Cornelius Johnson, Portrait of a Man, Possibly William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1623

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Cornelius Johnson, Portrait of a Man, Possibly William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1623,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1230.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Cornelius Johnson, Portrait of a Man, Possibly William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1623,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 2, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1226.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This early oil-on-copper miniature painted by Cornelius Johnson in 1623 features a head-and-shoulders portrait of a gentleman in three-quarters profile, set relatively low in the picture plane against a gray background. With light coming in from the sitter’s right, Johnson sensitively describes his slightly furrowed brow between a pair of heavy brown eyebrows, set atop piercing blue eyes. Johnson meticulously renders the sitter’s auburn mustache and beard with hints of gray, as well as the delicate folds of his falling linen cambric ruff edged in delicate needle lace.

An inscription etched into the hand-turned ivory case reads, “William of Pembroke [illeg.] comonly [sic] called Black William”; however, it cannot relate to the present sitter. William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, ca. 1507–1570—dubbed, possibly unjustly, “black Will Herbert” by Stuart period antiquarian John Aubrey—died fifty years before the present portrait, dated 1623.¹ It is possible, however, that the sitter could be the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, also named William Herbert (English, 1580–1630), who would have been forty-three when this portrait was painted.

William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, was a prominent courtier and figure of the late Tudor and early Stuart periods. As a courtier, politician, jouster, performer, poet, and patron of the arts and of universities, Herbert engaged in many of the popular pursuits of his time. He served as Lord Chamberlain, overseeing a variety of court entertainments, festivities, masques, and theatrical and musical performances. He patronized important poets and playwrights, including William Shakespeare, whose First Folio was dedicated to him in 1623, the year of this portrait.

Johnson painted full-scale portraits of the 3rd Earl² and his wife, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury; several prints after these paintings exist in the Royal Collections.³ As Horace Walpole noted, “Johnson painted, too, in small, in oil, and often copied his own works in that manner,”⁴ so it is possible that the present miniature is a small-scale version of a larger oil.

As an important figure at court, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke was painted and reproduced in print numerous times.⁵ However, he usually appears wearing the blue ribbon of the Knight of the Garter around his neck, which does not appear here. He also often holds the white staff, symbol of his office of Lord Chamberlain, a position he assumed in 1615. While the present miniature does not include the sitter’s hands, there would have been ample room in his torso to show the ribbon of the Garter around his neck.

The anomalies suggested by these objects’ absence open up the possibility that the portrait instead represents one of the numerous unknown members of the gentry, professionals, and court sitters whom Johnson depicted during an especially busy time in his early career. Three notable portrait painters died in 1619—Robert Peake the Elder (English, ca. 1551–1619), William Larkin (English, 1580–1619), and Nicholas Hilliard (English, ca. 1547–1619)—leaving a place in the market into which Johnson was able to move.⁶ He did so with distinction, creating meticulously detailed portrayals both small and large.

Notes

1. William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, emerges from the period press as a wild, wily, illiterate, devious, and unmannered knight. This likely led the Stuart antiquarian John Aubrey to deem him “black will, Herbert,” a common way to refer to deviant behavior that was not related to race and a stereotype that persisted in literature from that point forward. For a more nuanced understanding of Herbert that attempts to correct the record, see N. P. Sil, “Sir William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke: In Search of a Personality,” Welsh History Review 11 (January 1, 1982): 92n1.

2. According to the Royal Collection Trust website, the painting (after which many prints were made) is in the possession of “Mr Barnes Esq.” See Richard Cooper the Younger (1740–1814) (engraver), after Cornelius Johnson, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1810, stipple engraving, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 656238, https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/10/collection/656238. Subsequent searches have yet to yield further information about this individual.

3. See Cornelius Johnson, Portrait of a Lady, called Mary, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, 1619, oil on oval panel, 26 3/4 x 20 in. (68 x 50.8 cm.), British Pictures, Christie’s, April 11, 1993, sale 4950, lot 4, from “Property of a Gentleman,” https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-2999608. The painting is described as “half length, wearing a blue gold embroidered dress trimmed with white lace, a pendant pearl earring and an amethyst, gold and pearl pendant necklace, signed and dated lower right, ‘Cornelius Johnson/fecit 1619’ in a painted oval on panel.” For a print after the painting, see, for example, R. Cooper, after Cornelius Johnson, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Wife of the 3rd Earl, Daughter of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, stipple engraving, Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 656233, https://www.rct.uk/collection/656244.

4. Walpole was reliably informed by antiquarian George Vertue through Anthony Russell, Johnson’s great-nephew. See Horace Walpole et al., Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal Artists; and Incidental Notes on Other Arts; Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue; And Now Digested and Published from His Original Mss., 4th ed. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley Pall-Mall, 1786), 2:7–8.

5. The 3rd Earl also appears in oil portraits done after Daniel Mytens (English, ca. 1590–1647/8), after Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641), by Paul van Somer (Flemish, ca. 1577–1621), and numerous prints thereafter. See after Daniel Mytens, William Herbert, 1625, oil on canvas, 23 1/4 x 20 7/8 in. (59.1 x 53.0 cm), National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 5560, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07783; After Sir Anthony Van Dyck, William Herbert, oil on canvas, 86 1/4 x 51 in. (219.1 x 129.5 cm), https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5958464; Paul van Somer, William Herbert, oil on canvas, 52 x 39 in. (132.1 x 99.1 cm), Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 405870, https://www.rct.uk/collection/405870.

6. Karen Hearn, Cornelius Johnson (London: Paul Holberton, 2015), 12.

Franklin L. Miller (after 1888–after 1951), Chicago, by 1951 [1];

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1951 [2].

Notes

[1] Miller owned the miniature “for a number of years,” according to a letter from Miller to the William Rockhill Nelson Museum, March 15, 1951, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

[2] The miniature was gifted to the museum in honor of Miller’s mother, Alice Gordon Miller (1862–1904) of Buchanan, Missouri.