Philip, Lord Wharton
Sir Anthony van Dyck·1632
Historical Context
Moretto da Brescia's Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1525) depicts the dramatic court scene from the Gospels in which Herodias's daughter receives the martyr's severed head as payment for her dance before Herod. The subject allowed painters to combine biblical narrative with the depiction of a beautiful woman, and Moretto's treatment — the young woman shown with the head on a platter, her expression reflecting a mixture of triumph and unease — belongs to the tradition of Lombard naturalist treatments of this dramatic subject. Lorenzo Lotto and other northern Italian painters had made the decapitated saint a focus of sensational religious painting that combined devotional content with psychological drama.
Technical Analysis
The portrait demonstrates Van Dyck's English manner, with a cooler palette than his Italian work. The silvery landscape background and the sitter's easy, aristocratic stance create the template for English portrait painting that endured for over a century.
Look Closer
- ◆Find the landscape background behind the figure — it establishes social rank and grandeur without competing with the sitter's face for your attention.
- ◆Look at the severed head on the platter — the unflinching detail forces the viewer to confront the cost of martyrdom directly.
Provenance
Philip Wharton, 4th baron Wharton, [1613-1696], Wharton Hall, near Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, or Healaugh, West Riding, Yorkshire, until 1637; after 1637 in Wooburn, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; by inheritance to his son, Thomas Wharton, 5th baron and 1st marquess of Wharton [1648-1716], Winchendon, near Aylesbury; by inheritance to his son, Philip Wharton, 1st and last duke of Wharton [1699-1731], Winchendon, near Aylesbury;[1] purchased 1725 by Sir Robert Walpole, 1st earl of Orford and Prime Minister under George I and George II [1676-1745], Houghton Hall, Norfolk; by inheritance to his son, Robert Walpole, 2nd earl of Orford [1700-1751], Houghton Hall; by inheritance to his son, George Walpole, 3rd earl of Orford [1730-1791], Houghton Hall;[2] acquired with the Walpole collection in 1779, through Count Aleksei Semonovich Musin-Pushkin, Russian ambassador to England, by Catherine II, empress of Russia [1729-1796], for the Imperial Hermitage Gallery, Saint Petersburg;[3] purchased March 1930 through (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London; and M. Knoedler & Co., New York) by Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 30 March 1932 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] Oliver Millar, "Philip, Lord Wharton, and His Collection of Portraits," _The Burlington Magazine_ 136 (August 1994): 521-522. [2] The Van Dycks hung in the Yellow Drawing Room on the first floor at Houghton. See Andrew Moore, ed., _Houghton Hall: The Prime Minister, the Empress and the Heritage_, exh. cat. (Norwich Castle Museum, Norwich, and The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London), London, 1996: 105-107. [3] Count Musin-Pushkin purchased the painting for two hundred pounds. [4] Mellon purchase date and date deeded to Mellon Trust are according to Mellon collection files in NGA curatorial records and David Finley's notebook, donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in the Gallery Archives.
