Portrait of Nicholas Lanier, London, 1613.
Heralded by Sir Roy Strong as the most important discovery in early English portraiture in a century, it was my privilege to examine the painting before and during conservation after its acquisition by the Weiss Gallery in London. The painting became the subject of a scholarly monograph Nicholas Lanier: A Portrait Revealed in which I was invited to write chapters on the musical symbolism within the painting. Nicholas Lanier was a musician appointed the first Master of the King’s Music during the reign of Charles I, and was simultaneously an art connoisseur who negotiated the sale of the Gonzaga treasures on behalf of the king. The painting is probably a self-composed-portrait of sorts with the various elements contributed by different painters from Lanier’s artistic milieu, perhaps as a trial run for the idea of a collaborative workshop modelled on that of Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp. In addition to the Weiss Gallery monograph, I wrote an article on the painting for Early Music.
Connoissership at Oxford University.
For the academic world there are deep problems that arise from historic artefacts that are untethered from a record of provenance, and the violin is
