Portrait of René de Chalon

The support is a single round panel, probably of limewood (information from Peter Klein). On the reverse there are two mechanically produced vertical grooves on the left and right (see also SK-A-4027). The ground, which is probably white, extends to the edges of the panel, and was applied with broad brushstrokes that are visible through the paint layers. Infrared reflectography shows a schematic underdrawing of contour lines, which may indicate the use of a cartoon. The face was left in reserve. The paint was applied in thin layers, and the flesh tones were painted wet in wet.

Good. There are two vertical cracks in the support. The paint layer is slightly abraded, especially in the dark areas, and the retouching underneath the chin is discoloured.

The portrait is mounted in a tondo frame with a shallow entablature profile. The cross-section of the profile shows a fillet and a jump, a fillet, a reverse ogee, a plain frieze, a jump and a fillet, a bead, a fillet and a jump, an ogee, a jump, a fillet and a jump at the sight edge (fig. a). The round frame was made out of one piece of wood, probably walnut, with an inscription in off-white paint.

…; ? estate inventory, Kasteel Buren, 1675/1712, ‘in the great hall’, with pendant (probably SK-A-4027), nos. 13.5, 13.6 (‘Noch Renée de Chalon met Sijne princesse, beyde in profijl.’);¹¹Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer I, 1974, p. 555. ? estate inventory, Kasteel Buren, 1759, ‘The large upper hall’, no. 151 (‘Seven schilderije, pourtraiten’);²²Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer II, 1974, p. 545. estate inventory, Stadholder’s Court, The Hague, 1763/64, no. 4 (‘Een portrait met dit opschrift in de lijst: René de Chalon d’Orange, comte de Nassou, agé de 23 ans, 1542, NB., in een ronde bruyne lijst, 5½ D. Bij 5½ D. [14 by 14 cm]’);³³Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer III, 1976, p. 29. recorded ‘in the writing cabinet’ of Willem V (1748-1806), Prince of Orange;⁴⁴Inscription on an undated etching after this portrait by Reinier Vinkeles (RP-P-1937-1310) ...; ? transferred to the Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, The Hague, c. 1816;⁵⁵Note RMA; Kruijsen 2002, pp. 62-63. from whom acquired by the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 193), 1874-75; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Vereniging Oranje-Nassau Museum, The Hague, 1926-32

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4462

According to the inscription on its frame, this bust-length portrait shows the Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, René de Chalon at the age of 23. He wears a white shirt, which is ruffled at the collar, underneath a black doublet with pink sleeves and gold buttons. Around his neck hangs a double gold chain.

This painting forms a pair with a portrait of René’s wife Anne of Lorraine (SK-A-4027). While the inscription on an etched copy of René’s portrait (RP-P-1937-1310) locates it in the stadholder’s collection, the portrait of Anna is not securely documented until 1960, when it was bought by the Rijksmuseum and reunited with that of her husband.¹²¹²See Provenance.

Anne is depicted in a black dress embellished with gold detailing and pearls. A gold chain strung with pearls hangs around her neck. Beneath her black gown, the collar of her chemise has a ruffled edge and is embroidered with geometric patterns in intricate blackwork. Her hair is gathered in puffs at the ears; her gold hairnet and small black bonnet with a white plume are a fashion derived from Spain and Italy.¹³¹³With thanks to Marieke de Winkel for this information.

Based on the painting technique as well as the underdrawing, both images appear to be by the same hand and are executed on similar limewood panels.¹⁴¹⁴It is noteworthy that limewood was very rarely used as a support in Netherlandish panel painting. It was far more common in Germany; see Klein 2003, pp. 72-73. Anne’s panel has been trimmed around the edge and is now slightly smaller than its companion, but originally it was probably the same size. The strong profiles of the sitters and the tondo format evoke the appearance of ancient coins and portrait medallions.¹⁵¹⁵Utrecht 1977, pp. 67-68, no. 17.

René was born in Breda on 5 February 1519 to Hendrik III of Nassau and Claudia de Châlon. From the latter he would inherit the ample princedom of Orange. He was Stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Gelderland under Emperor Charles V. His wife Anne, daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, was born on 22 July 1522. The couple married on 20 August 1540 and settled in Breda shortly afterwards. On 17 July 1544, René died in the Battle of St Dizier in France. Four years later, Anne married her second husband, Philippe III de Croy, the first Duke of Aarschot. She died on 22 August 1568.¹⁶¹⁶Mijnssen 1951, pp. 75-94; Jansen 1979, pp. 37-39, 43; see also Van Goor 1744, pp. 34-35, for an earlier and particularly effusive biography of the prince composed for Stadholder Willem IV, one of the presumed former owners of the Rijksmuseum portrait of René.

A related pair of portraits of René and Anne survives in the Stedelijk Museum in Diest.¹⁷¹⁷Vermeir in Ghent 2000, pp. 199-200, no. 49 (ill.). For subsequent copies after the Diest portraits, see Van Luttervelt 1962, pp. 61-62. In these images, the costumes and physiognomies of the couple are portrayed in a manner nearly identical to those in the Amsterdam tondo portraits. The images in Diest and Amsterdam would thus seem to follow a common model. They can be dated to the second half of the 16th century on the evidence of the painting technique.

The earliest documented reference to a portrait of René (‘’t conterfeytsel van René Desschalon’) appears in a 1590 inventory of Breda Palace.¹⁸¹⁸Van Luttervelt 1962, pp. 62-63. Subsequent 17th-century inventories refer to pairs of portraits of both René and Anne.¹⁹¹⁹Van Luttervelt 1962, pp. 63-64. The 1632 inventory of the palace at Noordeinde refers to ‘twee schilderien van Rhené de Chalon ende sijn gemael, staende in perfijl’ (two paintings of René de Châlon and his wife, standing in profile), and the inventory of the castle in Buren from 1675 lists portraits of ‘Renée de Chalon met Sijne princesse, beyde in profijl’ (René de Châlon and his princess, both in profile). Some works of art were transferred from Breda to Buren in the early 17th century, so Van Luttervelt has suggested that these two references might be to the same image of René, but this does not account for the fact that the 1590 inventory refers only to a portrait of René and not to an accompanying one of Anne. An original pair of portraits of the couple may have been divided after René’s death and Anne’s remarriage. Such a scenario would explain why René’s portrait is listed alone in the Breda inventory, and why it appears without the accompanying portrait of Anne in the collection of the stadholders. Unfortunately, it is impossible to sort out which of these inventory records might refer to the Amsterdam portraits, or which refer instead to their counterparts in Diest or a lost original pair.

Van Luttervelt has argued that the original images of the couple were painted by Jan van Scorel or one of his assistants in Breda during the first half of 1542, the year inscribed on the original frame of René’s tondo portrait in Amsterdam.²⁰²⁰Van Luttervelt 1962, pp. 64-67, 75, unconvincingly identifies one particular student of Scorel named Cornelis Cornelisz Buys II as the possible author of the portraits. Scorel and René are both documented in Breda during this period.²¹²¹Hoogewerff 1923a, pp. 81-82; Mijnssen 1951, pp. 90-91. Moreover, Van Mander records that the artist produced ‘several works’ for René and his father, which most probably included the surviving triptych of The Finding of the True Cross in Breda’s Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk.²²²²Miedema I, 1994, pp. 202-03, fol. 236r; Helmus 2003, pp. 234-39; Stumpel 2005, p. 110. As such, a link between Scorel and the original portraits of René and Anne seems plausible, but the attribution remains speculative at this time.

(M. Bass)

Moes II, 1905, no. 6326:2; Van Luttervelt 1962, pp. 60-67; Utrecht 1977, pp. 67-68, no. 17

1903, p. 15, no. 146 (as Dutch school, first half 16th century); 1934, p. 13, no. 146; 1960, p. 11, no. 146 (as Dutch school, 16th century); 1976, p. 648, no. A 4462 (as Netherlands school ?, 1542)

M. Bass, 2010, 'possibly copy after Jan van Scorel, Portrait of René de Chalon, after 1542 - 1542', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10358