T H E W E I S S G A L L E RY
Royal Collection.11 Lanier could have bought paintings by contemporary Italian masters from intermediaries in Italy but he is more likely to have gone direct to the studios of the artists themselves, particularly given that he was proud of his connoisseurship and determined to buy the best for his royal employer. But Reni was not in Rome in 1626, only returning there briefly in the following year.12 As the Saint Peter is not mentioned in the consignment it may have been bought during one of Lanier’s other trips to Italy, perhaps even the one of 1610-11,13 although it was probably not sold to Prince Charles as early as that. Lanier’s personal contact with Reni is supported by the survival of a beautiful drawing of a woman’s head by the Bolognese master, now in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle,14 that is marked with the eight-pointed star (Lugt 2885) associated with Lanier’s ownership.15 It seems that Lanier met Reni, persuaded him to make a portrait study in coloured chalk (somewhat in the manner of Ottavio Leoni) and at the same time extracted a ‘good parcel of waste paper drawings, that had been collected, but not much esteemed’ as part of the bargain for a larger purchase of paintings, a procedure vividly described by Roger North some years later.16
21 Guido Reni Nicholas Lanier c.1626-30 © 2009 Digital Image Museum Associates/LACMA/ Art Resource NY/Scala, Florence
22 Lucas Vorsterman, after Jan Lievens Nicholas Lanier c.1632 © V&A Images/Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Reni was not a man to make portrait drawings for their own sake, so either Lanier made a great impression upon him or there was talk of Reni painting Lanier’s portrait, a work that is otherwise unrecorded. If this was the plan it suggests that, as early as 1610-11, Lanier was interested in having his face recorded for posterity by the best living artists. Alternatively, it is certain that Lanier had his portrait painted while in Italy in 1625-26 because it is listed among the works that he exported from Rome, although, unfortunately the artist is not recorded.17 During the next two decades, Lanier was to commission painted portraits from Anthony van Dyck (in 1628),18 Jacob Jordaens,19 and Jan Lievens (around 1632-35),20 as well as an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman (fig. 22).21 The print is inscribed ‘Ioannes Lijvijus pinxit’ and so recorded a painting that was almost certainly made while Lievens was in London in the early to mid-1630s. Lanier would have had this copied, presumably in a drawing, which was sent to Vorsterman in Antwerp,22 where he had returned from London in 1630, and where it was published by Martinus van den Enden (1605-1673) and subsequently by Franciscus van den Wijngaerde (1614-1679).23 The decision to have the engraving issued is clear evidence that Lanier was concerned to advance his contemporary reputation and to secure it for posterity. This was ambitious for a man of relatively modest means and points to some personal vanity, as well as pride, although the latter was surely justified by his achievements.
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