A miniature portrait of Oliver Cromwell, measuring just 10.4 x 8 cm (4⅛ x 3⅟2 “), sold at Sotheby’s today for a record £535,200. Photo © Sotheby's

LONDON.- A miniature portrait of Oliver Cromwell, measuring just 10.4 x 8 cm (4⅛ x 3⅟2“), sold at Sotheby’s today for a record £535,200 – five times its pre-sale estimate of £100,000-150,000, and one of the highest prices ever achieved at auction for a miniature portrait (the record for a miniature at auction is $1,216,000 – achieved in 2001 for a portrait of George Washington by John Ramage). The portrait was bought in Sotheby’s sale of Important British Drawings, Watercolours and Portrait Miniatures by London dealers Browse & Darby on behalf of the Compton Verney art gallery in Warwickshire.

Painted in 16571, a year before Cromwell died of an untimely bout of malaria, this powerful, strident miniature shows Cromwell (1599-1658) – Lord Protector of Britain since 1653 - looking strong and purposeful. The artist behind it, Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), was arguably the greatest British-born portrait artist of the 17th century –and a fitting match for the subject (their relationship has been described by art historian Graham Reynolds as “the meeting of two of the greatest geniuses of the 17th century”). As Cromwell’s preferred artist, Cooper played a crucial role in delineating the Protector’s image. Aware of the importance of his role, and of the need to be able to produce impressive portraits of his patron to order, Cooper created a powerful study from life (a sketch done in 1653 and now in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch) from which he could work up further, finished portraits to order. There is evidence that Cooper was called upon to produce multiple official portraits of Cromwell for distribution, for political purposes, throughout Europe (there are records of such portraits having been sent to the Swedish and Dutch courts, and there were certainly more besides), but of these only two survive: one in the National Portrait Gallery, in London, and this. Of the two, the Harcourt version is the more highly finished, and by far the more psychologically intense.  Lire l'article http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=20494