'The details of the costume, especially the horizontal line of the crown of the French hood and the standing collar of the partlet with its extensive blackwork embroidery, seem to date the painting to the 1550s.'[3] 'The lady's costume is datable to the period between 1545 and 1555, the general period during which' any life portrait of Lady Jane Grey is most likely to have been commissioned. 'The standing collar on the partlet with its rich blackwork embroidery can be seen in numerous portraits firmly dated to that period, especially portraits of Queen Mary Tudor.'[4]

Lady Jane Grey - The Syon Portrait (detail)

Lady Jane Grey - The Syon Portrait (detail)

Thanks to J. Stephan Edwards's excellent book, A Queen of a New Invention, we do have some clues as to how Lady Jane Grey looked like. This portrait was commissioned by her great-nephew, the grandson of her sister, Lady Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford. At the time, his grandfather, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and widower of Lady Katherine Grey, was still alive. He was a contemporary of Lady Jane Grey and would have known her well. Their fathers were active together at the court of Edward VI. They were even considered potential marriage partners for each other. The portrait was probably based on a portrait of Lady Katherine Seymour and then tweaked to get Lady Jane Grey's characteristics.[5] From it we can gather that Lady Jane Grey had auburn hair, brown eyes and a cleft in her chin like her grandmother Margaret Wotton, Marchioness of Dorset and her great-aunt Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford.

There is also something odd about her eyes, something which I put down to the bad technique of the painter.

I was clearly not the only one to make that judgement. Because in a later copy of the painting called the Audley End Portrait, which was commissioned by a later generation of the descendants of Lady Jane Grey's family – after her appearance had gone out living memory – this has been rectified.[6]

Comparing it to the Duckett painting, however, I am now inclined to believe that she may actually have had a problem with her eyes.

I do not know the treatment for cross-eyes in Tudor times nor its success rate. Today it is cured with an eyepatch over the healthy eye forcing the other one to focus. That does seem like a treatment that would have been possible back then as well. But I do not know if this is a method that was known back then, nor if it is always 100 % successful. But the fact is that both portraits have subjects that appear slightly cross-eyed, a curious coincidence.

The auburn hair and the brown eyes match. At first glance, it does not appear as if the lady in the Duckett Portrait has a cleft in her chin. It is a bit difficult to ascertain, however, because of the style of the painter and how he or she has shadowed her jawline. In the engraving however, there is something that could be a cleft in her chin. If that is the case, it is, if not proof positive, a pretty strong indication that we are on the right track.

Lady Jane Grey - The Audley End Copy of The Syon Portrait

Lady Jane Grey - The Audley End Copy of The Syon Portrait

Blank space

The Lady Jane Grey Paperdoll – Coronation Outfit

The Lady Jane Grey Paperdoll – Coronation Outfit

http://www.royalpaperdolls.com/LadyJaneGreyDollPage.htm

The Rotherwas - Minneapolis Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey

The Rotherwas - Minneapolis Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey

Published in Herbert Norris's volume on Tudor costume in 1938. Watercolour illustration of Lady Jane Grey. Based directly on the Norris Portrait

Published in Herbert Norris's volume on Tudor costume in 1938. Watercolour illustration of Lady Jane Grey. Based directly on the Norris Portrait

The Rotherwas - Minneapolis Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey

The Rotherwas - Minneapolis Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey

The Lady Jane Grey Paperdoll - A mixture of the two

The Lady Jane Grey Paperdoll - A mixture of the two

Herbert Norris's watercolour illustration of Lady Jane Grey from 1938

Herbert Norris's watercolour illustration of Lady Jane Grey from 1938

The artist of the lovely little paperdoll has clearly based the outline of this particular outfit on the Rotherwas - Minneapolis Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey. The little paperdoll is holding a little book, just like the lady in the Rotherwas Portrait does, the jewellery of the little paperdoll is identical to jewellery of the lady in the Rotherwas Portrait, the French hood, the collar and the precise outline of the figure and the outfit all match.

But then, perhaps because the artist felt that the unending black would be too dour, or because the portrait does not show the full length either of the skirt or the lady, the artist has supplemented with another dress – in this case Herbert Norris's watercolour illustration of Lady Jane Grey from 1938 – to create an appropriate and attractive gown for Lady Jane Grey that would be pleasing to the viewer.

My suggestion is that 400 years ago somebody did the exact same thing.

Mary Tudor head with Katherine Parr body and Princess Elizabeth background

Mary Tudor head with Katherine Parr body and Princess Elizabeth background

Lot 37: Manner of Guillim Scrots – Portrait of a unknown lady, three-quarter-length, with closed bible to her left

«Description

Oil on panel Bears manuscript pen and ink label on reverse inscribed Anne Boleyn, (after) Holbein 64 x 48 cm. (25 1/4 x 19 in) Provenance: Private collection, Scotland. Giullim Scrot's portrait of a Young Elizabeth I (Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection) would appear to be a direct influence on the present work, with noticeable similarites in both composition and the sitters clothing. Similarly, the placement and composition of the hands in the portrait of Katherine Parr in the Melton Constable Portrait (formerly mistaken as Jane Grey), seem to have also been utilised in reverse.» Invaluable

Perfect example of a miss match portrait. This portrait has the head of Mary Tudor, with the body of Katherine Parr and the background from Elizabeth when a Princess by William Scrots.

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

In addition, in portrait sets one will often see that the painters have 'borrowed' jewellery from one lady to give to another. In this portrait set painting of Jane Seymour, she too is wearing Mary I Tudor's famous brooch.

Queen Mary I Tudor After Antonis Mor

Queen Mary I Tudor After Antonis Mor

The Streatham Portrait of Lady Jane Grey - A mixture of the two

The Streatham Portrait of Lady Jane Grey - A mixture of the two

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Painting

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Painting

The Wikipedia article about the Streatham Portrait references this statement from J. Stephan Edwards:

'There are, however, certain questions that arise from the costume. The partlet lining is embroidered along the edge with fleur-de-lis. That design served as a heraldic emblem for the Crown of France. And while the English monarchs of the Tudor period also laid nominal claim to the crown of France, and Jane’s grandmother was briefly Queen Consort of France, the right to bear those emblems was limited in law. Jane was not, prior to June 1553, herself an heir to the throne of England, and thus would have had no right to the French heraldic emblems. Their usage in this portrait is, to me, a reason to question an identification of the sitter as Jane Grey, though not an insurmountable one.'

It would on the other hand make perfect sense if the dress was lifted wholesale from an already existing pattern in the workshop of the dress from a portrait of Queen Mary I Tudor, an English monarch of the Tudor period who indeed laid nominal claim to the crown of France.

The copyists would have known that naturally Queen Mary I Tudor and Lady Jane Grey lived at the same time, so faced with a request or a market for full-length portraits of Lady Jane Grey, and in possession of only a half-length pattern (the Duckett painting), it would be "safe", period-wise and in terms of historical correctness to give Lady Jane Grey Queen Mary I Tudor's dress.

Even if the meaning of the fleur-de-lis was known to the copyists in the workshop, as it might very well have been, it is doubtful that it would have given them pause. Lady Jane Grey, as an English monarch of the Tudor period would have laid nominal claim to the crown of France. It is just doubtful that in the short and chaotic time of nine days that she was actually queen that any portrait could have been commissioned or completed. She probably wouldn't have had the time to order and have completed even a dress with the fleur-de-lis symbol on it in that timespan.

So to a copyist familiar with the fleur-de-lis symbol and its importance and meaning to a Tudor monarch, it would have probably, if anything, made the dress even more appropriate for portraying a Queen Jane.

Queen Mary I (Mary Tudor) (1516–1558), after Antonis Mor (Utrecht 1519 – Antwerp 1575) (detail)

Queen Mary I (Mary Tudor) (1516–1558), after Antonis Mor (Utrecht 1519 – Antwerp 1575) (detail)

It has been made note of that the lady in the Streatham Portrait does not wear a wedding ring. I do not believe that this is a reflection on Lady Jane Grey's married status at the time of the painting of the reference portrait. Rather, that it is because the lady in NT 485115, the copy of Queen Mary I Tudor after Antonis Mor most resembling the dress in the Streatham Portrait, is not wearing any rings.

The original painting of Mary Tudor, Queen of England, Second Wife of Philip II by Anthonis Mor is at the Museo del Prado.

From the same Wikipedia article:

'After the discovery of an inscribed portrait of Katherine Parr, in 2014 Edwards published a tentative identification of said painting as the original on which the Streatham portrait was based. He wrote that the Parr painting had been "adapted to 'become' Jane Grey in the absence of an accessible authentic portrait" in the Streatham portrait and similar, supporting this with an analysis of the similar styles of dress and the jewellery (including a necklace of festooned pearls).'

My suggestion is that it was the other way around. A painting of Lady Jane Grey was adapted to 'become' Katherine Parr in the absence of an accessible authentic portrait.

Katherine Parr

Katherine Parr

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

The fact that the resulting painting did not become, perhaps, very attractive, may account for why this is such a rare image of Queen Katherine Parr, instead of the multiple copies we have of this kind of Anne Boleyn. The workshop copyists seem to instead have favoured the Northwick Park Portrait of Katherine Parr-style paintings for their sets, intuitively sensing or statistically seeing that they sold better.

Katherine Parr – A Northwick Park Portrait Style Set Portrait

Katherine Parr – A Northwick Park Portrait Style Set Portrait

Katherine Parr – The Northwick Park Portrait

Katherine Parr – The Northwick Park Portrait

EDITED TO ADD 14.06.2022

After reading Portrait Sets in Tudor and Jacobean England – Two Volumes (Volume One) by Catherine Daunt, there does in fact appear to have been an absence of an accessible authentic portrait of Katherine Parr.

None of the portrait sets examined by Catherine Dauntley include a portrait of Katherine Parr.

Of course, today we have several portraits of Katherine Parr, see our Katherine Parr page. The Lumley Collection had one, the Northwick Portrait shown above, but the Lumley Collection included several portraits of figures of historical interests, Margaret of Anjou, Jane Shore, Geoffrey Chaucer, of which there are no known copies, suggesting that the Lumley Collection was not open to the copyists of the work shops.

In fact, the Philip Mould Katherine Parr is the only known painting of Katherine Parr which we know ever belonged to a portrait set, further strengthening the suggestion that the portrait was based on the image of someone else, which in lieu of an authentic, accessible portrait of Katherine Parr was converted into a likeness of her.

The Streatham Portrait (detail)

The Streatham Portrait (detail)

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Portrait

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Portrait

Perhaps the artist of the Streatham Portrait was not quite so bad as we all imagined? 🙂

Because I can actually see a resemblance.

The strong jaw of the lady in the Duckett Portrait translates to the spool-like headshape of the woman in the Streatham Portrait.

The lady in the Streatham Portrait does however lack the pointy chin of the lady in the Duckett Portrait. The lady in the Norris Portrait, however, has her pointy chin.

The Norris Portrait

The Norris Portrait

Lady Jane Grey – The Norris Portrait – Montage

Lady Jane Grey – The Norris Portrait – Montage

All right, so far, so good. We have a portrait of a girl in the precise fashions of Lady Jane Grey's youth. We have an engraving in the Royal Collection, dated c. 1700-1800, called Ieanne Grey, which is clearly based on this portrait, another version of it, or a copy. We have my (possibly subjective) opinion that the lady in the Duckett Portrait bears a certain resemblance to the lady in the Streatham Portrait, a portrait that bears the inscription Lady Jayne. We have my theory that the person who painted the Streatham Portrait or created the pattern for it 'borrowed' Queen Mary I Tudor's scarlet dress complete with Queen Mary I Tudor's jewellery, the famous brooch with La Peregrina, to create a full-length portrait, while keeping Lady Jane Grey's actual features and the distinctive necklace. We must also remember that Queen Mary I Tudor's own dress was black (or of a very dark colour) in the original painting by Anthonis Mor. The decision to change the colour of her dress in many of the resulting copies of the famous portrait in itself implies a conscious decision of the workshops.

But what about the provenance of the portrait? All that good stuff?

For 300 years, it was owned by [...] Sir Lionel Duckett, and his family. In 1832, it was put on sale in London with the rest of Sir George Duckett’s collection, and sold to Sir Joseph Neeld of Grittleton House near Chippenham Wiltshire. In 1851, it was described in the Grittleton catalogue as ‘the portrait of Queen Anne Boleyn’.

Who then, was Sir Lionel Duckett? 

Lionel Duckett (1511 – August 1587) was one of the Merchant adventurers of the City of London. He was four times Master of the Mercers' Company, and Lord Mayor of London (1572).

He became enormously wealthy through his trading. He subscribed to Martin Frobisher's three voyages in search of the North-West Passage and to John Hawkins' voyage of 1562 which led to the formation of the Africa Company. In 1553, he acquired monastic and chantry lands in Surrey, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. In 1556, he also acquired lands in Somerset and Devon. In 1572, he bought the manor of Calne, Wiltshire. He later acquired property in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Kent. In 1565 he served as a Sheriff of London. In 1566, he also became Master of the Mercers' Company - a position he also held in 1571, 1577, and 1583. In 1572-73 he was Lord Mayor of London. He died in August 1587 and his will was proved on 20 February 1588.

He married twice. Firstly to Mary Leighton, by whom he had a short-lived son, George Duckett, and secondly to Jane Baskerville, (née Pakington, the widow of Humphrey Baskerville), on 29 June 1564 at St Peter, Westcheap, by whom he had a son Thomas Duckett (1566-1608).

All right. That doesn't actually make us all that much wiser. It tells us that he would have had the means to acquire the portrait if he so wished. But why would he want a picture of Lady Jane Grey? And how can we even be sure that if he should have acquired a portrait of her, believing it to be Lady Jane Grey, that it was actually her?

Well, as it turns out, our Lionel Duckett was a reformer.

«The Packington and Duckett families were in turn related by marriage and also associated with reform early on. Duckett, for example, served his apprenticeship in the Mercers under John Colet and was the lord mayor in 1573 responsible for banning excessive feasting and encouraging godly moderation.» Faith and Fraternity: London Livery Companies and The Reformation 1510-1603 by Laura Branch

Foxe's Book of Martyrs, a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland, was published in 1563. It was enormously popular and would catapult poor little Lady Jane Grey to fame.

A secondary motive for displaying a portrait of the Protestant icon Lady Jane Grey on his wall might have been to demonstrate his loyalty to the Protestant Elizabeth against her Catholic enemies. I can imagine that the richer and the more powerful he became the more important it would be to display that he had his loyalties in all the right places and no interest to pose a threat to the ruling order.

That Elizabeth's own feelings towards her cousin might have been slightly more complicated than 'Protestant heroine' would probably not have been known to Sir Lionel Duckett. He did not have access to Leanda de Lisle's excellent The Sisters Who Would Be Queen.

In February 1570, Pope Pius V declared that Elizabeth was a heretic and, as such, she was excommunicated by way of a Papal Bull (order), Regnans in Excelsis. The Bull released Catholics from any loyalty to Elizabeth and called upon them to remove her from the throne, thus making the life of his British subjects that much harder.

This papal bull made both the lives of the Queen and her subjects much more dangerous.

All right, so Lionel Duckett may very well have had the means and the interest to possess a portrait of Lady Jane Grey. That's all good and well. But what about opportunity?

It wasn't as if portraits of Lady Jane Grey were exactly thick on the ground in this period. In fact, we only know of two that with any certainty can be said to be of her and that belonged to people who knew her. One hung in 1566 in the bedchamber of Bess of Hardwick, a long-time friend of the family, and another was in the Lumley collection in 1590. John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley (c.1533–1609), to whom the collection belonged, was Jane's contemporary and married to her first cousin Jane FitzAlan, Baroness Lumley (1537–1578). There were for a time some confusion whether or not there were one or two portraits of Lady Jane Grey in the Lumley collection, but thanks to J. Stephan Edwards's research into and clarifications regarding the matter it is now clear that there was only ever one portrait of Lady Jane Grey inventoried in the Lumley collection, however, a half-length.

And it was here that I discovered something amazing.

Actually, I discovered two amazing things. But first things first:

«Investors flocked to buy shares. In all, 201 people invested in the new company – 199 men and two women, widows who probably inherited their stake from their merchand husbands. The merchands were dominant, and they included not only the principal doers – Sir George Barne and William Garrard – but also Sir Andrew Judde and his son-in-law, Thomas Smythe; Thomas Gresham and his uncle, Sir John; Lionel Duckett, Gresham's business partner and Thomas Lok, a Gresham family associate; and Sir John York, who had helped conduct the revaluation of the coinage just a few years earlier. Among the noblemen on list of investors were Henry FitzAlan, the Earl of Arundel, who was lord steward of the royal household; John Russell, Earl of Bedford, who was lord keeper of the privy seal; William Howard, baron Howard of Effingham, who was lord high admiral; and William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, who was lord high treasurer. Henry Sidney and William Cecil were also investors. Although they had been close to John Dudley and supported Lady Jane Grey's succession, they had saved themselves and their positions through political cunning.» New World, Inc.: The Story of the British Empire’s Most Successful Start-Up by John Butman and Simon Targett

Lionel Duckett was in a business venture with Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel. Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel, was the father of the afore-mentioned Jane FitzAlan. He was Lady Jane Grey's uncle by marriage.

The Lumley collection included portraits of 196 contemporary sitters, and (unlike most inventories of the period) often named the painter. This collection included a portrait of ‘The Lady Jane Graye executed’. John Lumley acquired the nucleus of the Lumley collection from his father-in-law, Henry Fitzalan, 19th Earl of Arundel.

So we now have a direct link between Lionel Duckett and Lady Jane Grey's uncle, her family and also the man who either himself or his son-in-law owned one of the two paintings of Lady Jane Grey that we know actually existed.

Wait. It gets better.

JANE PACKINGTON (d.1589/90)

Jane Packington was the daughter of Humphrey Packington (1502-1556), a mercer, and Elizabeth Harding (d. September 27, 1563). On January 15, 1541 at St. Michael Bassishaw, London, Jane married Humphrey Baskerville or Baskerfield of Wolverley, Worcestershire (d. March 1564), a mercer and alderman. Their children, baptized between 1544 and 1561, were Elizabeth, Humphrey, Angelica, Sarah, Mary, Richard, Anne (March 10, 1559-May 14, 1622), and Martha. Another child was born posthumously. Baskerville left Jane a very wealthy widow. In his will, written September 1, 1563, he also appointed guardians from among his fellow mercers and relatives for his minor children. Anne and Martha were to go to Richard Hollyman, Humphrey to Thomas Heaton, Angell to William Leonard, Richard to John Jackson, and Sarah to Harry Hungate, who was married to Elizabeth and received £200 as her dowry. Jane was to bring up “the childe she nowe goeth withall.” On June 29, 1564 at St. Peter West Cheap, Jane married Lionel Duckett (1511-August 1587), another mercer and Lord Mayor of London in 1572-3. They had a son, Thomas (1566-c.1608), who was his father’s heir, the only child of a first marriage having died young. At the time his father died, Thomas was out of favor for marrying against his wishes. Jane died between September 8, 1589 and February 4, 1590. Jane Packington – A Who's Who of Tudor Women

Jane Pakington, Lionel Duckett's second wife and the mother of his heir, was the daughter of Humphrey Pakington. Humphrey Pakington was the brother of Sir John Pakington. Sir John Pakington had by his wife Anne Dacres two daughters, Ursula (d.1558), who married William Scudamore and Bridget, who married Sir John Lyttelton of Frankley, Worcestershire. Sir John Lyttelton and Bridget Pakington had a daughter, Elizabeth Lyttelton (1546 – 4 June 1594), who in 1564 married Sir Francis Willoughby (d. 16 November 1596) of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire. Sir Francis Willoughby of Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire was Lady Jane Grey's first cousin.

Lionel Duckett's wife was the cousin of the wife of the cousin of Lady Jane Grey.

Not only that, but both couples, Lionel Duckett and his wife, and Sir Francis Willoughby and his wife Elizabeth Lyttelton, were married in the same year, 1564, one year after Foxe's Book of Martyrs was published.

The Pakington family was a close one. (Faith and Fraternity: London Livery Companies and The Reformation 1510-1603 by Laura Branch) So had the Grey family been until the fall of Queen Jane Grey.

It is therefore supremely unlikely that Lionel Duckett would have had a portrait on his wall of someone purporting to be Lady Jane Grey without it actually looking like her.

Sir Francis Willoughby, Lady Jane Grey's Cousin

Sir Francis Willoughby, Lady Jane Grey's Cousin

Elizabeth Lyttelton, Lady Willoughby, His Wife and Lionel Duckett's Wife's Cousin

Elizabeth Lyttelton, Lady Willoughby, His Wife and Lionel Duckett's Wife's Cousin

But, surely, that's it, right? I mean, it's been five hundred years. Even if Sir Lionel Duckett had been close with more of Jane's nearest and dearest, which in itself is an extraordinary expectation considering that we have two provable links already, surely we couldn't expect to find proof of that, right?

Well, actually, it's funny you should say that.

Item to Branden skryvener for the drawing and writing of the bonnds betwixt your lordship and Lyonell Ducket vjs ijd.272

272 (Sir) Lionel Duckett (d.1587), mercer, common councillor from 1558, alderman from 1564, and lord mayor 1572–3. The subject of this bond is unclear, for no loan from Duckett is recorded in this account.

The above quote is from the household accounts of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He was Lady Jane Grey's brother-in-law as the brother of her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley. Guildford was executed alongside Jane.

The above quote shows that there was contact between Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Lady Jane Grey's brother-in-law, and Sir Lionel Duckett as early as 1560.

... of two London merchants, Sir Thomas Gresham and Lionel Duckett. In October 1562, a sixthousand-strong English military force, led by Ambrose Dudley – New World, Inc.: The Making of America by England's Merchant Adventurers by John Butman, Simon Targett

Ambrose Dudley was the elder brother of Robert Dudley and Guildford Dudley, and also Lady Jane Grey's brother-in-law. The brother in between Ambrose Dudley and Robert Dudley, Henry, was married to Lady Jane Grey's first cousin, Margaret Audley, but he had been killed in the Battle of St. Quentin in 1557.

Sir Thomas Gresham was the one who was tasked with holding Lady Jane Grey’s sister Lady Mary Grey Keyes in custody from 1569 to 1572 by Queen Elizabeth I after her marriage contracted without royal consent.

Sir Lionel Duckett was one the overseers of his will. «And to this my last will I do ordeyne my welbelovyd wiffe dame Anne Gresham to be my sole executrix, and my overseers Sir Lyonell Duckatt knight, Edmund Hogan, Thomas Celie, and Philipp Schudamore, and Mr. Justice Manwood. d And I doe give to Sir Lyonell Dockatt for his paynnes one hundreath poundes.» The Will of Sir Thomas Gresham 1575

The Society of the Mines Royal was one of two English mining monopoly companies incorporated by royal charter in 1568, the other being the Company of Mineral and Battery Works. On 28 May 1568 Elizabeth I established the Society by letters patent as a joint stock company with 24 shareholders.

Three of these 24 shareholders were:

• Sir William Cecil

• Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester

• Lionel Duckett, alderman

Soon after 1560, John Hawkins had moved to London and, after marrying the daughter of the Treasury of the Navy, formed a syndicate of wealthy merchants and officials including Sir Lionel Duckett and Sir Thomas Lodge, who were already engaged in Gold Coast trade, Benjamin Gonson and Sir William Winter (d. 1589). This syndicate's period of activity may mark the time when a nexus of interest strengthened - between "naval men" and merchant-slavers. By 1564, John Hawkins' patrons included Robert Dudley, Earl Leicester and Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. He had backers including Sir Lionel Duckett, Sir Thomas Lodge and Sir William Winter, his own father-in-law Benjamin Gonson.

Amongst the investors we find:

• Cecil, William (1520/21-1598), 1st Baron Burghley

• Duckett, Sir Lionel (d. 1587)

• Dudley, Ambrose (c.1530-1590), Earl of Warwick

• Dudley [nee Russell], Anne, Countess of Warwick (1548/9–1604)

• Dudley, Robert (1532/3-1588), Earl of Leicester

Anne Dudley (née Russell), Countess of Warwick (1548/1549 – 9 February 1604) was an English noblewoman, and a lady-in-waiting and close friend of Elizabeth I. She was the third wife of Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick.

As we can see, the links between Sir Lionel Duckett and the people who had known Jane well were plentiful and strong. Logic dictates that if Sir Lionel wished to acquire and believed himself to be in possession of a painting of Lady Jane Grey, it was the real thing.

The Duckett Portrait

As aforementioned, dendrochronological testing showed that the panel of the Duckett Portrait dates to 1542.

Further technical analysis was undertaken:

«Dr Libby Sheldon of University College, London, analysed its pigments and materials. To cut a long story short, the painting materials in the portrait were found to be consistent with other works by Holbein, including the Lady with a Squirrel and Starling, in the National Gallery, London. Interestingly, the blue pigment azurite, which a NG Technical Bulletin says was “a standard pigment of German artists in particular” was detectable in both. To the uninitiated it might look like lapis lazuli or ultramarine, and in fact the two were often confused, since lapis lazula was a term applied to many blue pigments. However, azurite was also in demand; research has shown that azurite was used more in the past, especially in medieval times. It;s interesting to speculate why Holbein and other German artists favoured this blue rather than others.» Art History Today: Hans Holbein

The Weiss Gallery notes about azurite:

«It is also worth noting the double layer of azurite, the highly expensive blue pigment used for the background. Often found in Holbein’s portraits and those of his contemporaries, its cost meant that it was only used for significant commissions whereas in copies or lesser works, it invariably was replaced with cheaper, less stable alternatives.» Lady Alice More (c.1474 - c.1551) – The Weiss Gallery

From Art History Today

From Art History Today

J. Stephan Edwards uses the following formula in regards to another painting – a smaller copy of the Syon Portrait above, also held at Syon House: «Examination of the growth rings in the wood of that smaller panel revealed that the last complete heartwood growth ring corresponds to the year 1618. When the standard minimum of 8 years is added to account for lost sapwood, plus the minimum 2 years for processing and storage, the earliest point at which the smaller copy may have been produced is 1629, the tree having been felled in the year after any last complete growth ring.» p. 170–171.

In other words, if the panel is dateable to 1542, a likely time for the Duckett Portrait to have been painted is 1553, in short exactly when a painting of Lady Jane Grey would have been very likely to have been painted as she was to be married, or had just become married to Lord Guildford Dudley, and when she would have been at the exact age of the girl in the painting, who appears to be in her teens.

I have considered the possibility of the Duckett Portrait being a copy, commissioned by Sir Lionel Duckett from somebody else's portrait of Lady Jane Grey. However, analysis of the pigments and materials of the painting have revealed the use of the blue pigment azurite. According to the Weiss Gallery, azurite was never used for copies. Its cost meant that it was only used for significant commissions whereas in copies or lesser works, it invariably was replaced with cheaper, less stable alternatives.

So we could actually be looking at an ad vivum, painted from life, portrait of Lady Jane Grey.

Of the sparse physical descriptions we have of Lady Jane Grey, in the one we have that actually describes a complete outfit of hers she is wearing a French hood. In both instances in which details of her gown is recorded it is described as black.

And we know that she was in possession of a pearl necklace, because she was given one as a present by her cousin the Princess Mary.

gyven to my cousyn Jane graye. Item an other lace for the nekke of gold smythworke set with small ples xxxijti.

A little necklace for the neck that the executioner was to sever.

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Portrait (detail) – The Brooch

Lady Jane Grey - The Duckett Portrait (detail) – The Brooch

«The large round bodice brooch depicts the Judgment of Paris, a scene from classical mythology (Fig. 26). The story of the Judgment was an exceedingly popular one in both continental Europe and England in the sixteenth century. The German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder painted more than a dozen images depicting the story, for example. In England during Elizabeth's reign, artists created versions in which Elizabeth I was substitued for Paris, creating a visual allegory of Elizabeth as a fair and just monarch. The story was sometimes reinterpreted in the sixteenth century in a reformist Christian context, with the Judgment of Paris presented as an allegory of God's gift to man of free will. The brooch is therefore not sufficiently unique to enable association with a specific individual sitter.» A Queen of a New Invention, by J. Stephan Edwards, p. 118.

The above was incredibly enough not written about the brooch in the Duckett Painting, but about the brooch in another painting known as Lady Jane Grey since at least the 1800’s.

Lady Jane Grey – The Grimsthorpe Portrait (detail) – The Brooch

Lady Jane Grey – The Grimsthorpe Portrait (detail) – The Brooch

Comments

Luke Aaron

04.02.2022 18:20

Thanks for the site and the thoughts. You may enjoy(or not!) taking a look at mine: http://lukism.wordpress.com/2021/09/15/lady-jane-grey/. I agree that Jane may have had an eye irregularity. Cheers.

Mary Richards

21.02.2021 04:10

It might just be me here, but does anyone note a resemblance between the Grimsthorpe and the Streatham portraits? Is it possible that the Streatham could have been based on the Grimsthorpe model?

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:04

For the rationale behind identifying the Streatham Portrait as Lady Jane Grey, I think one major factor was the inscription ‘Lady Jayne’.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:03

Much of the paint of the inscription had deteriorated, rendering the writing less than clear,

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:03

but authorities agreed that ‘Lady Jayne’ was the likely text. Dr. Libby Sheldon of the University College of London who examined the portrait believed that the inscription was exactly contemporaneous

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:01

with the painting itself, which dendrochronological analysis has revealed to date from no earlier than the 1590's. Another was its similarity with the Houghton Portrait (shown above).

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:00

The Houghton Portrait originated with the Rodes family of Houghton Hall in Yorkshire and was part of a larger collection of portraits of Protestant heroes.The Houghton Portrait was displayed

Site Owner

22.02.2021 14:00

in a national exhibition in 1866 as a portrait of Jane Grey. The existence of two identical but quite separate works under the same identification suggested that the identification was authentic.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:58

Wikipedia has a bit more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streatham_portrait

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:57

And J. Stephan Edwards writes of both portraits on p. 50-58 of his book A Queen of A New Invention.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:57

It is such a shame. I too would love it if they did a complete examination of this portrait. From being a rather obscure

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:56

and inauspicious painting I have grown very fond of it. I think that this is actually Lady Jane Grey. So much more the shame that is was overpainted.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:54

Again we are in complete agreement. It makes no sense to me either why they would "mix & match" backgrounds, jewellery etc., however, clearly there is a precedent of sorts for it.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:53

In addition to the portrait with the head of Mary I Tudor above, but with the dress and jewellery of Katherine Parr, there is also the fact that when it cames to portrait sets you will often see

Site Owner

22.02.2021 13:52

that the painters have 'borrowed' jewellery from one lady to give to another. In the portrait I have posted of Jane Seymour above, she too is wearing Mary I Tudor's famous brooch.

Mary Richards

22.02.2021 11:55

Out of interest, would you happen to know what the NPG's rationale was for identifying the Streatham as Jane? It could aid with the identification of the Grimsthorpe.

Mary Richards

22.02.2021 11:54

It is a shame that the Grimsthorpe portrait has been painted over. It would be fascinating to see what the sitter looked like under the X-ray.

Mary Richards

22.02.2021 11:52

It makes no sense to me why they would "mix & match" backgrounds, jewellery etc however I think there is a precedent of sorts for it.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:04

You are definitely not the only one to notice the resemblance between the Grimsthorpe and the Streatham Portrait! I entirely agree.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:03

I too have wondered if the Streatham Portrait is based on the Grimsthorpe Portrait.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:03

The only problem is that all of the particular traits of the Streatham Portrait, the carcanet from the Duckett Portrait,

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:02

the jewellery from the engraving and the portraits of Mary I Tudor, and Mary I
Tudor's dress cannot be found in the Grimsthorpe Portrait.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:01

While the brooch the lady is wearing in the Grimsthorpe Portrait (and the Duckett
Portrait) cannot be found in the Streatham Portrait.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 11:00

Also, if the copyists had access to a full-length gown, we did they feel the need to superimpose the dress of Mary I Tudor onto the image?

Site Owner

22.02.2021 10:59

Since then, however, I have come over a painting of Mary I Tudor, in Katherine Parr's
dress and jewellery, with the background of Elizabeth when a Princess.

Site Owner

22.02.2021 10:58

I have now posted this painting above. This painting does look 'younger' than the Streatham Portrait, but even so I feel that it sets a 'precedent' of sorts. That would however mean that the creator

Site Owner

22.02.2021 10:57

had access to both the engraving or the Duckett Portrait or some version thereof with the carcanet necklace and the Grimsthorpe Portrait 😊

Isabella Quigley Moriarty

25.04.2020 11:02

I just want to say thank you for your generosity in creating and maintaining varying and your own points of view on these portraits and stories. As an avid reader of history/herstory I appreciate it.

Site Owner

27.04.2020 19:58

Oh, thank you so much! What a lovely comment to receive! This site has given me a lot of pleasure, and it is so lovely to hear that that is the case for somebody else too :)

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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