Workshop of Léonard Limosin

The Legh family, Adlington Hall, Cheshire;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

This fine depiction of a bearded man holding his gloves is a rare portrait by Léonard Limosin and his workshop in the form of a roundel. A rectangular, and stylistically distinct, version of the same portrait, equally inscribed LL, was formerly in the Rothschild collection and sold at Christie's Paris on 5 November 2014 (lot 35). The unidentified sitter is lacking the chain around his neck in the present version of the portrait, as well as showing a longer, more markedly forked beard. The facial features and cap are arguably less stylised and more finely painted than in the Rothschild plaque, making the present portrait a particularly evocative likeness. The subtly shaded green ledge with fabric below on which the figure rests is a characteristic feature of Limosin's portraits from the 1540s to the 1560s; it finds a parallel, for example, in the presumed portrait of Antoine de Bourbon at the Frick Collection, New York. The same enamel provides a stylistic comparison for the appearance of the cap and the rendering of facial features and the beard, with long, straight strands of hair.

The present roundel hails from the Legh family collection at Adlington Hall, whose oldest extant part dates to the late 15th century. According to family legend, as outlined in a note attached to the plaque's frame, the sitter is said to represent Cardinal Campeggio (1474–1539), who was sent to England in 1528 to try the case between King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The plaque is believed to have been given by Campeggio to Cardinal Wolsey, who 'in turn is believed to have given it to the Leghs'. While this narrative is implausible, not least because the portrait cannot date as early as the 1520s, the roundel's presence in an historic English collection poses the question of whether the sitter could possibly be English. A striking resemblance can be observed with a French, 16th-century oil-on-panel portrait traditionally identified as Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (1500–1552) in the Collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Syon House.

RELATED LITERATURE

L. Bourdery and E. Lachenaud, Léonard Limosin: Peintre de portraits, Paris, 1897, p. 244, no. 96