Latest comments
07.12 | 21:47
It looks like The Tau cross derives from the Egyptian Ankh and basically they are wearing it around their necks, life rebirth, salvation mirror. sun.Stonehenge looks like it is made up of Ts to form c
07.12 | 21:30
are wearing the symbol on effigies at Ingham church Norfolk and Henry StanleyD1528 at Hillingdon Middlesex.Countess Jacquline of Hainaut and husband Frank Borsele are also wearing the insignia others
07.12 | 21:23
These Queens could of been members of the order and i think the Tau cross is a symbol of the Holy Trinity also.These pendants could of been reliquaries.Lady margaret de Bois and Roger de bois
07.12 | 21:17
I think the Tau cross that they are wearing could be linked to the(knights) order of St Anthony, Mary 1st collar looks like it may represent the knotted girdle/waist cord of st Anthony .
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The 1550’s and 1560’s
The idea behind this page was to trace the fashion of the 1550’s and 1560’s in England, especially the development of the ruff.
This portrait is also mentioned in Christie's sale catalogue.
Sir Nicholas le Strange by Hans Eworth (1 January 1511 – 19 February 1580)
Sir Nicholas le Strange
1551
Hans Eworth
Katherine Hyde, Lady le Strange (c.1520 – 7 May 1589)
Katherine Hyde, Lady le Strange
1551
Hans Eworth
Mary I Tudor (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558)
Mary I Tudor (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558)
Mary I Tudor (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558)
The Lady in Black
c.1554
Suggestions for the identity of the sitter in this portrait have included Lady Margaret Douglas (1515-1578) and Margaret Howard, Lady Arundell, the sister of Queen Katherine Howard, based on provenance.
The portrait was first recorded by George Vertue in 1733 when at Sutton Place, Surrey, the seat of the Weston family as 'a Lady at len. in black. manner Holbein'.
Mary FitzAlan, Duchess of Norfolk (1540 – 25 August 1557)
1556
Mary FitzAlan, Duchess of Norfolk (1540 – 25 August 1557)
Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley (c.1524 – April 1566)
Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley
The middle of the 1550's*
The fashions of Lady Jane Grey's youth. Notice the squared brim of the French hood and the raised neckline with ruffles.
*Both J. Stephan Edwards and Lee Porritt (The Beaufort Miniature Portrait – Lady Jane Grey Revisited) dates the Fitzwilliam Portrait to the middle of the 1550's, due to the flat crown of the French hood and the standing collar of the outer partlet (the black velvet piece across her shoulders, tied under the arms), which strongly indicate the mid-1550's, and the frill seen at the neck which by the mid-1550's had grown in size and had begun to surround the face.
(For my identification of the sitter in this painting as Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley, please see my The Fitzwilliam Portrait page. Reasons for identification: The lady in the Fitzwilliam Portrait is also portrayed in a miniature by Levina Teerlinc from around 1560 now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley was a lady-in-waiting to both Mary I Tudor and Elizabeth I Tudor, and would therefore have been in the perfect position to be an object of portraits done by court painters Hans Eworth and Levina Teerlinc. Furthermore, she was born in c.1524, being in her early thirties when the Fitzwilliam Portrait was painted, and in perfect keeping with the age of the lady in the portrait. She was married in either late 1555 or early 1556 to Edward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley, in a match encouraged by Queen Mary, making it likely that this was a wedding portrait, as that date matches perfectly with the assessment of both J. Stephan Edwards and Lee Porritt that this portrait dates to the middle of the 1550's. Lastly, the embroidery of the lady's collar has a pattern that can be found again on other members of the Brydges family. It is probably a stylised version of a bridge, a play on the family name of Bridges. There is also the matter of the girdle prayer book the lady is holding in the portrait. It is decorated with what appears to be a D. Which would correspond with her new married name of Dudley. Two years previously Lady Jane Grey Dudley, daughter of the Marquess of Dorset had left her beloved girdle prayer book to Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower of London. He was Katherine's father.)
Bess of Hardwick
1550’s
Mary I Tudor (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558)
Anne Wootton alias Woodhouse alias Reppes, Mrs. Bassingbourne Gawdy (1536 – June 1587)
Perhaps Anne Wootton alias Woodhouse alias Reppes, Mrs. Bassingbourne Gawdy[4]
Unknown Lady, Formerly Lady Anne Penruddocke[5]
1557
Hans Eworth
Oil on Panel | 42 x 31 in.
Howard de Walden Collection, London
Amy Robsart (7 June 1532 – 8 September 1560)
Amy Robsart Dudley
Called Lady Jane Grey
Second half of the second half of the 1550's
Levina Teerlinc
Watercolour on vellum applied to card
© Private Collection
(For my identification of the sitter in this painting as Amy Robsart Dudley, please see my The Yale Miniature page. Reasons for identification: The lady in the Beaufort Miniature is the same one as the lady in the Yale Miniature. I have always found the arguments that the lady in the Yale Miniature is Amy Robsart persuasive.)
Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley (c.1524 – April 1566)
Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley
(For my identification of the sitter in this painting as Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley, please see my The Fitzwilliam Portrait page.)
Blank space
Blank space
Elizabeth FitzGerald, Countess of Lincoln
1560
Steven van der Meulen
Agecroft Hall, Richmond, Virginia
Elizabeth Leyburn, Duchess of Norfolk
c.1560
Attributed to Hans Eworth
Dorothy Wadham (née Petre) (1535 – 16 May 1618)
Dorothy Wadham (née Petre)
Copy of an Original Portrait in the Egremont Private Collection
(For my identification of the sitter in this painting as Dorothy Wadham (née Petre), please see the discussion of this portrait on my For Reference page, and I believe I have conclusively identified the sitter on my The Pagets page.)
Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray (c. 1540 – 16 July 1588)
Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray
1562
Hans Eworth
Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk (1540 – 9 January 1564)
Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk
1562
Hans Eworth
.PNG?etag=%22bea5d-655f222b%22&sourceContentType=image%2Fpng&quality=85 "Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk (1540 – 9 January 1564)")
Ursula Marston, Mrs. John Golding (d.c. 1564)
Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent (1554-1611+)
Ursula Marston, Mrs. John Golding
1563
Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent
1567
Mary Rogers, Lady Harington (c.1565-1634)
Dorothy Huddleston (née Dormer) (b.1576/1577)
Margaret Dormer, Lady Constable (1553 – 26 April 1637)
Notes:
[1] That must be this portrait: «Indeed, despite her own affinity for things Spanish, Mary was herself depicted wearing a much narrower – and notably free-form and unstarched – Spanish-style ruff only once.2 She more commonly wore the standing-collared partlet seen in so many of the other portraits included in this study. Even in portraits that depict Mary wearing a chemise under her partlet, the collar usually has a loosely flowing and unstarched simple ruffle.» (J. Stephan Edwards, A Queen of a New Invention, p.114) «2 Queen Mary I, Hans Eworth, 1557, oil on wood panel, 8 x 6 1/2 in., private collection.» (J. Stephan Edwards, A Queen of a New Invention, p.115)
Dickinson Private Advisors & Fine Art Dealers does specify that the portrait is oil on panel, measuring 22 x 17.3 cm. (8⅝ x 6¾ in.).
This is almost exactly the exact measurements mentioned by J. Stephan Edwards, but not quite.
Another possibility is that J. Stephan Edwards is referring to the portrait in footnote 2.
These two portraits are almost (but not quite) identical. Mary is dressed in the same outfit, however, and this portrait too is dated to 1557.
This portrait is almost (but not quite) identical. Mary is dressed in the same outfit, however, and this portrait too is dated to 1557.
Katherine de Vere, Baroness Windsor (1542/1543 – January 17 1600)
Katherine de Vere, Baroness Windsor, 24 years old
1567
Master of the Countess of Warwick
Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor, and his family
Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor, and his family
1568
Collection of the Marquess of Bute
Tracing the Ruff Yet Further – 1570’s and 1610’s
Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox (8 October 1515 – 7 March 1578)
Walter Devereux (16 September 1541 – 22 September 1576), 1st Earl of Essex
Dorothy Petre Wadham (1535 – 16 May 1618)
Dorothy Petre Wadham (1535 – 16 May 1618)
1572
I have dated this painting to 1572 based on the collar. It is identical to the one worn by Walter Devereux (1539–1576), 1st Earl of Essex in the portrait inscribed 1572 above. For my identification of the sitter as Dorothy Petre Wadham see our For Reference page and our The Pagets page. The Royal Collection points to another portrait which appears to represent the same woman at Petworth, with another version of the portrait at Petworth belonging to the Duke of Sutherland. The copy shown above owned by the Duke of Sutherland was sold by Christie's in 1972. It is inscribed with the date 1560 and the sitter's age, 24, meaning that she was born in either 1535 or 1536. This precludes Frances Brandon, whom the portrait in the Royal Collection has often been associated with. She was born in 1517. Petworth is the home of the Egremonts, and searching through their female ancestors, I came over Dorothy Petre Wadham. She is not a direct ancestress, as she and her husband did not have any children. However, the Egremonts are direct descendants of one of her husband's sisters, and were his eventual heirs. There is still another, fully authenticated portrait of her at Petworth, still belonging to the Egremonts. She had many portraits of herself painted, and we know, from these fully authenticated portraits that she was born in either 1534 or 1535. This matches precisely with the birth year of the sitter in the other portrait. Furthermore, there is a clear resemblance between the striking features of the lady in the portraits and the features of Dorothy Petre Wadham in her authenticated portraits.
Mary Kytson, Lady Darcy of Chiche, later Lady Rivers (1566 – 28 June 1644)
Mary Kytson, Lady Darcy of Chiche, later Lady Rivers (1566 – 28 June 1644)
[3] This excellent overview over the portraits of Hans Eworth dates both portraits to 1557. It has this portrait as being 8 x 6 ½ inches, while the one that we only have a black and white photograph of as being 9 ⅞ x 7 ½ inches, so it appears to be this portrait J. Stephan Edwards meant.
[4] Hope Walker and Kate Emerson suggest that sitter in Unknown Lady, Formerly Lady Anne Penruddocke may in fact be Anne Wootton alias Woodhouse alias Reppes, Mrs. Bassingbourne Gawdy:
ANNE WOTTON (1536 – June 1588)
Anne Wotton was the only daughter and heir of John Wotton (Wooten/Wootton) of North Tudenham, Norfolk (d. 14 November 1545) and Elizabeth Bardwell and the granddaughter of the John Wotton who, sometime after 1541, married Mary Neville, Lady Dacre as her second husband. In 1545, Anne’s wardship was held by John Millicent, who sold it to Sir Anthony Rouse. In 1547, Rouse sold it to William Woodhouse. In 1554, Anne married Sir Thomas Woodhouse of Waxham (1535–1556). In 1557, she married Henry Reppes or Repps of Mendham, Suffolk (1509 – 10 February 1558). Both marriages were childless. On 25 September 1558 she married Bassingborne Gawdy of West Harling, Norfolk (1534 – 20 January 1589/90). Their children were Bassingborne (19 May 1560 – 3 May 1606) and Philip (13 July 1562 – 27 May 1617). Portraits: Hans Eworth, who painted two portraits of Lady Neville, is also said to have painted portraits of Anne and her third husband (now lost); Anne Wotton may be the subject of the portrait called “Lady Anne Penruddocke” which gives the age of the sitter as 20 in 1557.
Hope Walker suggests this in Hans Eworth Catalogue Raisonné: Catalogue Overview – Monogrammed & Documented Works.
In the article The Painter HE (‘ Hans Eworth.’) by Lionel Cust in the Second Annual Volume of the Walpole Society the following description is given of two portraits of Bassingbourne Gawdy and his wife:
«1557 BASSINGBORNE GAWDY and ANNE WOOTTON his wife.
Vertue (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23070, fo. 75) notes: 'Amongst old paintings at Bow left by Mr. Le Neve Norroy at his house there. Bassingborne Gawdy Esq. on board, small life, ætatis 22. The mark of the painter HE. 1557 ... his wife ætat 20. HE. the mark of the Painter also. These two pictures, as they are not half so big as the life, are drawn with a pretty good spirit and firm manner, the colouring faded.'
Bassingborne Gawdy of Mendham, Norfolk, son of Thomas Gawdy of Redenhall, Norfolk, Serjeant-at-law, and Anne Bassingborne his wife, married in 1558 Anne, daughter of John Wootton of Tudenham and Elizabeth Bardwell his wife, and grand-daughter of John Wootton of Tudenham, whose second wife was Mary Nevill, Baroness Dacre (see above). Anne Wootton had been previously married, first to Thomas Wodehouse, and secondly to Henry Repps.»
That does seem to be a very good match with portrait of an Unknown Lady, Formerly Lady Anne Penruddocke.
[5] See On the Portrait of ‘Lady Anne Pendruddocke’ in a Private London Collection, Compiled by Hope Walker, MPhil/PhD Candidate | The Courtauld Institute of Art
1556
English School
C. 1550-5
Hans Eworth
The fashions of Lady Jane Grey's youth. Notice the squared brim of the French hood and the raised neckline with ruffles.
Bess of Hardwick
1550's
Unknown Woman
1557
Hans Eworth
1559
NPG 6855
Hans Eworth
Elizabeth FitzGerald, Countess of Lincoln
1560
Steven van der Meulen
Agecroft Hall, Richmond, Virginia
Elizabeth Leyburn, Duchess of Norfolk
C.1560
Attributed to Hans Eworth
Called Anne Askew
1560
Hans Eworth
Unknown Woman
1560
Follower of Hans Eworth
Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray
1562
Hans Eworth
Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk
1562
Hans Eworth
Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent
1567
Katherine de Vere, Baroness Windsor, 24 years old
1567
Master of the Countess of Warwick
Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor, and his family
1568
Collection of the Marquess of Bute
Comments
Andrew
09.10.2022 05:45
I've an image of a Tudor era painting of a woman with a large semi-transparent ruff. It has Aetatis Sve 20; Ano.Dn. 1533 on it. Does this seem too early for oversized ruffs to have existed?
' fill='rgb(0%2c 0%2c 0)'%3e%3ctitle%3ereply%3c/title%3e%3cpath d='M32 20q0 2.976-2.272 8.064-0.064 0.128-0.192 0.416t-0.224 0.544-0.256 0.384q-0.192 0.32-0.48 0.32t-0.416-0.192-0.16-0.448q0-0.16 0.032-0.48t0.064-0.416q0.096-1.216 0.096-2.208 0-1.792-0.32-3.232t-0.864-2.464-1.44-1.792-1.888-1.248-2.368-0.768-2.752-0.384-3.136-0.096h-4v4.576q0 0.448-0.32 0.8t-0.832 0.352-0.8-0.352l-9.12-9.152q-0.352-0.32-0.352-0.8t0.352-0.8l9.12-9.152q0.352-0.32 0.8-0.32t0.832 0.32 0.32 0.8v4.576h4q12.736 0 15.616 7.2 0.96 2.4 0.96 5.952z'/%3e%3c/svg%3e)
Site Owner
10.10.2022 12:55
Oh, that is excellent news! How exciting! 😊
Andrew
10.10.2022 12:13
Yes, that is the painting I'm referring to! I've been in contact with J.Stephan Edwards today and it seems likely the date of 1533 has been altered from 1593 or 1583 with the first '3' being different
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:20
To add to what I wrote below, might this be the Harington Portrait you are referring to? J.Stephan Edwards writes about it here: https://somegreymatter.com/haringtonportrait.htm
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:19
"The date inscription, ‘AÑO DÑ 1533’, was added or altered well after the painting was created, probably in order to support the spurious identification as Elizabeth I (below, bottom).
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:19
It was rendered by a different hand than the inscription indicating
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:18
the lady’s age (below, top), which is itself original to the larger work. [...] The text ‘AÑO DÑ 1533’ is itself highly problematic. Since the Latin phrase ‘anno domini’ ordinarily indicates
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:17
the year in which a work was executed, any viewer would assume that the portrait dates to 1533. Yet in the context of Elizabeth Tudor, 1533 can refer only to the year of her birth. One possible
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:16
explanation for this irregularity might be that the letterer simply did not know the correct meaning of ‘anno domini’ and instead understood it to denote the year in which a person had been born.
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:14
Alternatively, in light of the depression in the surface of the painting beneath the first ‘3’, that single numeral may have been altered even after this second inscription was added, with the change
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:14
undertaken deliberately to increase the relevance of that inscription to Elizabeth. The Harington family interpreted the inscription early on to indicate that the painting depicted Elizabeth at age 20
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:13
in 1553, twenty years after her birth in 1533 and when she was still a princess. Yet the costume worn by the lady is entirely inconsistent with English fashion of 1553, when Elizabeth was 20 years
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:12
old. Neither is it plausible that Elizabeth would have given to John Harington in 1592 a portrait that was already forty years old. We must conclude that the identification of
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:11
the sitter as Elizabeth I as she appeared in 1553 is entirely false." J.Stephan Edwards identifies the sitter as Mary Rogers, Lady Harington. I write a bit about the Harrington Portrait on
Site Owner
10.10.2022 11:10
my page The Anglesey Abbey Portrait,
https://www.katherinethequeen.com/442570197, where I think I have identified several more portraits by the same artist's hand :) Hope this is of help to you!
Site Owner
09.10.2022 10:36
Yes, unfortunately. The ruff only started in the 1550's, and it would not become oversized for a few decades yet. My guess is that is a later inscription, done to identify the lady as someone who
Site Owner
09.10.2022 10:35
would have been 20 in 1533. If you have a link to the image, I can take a look.