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1 of 253523 objects
Bernard I, Duke of Brunswick- Lüneburg (d. 1434) 1600 - 1735
Watercolour on vellum | 7.0 x 5.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 420423
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This is one of a group of eight miniatures (RCIN 420423-420430) which form a retrospective extension to the series of forty-nine miniatures of rulers of Brunswick-Lüneburg and their wives (RCIN 420431-420679) dating from c. 1595.
This secondary group of eight miniatures consists of fanciful portraits of fifteenth century Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg and their consorts. They are embellished with inscriptions in Gothic script indicating a romantic view of the historic past and are later in date than the larger, original group. The set has previously been thought to date from the seventeenth century when the production of ancestral portrait sets in oil was common. However, the impetus to enlarge the original group of 49 miniatures may well have come when they were hung prominently in Queen Caroline’s Closet at Kensington Palace in the mid–1730s. It is conceivable that the eight additional miniatures were produced on the instructions of Queen Caroline by an English miniaturist capable of emulating the naïve sixteenth-century style of the Brunswick-Lüneburg Court Miniaturist.
Bernard I, son of Magnus Torquatus, became Duke of Brunswick in 1409. The date of 1445 given in the inscription refers to his successor Otto (see RCIN 420425).
Inscribed at the top in white: Bernhardt hertzog zu [Br]aunswchweig und luneburg hertzog Magni mit der Ketten Sohn Starb anno 1445.
Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760, London, 2014.Provenance
First recorded in the Royal Collection in Queen Caroline’s Closet, Kensington Palace, by George Vertue in 1743 (Vertue 1743, p. 24 item 159 1/3/4/6)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour on vellum
Measurements
7.0 x 5.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
8.1 x 7.0 cm (frame, external)
6.5 x 5.5 cm (sight)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Bernhard I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d.1434)