- Museum number
- P,2.55
- Title
- Object: Filius sic Magni est Jacobi, hæc filia Magni Henrici, soboles dic mihi qualis erit?
- Description
-
Marriage portrait of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, both standing half length, Charles I on the left, wearing collar and medallion, and with one hand on hilt of sword, and Henrietta Maria on the right, wearing earring and necklace, holding a sprig in one hand, and handing a small wreath of myrtle to her husband with the other; crown, sceptre and orb on covered table to left; curtains in background to left and right; landscape in the background in centre; after Anthony van Dyck. 1634
Engraving
- Production date
- 1634
- Dimensions
-
Height: 407 millimetres
-
Width: 547 millimetres (cut)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
-
(Text from Antony Griffiths, 'The Print in Stuart Britain', BM 1998, cat.42)
This is Voerst's masterpiece, and by far the largest plate he ever engraved. It was not made on commission from Charles, and does not bear the address of any London publisher. Voerst must therefore have published it himself, and he must have obtained the royal privilege that is mentioned in the lettering in the centre of the bottom margin. No reference to any such privilege has been found in the State Papers.
Van Dyck's painting, which is now in the Archbishop's Palace at Kromeriz in the Czech Republic, was painted in 1632, soon after his arrival in London, and replaced a less sophisticated version of the same composition by Mytens over the chimney in the cabinet of Somerset House (see O.Millar in 'Burlington Magazine', CIV 1962, pp.326-30). It was the first double portrait that van Dyck painted of the royal couple, and is one of his finest (see Anthony van Dyck, National Gallery Washington 1990, cat.62). Van Dyck was used to very high standards when his paintings had been engraved in Antwerp, and his choice of Voerst confirms Voerst's status as by far the best engraver then active in England. Van Dyck's satisfaction with the print can be gauged from the number of plates that he subsequently commissioned from Voerst for his own series, the Iconography.
An unfinished proof of this print before the lettering was added is in the Sutherland Clarendon in the Ashmolean. A close copy was published by C.J.Visscher in Amsterdam. In 1742 the engraver and antiquarian George Vertue acquired the plate, and published it again after re-working it (see 1981,U.2059).
For another impression of this plate see 1977,U.1224.
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Literature: Karen Hearn, Rubens and Britain (London: Tate, 2012): 13, fig. 2.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1998 BM, The Print in Stuart Britain, cat.42
2000 Jan-Mar, Ipswich, Christchurch Mansion, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000 May-Jul, Bristol, City Mus and AG, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000 Oct-Dec, Lancaster, Peter Scott Gallery, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2000/1 Dec-Feb, Banff, Duff House, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2001 Feb-May, Cardiff, National Mus, Printmaking in Stuart Britain
2002/3 Dec-May, London, Tate Britain, Marcus Gheeraerts II
2009 Apr-Aug BM, P&D, Room 90, British Printed Images to 1700
2011/12 Nov-May Tate Britain, 'Rubens and Britain'
2020 24 Jan-23 Aug 2020, The Foundling Museum, Portraying Pregancy
- Acquisition date
- 1799
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- P,2.55
