The Vanishing Velázquez

by Laura Cumming

  Parts of this book were written in hard and fearful times and I can never be thankful enough to Sarah Baxter, Louise Cattrell, Jill Chisholm, Kate Colquhoun, Timothy Cumming and Kate Kellaway for their exceptional solidarity: bravehearts, all. I should also like to thank Sarah Donaldson, Carol McDaid, Susannah Clapp, Luke Jennings, Fiona Maddocks and John Mulholland at the Observer, Josephine Oxley, Sir John Leighton, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, David Edgar and Tom Lubbock, with whom I had the most exhilarating conversations about art when he was alive and I was privileged to know him.

  My daughters, Hilla and Thea, never knew their grandfather James, who more than slightly resembled Velázquez in mind as well as appearance; but they have grown up loving the works of both and never resented all the time I have spent on the Spaniard. Their father, my husband, Dennis Sewell, has helped me in every conceivable way, from the first clue to the last discovery, day by day, never losing faith in me (or Snare), never ceasing in his generosity. This book is his as much as mine, with boundless love and gratitude.

  © SEBASTIAN BARFIELD

  LAURA CUMMING has been the art critic of the Observer since 1999. Previously, she was arts producer for the BBC World Service, arts editor of the New Statesman magazine, literary editor of the Listener, and deputy editor of Literary Review. She is a former columnist for the Herald and has contributed to the London Evening Standard, the Guardian, L’Express, and Vogue. Her book A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits was widely reviewed to critical acclaim.

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  List of Illustrations

  Text Images

  16 Radley Hall, c. 1819–44, W. Waite

  27 An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, c. 1618, Diego Velázquez (Scottish National Gallery)

  27 Detail, An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, c. 1618, Diego Velázquez (Scottish National Gallery)

  28 Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, c. 1618, Diego Velázquez (National Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images)

  31 Philip IV, 1623–24, Diego Velázquez (Meadows Museum, SMU Dallas, Algur Meadows Collection)

  37 Minster Street, c. 1845, Reading

  57 Philip IV, c. 1623, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  59 Count-Duke Olivares, c. 1636, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  60 Baltasar Carlos in the Riding School, c. 1636, Diego Velázquez (Duke of Westminster)

  68 4th Earl Fife, “All Bond Street Trembled as He Strode,” 1802, James Gillray (© Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford/Bridgeman Images)

  69 P. T. Barnum and Charles Sherwood Stratton (“Tom Thumb”), c. 1850, Samuel Root

  76 Las Meninas (after Velázquez), c. 1656–77, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo (Kingston Lacy, Dorset, National Trust Photographic Library/John Hammond/Bridgeman Images)

  89 Don Diego de Acedo, c. 1636–38, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  97 2nd Earl Fife, 1805, Robert Dunkarton after Arthur William Devis

  118 Don John of Austria, c. 1632, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  120 Sibyl, c. 1632, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  122 The Artist’s Family, c. 1664–65, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria/Bridgeman Images)

  129 Advertisement for an exhibition at Tait’s Saloon, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 1849

  133 Front door of 16 Minster Street, Reading

  167 Ferdinando Brandani, c. 1650, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  180 Stuyvesant Institute, New York

  189 Detail, Philip IV in Brown and Silver, c. 1631–32, Diego Velázquez (National Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images)

  189 Detail, Archbishop Fernando de Valdés, c. 1640–45, Diego Velázquez (formerly Palacio Real, Madrid)

  193 Portrait of a Man, 1660, workshop of Velázquez (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889, © 2015. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence)

  222 The Toilet of Venus (“The Rokeby Venus”), c. 1647–51, Diego Velázquez (National Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images)

  249 Duff House, Banff

  253 Charles I, c. 1623–24, Daniel Mytens (© Mark Weiss, Weiss Gallery)

  254 Charles I, c. 1623–24, Daniel Mytens, reproduced in The Connoisseur, vol. X, September–December 1904

  257 Portrait of the Artist, c. 1630, Daniel Mytens (Royal Collection Trust, © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2015)

  266 Philip IV, c. 1653–56, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  269 Detail, Las Meninas, c. 1656, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  Plate Section

  A Las Meninas, c. 1656, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  B The Waterseller of Seville, c. 1618, Diego Velázquez (© English Heritage, The Wellington Collection at Apsley House)

  C Portrait of a Man, possibly Nieto, c. 1635–45, Diego Velázquez (© English Heritage, The Wellington Collection at Apsley House)

  D Francisco Lezcano, c. 1636–38, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  E Sebastián de Morra, c. 1643–49, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  F Pablo de Valladolid, c. 1635, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  G View of the Gardens of the Villa Medici, c. 1630, Diego Velázquez (Prado National Museum)

  H Pope Innocent X, c. 1650, Diego Velázquez (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome/Bridgeman Images)

  I Juan de Pareja, c. 1650, Diego Velázquez (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Fletcher and Rogers Funds, and bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot, by exchange, supplemented by gifts from friends of the Museum, 1971. Inv. 1971.86 © 2015. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence)

  J Portrait of a Man, c. 1630–35, Diego Velázquez (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Jules Bache Collection, 1949, © 2015. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence)

  K Charles I, c. 1623–24, Daniel Mytens (© Mark Weiss, Weiss Gallery)

  Notes on Sources

  1 A Discovery

  Velasquez or Velázquez? The reader will immediately notice two different spellings, and there are comic variations to come (see Chapter 14). I abide by Velázquez, as generally accepted in modern times, but have honored all the spellings in the sources. The same applies to Van Dyck/Van Dyke, Mytens/Mittens and so on.

  John Snare’s A Brief Description of the Portrait of Prince Charles, Afterwards Charles the First, Painted in 1623, by Velasquez: Now Exhibiting at No. 21 Old Bond-Street London, came out in April 1847. A much longer pamphlet, The History and Pedigree of the Portrait of Prince Charles (etc.), was published only weeks later. Snare would produce a further pamphlet in 1848, in response to his critics, Proofs of the Authenticity of the Portrait of Prince Charles (afterwards Charles the First), painted at Madrid in 1623, by Velasquez. By now his case was sufficiently well known for the publication to be distributed by the prestigious London book company Whittaker and Co.

  2 The Painting

  13 Snare’s recollections of the auction are taken from The History and Pedigree, unless specified.

  13 “A Half-Length of Charles the First (supposed Van-dyke)” would be no small picture. In the seventeenth century, half-length implied a portrait to below the waist; but it also related to size, which might be as much as 40 inches by 33 inches for Van Dyck’s portraits of Charles. However, the issue is vexed and the term unstable, as Sna
re would soon discover.

  15 The Reading postal directory, Belcher and Harris’s sale catalogue and all nineteenth-century Reading newspapers are in the local studies department of Reading Central Library.

  19 For the early prices of Velázquez’s works in Britain, see Xavier Bray’s “Velázquez in Britain” in Velázquez, ed. Dawson W. Carr.

  3 The Painter

  25 All quotations from Pacheco and Palomino are taken from Michael Jacobs’s indispensable Lives of Velázquez.

  29 The carpenter’s bill is cited in Velázquez, ed. Carr, p. 124.

  32 The latest anthology of Velázquez documents is Corpus Velazqueño, ed. Aterido.

  32 On the illegitimate son, see Jennifer Montagu’s “Velázquez Marginalia,” Burlington Magazine, CXXV, 1983.

  33 Alfaro’s sketch of Velázquez on his deathbed can be viewed by appointment at the Collection F. Lugt, Institut Neerlandais, Paris.

  4 Minster Street

  42 The foreman’s account of Blagrave’s visit is in the transcript of the Edinburgh trial, published as The Velázquez Cause (see below).

  44 Two of the best recent studies of the Spanish Match are The Prince and the Infanta, by Glynn Redworth, and The Spanish Match, ed. Alexander Samson.

  46 Mytens’s portrait of Henry (private collection) was shown in the National Portrait Gallery’s 2013 exhibition “The Lost Prince” and appears in the catalogue, ed. Catherine Macleod.

  47 Pacheco’s account is corroborated by an entry in Sir Francis Cottington’s account book for September 8 (National Library of Scotland, NLS, 1879), which reads, “Paid unto a Painter for drawing the Princes picture. Signified by Mr Porter from the Prince, 1,100 reales.” Cottington’s accounts are analyzed by Redworth, and also by Jonathan Brown and John Elliott in The Sale of the Century.

  5 Man in Black

  51 The watercolor is by Joseph Nash (1809–79).

  53 Benjamin West is quoted in Peter Young and Paul Joannides’s “Giulio Romano’s Madonna at Apsley House,” Burlington Magazine, CXII, 1995.

  53 See Carola Hicks, Girl in a Green Gown.

  54 The correspondence between Wellington and Maryborough is in Catalogue of Paintings in the Wellington, Apsley House, p. 11.

  55 On the golilla, see R. M. Anderson, “The Gollilla, a Spanish Collar of the Seventeenth Century,” Waffen: und Kostumkunde XI, 1969, pp. 1–19. Also Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion.

  56 J. H. Elliott gives a superb account of palace life in Spain and Its World 1500–1700.

  56 The French visitor is Antoine Brunel, Voyage d’Antoine Brunel, p. 144.

  56 Philip’s frozen demeanor is from Marcelin Defourneaux’s Daily Life in Spain in the Golden Age, p. 49.

  6 The Talk of London

  65 Life of Mary Russell Mitford, p. 204.

  68 For Bullock and the Egyptian Hall, see Richard Altick’s The Shows of London.

  69 The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself recounts the midget tour.

  70 Snare reports the count’s visit in The History and Pedigree.

  7 A Man in Full

  82 Moragas describes Lezcano as “a cretin . . . of doglike faithfulness.” Gallego states that his costume “has a dishevelled appearance in keeping with the disordered mind of the dwarf.” Brown describes him as “a creature seemingly as deformed in mind as body.”

  82 Two classic accounts of court dwarves are Beatrice K. Otto’s Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World (University of Chicago Press, 2001) and E. Tietze-Conrat’s Dwarfs and Jesters in Art (Garden City Books, New York, 1957).

  86 Richard Ford on the dwarves, p. 751.

  86 Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, Monsters, Dwarves and Buffoons, p. 9.

  8 The Attack

  93 On Buckingham’s collection, see Randall Davies, “An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures at York House in 1635”; Philip McEvansoneya, “An Unpublished Inventory of the Hamilton Collection in the 1620s and the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures”; and I. G. Philip, “Balthazar Gerbier and the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures.”

  95 Thomas Pennant, Some Account of London, p. 146.

  96 The papers of James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, are in the Special Collections Library, University of Aberdeen.

  96 John Pinkerton, Literary Correspondence in Two Volumes, vol. 2, p. 14.

  97 Walcott’s Memorial of Westminster, p. 152; Edgar Sheppard in The Old Royal Palace of Westminster, p. 52.

  98 On portrait sizes see the essay “Three-quarters, kit-cats and half-lengths: British portrait painters and their canvas sizes 1625–1850” published online by the National Portrait Gallery in London.

  103 Stirling Maxwell, Annals, 1848, p. 1368.

  104 Stirling Maxwell, Velázquez and His Works, p. 82.

  9 The Theater of Life

  107 Manet’s rejection of the food is from a letter by the art critic Theodore Duret, a fellow diner. Duret, Histoire de Édouard Manet (Paris, 1902) p. 45.

  108 Manet’s letter is in Brown and Garrido, Velázquez: The Technique of Genius, p. 45.

  109 Carl Justi, Diego Velázquez and His Times, p. 442.

  111 The staging of Calderón’s play is described in Brown and Elliott’s A Palace for a King, p. 205.

  111 On court theater, see Laura Bass’s The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain and Melveena McEndrick’s Theatre in Spain.

  114 For the tailoring of canvases to fit the space, see J. Portus, J. Garcia-Maiquez and Y. R. Davila, in Boletín del Museo del Prado, XXIX, 47, 2011.

  114 The one line in the masque is given by Angel Aterido in Velázquez’s Fables, ed. Portus, p. 83.

  114 For the staging of plays before Philip IV, see J. Varey, “The Audience and the Play at Court Spectacles: The Role of the King,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 61, 1984.

  122 The French visitor is Marechal de Gramont, in Collections des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, p. 78.

  10 Seizure and Theft

  125 Wilkie Collins, writing to his mother in 1842, from Palgrave’s online Wilkie Collins Chronology.

  129 The judge’s ruling is quoted in the trial proceedings, see below.

  130 The lawsuit closer to home is reported by Diana R. Mackarill in The Snares of Minster Street, p. 19.

  131 Samson Threatening His Father-in-law hung in the Chrysler Museum in Virginia for many years until the Rembrandt Research Project, whose enduring task it is to decide which Rembrandts are fakes and which painted by the artist, or one of his assistants, or some combination of both, decided in 2011 that it fell into the latter category. But John Snare’s name is there in the history and pedigree of that picture, the bookseller among the magnates and aristocrats.

  132 Stevenson, ibid.

  11 The Trial

  All quotations from the trial are taken from “The Velasquez Cause: report of the trial by jury in the action of damages at the instance of John Snare, bookseller in Reading, against the Trustees of the late Earl of Fife: for the wrongful seizure and detention of the celebrated portrait of Charles the First by Velasquez.” The trial transcript was published by Thomas George Stevenson, whose office was only doors away from Tait’s Hotel.

  12 The Escape

  158 Pacheco and Palomino both give details of the trips to Rome.

  162 Velázquez’s opinions appear in Marco Boschini’s Carta del Navegar pittoresco, published in Venice in 1660.

  168 Francesca Curti’s identification of Ferdinando Brandani is in Boletín del Museo del Prado, XXIX, 47, 2011.

  170 Chuck Close’s remark is from Michael Kimmelman, “At the Met with Chuck Close,” New York Times, July 25, 1997.

  13 Velázquez on Broadway

  174 The pamphlet was “The Velázquez: A Description of the Celebrated Historical Picture of Charles the First, by the Great Velázquez, Now on Exhibition at the Stuyvesant Institute, 659 Broadway” (undated, though the New York City Library edition suggests 1850).

  177 Voorsanger and Howat (e
ds.) Art and the Empire City, p. 78.

  178 Bobo, Glimpses of New York City, p. 11.

  180 James, A Small Boy and Others, p. 266.

  14 The Escape Artist

  191 “A world of pain” is from Jonathan Brown’s In the Shadow of Velázquez: A Life in Art History.

  192 Walt Whitman writing to Dr. Bucke, November 1, 1889, from The Correspondence, p. 393.

  194 See Velázquez Rediscovered, by Keith Christiansen, Jonathan Brown and Michael Gallagher.

  15 The Vanishing

  206 The watercolor is in Mackarill, The Snares of Minster Street.

  211 Buffalo Courier, April 21, 1860.

  218 New York Times, November 15, 1903.

  16 Seeing Is Believing

  223 Kenneth Clark, Looking at Pictures, p. 36.

  19 Lost and Found

  251 The right size: the picture is 26¼ inches by 23¼ inches, three-quarters (of a kit-cat canvas) according to Fife’s catalogue.

  254 K. Warren Clouston, “The Duke of Fife’s Collecton at Duff House,” The Connoisseur, X, 1904.

  254 M. Crosby Smith, “Duff House: The Ancestral Home of the Duke and Duchess of Fife,” The Lady, 1905.

  259 There is one other painting in the Christie’s catalogue that might have left a ghostly trace in the servants’ memory. Lot 129 of the Fife sale is “Velasquez: A portrait of a count . . . in lace collar, holding a stick in his left hand and resting his right arm upon his hip.” A curator has written “No—but very good” on the copy in the National Portrait Gallery library.