Object details
Accession number
P21s15
Creators
Full title
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
Creation Date
about 1629-1630
Provenance
Probably commissioned by the sitter, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (1585-1646), London; Arundel Castle, Sussex, about 1629-30.
Collection of the artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) until the time of his death.
Collection of Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick (1719-1773), and Countess Elizabeth Hamilton (d. 1800), London; Warwick Castle, Warwick by 1763.
By descent to George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816), London; Warwick Castle, Warwick, about 1773.
By descent to Henry Richard Greville, 3rd Earl of Warwick (1779–1853), Warwick Castle, Warwick, about 1816
By descent to George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick (1818–1893); Warwick Castle, Warwick, about 1853.
By descent to Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick (1853-1924); Warwick Castle, Warwick, about 1893.
Purchased by the art dealers Colnaghi & Co., London from Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville in 1898.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from Colnaghi & Co., London for £21,000 in March 1898, through the American art historian Bernard Berenson (1865–1959).
Dimensions
122.2 x 102.1 cm (48 1/8 x 40 3/16 in.)
Display Media
Oil on canvas
Dimension Notes
Frame: 173 x 142.7 cm (68 1/8 x 56 3/16 in.) approx.
Web Commentary
Rubens was one of the most illustrious painters in the history of Western art. Perpetually on the road, he served four European rulers, including Charles I of England. Rubens painted this portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel, at the height of his professional career. Because Arundel acquired art on a princely scale, he was given the nickname “the collector earl.” Gardner herself paid a princely sum for this Rubens, making it her single most expensive acquisition after Titian’s Rape of Europa. Her art advisor Bernard Berenson, knowing that this painting would be another major addition to her collection, wrote to her, “you now have one of the great Titians; Arundel will be a match for it.”
Permanent Gallery Location
Dutch Room
Bibliography
John A. Smith. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, Vol. II (London, 1830), pp. 307-308, no. 1128.
Catalogue of the Works of Art in the Possession of Sir Peter Paul Rubens at the Time of his Decease... (Yarmouth, 1839), p. 7.
Waagen. Treasures of Art in Great Britain, Vol. III (London, 1854), p. 213, no. 1.
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John La Farge and August F. Jaccaci. Noteworthy Paintings in American Private Collections, Vol. I (New York, 1979), pp. 130-31, ill.
Henri Hymans. "The Critical Essays" in John La Farge and August F. Jaccaci. Noteworthy Paintings in American Private Collections, Vol. I (New York, 1979), pp. 222-23.
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“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 7, no. 41 (7 Jun. 1964), p. 2.
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Ernest Samuels. Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (Cambridge, 1979), p. 247.
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David Howarth et al. Patronage and Collecting in the Seventeenth Century: Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. Exh. cat. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1985), p. 9, fig. 1, no. 1.
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Lindsay Stainton and Christopher White. Drawing in England from Hilliard to Hogarth (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 67-68.
Rollin van N. Hadley (ed.). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924 (Boston, 1987), pp. 58-60, 113-14, 116, 120-23, 203, 206.
Christopher White. Peter Paul Rubens: Man & Artist (New Haven, 1987), pp. 224-25, fig. 247.
Jeffrey M. Muller. Rubens: The Artist as Collector (Princeton, 1989), p. 60.
Walter A. Liedtke in Guy C. Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke (eds.). Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America (Antwerp, 1992), pp. 203-205.
Peter C. Sutton et al. The Age of Rubens. Exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1993), pp. 294-97, ill.
Christopher White. Anthony van Dyck: Thomas Howard, The Earl of Arundel (Malibu, 1995), pp. 69-70, fig. 50.
Kristin Lohse Belkin. Rubens (London, 1998), p. 222.
David Freeberg. "Rubens and Titian: Art and Politics" in Hilliard T. Goldfarb et al. Titian and Rubens: Power, Politics and Style. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1998), pp. 52-54
Judy Egerton in Christopher Brown and Hans Vlieghe (eds.). Van Dyck: 1599-1641. Exh. cat. (Antwerp: Koninklijk Muuseum voor Schone Kunsten, 1999), pp. 300, 302, fig. 2.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), pp. 131, 138-39, ill.
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Dominique Jacquot. Rubens, Portraits princiers (Paris: Musée du Luxembourg, 2017), pp. 60-61, fig. 51.
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