Gaspar de Crayer

Possibly Gaspar de Guzmàn y Pimental (1587-1645), 1st Duke of Sanlùcar, 3rd Count of Olivares, Marquis of Léganès, Madrid, by 1655;

Thence by descent to José María Ruiz de Arana Montalvo (1933-2004), 17th Duke of Baena;

By whom sold ("The Property of the Duke of Baena and Sanlucar"), London, Replica Shoes 's, 4 November 1970, lot 6;

Where acquired by J. Codrington;

Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 1984, lot 5068;

Where acquired by a private collector, United States;

Thence by descent to the present collector.

H. Vlieghe, Gaspar de Crayer, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Brussels 1972, vol. I, pp. 263-264, cat. no. A265; vol. II, reproduced fig. 241;

M. Díaz Padrón, El Siglo de Rubens en el Museo del Prado, catálogo razonado de pintura flamenca del siglo XVII, Madrid 1995, vol. I, p. 390, under cat. no. 1472;

A. Merle du Bourg, in Entre Rubens et Van Dyck, Gaspar de Crayer (1584-1669), exhibition catalogue, S. Vézilier-Dussart and A. Merle du Bourg (eds.), Gand 2018, p. 86 note 7, under cat. no. 3.9.

Gaspar de Crayer's grand portrait of the Cardinal-Infante, Don Ferdinand of Austria (1610-1641) draws inspiration from Sir Peter Paul Rubens' 1628 depiction of the sitter (Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. no. 335).¹ The artist and sitter enjoyed a close relationship and Don Ferdinand commissioned several portraits from De Crayer, including a full-length work at the Museo del Prado, Madrid (inv. no. P001472) and an equestrian portrait, sold at Replica Shoes 's, London, on 3 July 2019, lot 16.²

The third son of King Philip III of Spain (1578-1621) and Archduchess Margaret of Austria (1584-1611), and thus the younger brother of King Philip IV (1605-1665), the sitter was appointed Cardinal in 1619 at the age of ten and beginning in 1634 served as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. After succeeding his aunt, the Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), Don Ferdinand achieved one of Spain's most decisive victories in the Thirty Years' War at the 1634 battle of Nördlingen, where he defeated the Swedish.

¹ For the Rubens painting, see F. Huemer, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XIX, Portraits Painted by Rubens in Foreign Countries, Brussels 1977, pp. 119-120, cat. no. 12, reproduced figs. 60, 61.

² For the Prado work, see M. Díaz Padrón, El Siglo de Rubens en el Museo del Prado, catálogo razonado de pintura flamenca del siglo XVII, Madrid 1995, vol. I, pp. 390-391, cat. no. 1472, reproduced.