TUDOR AND S TUART PORTRAITS
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English School circa 1536 – 1540s
Jane Seymour (1508 – 1537), third wife of King Henry VIII Oil on panel: 16 x 13 in. (40.5 x 33 cm.) Painted circa 1536 – 1540s Provenance Presumably commissioned by her brother Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and 1st Duke of Somerset (c.1500 – 1552); thence by descent in 1676 through the Earls of Hertford and Dukes of Somerset to the Earls of Elgin and Marquesses of Ailesbury, Tottenham Park, Savernake, Wiltshire; David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan, Savernake Lodge, Wiltshire. Literature Jones, Views of the seats of Noblemen & Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland, second series comprising of the western counties’, 1829, under Tottenham Park, Wiltshire; the seat of the Marquess of Ailesbury, K.T. where, as the very first painting listed in the collection, it is described as ‘a head of Lady Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII ’.
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1. Ian Tyers, Tree-ring analysis of a panel painting: Jane Seymour, Queen of England, May 2011. 2. Private note dated November 2011 written by the conservator Katherine Ara, in conjunction with Libby Sheldon. 3. http://www.npg.org.uk/ research/programmes/makingart-in-tudor-britain/case-studies/ case-study-1.php
his is a rare image of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s one true love, and the mother of the future King Edward VI. Her premature and tragic death in October 1537 after giving birth to the male heir Henry VIII so craved for, having being Queen for a mere seventeen months, has meant that her portraiture is very sparse - indeed she is not even represented in the National Portrait gallery. Therefore, this small portrait with its unbroken provenance leading directly back through fifteen generations of the Seymour family and their descendants at their estates in the forest of Savernake, is an important new addition to her iconography. Dendrochronology has revealed that the Baltic panel on which it is painted has a last tree ring from 1519, which gives a probable felling date of between 1523 – 1539. This suggests a dating for the portrait to between c.1536 – 1540s, which is to say either shortly before, or just after, Jane Seymour’s death in 1537.1 The painting has no pretensions to being an ad vivum likeness as in Holbein’s famous renditions of her known by the drawing in the Royal Collection (fig.1) and the oil portrait in the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna. Rather, it is a much simplified and idealised image of the Queen, several times removed from the Holbein, and perhaps from another source altogether. However, it does accurately convey Jane’s famously pale skin, blonde hair and very light blue eyes. Although her costume at first glance appears modest, it is nonetheless comprised of costly fabrics; she sports a golden mantle, exquisitely rendered by the artist in gold leaf with a beautifully preserved over-laying pattern, and her bodice and head-piece are trimmed with pearls. There is also the motif of a crown subtly included in the pattern at the top of her bodice to affirm her regal status. Whilst our portrait could have been painted in her lifetime, it is probably more plausible to consider that it was painted in the years immediately after her death as a memento for the family of their late relative’s achievement in becoming Queen and mother to the heir. Another very rare comparative is the primitive portrait of Jane in the collection of early historical portraits belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of London at Burlington House on Piccadilly. Their painting is likewise on panel and is of almost an identical size to ours, measuring 16 ½ x 14 ¼ in. Although it is extremely difficult to assess it properly due to the thick old yellowed varnishes and over-paint which cover it, it too has been dated to the 1540s, (fig.2).
Technical analysis of our portrait has revealed that the painting is constructed using techniques that are similarly found in other royal portraits of the period such as that of Edward IV, (fig.3), and Henry VI.2 These two portraits, both of which are in the National Portrait Gallery in London, have recently been the subject of an ongoing research project undertaken by the institution, the results of which can be seen online.3 The preparation layers are similar for all three panels, comprising of a white chalk ground followed by a thin pink imprimatura composed of lead white and red. In the Seymour portrait two reds are present, vermilion and red lead; vermilion is also present in the imprimatura of the Edward VI portrait. The underdrawing in all three portraits is red, and appears JaneHans was born at the Wulfhall (Wolf Hall), Savernake Forest, chalks Wiltshire, the eldest fig.1 Holbein Younger, Jane Seymour, black and coloured on paper, c.1536 – 1537, TheJohn RoyalSeymour Collection © Her MajestyWentworth. Queen Elizabeth II daughter of Sir and Margery Through her maternal 16