Bath, Art and Architecture: Bust of Anne of Austria from Castle Howard

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Bust of Anne of Austria from Castle Howard

A Marble Bust

Traditionally Known as Anne of Austria (1601 - 66).

Anonymous. circa 1650.

From the Castle Howard Collection.

Sold Sotheby's 8 July 2015.

Wife of Louis XIII, mother of Louis XIV.

Described by Sotheby's as Franco Flemish.

For Sotheby's Catalogue entry see -

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.18.html/2015/treasures-l15303

Anne of Austria,

Mother of Louis XIV.

White Marble on Grey Marble Socle - 29" tall overall.

Sold Sotheby's, Lot 18, 8th July 2015.

Provenance: Frederick Howard, 5^th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825), Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, c. 1805; thence by family descent.

Excerpt from the Sotheby's Catalogue.

"Provenance

Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825), Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, c. 1805;

thence by family descent

Literature

Castle Howard Archives, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, MS Listing of Sculptures, c. 1805, p.14, no.162, 'Anne of Austria';

Castle Howard Archives, MS Listing, c. 1815, p.5, Busts in the New Passage, [Antique Passage], 'Anne of Austria';

Castle Howard Archives, MS 5th Earl Probate Inventory, p.35, White Passage in the Main House [Antique passage], 'Anne of Austria';

Castle Howard Archives, MS 6th Earl Probate Inventory, 1849, p.145, Front Hall and Passages, 'Busts of Ann of Austria upon a Pedestal';

Castle Howard Archives, MS 7th Earl Probate Inventory, 1865, p.207, no.100, Grecian Hall Staircase, 'Marble Bust Ann of Austria on covered pedestal';

Castle Howard Archives, MS Duthie Sculpture Catalogue, 1882, p.19, no.113, Passage at back of Drawing Room......to foot of large staircase, 'Bust of Ann of Austria'

The bust is first mentioned as being at Castle Howard by the 5th Earl in his 1805 Listing of Sculptures (op. cit.). This reference is highly significant for the reason that the 5th Earl famously acquired pictures from the Orléans collection in 1798, which were subsequently displayed in the Orléans Room.

The Orleans collection had been amassed principally by Anne of Austria’s grandson, Philippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674-1723), and it had, until the Revolution, been housed in the Palais Royal, the queen’s residence after it had been gifted to her husband by Cardinal Richelieu upon his death in 1642.

Lord Carlisle would consequently have been all too aware of the significance of possessing a bust of Anne of Austria, and it seems likely, given its absence in earlier inventories, that the marble was acquired because of the sitter’s identity and her relevance to the collection.

This hypothesis is given credence by the presence of a miniature depicting Anne of Austria in the collection (now no longer in the collection; Hawkesbury, op. cit., p. 21, no. 26).

Lord Carlisle did not acquire the bust at the 1798 Orléans sale, since pictures only were included in the sale. He must, therefore, have purchased it subsequently.

RELATED LITERATURE

Lord Hawkesbury, Catalogue of the Portraits, Miniatures, &c., at Castle Howard, The Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society for the Year Ending October 1903, XI, 1904, p. 21, no. 26;

M. Vickers, 'Rupert of the Rhine: A new portrait by Dieussart and Bernini's Charles I,' Apollo, March, 1978, pp. 161-169;

C. Avery, 'François Dieussart (c. 1600-61), Portrait Sculptor to the Courts of Northern Europe,' Studies in European Sculpture, London, 1981, pp. 205-235;

F. Scholten, 'François Dieussart, Constantijn Huygens, and the Classical Ideal in Funerary Sculpture', Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 25, no. 4 (1997), pp. 303-328;

M. Boudon Machuel, 'François Dieussart in Rome: Two Newly Identified Works', The Burlington Magazine, vol. 145, no. 1209 (Dec, 2003), pp. 833-840;

C. Avery, 'The Collector Earl and his Modern Marbles. Thomas Howard and François Dieussart,' Apollo, June, 2006, pp. 46-53;

A. Bacchi, C. Hess, J. Montagu and A-L. Desmas, Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture, exh. cat. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Los Angeles, 2008, pp. 192-195, no. 4.3;

O. Mallick, Spiritus intus agit'. Die Patronagepolitik der Anna von Österreich. Untersuchungen zur Inszenierungsstrategie, Hofhaltungspraxis und Freundschaftsrhetorik einer Königin (1643-1666), Ph.D. dissertation, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2012/2013

Sotheby's would like to thank Dr Oliver Mallick for his kind assistance with the identification of the sitter and the cataloguing of this lot."

Anne of Austria

with the Young Louis XIV

Medallion by Jean Warin (1604 - 72).

Photograph Courtesy The Louvre, Paris

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Because I have a slight doubt as to this attribution and because it amuses me, I am including a small selection of interesting contemporary paintings and engravings of Anne of Austria here.