View full screen - View 1 of Lot 151. Portrait of a lady.

Property from the collection of the late Timothy Clowes

Nicholas Hilliard

Portrait of a lady

Lot Closed

September 23, 04:05 PM GMT

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the collection of the late Timothy Clowes

Nicholas Hilliard

Exeter 1547 - 1619 London

Portrait of a lady


Watercolour, bodycolour and gold on vellum, gold and silver-gilt frame decorated with an enamel border;

inscribed in gold: Anno Dom: 1581: 

55 by 44 mm

John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913);
his executor's sale, London, Christie’s, 24 June 1935, lot 100, (as Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (100 gns. To Dr. Beets));
Dr. Anton F. Philips:
sale, London, Christie’s, 6 July 1993, lot 5
C.J. Holmes, 'A supposed Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots by Nicholas Hilliard', The Burlington Magazine, September 1904, p. 573;
G.C. Williamson, Catalogue of the collection of miniatures, The Property of John Pierpont Morgan, London 1906, vol. I, no. 20, pl. XIV, no. 2, pl. no. 8;
G.C. Williamson, Portrait Miniatures, London 1910, p. 5, pl. 111
In the sitter's rosy cheeks and clear complexion, and also in the way the eyes have been defined with fine lines, this appealing work can be comparable to Hilliard's miniature of Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, painted in 1578 (National Portrait Gallery, London, acc. no. 6761).