Circle of Anthonis Mor

The canvas has a stable old relining. Inspection under ultra-violet light reveals an unevenly applied varnish and scattered retouchings. There are some spot retouchings in the face, with minor strengthenings in details of the eyes and ear and a few in the hands. The varnish fluoresces in an opaque manner concealing any earlier work if such exists. Offered in a large period carved gilt and painted frame in fair condition.
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The sitter was the pre-eminent European statesman of the mid 16th century, and like his father, served the Hapsburgs under the Emperor Charles V, whose leading mininster he became. He was arguably the greatest collector and patron of the arts of his day. He was painted by Titian in 1548 (Kansas, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) and Anthonis Mor the following year (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and owned works by Gimabologna and Pieter Brueghel the Elder among many others. The majority of his collection was later acquired by the Emperor Rudolph II in Prague.

If we accept that the present portrait shows the sitter in his thirties then it was most probably painted in the Spanish Netherlands where Granvelle served under Philip of Spain and after 1555 as prime minister to his regent Margaret of Parma. The likeness corresponds closely to another portrait of him when he was made a cardinal in 1561, traditionally attributed to Willem Key and now in Weimar. Another version of the present likeness is recorded in the Friedländer Archive at the RKD in The Hague in a private collection in Ghent. A smaller replica painted on a circular panel was sold in these Rooms, 13 April 2013, lot 5, as by a follower of Anthonis Mor. Granvelle patronised a number of painters during his stays in the Netherlands, among them Willem Key, Frans Floris and Lambert Suavius.¹ A lost portrait of him as cardinal by Jan van Scorel was also owned by Rubens.

1. See, for example, P. Curie, 'Quelques portraits du Cardinal de Granvelle', in Les Granvelle et l'Italie au XVIe Siècle: le mecénat d'une famille, in Actes du Colloque International organisé par la Section d'Italien de l'Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, Besançon 1996, pp. 159-175.