Export of Flemish artist’s only known work banned – History

A unique set of four panels of hardstone, shell and pearl, the only known surviving works by the 17th-century Flemish artist De Vély, faces leaving after selling for £1.6 million at auction last July UK risk. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has placed temporary export restrictions on De Vély’s Polyptych of Mars, Virtu Invincible, Minerva and Magnificence, giving local institutions until March 17 to increase the purchase price of these panel.

Known as the Fairhaven panels because they have been in the collection of Lord Broughton’s family of Fairhaven since the 1920s, they combine gemstones such as lapis lazuli, onyx and garnet with shells, enamels, glass Beads, pearls and gilded metal are combined to create four gods or moral symbols – Mars, Invincible Virtue, Minerva and Magnificence – set in a gilded metal box. Exquisite details and precious materials are the work of master craftsmen working for the most distinguished patrons. De Vély signed and dated a panel called a cartouche, recording his work from 1685 to its completion in 1700. The almost pointillistic detail he accomplished with tiny pearl seeds, shells, and gemstones fully justified the 15-year time frame.

Its origins are unclear, but the depiction of Mars standing atop a banner and a trophy of arms strongly suggests that it was created for the court of Louis XIV. Among them are the flag of the French Guard (white cross on a blue field, golden fleur-de-lis), the golden sun of the Sun King on a white field, and the Plantagenet flag of three golden lions on a red field, a cheeky reference to a very ancient feud. The ground is on the lower left next to the helmet and sword. During the long reign of Louis XIV, many Flemish artists – painters, sculptors, engravers, tapestry designers/weavers – worked in Paris.

Mars is the left outer panel. Gorgeousness is the opposite to his right. Both stand within a canopy of lapis lazuli columns, decorated with natural pearls and precious stones. Their clothes were made of gold, mother-of-pearl, and cabochons. They stand on elaborate decorations, flanked by lions and panthers. The two inner panels – Virtu invincible and Minerva – have less ornate backgrounds, using more shellwork than gemstones. They stand on animal skins made of shells, oysters and pearls.

The panels were purchased by American-born Cara Leyland Rogers (1867-1939), a daughter of Fairhaven, Massachusetts industrialist and Standard Oil magnate Henry Hartleston Rogers. Daughter of Henry Huttleston Rogers. She met British civil engineer Urban Hanlon Broughton while he was installing hydropneumatic sewage systems in the United States, including one at Rogers’ Fairhaven summer house. After her father’s death in 1909, they married and moved to England. She devoted herself to philanthropy while her husband became a member of Congress. He was due to receive a peerage, but died of pneumonia before the official list could be published, so his eldest son received a baronetcy and his widow the title of Lady Fairhaven, had her husband lived long enough. She will get such a title.

Mrs. Fairhaven was an avid collector of jewelry and hard rocks, and her father’s hometown of Fairhaven was a fishing village far from the major whaling port of New Bedford. Her grandfather was a whaler captain. There’s no doubt why DeVilli’s sculptural masterpiece of hard stone, decorated with shells, mother-of-pearl and pearl seeds, resonates with the former Miss Rogers.

She is also deeply committed to preserving the history of her adopted country. Shortly after her husband’s death in 1929, Lady Fairhaven bought the historic Meadows at Runnymede, where King John signed the Magna Carta, and donated it to the National Trust in memory of her husband , thus preserving this birthplace as a fundamental symbol of freedom against tyranny. British nation.

The panels remained in the family until the current Lord Fairhaven decided to auction them off at Sotheby’s in July 2024. I doubt the first Lady Fairhaven would have sided with the Ministry of Culture.