SOMER, Paulus van - b. ~1576 Antwerpen, d. 1621 London - WGA

SOMER, Paulus van

(b. ~1576 Antwerpen, d. 1621 London)

Flemish painter. who settled in London in 1616. He was, with Mijtens and Jonson, one of the best portrait painters in England before the arrival of van Dyck.

He received his initial training in Antwerp. He was perhaps a pupil of the obscure Flemish painter Philip Lisaert (fl 1530-1588), the master of Paul’s elder brother Bernaert van Somer (c. 1575-1612), as the subject-matter of the two brothers has strong similarities. Bernaert was active as a painter, printmaker and art dealer.

Van Mander noted van Somer’s presence in Amsterdam in 1604 and described him as a good painter. He travelled extensively during the following decade and is recorded in Leiden in 1612-14, The Hague in 1615 and in Brussels in 1616. At this time he was employed by the Brabant Chambre des Comptes to paint portraits of the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella, and it is asserted that he visited London, though he cannot be traced there definitely before 1616.

Van Somer arrived in England at a time when Henry, Prince of Wales, the most important patron of the visual arts in early 17th-century England, and his mother, Anne of Denmark, wife of James I and VI, were bringing about a revolution in artistic taste. Anne at once became van Somer’s most important patron. Such immediate acceptance of a foreign artist suggests that the refined, hieratic, neo-Gothic world of Elizabethan painting was already in decline, perhaps hastened by the death of several prominent painters, notably Nicholas Hilliard. Somer’s earliest datable work, Queen Anne of Denmark (1617), is perhaps the best.

However, van Somer’s work is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary development from the former style. Many elements of his compositions find parallels in the work of such painters as Robert Peake and Marcus Gheeraerts II, though van Somer’s painting technique is rather closer to early 17th-century Antwerp painting. The importance of Somer’s painting lies in its being a watershed between the opposing aesthetics of Elizabethan Gothic Survival and the continental Baroque of Anthony van Dyck.

After van Somer’s death, his wife continued to receive substantial payments from the court for his paintings.

An Unknown Noblewoman

Jacobean lady’s fashionable saffron lace ruff and rich satin red dress intricately embroidered with gold, provide a lavish display of her wealth.

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Anne of Denmark

Anne of Denmark stands facing half to the right, wearing a green riding habit and a tall-crowned hat with red plumes. She restrains five greyhounds on a leash in her left hand and rests her right hand on her hip. The greyhounds have her initials, AR, on their collars. Her green low-cut bodice has curved sleeves in the fashionable Spanish style, one of which is worn hanging with the buttons undone. Her bodice is trimmed with multiple layers of lace at the cuffs and neckline and she wears practical leather riding gloves. A black groom wearing scarlet and gold livery holds her horse to the left.

Queen Anne is depicted standing in the grounds of Oatlands House, with the palace visible in the distance to the right. An owl, symbol of wisdom, perches on a tree above. A scroll inscribed LA MIA GRANDEZZA DAL ECCELSO floats above the Queen’s head. This motto (‘My greatness is from on high’) was a favourite with the Queen.

Anne is portrayed as Diana, a patron of the arts and divinely inspired thinker. However, the grandeur of the conception is barely matched by its somewhat arid, prosaic style; the sitter is endowed with the plump features of a self-satisfied Antwerp bourgeois. Nevertheless, it is a splendid costume piece.

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Elizabeth Pierrepont, Countess of Kellie

Elizabeth Pierrepont married Sir Thomas Erskine, 1st Earl of Kellie, forebear of the Earls of Kellie.

Countess Elizabeth’s dress has a plunging neckline concealed by reticella lace and gold jewelry. The farthingale is gone, but hanging sleeves remain. She holds a fan in one hand and appears to be holding a bird in the other.

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Elizabeth Wriothesley, née Vernon, Countess of Southampton

Elizabeth Vernon (1573-c. 1655) was an oft-painted court beauty. The present portrait, painted around 1620 when the sitter was a mature woman in her forties, is one of a number to adorn various English manors and estates.

By 1620 the countess would have been very much in her prime at the Jacobean court, and van Somer has skilfully represented the artifice of Elizabeth’s well-preserved powdered skin and rouged cheeks. She wears a costly black silk gown with slashes that reveal red and gold embroidered silk beneath, and a fashionable saffron lace ruff with matching cuffs and headdress. Her jewels are impressive, with a long double-strung quartz or agate necklace on a red thread across her shoulders, with a diamond studded ’S’ for Southampton, and a blue enameled miniature case to which she gestures with her right hand (presumably containing a portrait of her husband. Her earring is unusual, with red stones (rubies or almandine pyrope garnets) linked together and then looped up at each end for attachment and she has an unusual double-ear piercing.

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George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) was an English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. He was the favourite and possibly also the lover of King James I of England. Despite a patchy political and military record, Buckingham remained at the height of royal favour for the first three years of King Charles I’s reign, until a disgruntled army officer assassinated him.

George Villiers is one of the central characters in Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers, where he is called the Duke of Buckingham or simply Buckingham.

Today, he is buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the tomb of King James I. He was the first person not belonging to the royal family to be buried in Westminster.

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James I of England (James VI of Scotland)

James I (1566-1625) was king of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567 to 1625 and first Stuart king of England from 1603 to 1625. He styled himself “king of Great Britain.” He was a strong advocate of royal absolutism, and his conflicts with an increasingly self-assertive Parliament set the stage for the rebellion against his successor, Charles I.

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Sir Rowland Cotton

Sir Rowland Cotton (1577-1634) of Alkington Hall, Whitechurch, and Bellaport Hall, Shropshire was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1605 and 1629.

The sitter is wearing one of the most resplendent costume pieces of this period and the silk doublet and breeches are virtuosically tailored with deep slashing on the doublet to reveal a layer of blue silk beneath. Remarkably, the splendid costume has survived, and today is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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The 1st Earl of Monmouth and his Family

Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (1560?-1639) was a courtier, royalist and politician. Monmouth is shown holding the white Chamberlain’s rod, with, at the left, his wife Elizabeth Trevannion (died 1641), and his elder son Henry, later the 2nd Earl (1596-1661). At the right is his daughter Philadelphia (1594-1654), later Lady Wharton, and his younger son Thomas (1597-1634).

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