After Willem Wissing, Portrait of the Duchess of Marlborough as Minerva, 1680, Oil on Canvas

Willem Wissing (Amsterdam, 1656 – Stamford, 1687) attributed
Portrait of the Duchess of Marlborough as the Goddess Minerva

Oil on canvas
128 x 103 cm - gilded frame 149 x 125 cm.

Provenance: Old label on the reverse, Wanstead Collection, Essex (auction at Wanstead House, Essex, June 21, 1822, lot 326, page 121 of the catalogue ** see catalogue details)

Note: Based on this label on the reverse, the painting presented here identified as "Portrait of the Duchess of Marlborough as Minerva," previously attributed to Willem Wissing, was published in the auction catalogue for the sale of the Wanstead Collection.
In 1822, the entire collection of Wanstead House, one of the most important stately homes in Essex, commissioned in the early 18th century by Sir Richard Child from Scottish architect Colen Campbell in the Palladian style, was sold in a 32-day auction to pay off the huge debts accumulated by the Earl's heirs.

It is a portrait of an elegant lady depicted with the attributes of the Roman goddess Minerva, namely a large shield, called an aegis, on which she rests her left forearm and a spear proudly held in her right hand. The portrait is believed to be Sarah Churchill (1660–1744), Duchess of Marlborough, one of the most influential people in English history and a friend of Princess Anne of England.

She wears a dress with a plunging neckline, trimmed with lace at the hem and adorned with jewels. She has a delicate, pale complexion and a head with almost black hair, on which she wears a large helmet with a plumed plume. She is turned sideways, gazing out from the painting with her dark eyes.

A high-quality painting, it is a type of portrait typically sought by the nobility, especially in the English, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where the sitter loved to see himself portrayed as a deity, with allegorical or mythological attributes, to elevate his status and value.

The work, which according to sources belonged to the prestigious collection of Wanstead House in Essex, is traditionally attributed to the painter Willem Wissing (Amsterdam, 1656 – Stamford, 1687), a celebrated Dutch painter of the Baroque period, known primarily as a portraitist at the English court of the Stuarts and whose career flourished in England as the principal artistic heir of Sir Peter Lely.

Following Lely's death in 1680, Wissing inherited much of his clientele, becoming Godfrey Kneller's main rival.

Wissing absorbed from Lely the portraiture tradition of using pastoral landscapes or classical deities to flatter patrons, a typical Baroque method of conferring an aura of "sacredness" or "immortality" to political power.

He was highly regarded by James II, who sent him to the Netherlands in 1685 to paint the future sovereigns William III of Orange and Mary II. He painted every reigning British monarch from King Charles II to King George I, as well as the most important figures in British society and public life. These works, publicly displayed in royal palaces, were admired and so popular with the public that a large number of patrons, primarily nobles, asked his workshop to paint their family portraits.

His technique reflects the formal elegance and sensuality typical of court portraits of the Stuart era, with a strong emphasis on the subjects' nobility and dignity. One of his distinctive traits, which we find here, is his ability to idealize features, giving faces an almost porcelain-like softness, with large eyes and a serene yet distant expression, typical of the high aristocracy.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The work is sold complete with a gilded frame and comes with a certificate of authenticity and an iconographic .