Lot Essay
This arresting portrait is an outstanding example of the work that established Dobson’s reputation as the pre-eminent portraitist in England following the death of Sir Anthony van Dyck in 1641. Executed with his distinctive painterly touch, the portrait displays the influence of both van Dyck and Titian, whose work Dobson is known to have copied, while preserving the very individual character that defines his portraiture. As Ellis Waterhouse observed: ‘There is about all Dobson’s portraits – nearly all of which portray men prominent in the royal cause – a look of romantic heroism, as of the fated defenders of some precious heritage … and this psychological element in his portraiture, which is far removed from the aristocratic aloofness of the Van Dyck tradition, is what marks Dobson off from all his contemporaries’ (E. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790, Edinburgh, 1953, p. 55).
Described by his contemporary John Aubrey as: ‘the most excellent painter that England hath yet bred’, Dobson initially trained in London, first with William Peake and then with Francis Cleyn, before becoming the leading artist at the court of King Charles I. It is possible that Dobson was introduced to Charles I by van Dyck himself, but it seems more likely that the introduction came through one of the king’s trusted courtiers, possibly the connoisseur Endymion Porter, whose portrait the artist painted in circa 1642-5 (London, Tate Britain). By March 1643, Dobson had settled in Oxford, where the king had moved his increasingly beleaguered court following the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642. The artist’s earliest biographer, Richard Graham wrote in his Short Account of the Most Eminent Painters both Ancient and Modern (1695) that the king: ‘took him into his immediate Protection, kept him in Oxford all the while his Majesty continued in that City’ and ‘sat several times to him for his picture’. Dobson also painted the Prince of Wales, later King Charles II, and the King’s nephews, Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, commissions which no doubt helped secure his position as the leading Royalist portraitist.
The sitter was traditionally identified as Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (1609/10-1643), the politician and author, who was at Oxford at the same time as Dobson, and was killed at the Battle of Newbury on 20 September 1643. However, comparison with contemporary portraits of Falkland, notably that by Cornelius Johnson, cast doubt on this theory.
Described by his contemporary John Aubrey as: ‘the most excellent painter that England hath yet bred’, Dobson initially trained in London, first with William Peake and then with Francis Cleyn, before becoming the leading artist at the court of King Charles I. It is possible that Dobson was introduced to Charles I by van Dyck himself, but it seems more likely that the introduction came through one of the king’s trusted courtiers, possibly the connoisseur Endymion Porter, whose portrait the artist painted in circa 1642-5 (London, Tate Britain). By March 1643, Dobson had settled in Oxford, where the king had moved his increasingly beleaguered court following the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642. The artist’s earliest biographer, Richard Graham wrote in his Short Account of the Most Eminent Painters both Ancient and Modern (1695) that the king: ‘took him into his immediate Protection, kept him in Oxford all the while his Majesty continued in that City’ and ‘sat several times to him for his picture’. Dobson also painted the Prince of Wales, later King Charles II, and the King’s nephews, Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, commissions which no doubt helped secure his position as the leading Royalist portraitist.
The sitter was traditionally identified as Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (1609/10-1643), the politician and author, who was at Oxford at the same time as Dobson, and was killed at the Battle of Newbury on 20 September 1643. However, comparison with contemporary portraits of Falkland, notably that by Cornelius Johnson, cast doubt on this theory.