
Charlie Thomas
Group Head, Private Collections, Furniture & Works of Art, U.K
Sold for £12,750 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistGroup Head, Private Collections, Furniture & Works of Art, U.K
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Provenance: By descent in the Sutherland Collection, at Trentham, Staffordshire, and subsequently at Lilleshall Staffordshire, and Dunrobin Castle until the present
Literature: Catalogue of Pictures at Trentham (1896) page 5, number 2, when hanging in the entrance hall; (as by Mirevelt (sic))
Catalogue of Pictures at Lilleshall (1909) page 17 number 51, when hanging in the Duchess's sitting-room.
The present portrait, which can be dated to circa 1635, has traditionally been identified as Augustus II, Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lűneburg, who is best remembered today as a scholar who developed Wolfenbüttel into an intellectual and cultural centre after the devastations of the Thirty Years War had concluded with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
A follower of the Delft portrait painter, Michiel van Mierevelt, Jan van Ravesteyn is mentioned in the archives of that city in 1598, but his career was largely conducted in the city of his birth, The Hague, where he competed with Mierevelt in particular to obtain commissions for portraits of the royal House of Nassau. Since the present sitter is depicted wearing what appears to be the sash of the dynastic Order of Orange-Nassau, he might be more likely identified as a member of the royal house of The Netherlands.