THE LOST PORTRAIT OF PRINCE CHARLES, BY VELASQUEZ.
It is well known that, in 1623, Charles, then Prince of Wales, accompanied by his father’s favourite, George Villiers, the celebrated Duke of Buckingham, visited Madrid, with the avowed object of wooing and winning the Infanta. We are informed by Pacheco, that his son-in-law, Velasquez, received one hundred crowns for taking the portrait of the prince, probably designed as a present to his lady-love. The suit, however, proved unsuccessful; but what became of the picture has not been recorded, even incidentally. There is reason to suppose it was committed to the custody of Villiers, who had at York House, which occupied the site of Villiers, Duke, and Buckingham streets, in the Adelphi, a splendid collection of pictures. Charles, on his return from Spain, reached York House past midnight, on the 6th of October; and the picture may have been left there in some private apartment, and afterwards have gradually fallen out of mind. There was a sale of pictures on the assassination of the first duke. Again, when the second duke fled to the Continent, to escape the vengeance of the parliament, he sold part of his paintings to raise money for his personal support; and according to a catalogue of these pictures, compiled by Vertue, the Velasquez was not among them. Subsequently, the parliament sold part of the remaining pictures. Either at or before the death of the second duke, a fourth sale took place. In 1697, York House was burned down; and it is possible the missing portrait may have been in the house at this date.
A very interesting search after the lost treasure is detailed in a pamphlet, extending to 228 pages, published in 1847, from which these particulars are, in the main, condensed:
About four years since, Mr. Snare, a bookseller, at Reading, and a dealer in pictures, was much struck with the notice of the long-lost portrait of Charles, by Velasquez, which occurs in Mr. Ford’s Hand-Book for Spain. Not long after, Mr. Snare, accompanied by a portrait-painter also living at Reading, went to Radley Hall, between Abingdon and Oxford, and there, among other pictures, saw a portrait in which he recognised the features of Charles the First; the owner told him the figure was by Vandyke, and the back ground by the artist’s most clever pupils; but a dreamy conviction came over Mr. Snare that it was the missing portrait by Velasquez. On the 25th of October, 1845, the pictures in Radley Hall were sold by auction; Mr. Snare attended, and bought the portrait for 8l., notwithstanding many picture-dealers were present. After some delay, he took the treasure home: he put it in all lights; he moistened it with turpentine, which strengthened his conviction: he ran for his wife to admire it with him, and he was wrought up to the highest pitch.
“I was quite beside myself,” says he, “with enthusiasm. I could not eat, and had no inclination to sleep. I sat up till three o’clock looking at the picture; and early in the morning I rose to place myself once more before it. I only took my eyes from the painting to read some book that made reference to the Spaniard whom I believed its author, or to the Flemish artist to whom, by vague report, it was attributed.”
To trace the pedigree of the picture was the possessor’s next object; and, in Pennant’s London, he found mentioned the house of the Earl of Fife, as standing on part of the site of the palace of Whitehall, anciently called York House, which Mr. Snare confuses with the York House beyond Hungerford Market, the family mansion of the Duke of Buckingham. Among the works which adorned Fife House, Pennant mentions—
“A head of Charles I., when Prince of Wales, done in Spain when he was there in 1623 on his romantic expedition to court the Infanta. It is supposed to have been the work of Velasco.”
Here was some clue. Mr. Snare then traced the owner of Radley Hall to have received the picture from a connoisseur, who in his turn received a number of pictures from the Earl of Fife’s undertaker, after his lordship’s funeral, in 1809.
Next he discovered a quarto pamphlet, entitled, “Catalogue of the Portraits and Pictures in the different houses belonging to the Earl of Fife, 1798.” A reprint of this catalogue was then found in the possession of Colonel Tynte, of Halewell, dated in 1807, the only alteration being a slight addition to the preface. Colonel Tynte remembers having been shown the pictures at Fife House, by the Earl himself. On page 38 of the Catalogue, under the head, “First Drawing-room,” the following entry occurs:—
“Charles I. when Prince of Wales. Three quarters. Painted at Madrid, 1625, when his marriage with the Infanta was proposed.
—— Velasquez. This picture belonged to the Duke of Buckingham.”
Pennant, however, speaks of the portrait as a head; but this may be owing to confused recollection, especially as there appears to have been in the ‘Little Drawing-room of the hall’ a head of Charles I. by old Stone.
Two persons, upon inspecting the portrait, next identified it as the picture they had seen at the connoisseur’s, and at the undertaker’s.
The general opinion, however, seemed to be that the painting was by Vandyke, not by Velasquez: so believed its possessor at Radley Hall, and the experienced person who cleaned the picture for Mr. Snare. He, on the other hand, maintains that although Vandyke was in England for a few weeks in 1620, there is no proof that he painted for royalty till 1632, when Charles was too old for the portrait in question, and when any allusion to the Spanish match would have been an insult to the nation.
Cumberland, in his “Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain,” states that Prince Charles did not sit to Velasquez, but that he (Velasquez) took a sketch of the prince, as he was accompanying King Philip in the chase. Pacheco seems to have been the authority to Cumberland, who, however, has mistranslated the passage, which really should be “in the meantime, he also took a sketch (bosquexo) of the Prince of Wales, who presented him with one hundred crowns.” The word “sketch,” however suggests another difficulty, for the picture itself is a fine painting on canvas. Mr. Ford, in his Hand Book for Spain, comes to the rescue, when he says that Velasquez “seems to have drawn on the canvas, for any sketches or previous studies are not to be met with.” Still, the picture in question is all but finished. In it can be traced the red earthy preparation of the canvas, and the light colour over it, which Velasquez was accustomed to introduce. The pigments also bear decisive evidence of their belonging to the Spanish school, and are exactly similar to the pigments used in the authenticated works of Velasquez—“the Water Seller,” in the possession of his Grace the Duke of Wellington; the portrait of Philip II., in the Dulwich Gallery; and a whole-length portrait, the property of the Earl of Ellesmere.
Mr. Snare thus describes the painting itself:—
“Prince Charles is depicted in armour, decorated with the order of St. George; the right arm rests upon a globe, and in the hand is held a baton; the left arm is leaning upon the hip, being partly supported by the hilt of the sword; a drapery of a yellow ground, crossed by stripes of red, is behind the figure, but the curtain is made to cover one half of the globe on which the right arm is poised; the expression is tranquil; but in the distance is depicted a siege, numerous figures being there engaged in storming a town or fortress.”
Some proofs of identity are traceable in the costume and accessories. Thus, among the jewels sent to the Prince, was “a fair sworde, which was Prince Henry’s, fully garnished with dyamondes of several bignes.”
Now, the hilt of the sword in the picture sparkles as if jewelled. The drapery, which covers half of the globe, is a rich yellow damask, with streaks of red. These are the national colours of Spain.
In the “Memoirs of George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham,” p. 17, we are told that, on the arrival of the Prince and Marquis—
“He (Olivarez) then complimented the Marquis, and told him, ‘Now the Prince of England was in Spain, their masters would divide the world between them.’ ”
Similar mention of dividing the world between them also occurs in notices of the above meeting in the Journals of the House of Commons; and in Buckingham’s Narrative, in Rushworth’s Historical Collections. This may explain the Prince leaning on the globe, while half of it is covered by the national drapery of Spain. Still, the globe and drapery were afterthoughts in the painting.
The picture was exhibited for some time in Old Bond-street; but the opinion in favour of its being by Velasquez did not gain ground among connoisseurs: the distance has more of the painter’s manner than the portrait itself, which is rather that of Vandyke. The pamphlet goes very far to settle the identity of the picture with that mentioned in the Fife House Catalogue; but the ascription may merely have been that of the Earl of Fife; and it is somewhat strange that it should not have been specially mentioned as the lost picture, had its identity been positively settled.
Since the publication of Mr. Snare’s pamphlet, Sir Edmund Head, in his “Handbook of the History of the Spanish and French Schools of Painting,” has expressed his disbelief in the authenticity of the picture being the long-lost portrait; adding, first, it is not in his opinion by Velasquez; secondly, it is a finished picture; and, thirdly, it represents Charles as older than twenty-three years, which was his age when at Madrid. Again, Mr. Stirling, in his “Annals of the Artists of Spain,” published in 1848, does not consider the picture proved to be that formerly at Fife House; nor does he regard it as a sketch, (“bosquexo,”) but more than three parts finished. He thinks also that Charles looks considerably older than twenty-three; and he sees “no resemblance in the style of the execution to any of the acknowledged works of Velasquez.” To both these objections, Mr. Snare replied, in a second pamphlet, wherein he opposed to their opinions the cumulative evidence of his unwearied investigations. His first pamphlet, “The History and Pedigree”—is a singularly interesting array of presumptive evidence.[15]