Frederick the Pious, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d.1478) 1600 - 1735
Watercolour on vellum | 7.0 x 5.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 420427
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This is one of a group of eight miniatures (420423-420430) which form a retrospective extension to the series of forty-nine miniatures of rulers of Brunswick-Lüneburg and their wives (420431-420679) dating from c. 1595.
This secondary group of eight miniatures consists of fanciful portraits of fifteenth century Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg and their consorts. They are embellished with inscriptions in Gothic script indicating a romantic view of the historic past and are later in date than the larger, original group. The set has previously been thought to date from the seventeenth century when the production of ancestral portrait sets in oil was common. However, the impetus to enlarge the original group of 49 miniatures may well have come when they were hung prominently in Queen Caroline’s Closet at Kensington Palace in the mid–1730s. It is conceivable that the eight additional miniatures were produced on the instructions of Queen Caroline by an English miniaturist capable of emulating the naïve sixteenth-century style of the Brunswick-Lüneburg Court Miniaturist.
Frederick I was the brother of Otto the Great (d.1445). He became reigning Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg on the death of his brother in 1445, but retired to a monastery in 1459 and was succeeded by his son, Bernard II.
Inscribed at the top in white: Fridrich hertzog zu braunschweig und luneburg bernhards son starb anno 1478.
Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760, London, 2014.Provenance
First recorded in the Royal Collection in Queen Caroline’s Closet, Kensington Palace, by George Vertue in 1743 (Vertue 1743, p. 24 item 159 1/3/4/6)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Watercolour on vellum
Measurements
7.0 x 5.9 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
8.2 x 7.1 cm (frame, external)
6.7 x 5.6 cm (sight)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Friedrich I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d.1478)