This outstanding portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) is a unique representation of this iconic European Renaissance ruler. The profile portrait is carved in alabaster, most probably English from the region around Nottingham, and is mounted on a circular piece of black marble from Dinant in Belgium. It shows the emperor in later middle-age, around 1545 to 1555. Charles is shown all’antica. He wears a simple light shirt, or paludamentum, folded on his right shoulder, revealing his bare arm and chest. The Order of the Golden Fleece hangs on a plain cord around his neck. He wears a laurel crown, naturalistically carved with compact bunches of berries. Seen in profile the emperor’s pronounced prognathism (underbite) is uncompromisingly portrayed, whilst the tight curls of his beard and his flowing hair are delicately carved. The alabaster is 4.3cm. thick which gives the relief a presence and sense of volume, not easily understood in illustration.
Critical history
This roundel of Charles V was shown in the exhibition Der gekaufte Kaiser. Die Krönung Karls V. und der Wandel der Welt at the Neues Stadtmuseum, Aachen in 2020. Catalogued by Frank Pohle as Southern Netherlandish, second quarter or mid-16th century, it has previously been the subject of a number of in-depth studies that have proposed differing dates and attributions.
Anna De Rossi published an article on the roundel in Mémoires de la Société d’Emulation du Doubs (op. cit.). De Rossi proposed an attribution to Alfonso Lombardi, based on Vasari’s life of the sculptor and other documents which mention a marble head of Charles V made by the Ferrarese sculptor. However, the Lombardi portrait was modelled surreptitiously in 1530 when the emperor sat for Titian, so would have depicted a younger man, and besides it is recorded as marble and not alabaster. An unpublished report written in 2014 by Professor Walter Cupperi proposed a date consistent with the Aachen exhibition of 1540 to 1550. Cupperi’s perceptive study noted many stylistic affinities with the work of Jacques Dubroeucq yet acknowledged several distinct differences with his autograph work and, therefore, concluded that it is by a gifted sculptor active around the Southern Netherlands. A third unpublished study, prepared by Géraldine Patigny in 2017, focused on links between the present alabaster profile and the work of Leone Leoni and Jacques Jonghelinck, noting comparisons with their medallic work, such as Leoni’s medal of Charles V of 1550, in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid or Jonghelinck’s medal of Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1567, location unknown). Patigny favoured a later date, circa 1560-70, in the circle of Leoni and Jonghelinck.
Iconography
This alabaster profile of Charles V is a unique image of the emperor. Portraits of Charles V generally divide into representations of the emperor in contemporary costume or military attire (either modern armour or all’antica). Here Charles V is dressed informally, in a timeless, almost ethereal manner which seems inconsistent with an official or courtly function. Whilst in wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece the identity of the sitter is associated with a modern chivalric order, the iconography of the laurel crown and paludamentum reference a classical past and victory over time and contemporary issues. Would this be an image that the emperor would have commissioned himself to reflect his personal aspirations? Or is it more likely a visual eulogy, commissioned by someone close to the emperor, extolling the more poetic or intellectual virtues of a powerful ruler?
Cupperi’s seminal 2002 article on Charles V's iconography in coins and medals illustrates a wealth of models to which the sculptor of the present work could have had reference (Cupperi 2002, op. cit.). Cupperi notes that the coinage of the Southern Netherlands, notably the silver florin of Antwerp, could have influenced this work and that the specific classical iconography can be compared to ancient Imperial coins from the reign of Hadrian. However, the superb quality of the carving and its intense characterization are more consistent with a sculptor who would have had first-hand experience of the emperor, or larger pictorial representations.
The present alabaster profile may be compared with several other sculpted images of Charles V. In a small (14 by 12.9cm.) alabaster profile attributed to Joachim Deschler in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. XII 82) the emperor is shown in luxurious contemporary costume. The profile image emphasizes Charles’s prognathism as in the present portrait, but he is shown in middle age, dating the work to 1530-35. By contrast, the marble relief of Charles V by Leone and Pompeo Leoni in the Museo del Prado (E-291) is a much larger profile portrait (overall 156 by 130cm.). Charles V wears contemporary armour and the Golden Fleece on the official enamelled chain. The Prado relief is considered to date from 1550-5 and the wrinkles on the emperor’s face indicate that he is of an age similar to the present alabaster.
Sculptural representations of Charles V wearing a laurel crown include the famous bronze relief in the Louvre (inv. no. LP 45 N 15125) by Leone Leoni that was delivered to Cardinal Granvelle in 1555 (fig. 1). It is a particularly good comparison with the present alabaster because it is only slightly larger (overall 66.2cm., including the substantial frame) and shows the emperor at a similar age. If the Granvelle bronze depicts Charles V as the all victorious military commander, the present alabaster represents him as the paradigm of Humanist virtues as exemplified by ancient rulers, such as Marcus Aurelius.
A final iconographic comparison with a medal from the mid-1550s, an example of which is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no. 60.55.54, fig. 2), provides a reference for the laurel crown and paludamentum, in this example shown more traditionally over armour. An intriguing detail here is the representation of a seraph on the emperor’s chest which intriguingly connects to the pastigilia decoration of the frame, discussed below.
The Frame
A detailed technical report was prepared on the frame in 2016 by Hélène Verougstraete (available on request). The frame is made of oak with applied pastigilia decoration which is oil gilded. The background was originally painted with azurite and white lead and lapis lazzuli. An IR Spectroscopy of the wood conducted in 2015 is consistent with a date of felling over 400 years ago (certificate available on request). Analysis of the remains of blue paint, also examined in 2015, concludes that the lapis-lazuli is consistent with practice from the Middle Ages to the 17th century (certificate available on request). Verougstraete suggests that the roundel was not intended to be suspended but rather integrated into an ensemble such as a retable, or overmantel, see Lipińska, op. cit.. The decoration and construction of the frame are consistent with a mid-16th century period in the Southern Netherlands and Verougstraete contends that the frame is original to the roundel; an opinion disputed by Cupperi. Whilst Verougstraete observes that the Italianate pattern of the frame is typical of this period of the Renaissance, a possible iconographic support for the frame being original to the relief is provided by the prominence given to the seraph on the medal of Charles V discussed above (fig. 2) and the repeat motif of the seraph in the decoration of this frame. The similarity is striking, although the association of the seraph with Charles V needs further investigation.
Conclusion
This exceptional alabaster portrait of Charles V is an outstanding new addition to the well-known images of the Holy Roman Emperor by Titian, Cranach, Leone Leoni and other famous artists. Its large size and refined quality of carving differentiate it from the extant diminutive portraits in alabaster. Above all, it is distinguished from the common iconography of Charles V in contemporary costume or military guise by presenting the emperor as a man of peace and learning. His light clothing gives an air of intimacy, almost vulnerability. His expression is animated, but the classical references in the laurel crown and paludamentum create an image ab aeterno. Such an image of the emperor in a period of peace would be consistent with the years from 1529 to 1532, however, the alabaster clearly depicts a much older man. Later in Charles reign the period between the battle of Mühlberg in 1547 and Charles’s flight to Villach in 1552, is the most likely moment when the emperor or someone close to him could have wished to promote such an image.
RELATED LITERATURE:
E. F. Bange, Die Bildwerke in Holz, Stein und Ton. Kleinplastik, Berlin and Leipzig, 1930, no. 836; W. Cupperi, ‘Per la delettatione che delle memorie antiche generosamente suol prendere»: le antichità di Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, il Bacco D’Aspra-Guisa ed un’ipotesi sul Dioniso di Versailles’, Romisches Jahrbuch de Bibliotheca Hertziana, band 40, 2011-12, pp. 49-80; W. Cupperi, ‘La riscoperta delle monete antiche come codice celebrativo: L'iconografia italiana dell'imperatore Carlo V d'Asburgo nelle medaglie di Alfonso Lombardi, Giovanni Bernardi, Giovanni da Cavino, "TP", Leone e Pompeo Leoni (1530-1558), con una nota su altre medaglie cesaree di Jacques Jonghelinck e Joachim Deschler’, Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte, 2002, vol. 26, 2002, pp. 31-85; J. Urrea, Los Leoni (1509-1608) Escultores del Renacimiento italiano al servicio de la corte de España, exh. cat. Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1994, pp. 116-118, no.5 and pp. 130-2, no. 11; A. Lipińska, Moving Sculptures. Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe, Leiden and Boston, 2014, pp. 260-5; M. Debaene and S. Jugie, Alabaster Sculpture in Europe 1300-1650, exh. cat. M Leuven, Leuven, 2002-3, pp. 274-5, no. 116; G. Parker, Emperor. A new life of Charles V, New Haven and London, 2019