Panel Painting Isabella of Bourbon
Object number
LDSAL514
Artist/Designer/Maker
Unknown artist
Production date
1581-1613
late 16th century
late 16th century
Technique
Oil On Panel
Dimensions
height (frame): 525mm
width (frame): 410mm
height: 430mm
width: 320mm
width (frame): 410mm
height: 430mm
width: 320mm
Inscriptions
Inscription content
MARGAR’ DE ORC’ 3 VXOR • [along top of frame, with a line above first R]
CAROLI DVCIS BOVRGON [along the bottom of frame, with a line above N]
CAROLI DVCIS BOVRGON [along the bottom of frame, with a line above N]
Inscription date
16th century
Oil on oak panel portrait of Isabella of Bourbon, previously identified as 'Margaret of York'.
This late sixteenth-century portrait is painted on a single rectangular panel, cut from a vertical board from an oak tree felled after 1581, probably in the eastern Baltic region of Europe.
According to the inscription on the frame, this is a painting of Margaret of York (1446–1503), Duchess of Burgundy (1468–77), third wife of Duke Charles the Bold. Margaret, sister of the Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III, married Charles the Bold in 1468 in a skilful dynastic manoeuvre aimed at cementing Anglo-Burgundian relations.
Of the many panels once thought to depict Margaret of York, only a painting in the Louvre is still referred to as a likeness of the princess, largely because of the significance attributed to the jewellery which the young woman wears. Clearly the work of a considerable artist, the Louvre portrait shows a delicate young woman with a heart-shaped face and sombre downcast gaze, quite unlike the subject of the Society’s portrait.
As the Louvre portrait came to be accepted almost universally as a portrait of Margaret of York, scholars became increasingly unwilling to consider that the Society’s picture, despite its inscription, can depict her. The women in the two portraits bear no resemblance to each other and are clearly different individuals. We can now say with certainty that the Society’s painting depicts not Margaret but her predecessor, Isabella of Bourbon, Charles the Bold’s second wife (d 1465; Duchess 1454–65), whose characteristics can be established from several reliable sources.
A group of eight portraits of the Burgundian ducal dynasty survives in Lille and the one whose frame is inscribed with the name of Isabella has much in common with the Society’s panel, including the flame-like Burgundian jewel, the rows of pearls on the collar, the loop of the henin and rather prominent ear. The panel in Lille is also similar in size and might well be an earlier version of the same portrait type.
How then did the image of Isabella of Bourbon on the Society’s panel come to be inscribed with the name of Margaret of York? Perhaps the artist based it on an image known only to depict the Duke of Burgundy’s wife and assumed, incorrectly, that this meant Margaret. A simpler explanation, however, is that the panel was merely given the wrong inscription in the workshop.
According to the inscription on the frame, this is a painting of Margaret of York (1446–1503), Duchess of Burgundy (1468–77), third wife of Duke Charles the Bold. Margaret, sister of the Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III, married Charles the Bold in 1468 in a skilful dynastic manoeuvre aimed at cementing Anglo-Burgundian relations.
Of the many panels once thought to depict Margaret of York, only a painting in the Louvre is still referred to as a likeness of the princess, largely because of the significance attributed to the jewellery which the young woman wears. Clearly the work of a considerable artist, the Louvre portrait shows a delicate young woman with a heart-shaped face and sombre downcast gaze, quite unlike the subject of the Society’s portrait.
As the Louvre portrait came to be accepted almost universally as a portrait of Margaret of York, scholars became increasingly unwilling to consider that the Society’s picture, despite its inscription, can depict her. The women in the two portraits bear no resemblance to each other and are clearly different individuals. We can now say with certainty that the Society’s painting depicts not Margaret but her predecessor, Isabella of Bourbon, Charles the Bold’s second wife (d 1465; Duchess 1454–65), whose characteristics can be established from several reliable sources.
A group of eight portraits of the Burgundian ducal dynasty survives in Lille and the one whose frame is inscribed with the name of Isabella has much in common with the Society’s panel, including the flame-like Burgundian jewel, the rows of pearls on the collar, the loop of the henin and rather prominent ear. The panel in Lille is also similar in size and might well be an earlier version of the same portrait type.
How then did the image of Isabella of Bourbon on the Society’s panel come to be inscribed with the name of Margaret of York? Perhaps the artist based it on an image known only to depict the Duke of Burgundy’s wife and assumed, incorrectly, that this meant Margaret. A simpler explanation, however, is that the panel was merely given the wrong inscription in the workshop.