Dutch Gift - The Italian Paintings

The Italian Paintings

Fourteen important Italian paintings from the Dutch Gift, all previously in the Reynst Collection, remain in the Royal Collection, including:

• Titian's Portrait of Jacopo Sannazaro, c. 1514–18, and The Virgin and Child in a landscape with Tobias and the Angel (with his workshop, c. 1535–40) - this last was Charles' favourite, according to the Dutch ambassadors sent with the gift.
• Lorenzo Lotto's portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527, and his Portrait of a bearded man, c. 1512–15
• Andrea Schiavone's Judgement of Midas, c. 1548–50, and Christ before Pilate.
• Giulio Romano, Portrait of Margherita Palaeologa, c.1531
• Parmigianino, Pallas Athene, c. 1531–8
• Paolo Veronese and workshop, The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1562–9.
• Attributed to Vittore Belliniano, The Concert, c. 1505–15 (then attributed to Giorgione)
• Giovanni Cariani, Reclining Venus, the only work in the Dutch gift which can be traced back to the Vendramin collection.

The Reynst collection included a Genius of Painting attributed to Guido Reni, and the older of two old copies still in the Royal Collection is first recorded at Whitehall Palace in an inventory of 1688, and described as by Reni. It is now classed as "after Reni" though no Reni original is known. Whether this, or an original work, formed part of the Gift cannot be confirmed, although one or the other seems likely.

Paintings no longer in the Royal Collection include a Guercino, Semiramis Receiving Word of the Revolt of Babylon (1624), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which was given by Charles to Barbara Villiers, his mistress, or to their son, Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Cleveland. Jacopo Bassano's Christ carrying the Cross is now in the National Gallery, London, having been given to Catherine of Braganza, Charles's queen, after his death.

Two religious works, besides the Bassano, were recorded in an inventory of 1688/9 as being in Catherine's apartments, one "said to be Raphael" of the Holy Family with a lamb, and a group attributed to Titian of "Our Saviour with his feet on a cushion, The B. Virgin St John and St Elizabeth". These may have returned with her to Portugal in 1692.