Portrait of Hortense Mancini (1646-1699), Duchesse de Mazarin, half-length

Name: JACOB FERDINAND VOET (ANTWERP 1639-1689 PARIS)
Brand: Portrait of Hortense Mancini (1646-1699), Duchesse de Mazarin, half-length
Price: 32000.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised GBP 40,000

Estimate

GBP 25,000 - GBP 35,000

Closed: 8 Dec 2021

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JACOB FERDINAND VOET (ANTWERP 1639-1689 PARIS)

Portrait of Hortense Mancini (1646-1699), Duchesse de Mazarin, half-length

Price Realised GBP 40,000

Closed: 8 Dec 2021

Price Realised GBP 40,000

Closed: 8 Dec 2021

Details Lot Essay Related Articles More from

JACOB FERDINAND VOET (ANTWERP 1639-1689 PARIS)
Portrait of Hortense Mancini (1646-1699), Duchesse de Mazarin, half-length
oil on canvas
29³⁄₄ x 24³⁄₄ in. (75.8 x 63 cm.)

Carolina Spalletti Trivelli (1873-1940) and Count Nemes de Hídvég et Oltszem (1866-1940), and by descent to the present owner.

H. Bodmer, 'Carlo Maratti', Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, U. Thieme und F. Becker eds., XXIV, Leipzig, 1930, p. 53, under 'Carlo Maratti; four female portraits of members of the Mancini family in the Hungarian Embassy'.
G. Incisa della Rochetta, 'Due ritratti del Cardinal Flavia I Chigi', Colloqui del Sodalizio, 1951-4, p. 59, as 'Carlo Maratti'.
A. Mezzetti, 'Contributi a Carlo Maratti', Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale d'Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, no. IV, 1955, p. 351, as 'Carlo Maratti; four female portraits of members of the Mancini family in the Hungarian Embassy'.
F. Petrucci, 'Ferdinand Voet e le "Belle"', Le Belle: Ritratti di Dame del seicento e del settecento nelle residenze feudali del Lazio, C. Benocci and T. di Carpegna Falconieri eds., Rome, 2004, p. 85, no. X.2.
F. Petrucci, Ferdinand Voet (1639-1689): detto Ferdinando de' Ritratti, Rome, 2005, p. 257, no. 241.

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Lot Essay

Hortense Mancini was a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, France's chief minister; she and her four sisters were famed beauties at the French and English courts, where they were known as the 'Mazarinettes'. In 1659, the exiled King Chales II proposed to Hortense, but her uncle refused him, believing that he would not regain his throne. Instead, she married one of Europe's richest men, Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye, who became duc de Mazarin on their marriage. This marriage was not a success, due to Armand's jealousy and mental instability, and Hortense fled his home on a June night in 1668, living from this point on under the protection of Louis XIV and her former suitor Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy. On the death of the latter, her financial situation became precarious and, at the instigation of the English ambassador to France, Ralph Montagu, she travelled to London in the hope of rekindling Charles' feelings for her. This was initially a success, and Hortense became his by mid-1676, but her promiscuity - both with men and women - meant she fell from favour, remaining friends with the King but no longer enjoying the perks of the favourite. Following Charles' death, she maintained her position at Court because the new King's wife was her cousin, Mary of Modena. It would be unfair to think of Hortense as someone who owed all her success to her feminine charms: she was a highly intellectual woman, presiding over a salon in London that included the great poet Charles de Saint-Évremond and the playwright Aphra Behn (who may also have been her lover). With the exception of Marguerite de Valois, Hortense and her sister, Marie Mancini, were also the first women in France to put their memoirs into print.