www.thehistoryblog.com
Flemish artist’s only known work export barred
A unique set of four hardstone, shell and pearl panels that are the only known surviving works of the 17th century Flemish artist De Vély are at risk of leaving the UK after they were sold at auction last July for a whopping £1.6 million. The UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport has put a temporary export bar on De Vély’s Polyptych with Mars, Virtu Invincible, Minerva and Magnificence that gives a local institution until March 17th to raise the purchase price to acquire the panels.
Known as the Fairhaven Panels because they have been in the collection of Broughton family, Lords Fairhaven, since the 1920s, the panels combine stones like lapis lazuli, sardonyx and garnet with shells, enamel, glass beads, pearls and gilt metal to create personifications of four deities or moral symbols — Mars, Virtu Invincible, Minerva and Magnificence — set in gilded metal cases. The elaborate detail and precious materials are the work of a master craftsman working for the most exalted of patrons. De Vély signed and dated the panels in a titular cartouche that records he began in 1685 and completed them in 1700. The almost pointillistic detail he achieved with tiny seed pearls and shells and gemstones fully justify the 15-year timeframe.
Its origin is unknown, but the depiction of Mars standing on a trophy of flags and arms strongly suggests it was created for the court of Louis XIV. There’s the banner of the Gardes Françaises (white cross on blue ground with gold fleurs de lys), the Sun King’s golden sun against a white ground, and a cheeky reference to a very old grudge with the Plantagenet flag of three gold lions on a red ground on the bottom left next to a helmet and sword. Many Flemish artists — painters, sculptors, engravers, tapestry designers/weavers — worked in Paris during the long reign of Louis XIV.
Mars is the left outer panel. Magnificence is his opposite on the right. Both of them stand inside baldachins with lapis lazuli columns adorned with natural pearls and gems. Their clothes are formed of gold, mother of pearl and cabochon gemstones. They stand over elaborate flourishes flanked by lions and panthers. The two inner panels — Virtu invincible and Minerva — have less sumptuous backdrops and use more shellwork than gemstones. They stand above animal pelts made of shells and mother and pearl.
The panels were acquired for the family collection by American-born Cara Leyland Rogers (1867-1939), daughter of industrialist and Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. She met Urban Hanlon Broughton, an English civil engineer, when he was in the United States installing hydro-pneumatic sewerage systems, including one in the Rogers’ Fairhaven summer home. They married and moved to England after her father’s death in 1909. She dedicated herself to charitable and philanthropic pursuits, while her husband became a Member of Parliament. He was due to receive a peerage but died of pneumonia before the official list was announced, so his eldest son received the barony instead and his widow was given the title Lady Fairhaven, the style she would have received had her husband lived long enough.
Lady Fairhaven was an avid collector of jewels and hardstones, and her father’s hometown of Fairhaven was a fishing village spitting distance from the major whaling port of New Bedford. Her paternal grandfather was a whaling ship captain. There’s little mystery as to why De Vély’s masterpiece of hardstone sculpture festooned with shells, mother of pearl and seed pearls would have resonated with the former Miss Rogers.
She was also deeply committed to preserving the history of her adopted country. Shortly after her husband’s death in 1929, Lady Fairhaven bought the historic Meadows at Runnymede where King John signed the Magna Carta and donated it to the National Trust in memory of his husband, thus saving the birth site of a foundational symbol of freedom against tyranny for the British nation.
The panels have remained in the family until the current Lord Fairhaven decided to put them under the hammer at Sotheby’s in July 2024. I suspect the first Lady Fairhaven would have sided with the Culture Ministry.
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
