A terracotta bust of Elizabeth I from Queen Caroline's Library.

Terracotta bust of Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603)

One of the three survivors of the eleven terracotta busts by Michael Rysbrack,

Seven of which were accidently destroyed when a Shelf Collapsed

at Windsor Castle in 1906.

 

The Original Photographs were taken by John Wesley Livingstone (d. 1899) in 1874 for a royal inventory.

The busts had been moved to Windsor Castle in 1825 when Queen Caroline’s library at St James’s Palace was demolished.

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015 

 

 

 

Photograph of the large Elizabethan fireplace in Room Three of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, which has a bust of Queen Elizabeth inset above.

Photograph commissioned by the Royal Collection for inventory purposes circa 1874.

Photograph attributed to John Wesley Livingstone.  

 

  Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.  

 

The bust had been painted white and has been stripped back to bare tewrracotta. Rysbrack invariably painted his busts to disguise firing cracks

 

The Iconography of Elizabeth I.

 

The iconography of Elizabeth I is particularly rich. I am not going to make any attempt to do a serious survey of the portraits of Elizabeth I, there are about 280 images in the Royal Collection, a couple of hundred on the British Museum website and many more on the V and A website - I will try to confine myself to a few relevant illustrations.

 

see - for a reasonable overview of the painted portraits

 

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizface.htm

 

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizface2.htm

 

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizface3.htm

 

The Rysbrack bust is based on the tomb of Elizabeth I by Maximillian Colt at Westminster Abbey, which is itself probably based on a death mask.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her death, at Richmond Palace, on 24 March 1603 was an occasion of universal mourning. For some days the body lay at Richmond and then was brought by barge to Whitehall Palace to lie in state.  Thousands of people turned out to see her funeral procession to the Abbey on 28 April 1603 when there was "such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man". The coffin, covered in purple velvet, was borne on a chariot drawn by four grey horses with black trappers. The coloured wooden funeral effigy lay on top of the coffin.  Her body was encased in lead within the wooden coffin and first buried in the vault of her grandfather King Henry VII (underneath his monument) in the Abbey. The original funeral effigy, by John Colt (brother of Maximilian), that had been carried on her hearse was remade in 1760 with a wax head and can be seen in the Abbey Museum. The original, and unique, corset from the 1603 effigy still survives however and is now displayed alongside the wax figure. In 1606 her coffin was moved to the north aisle of Henry VII's chapel and laid on top of the coffin of her half-sister Mary I under the monument which was erected for Elizabeth by her successor King James I. The large white marble monument (less tall than the monument James later erected for his mother Mary, Queen of Scots in the opposite aisle of the chapel) was made by sculptor Maximilian Colt and painted by Jan de Critz.

 

For several excellent photographs of a Chimneypiece at Charlton House, and the tomb of Sir Robert Cecil at the Church of St Etheldreda at Hatfield by Maximillian Colt -

see -  http://www.flickriver.com/photos/tags/maximiliancolt/interesting/

 

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 An Electrotype of the effigy on the monument to Elizabeth I by Maximillian Colt in Westminster Abbey. Made by Elkington from a cast by Domenico Brucciani.

965 mm. long.

 

 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

This electrotype is a copy from the upper part of the white marble tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey. It is one of a series of electrotype reproductions of tomb effigies made for the National Portrait Gallery by Elkington & Co in the 1870s. An electrotype sculpture of this type is made by electro-deposition of copper onto a mould or cast of an object. The electrotype could then be patinated like bronze. Elizabeth is portrayed as queen, with the crown, orb and sceptre. Sculpted after her death, the stark realism of the features of the sculpted portrait suggests that the effigy was probably based on a death mask. The royal regalia have been damaged in the original monument and this is replicated in the electrotype copy displayed here.

 

 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

 

Elizabeth I. c. 1590.

Remarkable portrait described as 'studio of 'Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

A recently identified portrait.

 

Notes - According to Anna Riehl, author of The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Queen Elizabeth I the Elizabethan Gardens portrait is a "rare exception in not covering up the queen's flaws”. 

 

A 1563 draft of Royal Proclamation attempted to regulate the production and circulation of the Queen's portraits, and a 1596 order to the Privy Council commanded public officers "to aid the Queen's Sergeant Painter in seeking out unseemly portraits which were to her 'great offence' and therefore to be defaced and no more portraits to be produced except as approved by [the] Sergeant Painter."

 

“the decrees don't specify ‘ageing’ portraits or even comment on the queen's own looks in any way”, many paintings of the time presented an eternally youthful Elizabeth. Herron also notes that visitors at her court commented upon the queen’s advanced age by the 1580s and 90s - as well as her dignified and benevolent disposition. He further observed that visitors offered less flattering descriptions.

The portrait was purchased in the Fifties by the Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo, North Carolina from a New York art gallery for $3,000 to hang in the gatehouse of the Gardens. It was not until 2007 that the Gardens staff took steps to investigate its origins.

Photo: Courtesy of Elizabethan Gardens of North Carolina.

Another version at Burghley.

 

 

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Elizabeth I. c.1592.

 

'The Ditchley' portrait

by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. (1561/1562–1635/1636)
(2413 mm x 1524 mm).

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

Notes - Known as the 'Ditchley Portrait', this painting was produced for Sir Henry Lee who had been the Queen's Champion from 1559-90. It probably commemorates an elaborate symbolic entertainment which Lee organised for the Queen in September 1592, and which may have been held in the grounds of Lee's house at Ditchley, near Oxford, or at the nearby palace at Woodstock.. After his retirement in 1590 Lee lived at Ditchley with his mistress Anne Vavasour. The entertainment marked the Queen's forgiveness of Lee for becoming a 'stranger lady's thrall'. The portrait shows Elizabeth standing on the globe of the world, with her feet on Oxfordshire. The stormy sky, the clouds parting to reveal sunshine, and the inscriptions on the painting, make it plain that the portrait's symbolic theme is forgiveness. The three fragmentary Latin inscriptions can be interpreted as: (left) 'She gives and does not expect'; (right) 'She can but does not take revenge', and (bottom right) 'In giving back she increases (?)'. The sonnet (right), perhaps composed by Lee, though fragmentary, can mostly be reconstructed. Its subject is the sun, symbol of the monarch.

 

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

 

From Bazilogia 1618

Renold Elstrack. After Isaac Oliver.

 

 

Mezzotint 1708 - 14

by John Faber the Elder

After Isaac Oliver

262 x 202mm.

One of a series of forty-five plates of portraits of the founders of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, Royal Exchange, and Charterhouse.

British Museum.

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Queen Elizabeth I

Mezzotint by John Faber.

This is more likely to be a representation of Anne of Denmark.

 

British Museum

 

 

Engraving of Elizabeth I. c 1731.

 

George Vertue after Isaac Oliver.

From a painting by Isaac Oliver in the Collection of Dr Richard Meade.

Plate from Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, 'The History of England'.

 

290 x 187 mm.

British Museum.

 

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Engraving of Queen Elizabeth I dated 1559. 

Frontispage to Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, ære exarata / per Thomam Geminum)

by Thomas Gemini
349 x 242 mm.
 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

Elizabeth I

One of the Lumley Marble Busts.

Currently at Leeds Castle.

 

 

 

Illustration from the Lumley Castle Inventory.

From 'The Lumley Inventories'', Walpole Society, 1918, vol. VI.

see - https://archive.org/details/volumeofwalpoles06walpuoft

 

Another version of the Lumley bust of Elizabeth I.

Currently at Kenilworth Castle.

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

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Ivory Miniature Relief of Elizabeth I.

 by Gaspar van der Hagen (d.1769)

 after the Rysbrack bust.

Height 105 mm.

 

Victoria and Albert Museum

 

Note - V&A say: 'This historicising ivory relief was probably carved by Gaspar van der Hagen. Rysbrack's lifesize bust of Elizabeth I served as the model for this smaller relief version of the same subject. Van der Hagen (active London 1744 – York 1769) worked both in marble and in ivory. He seems to have concentrated in small ivory heads, some after full-size busts by John Michaerl Rysbrack (1694-1770). He was aparaently a native of Antwerp, who practised in London for most of his life. He may be indentical to the monogrammist GVDR'.

 

 

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Medallion of Elizabeth I. Jean Dassier 1731.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean Dassier

Bronze Medallion 1731.

41mm diam.

 

Rev: Monument with a triangular pediment into which the Eye of God (Providence) has been inserted. The bas relief depicts the destruction of the Armada, with lightning bolts destroying the Spanish vessels. This is flanked on the left by Religion holding a bible and a lighted candle, symbolizing the Reformation, and on the right by Minerva holding a rudder and palm branch, symbolizing the learning, wisdom and prudence of Elizabeth. (Eisler).

 

Image and description courtesy Ben Weiss - http://www.historicalartmedals.com/default.htm

 

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A Coade Stone Bust of a Young Elizabeth I, Circa 1780.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coade Stone bust of Elizabeth I.

 attributed to John Bacon.

Circa 1780

Private Collection.

Page from the Coade Catalogue.

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=1#page=10&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=

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Elizabeth I

Anonymous 17th/ 18th century engraving.

134 x 78 mm.

British Museum

 

 

 

 

 

Terracotta Bust of Edward VI from Queen Caroline's Library. and the four 16th century Lumley Castle Marble Busts now at Leeds Castle, Kent.

 

Terracotta bust of Edward VI.

by Michael Rysbrack.

Some notes

 

A survivor of the group of  terracotta busts by Rysbrack from Queen Caroline's Library, St James' Palace - seven of which were destroyed when a shelf at Windsor Castle collapsed in 1906

 

 

The Original Photographs were taken by John Wesley Livingstone (d. 1899) in 1874 for a royal inventory.

The busts had been moved to Windsor Castle in 1825 when Queen Caroline’s library at St James’s Palace was demolished.

 

 

The Terracotta bust of Edward VI.

Michael Rysbrack

Royal Collection.

Signed and dated 1738.

 

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

 

 

Edward VI by Michael Rysbrack.

Photograph taken by John Wesley Livingstone, 1876.

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

This bust appears to be based in part on an original watercolour by George Vertue (British Museum) or the engraving which followed it but the order of the George and Dragon on the medallion is not tyhe same as the Vertue portrait but appears on the engraving by Robert White of 1681.

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On downloading images of engravings.

The first port of call for most is the National Portrait Gallery - they do not allow downloading of higher resolution images of their holding and watermark theirs - here is an example -

 https://npgimages.com/search/?searchQuery=Edward+VI

Do not use their images unless forced - in which case use a software that allows you to crop the screen image and save it - I use 'faststone' - I have posted the NPG images in the past but they can disappear from a blog or website - using 'fastone' solves this problem.

Before using NPG images check the content of the NPG  Scotland, the Rijkmuseum or the Metropolitan - many other museums/galleries also allow free high resolution images of their holdings.

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/search?search=Edward+VI

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search

Do not be conned into paying for the use of images which do not have copyrights.

All of the 17th/ 18th/ 19th century engravings at the NPG are out of copyright.

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Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, he succeeded his father in 1547 aged nine. Scholarly and firmly Protestant, he ruled during his minority with the help of a council, but was dominated first by theDuke of Somerset as Lord Protector, and later by the Duke of Northumberland. 

The latter induced Edward to will the crown to his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey, in order to ensure the Protestant succession. 

He died of tuberculosis shortly before his sixteenth birthday.

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King Edward VI Grammar School, New Street, Birmingham .

Bust and Chimneypiece attributed to Scheemakers in

Scheemakers by Ingrid Roscoe in the Walpole Society Journal 1999, page 262 Catalogue no 134.

Two Casts were sold at the Scheemakers sale Lots 49 and 52, 6 June 1771.

Image below courtesy RIBA.

Although the chimneypiece is given to Scheemakers by Roscoe the bust is very close to the Rysbrack terracotta above.

see - 

https://www.ribapix.com/designs-for-king-edward-vi-grammar-school-new-street-birmingham-elevation-of-a-pre-existing-fireplace-surmounted-by-the-bust-of-a-boy-wearing-a-plumed-hat_riba66387

I am not aware of any bills from Scheemakers for either the chimneypiece or the bust. Until we have any concrete evidence I am suggesting Rysbrack

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Edward VI

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/54867?search=Edward%20VI&search_set_offset=7

 

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The Iconography of Edward VI - A Brief Overview.

 

 

 

Edward VI.

William (Guilim)Scrots.

The Royal Collection. 

 Oil on panel, circa 1646.

42.2" x 32.3"

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

This portrait was probably completed not long before the King's accession on 28 January 1547. The young prince wears a russet satin gown with hanging sleeves, trimmed with velvet, embroidered with gold thread and lined with lynx fur. The jewel around his neck is decorated with the coronet and feathers of the Prince of Wales.

The classical interior includes a column with a carved roundel at the base depicting a horseman and inscribed MARCVS. CVRCIVS. ROMAN[VS] ('Marcus Curtius, Roman'). A deer park can be seen through the window on the left, with Hunsdon House, Hertfordshire in the distance. Prince Edward was in residence at Hunsdon from May to July 1546.

According to George Vertue in 1734 the picture was 'originally only done to the knees, but since of late added at top something, and at bottom more to make the leggs & feet. but so ill and injudiciously drawn...'. These additions had disappeared by 1813 and the panel seems to have been cut down on all sides at some time.

The artist was also responsible for the portrait of Edward's half sister, Princess Elizabeth (RCIN 404444). Stylistically the two portraits are very alike; the panels are constructed in a similar way and may have come from the same tree. It is most likely that the painter of these two works was William Scrots, a Flemish artist who was employed by Henry VIII from 1545 until 1553.

The painting was inscribed at a slightly later date: Edwardus Sextus Rex / Angliae (Edward the Sixth King of England).

 

 

Notes from Royal Collection Website - https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/14/collection/404441/edward-vi-1537-53

 

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

Workshop associated with' Master John'

1547

1556 x 813 mm.

 

NPG

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Edward VI.

Attributed William Scrots.

 

94 x 71.1 cms.

 

Provenance - Samuel Day (1757-1806), Hinton House, Hinton Charterhouse, Somerset;

By descent to Mary, his wife, who died in 1846 leaving Hinton House to Thomas Jones (1808-1848);
By descent to Edward Talbot Day Foxcroft (1837-1911), his son;
Thence by descent to the last owner.

 

This is an exceptionally rare seated, three-quarter length variant of perhaps the most important official portrait of Edward VI. Traditionally associated with William Scrots, who came to England in 1545 and succeeded Holbein as King's Painter, it depicts the young King wearing ermine robes and a richly bejewelled doublet, with the Order of St. George, seated on a throne holding a bible, presumably a reference to his role as Defender of the Faith and head of the Church of England. The type is thought to have originated in 1550, when marriage negotiations were underway between the King and the eldest daughter of Henry II of France. Good full length versions are at Hampton Court (Royal Collection), the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and in the Museum at Roanne, the latter of which is traditionally stated to have been given by the King to the Maréchal de St. André, who was sent to London in July 1551 to confer upon the King the Order of St. Michael.

King Edward VI, the only son of King Henry VIII by his third wife, Jane Seymour, succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in 1547, when only nine years old. The longed for male heir to the Tudor dynasty, Edward's reign was sadly brief, and he was only fifteen when he died of consumption in 1553. Despite this, and despite his youth, he displayed a deep interest in religious policy, and successfully ensured the continuation and consolidation of the English Reformation, for which he was praised by contemporary European Protestants, and which his sister, the Catholic Mary, who succeeded his as Queen of England, was unable to reverse.

The portrait was first recorded in the collection of Samuel Day (1757-1806), at Hinton Charterhouse, in Somerset. In 1786 Samuel married Mary Jacob, who inherited Hinton Charterhouse from her uncle, John Harding, High Sheriff of Somerset, whose father, also John, had bought the house in 1700. Originally part of the Carthusian Monastery which stood nearby, the house, also known as The Grange, is first recorded in Leland's account to Sir Walter Hungerford (1574-1589). Then part of the vast Hungerford estates, in which it remained for much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was at one stage the home of Prince Henry Stuart, and his brother Charles, later King Charles I.

A copy of the dendrochronology report on this painting was available.

1. The attribution of the Hampton Court painting to Scrots was confirmed with almost complete certainty in 1951 by Dr Auerbach (see E. Auerbach, 'Holbein's Followers in England', Burlington Magazine, XCIII, 1951, pp. 45-50).  

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Literature -

Rev. J. Nightingale, The Beauties of England and Wales, London 1813, part I, vol. XIII, p. 456 (as 'by Holbein');

Hinton Household Inventory Entailed by the Will of the late Thomas Jones Esq., unpublished MS., 23-28 August 1848, p. 2 (as 'Edward 4^th in a carved frame 37 inches by 29 in rich regal robes' - £45);

O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen, London 1963, text vol., p. 66, under no. 49

Notes adapted from Sotheby's Sale Catalogue of 4 July 2012 - lot 10.

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William (Guilim) Scrots ( active 1537 - 53) .

167 x 90.5 cms.

Royal Collection.

 

This is a version of arguably the most important official portrait of Edward VI which was painted by the Flemish artist William Scrots. The original portrait type, from which this derives, probably originated in 1550 during the marriage negotiations between Edward VI and the eldest daughter of Henri II of France. It became a popular image, and many versions exist. 

 

Purchased by Queen Victoria in 1882.

 

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Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

 

Portrait of Edward VI.

Perhaps by Guilim Scrots.

Royal Collection.

Oil on lined canvas, 352 x 427 mm.

This is an early derivation from the full-length portrait of Edward VI attributed to the Flemish artist William Scrots (RCIN 405751). Head-and -shoulders portraits of monarchs were popular and often hung as part of sets of portraits of monarchs.           

 

Possibly first recorded in the Royal Collection during the reign of Elizabeth I.

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

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Another version by or after Guilim Scrots in the Louvre, Paris

 

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Engraving of Edward VI.

186 x 126 mm

 

Anon. 17th century.

 

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Engraving of Edward VI.

Represented as a portrait bust on socle

 

Enia Vica. 1547.

British Museum.

 

 

 

Engraving by Simon de Passe,

sold by John Sudbury, and sold by George Humble

line engraving, published 1620.

185 x 112 mm.

 

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Engraving by Michael Burghers. c 1700.

164 x 101 mm.

British Museum.

 

 

 

 

Engraving Edward VI.

by Pieter Stevens van Gunst, after Adriaen van der Werff.

1697.

320 x 184 mm.

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

 

Engraving of Edward VI.

 

P. Vanderbanck after Edward Luttrell.

1706.

293 x 202 mm.

 

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

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George Vertue and the Portraits of Edward VI.

 

 

 

 

Edward VI.

Engraving by George Vertue c. 1732.

From an original in Kensington Palace.

 

"90 x 182 mm.

 

© National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

 

 

Watercolour of Edward VI.

George Vertue.

 

Watercolour and body colour heightened with gold.

Perhaps the original study for the engraving of 1732 (above).

This is a conflation of at least two earlier representations of Edward VI , 

Two painting by Guilim Scrots or his studio.

A full length portrait version now in the Royal Collection.

193 x 148 mm.

British Museum.

 

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Engraving of Edward VI.

George Vertue 

1745.

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Edward VI.

Watercolour by George Vertue. 1745.

432 x 260 mm.

Royal Collection.

This watercolour shows the state of the oil portrait, which had been extended at top and bottom, in 1745. The extensions were removed in around 1800.

 

Purchased from the artist by George IV when Prince of Wales; recorded at Carlton House in 1816 and 1819.

 

Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 

 

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Bronze Medallion of Edward VI

Jean Dassier. 1731.

41 mm diam.

Based on the Scrots Portrait in the Royal Collection or the engraving of this portrait by Simon de Passe of 1620.

The obverse showing the infant Hercules strangling a dragon (representing Catholicism).

 

Image Courtesy Ben Weiss.

 

see - http://www.historicalartmedals.com/default.htm

 

 

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The 16th century Leeds Castle Marble Busts.

The Lumley Marbles commissioned by 1st Lord Lumley.

 

Believed to have been made for the hall at Lumley castle prior to 1569.

 

 

Marble bust of Edward VI at Leeds Castle, Kent.

Copyright: © Courtauld Institute of Art.

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Copyright: © Courtauld Institute of Art

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Henry VIII.

 

 

 

Marble bust of Henry VIII, Leeds Castle, Kent.

 

67.5 x 70 x 37 cm

Another version is at the Ashmolean, Oxford.

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Marble bust of Mary Queen of Scots, Leeds Castle, Kent.

Copyright: © Courtauld Institute of Art

 

 

Marble bust of Elizabeth I at Leeds Castle, Kent.

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King Edward VI Grammar School Bust and Chimneypiece by Scheemakers.

Image courtesy RIBA.

Although the chimneypiece is given to Scheemakers the bust is very close to the Rysbrack terracotta.

see - 

https://www.ribapix.com/designs-for-king-edward-vi-grammar-school-new-street-birmingham-elevation-of-a-pre-existing-fireplace-surmounted-by-the-bust-of-a-boy-wearing-a-plumed-hat_riba66387

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Engraving of Elizabeth I.

 

Frontispage to Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, ære exarata / per Thomam Geminum.

Dated 1559.

349 x 242 mm.

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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 Another version of the Leeds castle marble bust of Elizabath I.

Height 667 mm.

 

Probably a 19th century copy judging from the inscription.

Currently on Display at Kenilworth Castle, Warwick shire.

 

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Extract  above from the Lumley Inventory

 

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The Scheemakers Statue.

 

 

 

 

 

Edward VI. 1737.

Bronze.

Peter Scheemakers.

 St Thomas's Hospital.

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 Preparatory drawing of Edward VI by Scheemakers.

at the Harris Gallery, Preston.

 

 

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Edward VI.

Mezzotint dated 1 Nov. 1780.

J Kendall, Bury