Artist: Johannes Mytens Or Jan Mijtens, Or 'Mytens' To The English
Date: 1670
Size: 107 x 87 cm
Technique: Oil On Canvas
The identity of this man remained a mystery for a long time. Bauer’s research turned up another painting that revealed that the Rijksmuseum picture is a copy after Jan Mijtens’s portrait of the Scottish nobleman James, 4th Lord Cranstoun.5 The original was in the collection of Lieutenant-Colonel A.J. Edmonstoune-Cranstoun of Corehouse around the beginning of this century.6 James Cranstoun was a son and heir of William, 3rd Lord Cranstoun, who in 1643 married Mary Leslie, the fifth and youngest daughter of the 1st Earl of Leven. Cranstoun Sr sided with the royalists in the English Civil War, and at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, when Charles II vainly fought to regain the throne, he was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London. His property was confiscated, leaving his wife and children with only a tiny portion of their previous estates to live on.7 A lot is known about the father’s life but precious little about the son’s. Given the date of his parents’ wedding James Cranstoun would have been born in or after 1643. He married Mary Don, the daughter of Sir Alexander Don, and died between 1685 and 1688.8 His armour, helmet and sword show that he was a military officer, but further details are lacking. Comparison of this portrait with the prototype shows that the face has been worked up far less and that the rendering of the hair differs from Mijtens’s style. Generally speaking, the execution is far weaker than one is accustomed to with the artist. The depiction of the sky and the rock is uncertain, but by contrast the sash and the armour are very impasted. This is not likely to be an autograph replica, in other words.9 Far less copying was done in Mijtens’s studio than in those of Michiel van Mierevelt and Gerard van Honthorst, for example.10 His portraits were mainly imitated by fellow painters. Assuming that James Cranstoun was born in 1643 at the earliest he would have to be at least around 20 here, so the original would have been from around 1663. In any event, this canvas in which the sitter has been placed against a rocky outcrop with a view of an idealized landscape on the left ties in with the courtly portraits by Mijtens, chiefly of the 1660s. The prototype was almost certainly executed in the Dutch Republic. Cranstoun’s stay there may have been connected with his military career. It seems likely that the Rijksmuseum copy was made not long after its model. Richard Harmanni, 2023 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
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