Lot 1688
AFTER ANTHONIS MOR (c.1516/9-1576/7) PORTRAIT OF PHILIP II OF SPAIN (1527-1598), CONSORT OF QUEEN MARY TUDOR Standing, full length, wearing armour and holding a marshal's baton, bears inscription philippe 2 Reÿ de Spañia lower left, oil on canvas 198 x 118.5cm. * A later copy, probably 18th Century, after the prime version by Mor, painted in c.1557, (Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial). Mor worked at the Court of Charles V and of Philip II in the Spanish Netherlands. Inspired by Italian Mannerists, he blended an acute study of likeness with meticulous technique and a glorification of the grandeur of his sitters. There is often a sense of quiet, sometimes almost severe, authority in his work. His pupil Alonso Sanchez Coello (1532-1588) worked closely in Mor's style and his own version of this subject, dated 1566, is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (now on loan to Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck). Another version from the workshop of Mor, on panel, is to be found in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Philip II is shown in the cuirass of the famous Cruces de Borgoña armour. This is the suit that Philip wore in 1557 at the Battle of Saint Quentin, a major Spanish victory over the French. The stern assertiveness of this imperious, uncompromising image ensured Mor's success. Provenance: By descent in the family of Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848), Goodrich Court, Herefordshire; bears inscription Purchased from the Meyrick Collection 1872 on the stretcher
