Sculpted in the round on an integrally carved base. Placed on an 18th-century, red Andalusian marble (rojo al Andalus) socle (BK-1994-3-1), composed of three parts: cover plate, shaft and base.

Good.

style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:3.75pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:150%;">…; ? Don Francisco Lopez de Liz (?-?), The Hague, by 1742;¹¹Possibly the object described as ‘A marble bust on red marble base of don Louis da Cunha, ambassador of Portugal’ (Een marmeren borstbeeld op rood marmeren voet van don Louis da Cunha, gezant van Portugal) listed in the inventory of his goods and effects compiled in November/December 1742; see E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, esp. p. 214. …; ? the sitter, Don Luis da Cunha (1662-1749), Paris and Lisbon, after 1742; by inheritance to Countess Da Cunha, Lisbon, by 1882;²²Cf. Catalogo illustrado da Exposição retrospectiva de arte ornamental portugueza e hespanhola celebrada em Lisboa em 1882, exh. cat. Lisbon (Palácio Alvor-Pombal) 1882, sala P, no. 60. Here the claim is made that the bust was donated to the sitter by the Académie de France, but no evidence exists to support this. …; Don Caetano Alberto de Jesus Maria José de Lourdes das Vitórias de La Salette de Helf Sinfrónio Olímpio Teodato Luís Gonzaga Estanislau Kostka Pedro Francisco Xavier Henriques Pereira Faria Saldanha de Lancastre (1877-1960), 4th Count of Das Alcáçovas, Count of Cuba and Duke of Aveiro, Lisbon, by 1938; ³³In a letter dated 21 June 1938, the bust was brought to the attention of the director of the Rijksmuseum by its then owner (Object File, RMA). sale, his heirs, Lisbon (Leiria & Nascimento, Lda), 18 March 1993, no. 200 (unsold); sold as ‘after sale’ to the dealer Alain Moatti, Paris, 1994; from whom, FF 1,800,000 (c. fl. 600,000), to the museum, 1994

Object number: BK-1994-3

The Antwerp sculptor Jan Baptist Xavery (1697-1742) produced this marble portrait bust of the Portuguese ambassador Don Luis da Cunha in The Hague, just prior to the diplomat’s departure for Paris in the fall of 1736. From the time of his arrival in The Hague in 1721, Xavery had acquired an esteemed reputation as a versatile, influential artist. As the court sculptor of Stadholder William IV, he received numerous commissions from members of the courtly circle, the government and foreign embassies. It therefore came as no surprise that Xavery was chosen to execute the ambassador’s marble bust portrait.

Da Cunha’s imposing, weathered countenance – with the head turned slightly to his right – dominates the present bust. The elegantly rendered skin furrows betray some stylization, certainly when compared to surviving painted portraits of the ambassador.⁴⁴M.-Th. Mandroux-França and M. Préaud, Catalogues de la Collection d’estampes de Jean V, roi de Portugal par Pierre-Jean Mariette, vol. 1, Lisbon/Paris 2003, figs. 17, 18, 52. The seventy-five-year-old diplomat wears a ceremonial cuirass with mantle tucked, and on his head, an elaborate wig. The bouffant neckerchief functions as a compositional counterweight to the detailing of the face. Round in form, the knotted neckcloth is echoed in the flat pendant medallion hanging at the chest, bearing the emblem of the Portuguese Order of Christ Cross that again appears on the embroidered badge below the left shoulder.⁵⁵M. Gritzner, Handbuch der Ritter- und Verdienstorden aller Kulturstaten der Welt innerhalb des XIX. Jahrhunderts, Graz 1962, pp. 335-37; J. Borges de Macedo et al., Triomf van de Barok, exh. cat. Brussels (Paleis voor Schone Kunsten) 1991, no. V10. The mantle itself provides a nonchalant covering aimed to disguise the otherwise unnatural termination of the arms and upper torso.

When sitting for Xavery’s marble portrait, Don Luis da Cunha could already boast a long and established diplomatic career. He was also one of the most important representatives of the Portuguese kings, Pedro II and his son, King João V. In 1697, Da Cunha was made extraordinary emissary of Portugal in London. In 1712-1714, he was a key negotiator at the Congress of Utrecht, organized in an attempt to settle the War of the Spanish Succession. Together with the Portuguese ambassador in The Hague – João Gomes da Silva, Count of Tarouca – Da Cunha was among those who signed the Peace of Utrecht. Under the title Memórias da Paz d’Utrecht, he also published his own account of the negotiations.⁶⁶M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘La politique artistique Européenne du Roi Jean V de Portugal en direction de Paris’, Histoire du Portugal. Histoire Européenne. Actes du Colloque, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Portugais Paris, Paris 1986, pp. 111-45, esp. pp. 123, 124. In the ensuing years, Da Cunha served successively as a diplomat in London, Madrid, Paris and Brussels. In 1728, he succeeded the Count of Tarouca as Ambassador to the Dutch Republic.⁷⁷M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘Les Mariette et le Portugal’, Les rapports culturels et littéraires entre le Portugal et la France, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Portugais Paris, Paris 1983, pp. 295-322, esp. p. 298. O. Schutte, Repertorium der buitenlandse vertegenwoordigers residerende in Nederland, 1584-1810, The Hague 1982, p. 627 (with erroneous birthdate). Da Cunha initially resided on Lange Voorhout in The Hague, but in 1734 he moved to 11 Lange Houtstraat, Tarouca’s previous address.⁸⁸F. Scholten, ‘Het portret van Don Luis da Cunha door Jan Baptist Xavery (1737)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 42 (1994), pp. 107-19, esp. p. 111. A 1767 map of the city – drawn up thirty years after Da Cunha’s permanent departure from the Dutch Republic – still identifies the house as that of Heer de Acunha, wegens Portugal (‘Lord de Acunha, on Portugal’s behalf’).⁹⁹Nouveau Plan de la Haye chez D.I. Langeweg dans le Raamstraat, 1767 (The Hague, Haags Gemeentearchief, inv. no. 0014). Besides being an influential diplomat, Don Luis was also highly regarded as an homme d’esprit, art collector and connoisseur. During and shortly after the peace negotiations in Utrecht, he commissioned the Amsterdam engraver Bernard Picart (1673-1733) to conceive designs for three allegorical title pages.¹⁰¹⁰Impostures Innocents ou Recueil d’estampes (...) par Bernard Picart, dessinatuer et graveur: avec son eloge historique et le catalogue de ses ouvrages, Amsterdam 1734, (Eloge Historique), pp. 6-8: En 1713, 1714, & 1715, il fit trois Desseins allégoriques, extrêmement finis, & dessinez à l’ancre de la Chine sur du velin, pour servir de Titres à trois Manuscrits in Folio, que Don Louis d’Acuña, alors Ambassadeur de Portugal auprès des Etats-Généraux, avoit composez touchant la dernière Guerre, & la paix conclue à Utrecht. Comme ces Piéces sont uniques, & placées présentement dans la Bibliothèque du Roi de Portugal, à qui cet Ambassadeur en a fait présent, on croit faire plaisir au Public en lui en donnant ici une légère exposition (...). (‘In 1713, 1714, & 1715, he made three allegorical designs, highly finished, & drawn in Chinese ink on vellum, to serve as title pages for three manuscripts in folio, which Don Louis d’Acuña, then Ambassador of Portugal to the States General, had touchingly drawn up of the last war, & the peace concluded at Utrecht. As these pieces are unique, & currently placed in the Library of the King of Portugal, to whom the Ambassador presented them as gifts, It is believed to be a pleasure for the public in giving them a brief depiction here …’) My thanks to Robert Jan te Rijdt for this information. As an agent of the Portuguese king, Da Cunha played an essential role in the purchasing of art and books on behalf of the royal court in Lisbon.¹¹¹¹M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘Les collections d’estampes du Roi Jean V de Portugal: un programme des “Lumières Joanines” en voie de reconstitution’, Congresso internacional Portugal no seculo XVIII de D. João V à Rovoluçao Francesa, Lisbon 1991, pp. 283-93. He had numerous contacts in the international art world, specifically in the milieu of the print publisher Pierre-Jean Mariette and the collector Pierre Crozat in Paris. In 1724, the Portuguese king assigned Da Cunha the task of collecting toutes les estampes imprimées en France depuis trente ans (‘all the prints printed in France in the last thirty years’) and sending them to Lisbon, as the court wished to build a large collection of engravings like those existing abroad. As early as 1722, Count Tarouca had already succeeded in acquiring the Atlas Theodorus Boendermaker in Amsterdam on the Portuguese court’s behalf, though much of the atlas was subsequently lost in a fire at the ambassador’s Hague residence.¹²¹²M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘La politique artistique Européenne du Roi Jean V de Portugal en direction de Paris’, Histoire du Portugal. Histoire Européenne. Actes du Colloque, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Portugais Paris), Paris 1986, pp. 111-45, esp. p. 128 (note 30); M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘Les collections d’estampes du Roi Jean V de Portugal: un programme des “Lumières Joanines” en voie de reconstitution’, Congresso internacional Portugal no seculo XVIII de D. João V à Rovoluçao Francesa, Lisbon 1991, p. 289. Da Cunha managed to assemble this collection of engravings within a period of three years and had Mariette compile a comprehensive guidebook to accompany the collection, entitled Notices sur les Artistes, which Da Cunha himself translated into Portuguese. This work inspired Don Luis to develop a system of classification for his own painting collection, which he subsequently sold to the royal court in 1727 to reduce his accumulated debt. This self-compiled enumeration of the contents of his collection reveals a preference for the Dutch and Flemish fine painters.¹³¹³M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘Les Mariette et le Portugal’, Les rapports cuturels et littéraires entre le Portugal et la France (Actes du colloque, Paris 11-16 octobre 1982), Paris 1983, pp. 295-322, esp. p. 312; F. Scholten, ‘Het portret van Don Luis da Cunha door Jan Baptist Xavery (1737)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 42 (1994), pp. 107-19, esp. p. 118 (note 21). In this respect, he was following the example set by his role model in the field of art collecting, Prince Eugene of Savoy, whom he had met during the treaty negotiations in Utrecht. Da Cunha’s large collection of silver objects, including works by leading Parisian goldsmiths such as Thomas Germain, also found its way to the Portuguese court.¹⁴¹⁴M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘Les Mariette et le Portugal’, Les rapports cuturels et littéraires entre le Portugal et la France (Actes du colloque, Paris 11-16 octobre 1982), Paris 1983, esp. p. 310. M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘La politique artistique Européenne du roi Jean V de Portugal en direction de Paris: sources raisonnes, Histoire du Portugal, Histoire Européenne (Actes du colloque, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris 22-23 May 1986), Paris 1987, pp. 111-45, esp. pp. 120-21. In the year prior to his departure for the Dutch Republic, the ambassador also brokered contracts with various artists, including the French goldsmith Meissonnier, for the decoration of the throne room at Ribeira Palace.¹⁵¹⁵M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘La politique artistique Européenne du roi Jean V de Portugal en direction de Paris: sources raisonnes, Histoire du Portugal, Histoire Européenne (Actes du colloque, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris 22-23 May 1986), Paris 1987, pp. 111-45, esp. p. 119 (note 14). By the time Da Cunha was appointed to this position in The Hague in 1728, he had already acquired a reputation as a man of taste and someone possessing a knowledge of international trends in art. This is unquestionably the reason why, from 1729 on, Prince William IV of Orange, later stadholder, held regular consultations on cultural matters with the Portuguese diplomat.¹⁶¹⁶F.H. Schmidt, Pieter de Swart, architect van de achttiende eeuw, Zwolle-Zeist 1999, p. 34. Even after the ambassador left The Hague for Paris in 1737, the two men remained in contact. When, for example, on Prince Willem’s orders the architect Pieter de Swart undertook study in the years 1745-47 at the École des Arts in Paris, a private school founded and directed by Jacques-François Blondel (1704-1773), Da Cunha acted as an intermediary.¹⁷¹⁷F.H. Schmidt, Pieter de Swart, architect van de achttiende eeuw, Zwolle-Zeist 1999, pp. 37, 38.

Despite the absence of solid archival documentation, the dating of the marble bust’s manufacture can be reconstructed fairly precisely. On 6 October 1736, Da Cunha filed a request with the States General, as king that he be granted a passport for the purpose of transporting the following possessions to Paris: ‘his carriage, baggage and furniture, consisting of a carriage, ten coffers, 5 chests with curved lids, 6 hampers of kitchenware and 6 hampers with wine, to be sent by water; and 2 coaches, 2 chairs, a cart, 20 horses, 15 coffers, 4 valises, and one ...... [?], to be sent by land to France.’¹⁸¹⁸sijn Equipage, bagage en meubilair, bestaande in een koets, tien koffers, 5 gecurbaleerde kisten, 6 manden keucken gereedschap en 6 manden met wijn, welke te water sullen werden versonden; en 2 koetsen, 2 chaises, een charret, 20 paarden, 15 koffers, 4 valiesen, en een maal (?), welke over land sullen werden versonden na Vrankrijk. The Hague, National Archives, entry no. 1.01.02 (Resoluties van de Staten-Generaal, 1576-1795), inv. no. 468, fol. 270 (6 October 1736). Inscribed with the year 1737, the bust could not have been transported with this shipment. Considering that Da Cunha was installed as ambassador to France on 28 April 1737, it seems probable that Xavery would have completed his portrait only after Da Cunha’s arrival in Paris. In this case, the sculptor presumably worked with one or more of his own hand-drawn preliminary sketches, but also three-dimensional clay modelli, all made no later than the fall of 1736. Such clay sketches made by Xavery himself indeed exist, e.g. his model for the bust of Sicco van Goslinga from circa 1737.¹⁹¹⁹F. Scholten, ‘Het portret van Don Luis da Cunha door Jan Baptist Xavery (1737)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 42 (1994), pp. 107-19, esp. figs. 11-13; namely, the bozzetti for the busts of Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel and Sicco van Goslinga (erroneously purported to be the portrait of Frederik I of Hessen-Kassel); both bozzetti date from c. 1737 and are today preserved in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kassel. A chalk rendering of the painter Balthasar Denner from 1739 is a fine example of Xavery’s own hand-drawn portrait studies.²⁰²⁰F. Scholten, ‘Jan Baptist Xavery’s mansportret uit 1739’, Jaarboek Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 1999-2000, pp. 148-51, esp. fig. 5.

Shedding additional light on this partly unresolved matter, however, is the mention of Da Cunha’s bust portrait in the collection of Don Francesco Lopez de Liz, a Portuguese Jew residing in The Hague. This wealthy, but spendthrift merchant was declared bankrupt in 1742 and subsequently placed under curatorship, with his possessions compulsorily inventoried and offered at public sale.²¹²¹E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, esp. pp. 208-21. Among the cited artworks, the resulting inventory also includes Een marmeren borstbeeld op rood marmeren voet van don Louis da Cunha, gezant van Portugal (‘A marble bust on red marble pedestal of don Louis da Cunha, emissary of Portugal’).²²²²E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, esp. p. 214. If the item in question was indeed Xavery’s portrait of Da Cunha (versus a replica), then this suggests the bust had remained in The Hague at least up until 1742 and that it had not been sent directly on to Paris after its completion. Was Francesco Lopez de Liz simply holding the bust for safekeeping on Da Cunha’s behalf, or was he perhaps the person who ordered the bust from Xavery and therefore its rightful owner? In fact, Lopez de Liz was on good footing with the local nobility and with various emissaries in The Hague. He also maintained close ties with all of the Portuguese ambassadors. In this context, a 1726 power of attorney indicates that Da Cunha’s predecessor, the Count of Tarouca, was a good friend of the merchant. Moreover, the aforementioned 1742 inventory of Lopez de Liz’s possessions even lists painted portraits of the count and his two sons.²³²³E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, esp. pp. 179, 214. When Da Cunha moved to The Hague in 1728, Lopez de Liz acted as guarantor for the amount of four years’ rent on the house where the ambassador resided.²⁴²⁴E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, esp. p. 179. Was the bust perhaps being held as some kind of surety on this earlier guarantee, or might it have been commissioned by Lopez de Liz as a gift intended for Da Cunha? ²⁵²⁵No trace of evidence exists supporting the notion that the bust was a gift to Da Cunha presented by the Académie de France: Cést l’Académie de France qui l’a fait faire pour l’offrir au même Don Luiz da Cunha, alors ambassadeur du Roi Don Joao V à la Cour de France (‘It was the Académie de France that had arranged for it to be given to the same Don Luiz da Cunha, then Ambassador of King Don Joao V to the Court of France’; source: Count Das Alcáçovas’s letter to the director of the Rijksmuseum, 21 June 1938, in Object File). Mandroux-França instead surmised that the sculpture was perhaps commemorative in nature, or intended as a farewell gift given to Da Cunha, as it was commissioned towards the end of his ambassadorship in The Hague: Le buste, daté de 1737, se situe donc à l’extrème fin du séjour de D. Luis da Cunha à La Haye et constitute probablement une manifestation d’hommage ou d’adieu (‘The bust, dated 1737, is therefore positioned at the end of D. Luis da Cunha’s stay in The Hague and probably constitutes a tribute or farewell’; source: Marie-Thérèse Mandroux-França’s letter to Frits Scholten, 19 June 1994, in Object File). As confirmed by the bust’s presence in Lisbon in the nineteenth century – held in the possession of one of Da Cunha’s descendants – certain is that the marble bust eventually left the Netherlands, theoretically following the ambassador to (or via) his next destination, Paris, or his native Portugal.

Whether or not commissioned by the sitter himself, Da Cunha’s bust falls well in line with other portrait commissions granted Xavery in the 1730s by those moving in the same circles as the Portuguese ambassador.²⁶²⁶L.J. van der Klooster, ‘Jan Baptist Xavery (1697-1742): Documentatie over enkele van zijn werken’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 21 (1970), pp. 99-138, esp. p. 102 already noted that contact between Xavery and the Portuguese embassy may have occurred at an earlier point, with the sculptor possibly responsible for the sculptural decoration of the embassy chapel in 1725, of which the pulpit in Hoofddorp would then be a surviving remnant. The Flemish sculptor produced an impressive series of busts and tomb effigies for prominent patrons once holding positions of the highest status on the military, state and diplomatic stages of the European continent during the first half of the eighteenth century. Dutch dignitaries included Sicco van Goslinga – likewise a negotiator in talks leading up to the Peace of Utrecht – but also military figures such as Count Reinhart Vincent van Hompesch²⁷²⁷In 1736, Count Vincent Willem van Hompesch’s wife, Charlotte Cornelia van Boetzelaar, loaned 1,000 guilders from Lopez de Liz, see E. van Biema, ‘Episoden uit het leven van Francesco Lopez de Liz, naar bescheiden uit de archieven’, Die Haghe Jaarboek 1914-1915, pp. 166-225, p. 212. and Baron Johan Theodoor van Friesheim, and the stadholder pair, Prince Willem IV and his wife, Anna van Hannover. Foreign patrons also found their way to Xavery, including the landgraves Wilhelm VIII and Frederik I van Hessen-Kassel, the Swedish councillor of state Count Johannes Lilljenstedt, Prince Eugenius of Savoye and the Duke of Marlborough.²⁸²⁸F. Scholten, ‘Het portret van Don Luis da Cunha door Jan Baptist Xavery (1737)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 42 (1994), pp. 107-19, esp. pp. 115-16 and figs. 8-17. Xavery’s marble bust of Don Luis da Cunha – unquestionably one of the finest portraits in the sculptor’s oeuvre – is a highly accurate characterization of the proud Portuguese diplomat at the height of his career.

Frits Scholten, 2026

Catalogo illustrado da Exposição retrospectiva de arte ornamental portugueza e hespanhola celebrada em Lisboa em 1882, exh. cat. Lisbon (Palácio Alvor-Pombal) 1882, sala P, no. 60; Lisboa Joaquina, exh. cat. Lisbon (Palácio Galveias) 1950, no. 47; O triunfo do barroco, exh. cat. Lisbon (Centro Cultural de Belém) 1993, no. 63; M.-T. Mandroux-França, ‘La politique artistique Européenne du Roi Jean V de Portugal en direction de Paris’, Histoire du Portugal. Histoire Européenne. Actes du Colloque, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Portugais Paris, Paris 1986, pp. 111-45, fig. 3; F. Scholten, ‘Het portret van Don Luis da Cunha door Jan Baptist Xavery (1737)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 42 (1994), pp. 107-19; A. Hagen, ‘Marmeren Pijpekrullen’, Kunstbeeld, November 1994, pp. 42-43; F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 34; ‘Recent Acquisitions at the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 137 (1995), pp. 419-24, esp. p. 422, no. XI; F.H. Schmidt, Pieter de Swart, architect van de achttiende eeuw, Zwolle-Zeist 1999, p. 33; R. Baarsen et al., Rococo in Nederland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001-02, no. 21; M.-Th. Mandroux-França, ‘La collection royale Portugaise’, in M.-Th. Mandroux-França and M. Préaud, Catalogues de la Collection d’estampes de Jean V, roi de Portugal par Pierre-Jean Mariette, vol. 1, Lisbon/Paris 2003, pp. 45-164, esp. pp. 84-102 (on Da Cunha) and fig. 52 (bust); F. Scholten in R. Baarsen, R.-J. te Rijdt and F. Scholten (eds.), Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum 1700-1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2006, no. 39

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Jan Baptist Xavery, Portrait Bust of Don Luis da Cunha (1662-1749), The Hague, 1737', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200315284