Tuesday 1 September 2015

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.
 
A survivor of the busts 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.
 
 
Terracotta bust of Edward VI
Royal Collection.
Signed and dated 1738
 
 
Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.
 
 
 
Edward VI by Michael
Photograph taken by John Wesley Livingstone, 1876.
 
Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.
 
This bust appears to be based on an original watercolour by George Vertue (British Museum) or the engraving which followed it.
 
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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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).
 
 
 

 

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

 
 
 
 
 
Workshop associated with' Master John'
1547
1556 x 813 mm.
 
NPG
 
 
 
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.
 
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
 

 
 
 
 
Engraving of Edward VI.
 
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.
 
 
 
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
 
 
 
 
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.
Probably 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.
 
 
 
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.
 
 
 
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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
 
 
 
Copyright: © Courtauld Institute of Art
________________________________
 
 
 
Marble bust of Henry VIII, Leeds Castle, Kent.
 
67.5 x 70 x 37 cm
 
 
 
Marble bust of Mary Queen of Scots, Leeds Castle, Kent
Copyright: © Courtauld Institute of Art
 
 
Marble bust of Elizabeth I at Leeds Castle, Kent.
 
 
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
 
 
 
 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
 
 
Extract from Lumley Inventory
 
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Edward VI. 1737.
Bronze
Peter Scheemakers
 St Thomas's Hospital.
 
 
 
 Preparatory drawing of Edward VI by Scheemakers
at the Harris Gallery, Preston.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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