Lot 37: JACOB VAN DOORDT (FL. C. 1606-1629)

JACOB VAN DOORDT (FL. C. 1606-1629)
A high-ranking gentleman, with reddish-blonde hair and beard, in embroidered black silk slashed doublet tied with a set of ribbons terminating in pointed aglets, high-standing lace collar with tassels, a gold acorn-shaped object, probably a pomander, suspended from his left cord, wearing a jewelled and enamelled gold locket or miniature case suspended from a gem-set enamelled gold chain; blue background with gold border
signed with gold monogram and dated '161[.]. JVD' (lower left)
on vellum laid down on card
oval, 1 7/8 in. (48 mm.) high, turned ebonised wood frame

PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
Miniatures by Jacob van Doordt are rare. Torben Holck Colding first established the contribution made by this artist to the art of miniature painting on the Continent in the early 17th century (T. Holck Colding, Aspects of Miniature Painting. Its Origin and Development, Copenhagen, 1953, pp. 111, 117-118, illustrated figs. 81-82). Colding records 18 miniatures by van Doordt, to which the present work can be added (op. cit., pp. 117-118). The earliest known miniature of a Dane is a portrait of King Christian IV of Denmark. Painted in 1606 during the Danish king's visit to his sister and brother-in-law, Anne of Denmark and King James I of England, the work is attributed to van Doordt and is now in the Collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (T. Holck Colding, Miniature- og Emaillemaleri i Danmark 1606-1850, Copenhagen, 1991, illustrated in colour, plate volume, p. 26, no. 40). Having trained in England in the early 1600s, van Doordt was court painter to Duke Henrik Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, brother-in-law of Anne of Denmark and King Christian IV of Denmark between 1606 and 1609 (op. cit., text volume, p. 210, illustrated plate volume, p. 26, figs. 38-39).
From 1610 he was court painter to King Christian IV of Denmark and in 1611 created the first miniatures ever painted in Denmark (op. cit., illustrated in colour, plate volume, p. 27, figs. 41-44). Colding describes them as 'so English in style that for a period they were regarded as having been executed by Isaac Oliver' (op. cit., text volume, p. 210). In 1623 he returned to Brunswick for a short time before leaving for England in 1624 with a recommendation from the Danish King to work for King James I. He died in Stockholm in 1629 having worked at the Swedish court.
The jewelled locket worn around the sitter's neck is similar to one in the British Royal Collection, made in England circa 1620 and later set with hair of King Charles I (see K. Aschengreen Piacenti J. Boardman, Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2009, illustrated in colour p. 198).
We are indebted to Diana Scarisbrick for her generous assistance with this catalogue entry.