Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy by Charles, Dauphin

 

Identifying the figure depicted is relatively straightforward, as the features of Charles-Emmanuel II of Savoy (1634–1675) are indeed very distinctive. Charles-Emmanuel married twice. In 1663, he married Françoise-Madeleine d’Orléans; the marriage produced no children. She died the following year. From his second marriage, to Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II (1666–1732) was born, who would succeed him. One might rightly wonder why this portrait features in the collection, as it bears little relation to the portraits of the entourage of the French royal family. Perhaps one should take note of the Duke’s full title (Charles-Emanuel II, Duke of Savoy, Chablais, Aouste, Genevois and Monferrat) and Jeanne-Françoise de Barral de Montferrat (1745–1831), one of the Marquises of Fontanges. The portrait is hung in a rather original manner above the doorway, above an Italian landscape which actually serves as the doorpiece. The portrait’s imposing size ultimately allows it to tower over the grand salon, like a guardian figure.

An inventory kept at the Château d’Aulteribe attributes the work to Sir Peter Lely, originally Pieter Van der Faes (1618–1680). This Dutch painter gained great popularity as a portraitist in England, where he settled around 1664, on the occasion of the marriage of Prince William II of Orange to Mary of England. He painted the portrait of the betrothed couple, which enabled him to make his debut at court. He subsequently entered the service of the Earl of Northumberland, for whom he copied works by Van Dyck, but it was thanks to his portraits that he succeeded Van Dyck, becoming the most sought-after portrait painter in England. In 1661, Charles I appointed him ‘Principal Painter’, but his fame stemmed above all from his series of paintings , depicting ten ladies of the court of King Charles II, the ‘Windsor Beauties ’ (Hampton Court), which he painted between 1662 and 1665.

 

However, despite the style of the painting, the original work must surely be attributed to the painter Charles Dauphin (c. 1615–1677), an artist from Lorraine whose career was spent mainly in the Duchy of Savoy. Whilst a virtually identical portrait is documented but its current whereabouts are unknown, the large family portrait held at the Prado Museum remains as evidence of the painting’s true attribution. Art dealers can also make mistakes during sales…

 

 

 

 

Juan J. Luna, ‘The Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel II, painted by Charles Dauphin’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes, vol. 94, no. 2, 1982, pp. 965–977.