a bruyn portrait

Portrait of a girl, age 21 1522 by Barthel Bruyn the elder.
http://www.unc.edu/ackland/collection/?action=details&object_link_id=68.37.1

This painting has always been a bit of a mystery to me. It really does look like the work of Bruyn, her face especially but her dress does not look entirely as expected from Cologne, but it does not mean it isn’t North Rhine. 

Last year the painting was taken out of storage to be studied. So far fake aging has been identified as well as an understanding that the crest was added in the 19thC.

I’ll be interested to know to what extent her clothing has been altered, one element rings as untrue and that is the cuff. Not for being rather flamboyant but how the red has been treated- I suspect it is the other side of the cuff but might have been repainted over the wrist as it it was decoration. 

The paned sleeve is also seen in the Weidtz costume book and on the triptych on the figure of Amalia. But the specific style is straight from several Tom Ring portraits of women in the second half of the 16thC.

Interestingly while we are very familiar with the style of hat worn by Anne of Cleves I do have several instances of headgear that is very different.

Right now I am backtracking all my image references to group by date. So this is going to be a bit of a project but it is happening. This post has been brought to you by this search. I have a folder of a 215 images still to date, not including all the bildindex images that also need dates added.

But there will be a page on hats. Because they are extremely misunderstood. There are several forms and how they came about is very fun to track.

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a new hat

I am going full Cleves all the time 🙂 Ever since I read Anne of Cleves by Mary Saaler I have wanted to make all the outfits described as hers. I haven’t hit a jackpot in terms of a list of her wardrobe before she left for England but Hall cronicles her appearance enough. And I have gone and read a digitised reprint and it seems to ring true. But before all that I am trying to make a hat seen in my favourite protrait of her.

 

This was sold in London in 1930 and disappeared until The Rosenbach recently revealed that they had this portrait, https://rosenbach.org/blog/long-lost-triplets/ (Please note I have tried to adjust the perspective). This shows a gold coloured baret over a gold covered stickelsche with pearlwork (the colours can be identified in the Rosenback photos while the details can be seen in the copy from Saaler.

The St Johns University portrait. On the left from Saaler, on the right a photo directly of the portrait as per the Art Fund website. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/anne-of-cleves-223303

 

The St John’s Portrait is the one that is was X-rayed and discovered that her nose was originally painted longer. Of course historians have take that to mean he nose was made smaller to flatter. I believe it to simply have been a mistake. The Rosenbach portrait is clearly the most sensitively and deftly painted of all these portraits.

 

There are a few files of the St John’s portrait that are of different contrast levels. However I do believe this to be a different copy. It is clearly different based on the fall of the shadows of the fruit and the gloves. The tacks around the edges of the painting are not in the same position as the St John’s painting either.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030315083403/http://www.asn-ibk.ac.at:80/bildung/faecher/geschichte/maike/bilderkatalog/tudors_stuarts/abb20p.htm

Most files are now over at: http://www.kleio.org/ except this portrait. So I do not know the provenance.

This is from a photograph at the Witt Library and is part of an article in Burlington Magazine, “A Portrait of Anne of Cleves” March 1992, issue 134 pages 172-175. This is the only copy that keeps the three rows of brocade of the skirt- the majority of skirts of this region overlap so the three rows make sense in this light.

And this is a copy at Hever Castle itself. https://www.hevercastle.co.uk/news/6th-january-1540-henry-viii-married-anne-cleves/

 

So that is five copies of this portrait from close to her time in England- though in absolutely classic dress from her home. The mix of Dutch and Saxon styles is particularly clear.

 

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