English School
Portrait enamel of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), profile to the right, wearing gilt-studded armour and falling lawn collar
Enamel
Oval, 2 ¼ in. (58 mm.) high
Philip Mould & Co.
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com This portrait enamel of Oliver Cromwell derives from an unfinished, ad vivum portrait miniature by Samuel Cooper (1607/8-1672) in the...
To view all current artworks for sale visit philipmould.com
This portrait enamel of Oliver Cromwell derives from an unfinished, ad vivum portrait miniature by Samuel Cooper (1607/8-1672) in the National Portrait Gallery collection [NPG 5274] dating to c.1655. Both this and a second profile portrait of Cromwell by Cooper, previously with Philip Mould & Co., may have been produced as preparatory works for the medallist Thomas Simon (1618-1665). Cooper painted very few profile portraits of Cromwell, however, their unusual composition later became iconic images for artists, such as this English school eighteenth-century enamellist, seeking to depict the Lord Protector, both in miniatures and in engravings.
The artist Christian Richter (1678-1732) was renowned for his portraits after Cooper, including a variant of Cooper’s National Portrait Gallery profile of Cromwell sold at Christie’s, London in 1981, and paved the way for eighteenth-century engravings by Gerald Vandergucht [NPG D28725] and Thomas Cook [NPG D28727]. By the nineteenth century Oliver Cromwell was being portrayed more sympathetically by Romantic artists and poets. A memorial stone was laid in Westminster Abbey, on the site of his burial, which almost certainly revived interest in the Lord Protector with a transitioning nineteenth-century public. Engravings of Cromwell continued into the nineteenth century with artists such as J.T. Wedgwood [NPG D28729] and William Holl Sr [NPG D28724] and controversially, for the first time, statues of him were commissioned for public spaces in Manchester and outside the Palace of Westminster in London.
This portrait enamel of Oliver Cromwell derives from an unfinished, ad vivum portrait miniature by Samuel Cooper (1607/8-1672) in the National Portrait Gallery collection [NPG 5274] dating to c.1655. Both this and a second profile portrait of Cromwell by Cooper, previously with Philip Mould & Co., may have been produced as preparatory works for the medallist Thomas Simon (1618-1665). Cooper painted very few profile portraits of Cromwell, however, their unusual composition later became iconic images for artists, such as this English school eighteenth-century enamellist, seeking to depict the Lord Protector, both in miniatures and in engravings.
The artist Christian Richter (1678-1732) was renowned for his portraits after Cooper, including a variant of Cooper’s National Portrait Gallery profile of Cromwell sold at Christie’s, London in 1981, and paved the way for eighteenth-century engravings by Gerald Vandergucht [NPG D28725] and Thomas Cook [NPG D28727]. By the nineteenth century Oliver Cromwell was being portrayed more sympathetically by Romantic artists and poets. A memorial stone was laid in Westminster Abbey, on the site of his burial, which almost certainly revived interest in the Lord Protector with a transitioning nineteenth-century public. Engravings of Cromwell continued into the nineteenth century with artists such as J.T. Wedgwood [NPG D28729] and William Holl Sr [NPG D28724] and controversially, for the first time, statues of him were commissioned for public spaces in Manchester and outside the Palace of Westminster in London.
Provenance
Christies, London, 21st November 1967, lot 8;British Private Collection.