Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures – June 1865

The Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures at the South Kensington Museum – June 1865

In June 1865, a Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures was held at the new South Kensington Museum; three thousand and eighty-one exhibits with 16 miniatures by Holbein, 24 by Nicholas Hillyard and 54 ascribed to Samuel Cooper.

The South Kensington Museum began life in 1856-7 with two temporary iron structures, 81 metres long and nine metres high. These became known as the “Brompton Boilers”. A new structure, the Sheepshanks Gallery, was added to house a collection of paintings offered to the nation by John Sheepshanks, a wealthy manufacturer from Leeds. The buildings were completed and ready for their official opening as ‘The South Kensington Museum’ in June 1857.

The Sheepshanks gallery featured a number of innovations, including gas lighting and was “fireproof”. New galleries were added to the north and east. It was in one of these new galleries that the Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures was held.

A beautiful catalogue was prepared, Octavo, leather with marbled boards and gold edging. The catalogue cost 5s. All the works of art, and the owners who had loaned them, were catalogued. Guarantees were given that the loaned objects would be carefully looked after being mostly kept in cases to avoid theft or damage.

John Berners loaned eight miniatures from his collection at Woolverstone and his house in London, most connected with the Berners family.

Seven were housed in Case C.

344. Mr HENRY BENDYSHE. Enamel.

345. RICHARD CROMWELL, elder son of the Protector. Vellum. Samuel Cooper.

346. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Signed and dated N.H. 1759 (Nathaniel Hone). Ivory.

347. ELIZABETH CLAYPOLE, the favourite daughter of the Protector, and wife of John Claypole, of Northborough, in the County of Lincoln. She died at Hampton Court in 1658, at the age of 29. Vellum. Samuel Cooper.

348. GENERAL HENRY IRETON, the Republican General, and son-in-law of the Protector.

349. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN. Oil.

350. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN in armour. Oil.

The eighth in Case E

476. OLIVER CROMWELL. Full face to the right. Card. Samuel Cooper.

The Morning Herald (London) on Saturday 3^rd June reported:

“The visitor will find several portraits of Oliver Cromwell, each suggesting some different trait of his character, but none to be compared to the two associated with the name Samuel Cooper. The one lent by Lord Boston ascribed to Cooper, and therefore of marked excellence, is manifestly inferior to the undoubted one in the Exhibition lent by Mr John Berners, a descendent of Cromwell. This is the portrait Cooper carried to the Court of France, and which proved sufficient for his introduction there. The French King offered 150l for it, which he refused. All the skill with which Cooper could manipulate the face is illustrated in this famous example – the becoming air, the strength, relievo and spirit, the looseness and gentle management of the hair are alike remarkable.”

It is a remarkable miniature at just 6 cms in diameter, set in a square black frame. It shows Cromwell “Warts and all” in later life; slightly balding with a faraway gaze, his military background underscored with his armour secured by gilded rivets. His determination, resolve and durability measured perhaps by the rock behind him, his hope and vision for the future implicit in the deep blue skies over his left shoulder.

Sir George Scharf, the first director of the National Portrait Gallery drew a brief sketch in his catalogue  labelling the blue area in the background to the right of the figure. He noted that the portrait showed the “shoulders small and pinched”, “studs on the armour gilded”, the portrait was “small, oval, strongly finished”, “brown shadows”, “rock in background & deep blue sky”.

There were fourteen portraits of Cromwell in the exhibition of 1865. Which came closest to capturing the authenticity of the Protector? A reporter for The Builder reviews all fourteen and records: “Mr Carlyle, of course, will give his adherence to number 476 leant by Mr John Berners and engraved before his (Earl Spencer’s).”  Furthermore: “Mr. John Berners, backed up by Mr. Carlyle, does not envy anyone else his Cromwell. An oval in a small square black frame, touched up in the blue.” The Builder, 15th June 1865.

John Berners’ “Oliver Cromwell” is currently in the ownership of a descendent of the Protector himself through the Berners family. It was seen in public for the first time since 1865 when it appeared in 2018 at the Cromwell Museum, Huntingdon, at a special exhibition “Unseen Cromwell”.