Mary Estuardo, Queen of Scots

The painting is related to other original and workshop versions, although it should be considered an original Cretan version.

Ángel M. de Barcia, in his Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings of His Excellency the Duke of Berwick and Alba, 1911, added a comment considering the canvas as anonymous French, observing that it is not a portrait of nature and placing it among the works from the Casa de Liria. But in a copy of the catalog he wrote in his own handwriting and on the sidelines (signing at the end) the following: “The fact that this portrait was not mentioned in any inventory, list or document, nor having obtained any information about its origin, suggests as a very probable thing that it must have been part of the legacy of family portraits made by the Cardinal of York to the Duke of Alba, Don Carlos Miguel. And if so, as I am now almost certain, this would give great weight to Mrs.'s opinion. Nutall that this is the legitimate and authentic portrait that was made while the Queen was in prison. The figure is obviously made of memory, but the head is natural and seems to have been made by copying another painting with the living model in view. Some of this translates to the hands. The costume, particularly the lace and the jewelry, was made keeping in mind and scrupulously copying the one worn by the Queen. There is no doubt about this because of the number that appears on the embroidery. It is very much to feel that because the importance that this portrait could have had has not been translucent until after the catalog was printed, something more of such an interesting painting has not been said in this painting and, above all, that its reproduction does not appear among those that have been made. I think that this sensitive omission should be repaired when an appropriate opportunity presented itself, which would be when Mrs. Nutall will publish something about the portraits of Mary Stuart. In view of what I said and what was discovered here, an article or brochure could be made accompanied by one or two (of the bust and the totality) very good reproductions of such an interesting painting.”

The comment that has just been collected introduces us to an important problem. But the question has been carefully analyzed by Mr. Lafuente Ferrari in some pages that have been autographed in the Archives of the Liria Palace and whose summary is given here.

Due to the martyrlike character with which Mary Stuart's co-legionaries looked at the unfortunate queen, there was a great demand for her portraits, which, although resulting in numerous copies, made spurious ones abound. The different versions were studied by George Scharf and especially by Lionel Cust. According to them, during Mary Stuart's stay in Sheffield Castle under the custody of the Earl of Srewsbury, during a relatively mild period of her imprisonment, a painter whose name is unknown to us was allowed access to the sovereign. But it could very well be the same one who in those years portrayed Isabel Cavendish, her husband, the Earl of Lennox and their daughter Arabella Stuart. From a letter dated August 1577, it is known that the portrait of the queen was not yet finished. It was first thought that this would be the one kept by the Cavendish family, but compared to the one in the National Portrait Gallery, it can be seen that this one is much finer. According to Cust, the artist who represented the queen in 1577, made a small effigy, a miniature, since it had to be sent to France and a series of replicas were made of it. So all these portraits are authentic, albeit second-hand. Cust, who studies and tries to classify them, considered the one in the National Portrait Gallery to be the most beautiful. But the one from the Liria Palace is missing from their list. When this critic met him, his book had already been published. Finally, Professor Lafuente, after a detailed analysis, deduces that that of the Berwick family may be one of the most faithful and direct (certainly before that of the Cavendish family) portraits of María Estuardo.

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