Yale's Painted Ladies Explores Women of the Court

For the more artistically ambitious and mobile Trinity student, the place to be this month is the Yale Center for British Art. There is always the Wadsworth around here, but if you feel in the mood for a little trip and change of scenery, if just for the afternoon, this excellent gallery is just three quarters of an hour south on I-91. The current highlight exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art is Painted Ladies - Women at the Court of Charles II, 1660-1685. Overall, this exhibit is visually breathtaking and awash in color. Some of the works displayed are on loan from Elizabeth II and if I were Her Majesty, I would not have let them out of the palace, as they re quite impressive.Following the reign of the Puritan Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, during which many of the gilded relics of the earlier Stuarts were melted down for the war effort against the Dutch or painted black to cover their sinful extravagance, the English welcomed back the Stuart monarchy in the form of Charles II. Charles was everything Cromwell was not. The new king had mistresses, threw balls, patronized the arts and generally lived a happy and profligate life. Baroque Style characterizes the art of his reign, gilding the lily any time there was a chance to and producing stunning works in painting, literature and music. The current exhibit at Yale focuses on, but not at the exclusion of many others, Barbara Villiers and Louise de Keroualle, two of Charles principle mistresses.

One of the first paintings that catches your eye walking into the exhibit is a 1660 portrait of Elizabeth Butler by Sir Peter Lely. This painting is somewhat unusual in that the perspective is slightly off. The curls piled on Elizabeth Butler s head also strike a modern viewer as odd, but were no doubt at the time quite fashionable. Aspects of the painting that are pleasing include Butler s dress which is painted with great care and deliberation as well as her hands, holding a rose symbolic of her fertility, which are rendered in exquisite detail.

Near the portrait of Elizabeth Butler is one of Charles Queen, Catherine Braganza. Her portrait is the work of Jacob Huysman and shows the Queen, a native of Spain in a Spanish court dress with a voluminous skirt with an extremely high waist. Seemingly in an effort to showcase the wealth of the Queen, and by implication her husband Charles, Huysman takes special care to paint the Queen s fine gloves as well as the yards of lace attached to her dress.

Another interesting painting is of Lady Joanna Thornhill. The widow of army colonel Richard Thornhill, Joanna had managed to become highly esteemed at court and earned a salary in her own right as one of the Queen s dressers. Next to this work is a posthumous portrait of Lady Anne Howard from 1662. The work is thought to have been painted following the subject s death as she holds a wreath of dried flowers and is posed leaning on a tomb in an autumnal landscape.

A risqu painting from this risqu era is a 1665 portrait of Diana Kirk, later the Countess of Oxford. Diana was the mistress of Charles brother and in this painting, also by Sir Peter Lely, she leans casually against a pillar with her breast exposed. The work is thought to have been commission by Charles brother for his personal apartments. Holding a flower, Lely casts Diana as a merger of two of antiquity s sensual goddesses, Venus and Flora. Classical and historical posing are common in this series of paintings and in it, women are depicted as St. Catherine, Minerva and even pastoral shepherdesses. Close to the portrait of Diana Kirk we find a painting of Barbara Villiers, Charles principle mistress during his early years on the throne. Painted quite often, and eventually made Duchess of Cleveland in her own right. In this particular portrait she is painted with an infant and depicted as the Virgin with the infant Christ. However the Biblical analogy quickly breaks down into a court intrigue with suggestion that Villiers had the portrait done as a taunt to Queen Catherine who was childless.

Shifting to the later part of Charles reign we see a portrait of Louise de Keroualle by Pierre Mignard done in 1682. Here, de Keroualle is painted as a sea nymph and rendered in a loose flowing gown. An African servant presents her with a shell filled to the brim with pearls. The servant acts to highlight both the subject s super pale skin, a mark of beauty during the epoch, as well as her power and wealth. Another interesting piece is Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, by Simon Verelst, painted in 1675. Verelst had been a still-life painter in his native Holland and in all his works, his early training shows. The Duchess dress, alive with brilliant flowers, comes alive on the canvas, tempting the viewer to touch it, and the vase of flowers behind her head is rendered in impressive detail complete with drops of dew.

However, the pose in which Verelst places the Duchess is entirely unnatural. Another Verelst, painted between 1680 and 1685 is one of Nell Gwyn. Gwyn had been an orange seller in the court theater and later enjoyed an acting career from which she became yet another mistress of Charles II. Considered quite the bad girl at court, Verelst lavishes exquisite detail on her dress, but her skin tone is vaguely green and her body s proportions are not quite correct.

One wall-dominating piece in a classical style is a portrait of Frances Teresa Stuart by Henry Gascan done in 1675. The portrait shows Frances Stuart as Minerva in a flowing gown with sandals, a spear, a helmet crowned with a truly massive plume and a shield featuring the image of a gorgon. The colors in this work are particularly impressive, but Frances Stuart does not make for a particularly muscular Minerva. Her armor looks more appropriate for a parade or costume ball than fighting and even her spear seems dainty.