Lazzaro Spinola Dated 1566
Oil on panel | 46.3 x 33.4 x 0.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 402830
Willem Key (c. 1515/16-68)
Lazzaro Spinola Dated 1566
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This is a head and shoulders portrait of Lazzaro Spinola, facing three-quarters to the right, dressed in black with a white ruff, light-brown hair, moustache and beard. The painting is inscribed with the date 1566, and gives the sitter's age as 22.
The most well-known member of the Spinola family was Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630) who was marshal of the army of the King of Spain during the Eighty Years War. It was to Spinola that Breda was surrendered in 1625. Van der Doort (Surveyor of Charles I's Pictures) suggested that the sitter in this portrait was uncle to Ambrogio Spinola, and this is reflected in an old label on the back of the painting which reads ' Lazarus Spinola / Uncle to Spinola / Governor of the Low / Countries By Key'.Provenance
Acquired by Charles I before his accession; recorded in the Cabinet Room at Whitehall in 1639 (no 20); sold for £3 to David Murray and others for on 23 October 1651 from St James's Palace (no 49); recovered at the Restoration and listed in the King's Dressing Room at Hampton Court in 1666 (no 52). Still at Hampton Court in 1710 (in store), it had moved to Kensington Palace by 1732, when it is listed on the King's Pictured Staircase; by 1818 it is in the Prence Chamber at Kensingtn (no 48); where it appears in Pyne's illustrated Royal Residences of 1819 (RCIN 922150).
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Creator(s)
Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
46.3 x 33.4 x 0.7 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
57.0 x 44.4 x 2.8 cm (frame, external)
