Attributed to Marcus GHEERAERTS the Younger (c.1561 - c.1635, Flemish)
Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)
fully inscribed and dated: '1603.. aeta.48' (upper right),
inscribed extensively on sheet of paper (lower left) as by the sitter's hand: 'WRayleig 1603' (the 'WR' entwined) with some rubbing
three-quarter-length, in black, standing by a table oil on three panels
45 1⁄4 x 34 1/8 inches (114.9 x 86.7 cms)
Price: Sold
Provenance
Sherborne Castle, Dorset.
Kingston House, Dorchester, Dorset.
Mr. G. Morton Pitt.
Sir William Chatterton (to 1840).
The Raleigh Club, London.
Sir William Chatterton.
Mrs. Dering, Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire. William Randolph Hearst, St. Donat's Castle, Wales. The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (1952).
Literature
- L. Cust, 'The Portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh,' Walpole Society Publications, VIII, n.d., pp. 12-13.
W.R. Valentiner, Catalogue of Paintings: Including Three Sets of Tapestries, Raleigh, 1956, no. 83, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- C.W. Stanford, Jr., Masterpieces in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1966, no. 4, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- C.W. Stanford, Jr., Selections from British and American Painting and Sculpture, Raleigh, 1967, no. 1, cover, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- The North Carolina Museum of Arts, British Paintings to 1900: Catalogue of Paintings, Raleigh, 1969, II, no. 77, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
Exhibited
- Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Carolina Charter Tercentenary Exhibition, 23 March-28 May 1963, no. 76, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, The World of Shakespeare: 1564-1616, 10 January-16 February 1964 and 10 March-6 April 1964, no. 18, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Robert F. Phifer Collection, 31 March-13 May 1973, pp. 30-31, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
- Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Prince Henry and His Times, 29 May-3 July 1977, as 'Gheeraerts II'.
This portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh was painted during his first incarceration in the Tower of London. With his life and future precariously balanced, and execution but a flick of the pen away, this intimate and personal painting was created as a form of memento mori: a far cry from earlier portraits designed to communicate power, prestige, and allegiance.
The painting was cleaned in 2012 when huge quantities of over-paint dating from the nineteenth century were removed. Fortunately, for a painting of this date, the original seventeenth-century paint was remarkably well preserved and the original paint layer relatively undamaged. Due to the positioning of the boards, the usual cracks which appear in panels of this date travel through inconsequential areas of the image.
Generally speaking, the painting had been dramatically altered to present an image of Raleigh more accessible to the likes of William Randolph Hearst. It had been 'camped up' to show the action-man of the Elizabethan court (with the addition of a sword, high-status architecture etc), destroying the deep psychological impact of the original. As Cust mentions in his analysis (in 'Portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh', Walpole Society Publications VIII), the portrait shows: 'The historian and philosopher, and the victim of a timorous government, the caged eagle of his time'. He is seen left swordless, powerless and soulful: a man who appears to be coming to terms with his near demise after a life of enormous public significance.