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 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 -
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.
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 -
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
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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).
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 4th 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.
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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 -
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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
