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- Watch with case
- Watch
- Lemaine A Blois
- France
- c. 1650 and later
- XIIA75
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Francesco Albani (1578 - 1660)
- Venus and Cupid
- Italy
- c. 1640 - c. 1645
- P642
- Bookmarkable URLVenus and Cupid repeats motifs found in Albani’s work in the late 1620s. Albani is alleged to have modelled the putti in his paintings on his own babies, suspended from the ceiling with ropes. The group of children lighting torches, here signifying the contagious power of Love, recurs in Albani’s Fire, one of a set of The Elements (Turin, Galleria Sabauda) dateable 1626-8. Albani’s small scale, carefully finished cabinet pictures particularly appealed to French collectors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Louis XIV had more pictures by Albani than any other Bolognese painter. The 4th Marquess of Hertford therefore emulates ancien régime taste in purchasing this modest but decorative picture at a time in the mid-nineteenth century when Albani’s works, criticised for their frivolous and repetitive nature, were actually beginning to fall out of favour.
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- Alessandro Algardi (1602 - 1654) , (model)
- Jupiter victorious over the Titans: 'Fire'
- France
- c. 1655 - 1680
- S161
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Alessandro Algardi (1602 - 1654) , (model)
- Juno controlling the Winds: 'Air'
- France
- c. 1655 - 1680
- S162
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Cruciform watch with case
- Cruciform watch
- Antoine Arlaud
- Geneva, Switzerland
- c. 1620
- XIIA100
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Sabre with scabbard
- Assedallah of Isfahani , (blade)
- Iran and India
- 17th century
- OA1398
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Cruciform watch
- Cruciform watch
- Ausin
- France
- 17th century and later
- XIIA86
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Rapier
- Tomás de Ayala , Swordsmith
- Italy
- c. 1610 - c. 1630
- A567
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Jacob Adriaensz. Backer (1608 - 1651)
- Portrait of an Elderly Woman
- The Netherlands
- 1632
- P89
- Bookmarkable URLTypical of Backer’s restrained style, the present portrait may depict Anna Roefs (1562/3-1639) who lived in Amsterdam from at least 1626 until her death in 1639. A version of the same picture remains in the collection of her descendants today. The sitter is shown dressed in a black silk costume of the type affected by the respectable middle classes of the day. She is seated in an armchair similar to that in which Backer depicts the Dutch merchant Johannes Uyttenbogaert in a portrait dated 1638, which has led historians to propose a similar date for the present picture. The painting was probably acquired by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford. It was listed in the 1870 Hertford House inventory under an attribution to Rembrandt, and was exhibited as such at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872-5. At the Royal Academy in 1889 it was described as a portrait of Rembrandt’s mother.
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- Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 - 1708)
- Dutch Craft lying close onshore
- The Netherlands
- c.1697
- P244
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Follower of Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 - 1708)
- Ships in a Storm
- The Netherlands
- c. 1665 - 1670
- P248
- Bookmarkable URLOn the left in a choppy sea a small ship, flying a grey ensign with blue and red stripes, moves toward a large ship under full sail on the right, which carries a Dutch flag, a plain yellow jack and a Dutch ensign. Perhaps a work by Jan Claesz. Rietschoof (1652-1719), the most prominent follower of Bakhuizen after Abraham Storck.
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- Wheel-lock gun with ramrod
- Attributed to Luca Belli (1595 - 1637)
- Italy
- c. 1640 and 19th century
- A1113
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Partizan
- Attributed to Jean Berain I (1640 - 1711)
- France
- c. 1670 - c. 1680
- A1009
- Bookmarkable URL
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- Partizan
- Probably Georges Berain , Designer
- France
- c. 1643 - 1715
- A1008
- Bookmarkable URLA ceremonial staff-weapon, probably designed by Georges Berain, and made for the Gardes du Corps, personal bodyguard of Louis XIV (1638-1713, reigning from 1643). The blade is blued and damascened in gold with the arms of France and Navarre surrounded by the collars of the Orders of St. Michel and St. Esprit (incorporating the royal initial H for Henri IV, founder of the order) surmounted by a crown. Above this is a trophy of arms, the sun in splendour (an appropriate emblem, Louis XIV being widely known as ‘the Sun King’) and a scroll with the royal motto NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR (“EQUAL TO ANYTHING”).
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- A Southern Harbour Scene
- The Netherlands
- late 1650s
- P25
- Bookmarkable URLTypical of Berchem’s decorative and exotic harbour scenes, the harbour was imaginatively identified with the port of Genoa by Jean Aliamet, who engraved the picture in the eighteenth century. The picture’s distinguished provenance demonstrates the artist’s appeal to collectors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; its owners included the duc de Berry and Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato. The 4th Marquess of Hertford paid the considerable price of 42,000 francs (about £1,680) for the painting at the latter’s sale in 1868.
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- The Ferry Boat
- The Netherlands
- 167[2 or 5]
- P183
- Bookmarkable URLThe composition relates to an engraving by Danckerts after Berchem, and to a landscape, dated 1665, by Berchem’s pupil Abraham Begeyn. A late work, The Ferry Boat is somewhat uneven in its execution, with weaknesses evident in the treatment of the ferryman’s forearms and the hands of the man standing next to the horse. Nevertheless, the picture glows with an attractive golden tonality reminiscent of the Italian landscapes of Claude (q.v.), a quality which made Berchem’s works highly prized by eighteenth and early nineteenth-century collectors. The Ferry Boat was bought for the 3rd Marquess of Hertford by the great French dealer Le Brun at the Paris sale of Monsieur Dutartre, former Treasurer of the King’s Buildings, in 1804. The annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Wallace Collection Library is marked with the comment: ‘Yarmouth Le Brun 3650/ perfect’.
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- Landscape with Cattle
- The Netherlands
- late 1650s
- P185
- Bookmarkable URLA work of the later 1650s, darker and less ambitious than The Ferry Boat (Berchem P183), Landscape with Cattle may be compared in terms of treatment and handling with The Smithy, dated 1658, by Berchem’s pupil Karel Dujardin (q.v.; P222).
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- Italian Landscape with Figures
- The Netherlands
- 1654
- P186
- Bookmarkable URLA typical extensive Italianate landscape bathed in golden evening light, possibly influenced by Berchem’s supposed trip to Italy c.1651-3. The image was publicised widely in a print after the painting, entitled Le Soir, engraved in reverse by Le Bas in 1740. The decorative appeal of Italian Landscape with Figures attracted a distinguished list of owners which included the duchesse de Berry, the comte de Magnoncourt and the duc de Morny.
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- Halt at an Inn
- The Netherlands
- 1670s
- P213
- Bookmarkable URLA finely painted, elegant work of the 1670s, Halt at an Inn belonged to a distinguished group of collectors and dealers before entering the collection of the 4th Marquess of Hertford, including the duc and duchesse de Berry, the dealer and cataloguer John Smith, the dealer Nieuwenhuys and the 4th Earl of Mornington.
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- Nicolaes Berchem (1620 - 1683)
- The Infant Jupiter with the Nymphs on Mount Ida
- The Netherlands
- 165[0?]
- P256
- Bookmarkable URLJupiter was the son of Saturn, who devoured his children because he feared that one of them would usurp his power. When his mother, Rhea, gave birth to Jupiter, she gave Saturn a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he swallowed instead; the child was then secretly brought up by the nymphs on Mount Ida where he was fed on wild honey and milk from the goat Amalthea. Berchem’s picture uses an ideal Italianate landscape as the setting for this well-known myth, with the suckling infant Jupiter visible at the centre of the picture. The distinctive form of the signature, Berighem or Berrighem, occurs in other works by Berchem produced before the mid-1650s. The subject was a popular one with the artist at this period, and at least three other examples are known, one of which is signed and dated C Berrighem 1648 (The Hague, Mauritshuis).
