Tea at Trianon: Artist in Focus: Sir Peter Lely

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, June 20, 2022

Artist in Focus: Sir Peter Lely

Sir Peter Lely

From Philip Mould and Company:

Sir Peter Lely was the most successful court painter in England in the second half of the seventeenth century and his portraits have come to define an era associated with indulgence and pleasure under the rule of the 'Merry Monarch' King Charles II.

Lely (originally Pieter van der Faes) was born in Soest, Westphalia, Germany. His father, Johan van der Faes, was stationed as an infantry Captain in the Dutch army and his mother, Abigail van Vliet, was from a wealthy family based in Utrecht. His family owned a number of properties; one of which, In de Leyle, was decorated with the carving of a lily and is said to be the origin of Lely's pseudonym. Having attended The Guild of St Luke, as the pupil of Frans Pietersz de Grebber, Lely gained a reputation as a remarkably adept figure painter and portraitist.

Although the exact date Lely travelled to England is unclear, it is generally accepted that he had settled in London by c. 1643, during the English Civil War, two years after the death of the portraitist Sir Anthony van Dyck. Despite sharing the stage with many accomplished painters, his technique and considerable personal charm guaranteed him the most prestigious patronage. Almost all of consequence in his age sat to him, and it is in his portraits that we form our conception of the cautious solemnity of the 1650s and the scandalous excesses of the years following the Restoration of Charles II. (Read more.)