Ham House the Green Closet Miniatures and Cabinet Pictures Ham House the Green Closet Miniatures and Cabinet Pictures a HISTORIC HANG REVIVED
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Ham House The Green Closet miniatures and cabinet pictures Ham House The Green Closet miniatures and cabinet pictures A HISTORIC HANG REVIVED The collection of miniatures at Ham House is one of the largest accumulations of miniatures by one family to have remained substantially intact. Its display with small paintings and other images in an early 17th-century picture closet is without surviving parallel in England. By 1990, however, almost all the pictures and miniatures were displayed elsewhere, and the original purpose of the Green Closet was no longer evident. The substantial restoration of the historic groupings on its walls, with the kind agreement of the Victoria & Albert Museum, has revived the spirit, and much of the appearance, of the traditional arrangement. Designed to display both cabinet fring’d’ hanging from ‘guilt Curtaine rods dismantled) that extended even to the pictures and miniatures on an intimate round the roome’,which could be drawn sides of the chimneybreast. This was the scale, in contrast to the arrays of three- to protect the paintings from light and arrangement in 1844, when 97 pictures quarter-length portraits in the adjoining dust. The table and green-upholstered were listed, a considerable increase on Long Gallery, the Green Closet is of the seat furniture were also provided with 1677, when there were 57, but the spirit greatest rarity, not only as – in its core – sarsenet case-covers. Modern copies of all of the 17th-century room was a survival from the reign of Charles I these decorative and practical furnishings undoubtedly preserved. It may be that (whose own closets for the display of and fittings have recently been provided. the bones of the hang (e.g. the upper small works of art have long since The pictures and miniatures are hung register of ebony-framed pictures with disappeared), but also because it retains from copies of the original gilt and their lower edges aligned and a many of its 17th-century, as well as later, lacquered pins, of which a few original concentration of miniatures below, on contents. The carved woodwork and the examples survive. The room originally the long east wall) were filled out as ceiling paintings were installed by Franz relied entirely upon natural light or on further additions were made during the Cleyn during William Murray’s lamps or candles brought in for 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1677 refurbishment of 1637–9. occasional use. The present display lights there was a similar mix of pictures Architecturally, the room has remained are reproductions of the 9th Earl of framed in gilt and ebony: ‘Nynteine unchanged since about 1672, when the Dysart’s electric picture-lights, installed pictures with guilt frames / Therttie door into the North Drawing Room was before 1904. The ‘fire pan garnished with eight of black Abinie frames’. opened up. Previously, the only access silver’ and the ‘brasse fender guilt’ listed Comparison with the 1683 ‘Estimate of was from the Long Gallery: it was in 1683 still stand in the grate. Pictures’ reveals that 22 of the pictures designated the ‘Closet within the Photographs of 1904 and c.1920 show then hung in the Green Closet are still at gallerie’ in 1655. an immensely rich hang of cabinet Ham, and that another ten, now In 1655 the room was hung with pictures and miniatures (since hanging here, were listed elsewhere in ‘greene stuffe’; the present silk damask the house in 1683. It is still possible to hangings and upholstery are copies of the marshal approximately the same post-1672 ‘3 peices of green damask’, number of pictures as in 1677: of the 97 whose pattern matches the 17th-century recorded in 1844 (of which 36 had been damask in the Queen’s Antechamber. The in the Closet in 1683), 60 are still at fringing survives from a 19th-century Ham. The 1844 arrangement has been replacement of the room’s textiles. The used as a basis for the new hang, single window (a second window in the although certain more vulnerable centre of the east wall was blocked either miniatures have had to be hung together c.1637–9 or c.1672) faces north, an in glazed frames. orientation thought desirable by contemporary theorists (with the The first number refers to the hanging sanction of Vitruvius) for its ‘steady light’. diagrams; the second in square brackets is It also has the advantage of reducing the the Ham inventory number. An asterisk risk of light damage. In 1679 there were indicates inclusion in the 1683 ‘Estimate ‘Two window Curtaines of White damusk of Pictures’, drawn up for the Duchess of fring’d’ and ‘six green sarsnet curtaines Lauderdale after the death of her husband. 1 NORTH (WINDOW) WALL 2 2 18 1 3 4 5 6 10 19 20 7 9 8 WINDOW 11 21 12 13 14 22 23 24 15 17 16 25 3. A Man consumed by Flames, by Isaac Oliver, c.1610 LEFT OF WINDOW (ABOVE, IN EBONY FRAME): 2 [383] These two locks of hair, with Painted c.1610; the unknown sitter is 1 [397] RICHARD GIBSON (1615–90) jewelled mounts, are apparently c.1600, consumed by the flames of religious, or Elizabeth Mitton, Lady Wilbraham and by tradition were cut from the head (most probably) amorous, passion. Isaac (c.1631–1705) of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Oliver was the son of a refugee Watercolour and bodycolour on vellum (1566–1601), who was executed for Huguenot goldsmith from Rouen. He Wife of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, 3rd Bt rebellion against his former great patron, learnt the art of limning from Nicholas (see no.4), and mother-in-law of the 3rd Elizabeth I. A tuft of a loved one’s hair, Hilliard, whose great rival he became, Earl of Dysart, painted c.1662. Gibson attached to a jewel, was sometimes worn though he predeceased him. He was also began his career as a page and dwarf in as an ear-ring at this period. a sensitive draughtsman. the service of Queen Henrietta Maria, but was taught to paint by Francis 3 [379] ISAAC OLIVER (c.1565–1617) 4 [391] Attributed to NICHOLAS DIXON Cleyn. He married another dwarf, but A Man consumed by Flames (active 1667–1708) had five regular-sized children, one of Watercolour on vellum Sir Thomas Wilbraham, 3rd Bt whom, Susannah Penelope Rosse, also Inscribed: Alget qui non ardet (‘He (c.1630–92) became a miniature-painter. freezes who does not burn’). Watercolour and bodycolour on vellum 2 5. Elizabeth I, by Nicholas Hilliard, c.1590 8. An Unknown Child, by Isaac Oliver 9. Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne, after Jean Petitot Father-in-law of the 3rd Earl of Dysart, 6 [377] PETER CROSS (c.1645–1724) impossibly – ‘King Edward ye 6th’.The probably limned in the 1690s by Queen Mary of Modena (1658–1718) lace collar dates it to the second decade Nicholas Dixon, after an earlier painting Watercolour and bodycolour on vellum of the 17th century. The child holds a by John Riley (1646–91). Dixon James II’s second, Catholic, wife, whom stick of coral set in metal, which served succeeded Samuel Cooper (after he married in 1673 when Duke of York. as a dummy, but was also supposed to Richard Gibson had held the post for The birth of a male child (the future be a protection from malign influences. just one year), as ‘Limner’ to Charles II, ‘Old Pretender’) to her in 1688 helped from 1673 to 1678, and may, like him, precipitate the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and LEFT OF WINDOW (BELOW, IN EBONY FRAME): have been taught by John Hoskins. He their exile in France. Peter (formerly 9 [389] After JEAN PETITOT (1607–91) gave his female sitters characteristically miscalled Lawrence) Cross succeeded Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne languorous almond-shaped eyes. He was Nicholas Dixon as Charles II’s ‘Lymner (1573–1655)* also Keeper of the King’s Picture Closet in Ordinary’ in 1678, but, despite that, Watercolour on vellum – the royal model for Ham’s – and took this miniature is based on a portrait in French Huguenot doctor and scientist, to picture-dealing and copying Old oils by William Wissing. born in Geneva and with an estate in the Masters in miniature. Sir Thomas was of Pays de Vaud, with a special interest in Woodhey, Cheshire, and married 7 [396] JEAN PETITOT (1607–91) artists’ pigments, who, after setbacks in Elizabeth Mitton (see no.1), the heiress Sophia Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneberg, Paris, settled in England, where he of Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire. Queen of Denmark (1628–85)* became chief physician to Anne of Their daughter, Grace, married Sir Enamel on copper. Initialled Denmark, James I, Charles I and Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Bt, later 3rd Earl Identified as ‘The Queen Mother of Henrietta Maria, as well as to many of of Dysart, in 1680. Denmarke’ in the 1683 ‘Estimate of the nobility and gentry. He left numerous Pictures’,and given the second highest unpublished manuscripts, supplied 5 [375] NICHOLAS HILLIARD (1547–1619) value among the miniatures, this must colours to Petitot for his enamels, and Elizabeth I (1533–1603)* show the daughter of Duke George of information to Edward Norgate for his Watercolour on vellum Braunschweig-Lüneburg, who was treatise on miniature-painting. This is one of the finest, and the largest, married to King Frederick III of of the last type of miniature of the Denmark, as his second wife, in 1643. 10 [381] Studio of DAVID DES GRANGES Queen, the so-called ‘Mask of Youth’, Their younger son, George, married (1611–71/2) produced by her most sensitive and Princess – later Queen – Anne in 1683; Charles II (1630–85) as Prince of Wales consistent portrayer.