Sigismund I/III (1566–1632), King of Sweden and Poland, possibly 1624

Artist/Maker

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 266 x 184 cm h x w x d: Ram 315 x 216 x 13 cm

Inventory numberNMGrh 2012

Other titlesTitle (sv): Sigismund I/III (1566–1632), kung av Sverige och Polen, möjl. 1624 Title (en): Sigismund I/III (1566–1632), King of Sweden and Poland, possibly 1624 Label (sv): Sigismund I/III, 1566-1632, av Sverige och Polen Label (en): Sigismund I/III, king of Sweden and Poland

DescriptionDescription: This equestrian portrait of the Swedish-Polish king Sigismund I/III may have been made in connection with his son Władysław’s visit to Antwerp in 1624, when a large order was placed for tapestries. It was painted in Rubens’s studio, chiefly by his close collaborator Cornelis de Vos. The portrait originally belonged to Johan Gabriel Stenbock and eventually to Carl Gustaf Tessin, who took it to Paris, where the conservator Louis François Colins extended the canvas. Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 230: Technical notes: The support consists of two horizontally joined lengths of plain-weave linen with some coarser thread in the upper half of the painting. The upper length, which is 18.5 cm broad, may possibly be an extension of the support which would mean that the dimensions of the large complete length is 246.8 by 185 cm wide. The canvas has been trimmed along the edges of the current non-original stretcher. Cusping is faintly visible to the outer right and left as well as along the lower edge which limits the approximate format of the original canvas (see above). The painting was lined in 1860 into a canvas that consists of three vertically joined pieces of linen. The ground, which covers the texture of the canvas, is yellowish-white and probably consists of a chalk ground. Light grey underpainting is visible below the armour, under parts of the horse, the dog and Sigismund. The paint layers are opaque and thinly applied. The pale colours are partly transparent because of pigment changes (saponification) and abrasion. Sigismund on his horse and the dog next to them have been reserved and painted separately, after which the foreground and background has been painted in. The foliage on the left has been painted over the background. Minor pentimenti are visible on the paws of the dog and the fringes of the armband. The brushwork is rather lifeless. UV examination has revealed a large number of retouches all over the painting, including the outer edges, face, eyes, nose and beard, the horse’s muzzle, withers and left hind leg as well as the front and hind legs of the dog. There has also been extensive retouching of the foreground and background and along the seam in the upper section of the painting. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1988. Provenance: Johan Gabriel Stenbock; Erik Sparre (as Rubens); 1741 Carl Gustaf Tessin (in the list of objects sent from Paris to Stockholm, no. 97); Lovisa Ulrika 1760, no. 253 (as Rubens, Frans Snyders and Frans de Momper); Gustav III (as Crown prince) 1777, no. 32; NM 1866, no. 598; transferred to Gripsholm 1931. Exhibited: Cracow 1976, cat. no. 29; Stockholm Liljevalchs 1976, cat. no. 35; Washington 1988, cat. no. 10; Warszawa 1996, cat. no. XIII; Stockholm 2010, no. 105. Bibliography: Cavalli-Björkman 1977, pp. 44, 47 (as workshop of Rubens); Chrosciki 1981, pp. 173–175; Granberg 1921, p. 55, 61; Granberg 1930, pp. 102–103, 151, 156; Granberg 1931, pp. 13, 18, 165; Johnsson 1985, p. 13; Cat. Gripsholm I 1951, p. 256, no. 2012 (as Cornelis de Vos) Lindblom 1927, p. 44; Von Malmborg 1956, pp. 3, 38–39 (as workshop of Rubens); von Malmborg 1975, p. 40; Puyvelde 1952, p. 146 (as Rubens); Sander 1872, pp. 10, 59, 100–101, 104, 150; Strömbom III 1943, p. 107–109, cat. no. 14; Thyssen, Oud Holland, 101, 1987, p. 58, nr. 13 (as workshop of Van Dyck?) Tomkiewicz 1952, p. 19; Wennberg 1970, p. 36.; Van der Stighelen 1990, cat. no. 71, pp. 173–175 (as Cornelis de Vos); Vlieghe 1987, cat. no. 58, n. 6, p. 37 (as Cornelis de Vos). Sigismund III was the son of King Johan III of Sweden and the Polish princess Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I. The accession of his father made Sigismund III next in line for succession to the Swedish throne. By birth he was also the heir to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania but the Union of Lublin in 1569, which Johan III admittedly never acknowledged, led to the establishment of the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sigismund left Sweden in 1587 after he and his father had agreed in the “Kalmar Articles” on guarantees for the independence of Sweden. His coronation as King of Poland took place in Cracow in 1587 and as King of Sweden in 1594. He was deposed by the Swedish Riksdag in 1599. This equestrian portrait depicts Sigismund, King of Sweden and King of Poland, mounted on a brown horse with a flowing mane. Sigismund is dressed in black with a cuirass, a pointed hat decorated with a black plume and a red silk armband flutters from his left arm. In his right hand Sigismund is holding a staff that rests on his hip. A white and brown dog is running alongside Sigismund and in the background there is a varied landscape with trees in leaf to the right of the painting. Hans Vlieghe has linked the composition of this work with Rubens’ lost equestrian portrait of Albert, Archduke of Austria from around 1617.1 The composition of Rubens’ portrait is based on a study of riders on different poses made by the artist a few years earlier, c. 1615. As a genre equestrian portraits derive ultimately in their turn from an earlier 16th century tradition with depictions of subjects on horseback by Tintoretto, Tempesta and others.2 The formalised version that Rubens was to introduce in 1615 contains references to older traditions like these but was also specifically inspired by the more recent series of Roman emperors on horseback by Stradanus. According to Vlieghe, a depiction of Julius Caesar on horseback by Stradanus served as a model for Rubens’ portrait of the Archduke Albert of Austria, which was later to influence the composition of equestrian portraits, among them the Nationalmuseum’s depiction of Sigismund III. What characterises Stradanus’ works and Rubens’ portrait of the Archduke is the positioning of the horse and rider face on to create the effect that they are approaching the viewer’s own physical space. Similar frontal compositions in the equestrian genre were later used in portraits by Anthony van Dyck, Isaac Isaacz, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and by Cornelis de Vos. Vlieghe attributes this portrait to De Vos, as does Katlijne van der Stighelen in her scholarly catalogue of Cornelis de Vos’ portraits from 1990. This attribution was already being proposed on 1951 in connection with the catalogue of portraits at Gripsholm. Over the years the portrait has also been linked with Rubens and his workshop (see Cavalli- Björkman 1977, Von Malmborg 1956 and Puyvelde 1952 as well as Morelowski 1955) and also with Van Dyck’s workshop (Brussels 1987).3 In her catalogue of portraits by Cornelis de Vos, Van der Stighelen has also proposed 1624, the year in which Sigismund visited the Netherlands to commission tapestries, as a possible date for the portrait.4 Stighelen also links De Vos’ equestrian portrait to Rubens and his workshop and names two of Rubens’ assistants who could well have been involved in its production: Jan Wildens where the landscape is concerned and Paul de Vos for the rendering of the dog. In this way this eclectically organised equestrian portrait in the Gripsholm collection could be considered a work by De Vos that is imbued with Rubens’ approach to portraiture and which was produced by De Vos with the help of Rubens’ workshop. According to Puyvelde there is another smaller scale equestrian portrait of Sigismund in a private collection in Richmond in the USA. There are also a number of engravings based on the portrait in the Gripsholm collection, including one by Alexander Clemens Wetterling (1796–1858). The equestrian portrait has a longstanding provenance in Sweden that dates back to the 17th century, when it was owned by Johan Gabriel Stenbock and later inherited by Erik Sparre before it became the property of his son-in-law, the important art collector Carl Gustaf Tessin in 1741, when it is listed as one of the works transported from Paris to Stockholm in that year. The painting was later included in Lovisa Ulrika and Gustaf III’s art collections. During the 19th century the work was erroneously ascribed to Pieter Claesz Soutman, as indicated on the reverse by a label on the gilt frame decorated with sprays of laurel. According to Cavalli-Björkman this attribution was based on a pencilled note on an engraving in the Nationalmuseum. Technically, the painting contains a large number of retouches to both the rider, horse, dog, foreground and background. The glue-lining undertaken as early as the 1860s led in its turn to the flattening of areas of impasto. KS 1 H. Vlieghe, Rubens Portraits I, cat. no. 58, pp. 35–37. See also Rubens’ equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma from 1603. 2 See J. Müller Hofstede, “Die frühen Reiterbildnisse”, ex. cat. Peter Paul Rubens, Cologne 1977, pp. 88–94. 3 In a letter from Professor Marian Morelowski, Wrocław (8SP 133, app.) dated 7 July 1955 the equestrian portrait is ascribed to Rubens, the landscape to Wildens and the dog to Fyt. NM curatorial files. 4 E. Duverger, “Unte tenture de l’histoire d’Ulysse livrée par Jacques Geubels le jeune au prince de Pologne”, Artes textiles, 7, 1971, pp. 74–98. [End]

Depicted Person

Collection

MaterialOil paint

TechniquePainting

Object category