After Gaspar de Crayer
(Flemish, 1584-1669)

"Le Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand d'Autriche (1609-1641)"

oil on canvas
unsigned. Presented in a late 18th-/early 19th-century carved pine frame affixed with a brass artist plaque.
73-1/4" x 47-5/8"

Provenance: Herbie Oakes Collection, Houston, Texas.

Notes: The imposing portrait offered here is a celebration of the Habsburg Dynasty and 17th-century portraiture. Ferdinand of Austria, the third son of Philip III, King of Spain, and Margaret of Austria, sister of Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor, had an equally illustrious ecclesiastical and political career. Ferdinand was ordained Arch Duke of Toledo at the age of 19-20, and Cardinal shortly thereafter. As a prince of both the Roman Catholic order and of Spain (hence the double title Cardinal-Infant), Ferdinand was appointed Governor of the Spanish Netherlands in 1630 and military commander during the Thirty Years' War (1633-1641). In 1634 Ferdinand moved to Brussels, the capital of the Spanish provinces, and appointed Gaspar de Crayer, a native of Antwerp, his first court painter, preferring his portraits over his Flemish rival Peter Paul Rubens. In the 1630s, de Crayer was considered the equal of Rubens in painting commissions. According to Edward Wamsley's 1822 biography on de Crayer, following his court appointment, Rubens impressed by his success visited him in his studio, and upon seeing his works in progress decried: "Crayer, Crayer, one will not surpass you!" Between 1634 and Ferdinand's premature death in 1641, de Crayer painted multiple portraits of Ferdinand, the most famous of them, an equestrian portrait, painted in concert with the one depicted here commemorates the Prince's victory at the Battle of Nordlingen, 1634, which ended Swedish Protestant resistance in Southern Germany. While the former painting was presented to Ferdinand's brother King Philip IV, the latter one of Ferdinand in his vestments, now conserved in the Prado, was likely commissioned by the church for his religious victory as a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Given the scale of the work offered here, its finesse, and close mastery of composition and detail as the original, it is likely that it was commissioned ca. 1800 for a church or building in one of the Belgian/French provinces Ferdinand of Austria patronized.

References: Blanc, Charles. Histoire des Peintres de Toutes Les Ecoles: Ecole Flemande, vol. 13. Paris: Jules Renouard Libraire-Editeur, 1864. pp. 62-64; Walmsley, Edward. Physiognomical Portraits, 100 Characters from Originals, Engr. by British Artists. London: John Major, Robert Jennings & Robert Triphook, 1822.