Peter Paul Rubens, 'Portrait of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel', 1629-30

Thomas Howard (1585–1646), 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was a prominent figure in the reigns of James I and Charles I and, despite a chequered political career, was appointed Earl Marshal of England in 1621 and Lord Steward in 1640. He was also a distinguished patron and connoisseur of the arts, and amassed a huge collection of drawings and antique sculptures. Rubens met him on his visit to England in 1629/30, when Arundel was 44 or 45 years old. This portrait isn’t dated, but may well have been made during this period. We know that Rubens visited Arundel’s London house in August 1629, but since he is wearing a fur-lined winter coat, the sitting may have happened the following winter.

The artist seems to have admired the Earl’s connoisseurship and described him as ‘an evangelist for the world of art and the great protector of our state’. He painted him three times. In two portraits – one apparently a preparatory study for the other – he is depicted as a man of action, dressed in armour and looking directly at the viewer (National Portrait Gallery, London; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston). In this painting, however, Rubens has revealed a more intellectual, reflective – and perhaps even stern – side to Arundel’s character. The pose is unusual for this period. He sits rather stiffly, looking away from the viewer with a focused expression. His face, free of shadow, is framed by a white collar, which contrasts strongly with his dark coat and the gloomy background. Although he is not formally dressed, his status is underlined by the medallion which hangs from the blue ribbon around his neck. It is the Lesser George, an insignia of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry.

While a date of 1630 would be consistent with Rubens’s painting style of the time, Arundel does seem somewhat older in this portrait than in the other two; he is more puffy-cheeked and his hair is greyer. It has been suggested that the portrait may have been made later and may be intended to recall an engraving by Dürer of the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1524). It shows Pirckheimer’s head at exactly the same angle and, although Arundel’s torso is turned rather more to the right, the expressions on the faces of the two men are remarkably similar.

Arundel acquired the original copper plate of the Dürer portrait in May 1636 when he bought the Pirckheimer library, and it is certainly possible that Arundel could have sat for Rubens in Antwerp on his return from a diplomatic visit to the Holy Roman Emperor in Regensberg in the same year. No visit is documented, but a description of Arundel by Sir Robert Walker, who travelled with him, has survived and it is intriguingly reminiscent of this portrait. According to Sir Robert, Arundel ‘was tall of Stature, and of Shape and proportion rather goodly than neat; his Countenance was majestical and grave, his Visage long, his Eyes large black and piercing; he had a hooked Nose, and some Warts or Moles on his cheeks; his countenance was brown, his hair thin both on his Head and Beard.’