed: 140.97 × 119.38 × 16.83 cm (55 1/2 × 47 × 6 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.95

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny [1620-1650, married secondly to Sir James Livingstone, 1st earl of Newburgh]; presumably by inheritance to her son, Charles Stuart, Lord d'Aubigny, 6th duke of Lennox and 3rd duke of Richmond [1639-1672]; presumably by inheritance to his third wife, Frances Teresa Stuart [her maiden name], Dowager Duchess of Richmond and Lennox [1648-1702]; by inheritance to her sister-in-law, Catherine Stuart O'Brien Williamson, suo jure baroness of Clifton [1640-1702], and daughter of the sitter;[1] by inheritance to her daughter, Catherine O'Brien, baroness Clifton [1673-1706], who married Edward Hyde, 3rd earl of Clarendon [first creation, 1661-1723], Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire;[2] by inheritance to his cousin, Henry Hyde, 4th and last earl of Clarendon [first creation] and 2nd earl of Rochester [1672-1753]; by inheritance through his daughter, Lady Jane Hyde, Countess of Essex [1696-1723/1724, married William Capell, 3rd earl of Essex] to her daughter, Charlotte Capell [1721-1790], who married Thomas Villiers, 1st earl of Clarendon [second creation, 1709-1786], The Grove, Watford, Hertfordshire; by inheritance to their son, Thomas Villiers, 2nd earl of Clarendon [1753-1824], The Grove; by inheritance to his brother, John Charles Villiers, 3rd earl of Clarendon [1757-1838], The Grove; by inheritance to his nephew, George William Villiers, 4th earl of Clarendon [1800-1870], The Grove;[3] by inheritance to his son, Edward Hyde Villiers, 5th earl of Clarendon [1846-1914], The Grove;[4] sold 1909 to (Arthur J. Sulley, London);[5] sold 1909 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[6] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] Catherine Stuart O'Brien Williamson survived her sister-in-law by less than a month. The latter died October 15, 1702, and the former was buried November 11, 1702 (Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage..., London, 1956: 688).
[2] Provenance to here outlined by Lady Theresa Lewis, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon: Illustrative of Portraits in His Gallery, 3 vols., London, 1852: III:322. The Clarendon collection had been moved to Cornbury Park by 1683-1685, before Lady d'Aubigny entered the collection around 1702. See Robin Gibson, Catalogue of Portraits in the Collection of the Earl of Clarendon, New Haven, 1977: 138.
[3] Lady Maria Theresa Lewis (Lewis 1852) wrote about the Clarendon collection during the life of her brother, George William Villiers, the 4th earl of Clarendon (second creation). Her notes detail the painting's provenance up through the life of Edward Hyde, the 3rd earl of Clarendon (first creation), but it is reasonable to deduce an unbroken line of inheritance down to the 4th earl (second creation).
[4] Listed in this collection in Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of painting in England; with some account of the principal artists, with additions by the Rev. James Dallaway, and Vertue's catalogue of engravers who have been born or resided in England, 3 vols., ed. and rev. by Ralph N. Wornum, London, 1876: 3:328 note 1 (330).
[5] In 1909 when Emil Schaeffer published his monograph on Van Dyck, Lady d'Aubigny was still in the collection of the earl of Clarendon, The Grove (Emil Schaeffer, _Van Dyck, des Meisters Gemälde in 537 Abbildungen [Klassiker der Kunst 13], Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1909: 413).
[6] According to notes by Edith Standen, secretary of the Widener collection, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1900

  • Exhibition of Works by Van Dyck 1599-1641. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1900, no. 74.

Bibliography

1913

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis, and Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early German, Dutch & Flemish Schools. Philadelphia, 1913: unpaginated, repro.

1923

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 102, repro.

1942

  • Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 7.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 76, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 47.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 122, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 264, no. 341, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 146, repro.

1994

  • Rogers, Malcolm. "Van Dyck's Portrait of Lord George Stuart, Seigneur d'Aubigny, and Some Related Works." Studies in the History of Art 46 (1994): 270, repro. no. 12.

2004

  • Barnes, Susan J. Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings. New Haven, 2004: IV.16

2005

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 96-99, color repro.

2020

  • Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 134.

Inscriptions

lower right: LADY AVBIGNY

Wikidata ID

Q20177154

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