Physical description
Portrait miniature of a woman, half length, wearing an elaborate costume and headdress, in an oval frame with a loop at the top.
Place of Origin
England, Great Britain (painted)
Date
1609 (painted)
Artist/maker
Oliver, Isaac, born 1558 - died 1617 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour on vellum stuck to plain card
Marks and inscriptions
'IO'
Dimensions
Height: 62 mm, Width: 51 mm
Object history note
It is possible that the woman is a masquer in Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens, performed in February 1609.
Descriptive line
Portrait miniature of an unknown woman, a masquer (?) in Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens, watercolour on vellum, painted by Isaac Oliver, 1609.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Cat. 227, pp. 140-141. Full Citation:
“ISAAC OLIVER
227 ?Masquer in Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Queens”, 1609
Victoria & Albert Museum (P.3-1942)
Vellum stuck to plain card, 62 x 51 mm, 2 7/16 x 2 in.
Painted from life and perhaps the most striking of the three miniatures depicting ladies in allegorical masque costume (nos. 223, 225). This has always been referred to as a lady wearing a masque costume, probably after a design by Inigo Jones. Her hair is looped with pearls and ultramarine bows with a scrolled coronet from which a veil falls. The dress is pink with blue sleeves, again adorned with gold scrolling, and over which a green mantle lined with orange has been looped. All the masques from this period, c. 1610, are heavily documented and there is no doubt that this particular dress relates closely to the series of costumes designed for the Masque of Queens danced on February 2nd 1609 (for text and designs see S. Orgel and R. Strong, Inigo Jones. The Theatre of the Stuart Court, University of California Press, 1973, I, pp. 130-53). The masquers, led by Anne of Denmark, came as twelve heroic queens who had triumphed in war: Penthesileia, Camilla, Thomyris, Artemisia, Berenice, Hypsicratea, Candace, Boadicea, Zenobria, Amalasunta, Valasca and Bel-Arma. Designs for only seven costumes survive and one for Atalanta who did not appear, although Lady Arundel danced another role. No description of the costume is included in the text or who danced which role. The costume design for each masquer was different, all vaguely, as in the miniature, military and all with differing, complicated head-dresses. From the annotations on the Jones designs we probably know who danced eight of the queens, although the rejected Atalanta design means that there were changes. The four queens for whom designs do not survive are Hypiscratea, Boadicea, Amalasunta and Valasca and four ladies left to play these parts, Lady Arundel, Lady Huntingdon, Lady Essex and Lady Cranborne. It is not, however, as simple as that since other designs connected with Queens survive including a head-dress for Lady Blanche Somerset who, at one stage, was probably one of the masquers. Thus we have not guarantee either that the designs that are identifiable were actually those used or even that they were not modified or altered by the participants and their tailors as we know did take place. Most of the participants can be eliminated on portrait evidence, but not all. A connection with Queens ought to be correct.
The miniature is in moderately good condition but has been restored.
INSCRIBED: Signed to the right: IO in monogram.
COLLECTIONS: Part of the collection formed by Walter Francis, 5th Duke of Buccleuch (1806-1884); purchased from that collection by the N.A.C.F. and presented, 1942.
LITERATURE: Kennedy, Buccleuch, pl. XIV.
Winter, Elizabethan Miniatures, pl. XIII (b).
V&A, 1947 (182).”
Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1942, London: HMSO, 1955.
The full text of the record is as follows:
'OLIVER, Isaac (d.1617)
Miniature portrait of a lady in masque dress.
Signed with monogram 10.
On parchment on card. Oval.
P.3-1942
Given by the National Art-Collections Fund
Note: This miniature was formerly in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. It was No. 182 in the Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1947.'
Exhibition History
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars (Victoria and Albert Museum)
The Golden Age of the English Court: From Henry VIII to Charles I (Moscow Kremlin Museums 24 Oct 2012-27 Jan 2013)
Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/01/1947-31/12/1947)
Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered, 1520-1620 (Victoria and Albert Museum 09/07/1983-06/11/19833)
Labels and date
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars label text:
Unknown woman in masque costume
About 1609
England
By Isaac Oliver
Watercolour on vellum stuck to plain card
Purchased by the Art Fund and presented in 1942; V&A P.3-1942
Treasures of the Royal Court: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars audioguide:
Use one of the magnifying glasses to look closely at this miniature painting of an unknown woman by Isaac Oliver. Miniatures were painted in delicate watercolour on vellum, the fine inner layer of animal skin. Examine the woman’s extravagant costume, captured by the artist in intricate detail. She is dressed for a theatrical masque, a court entertainment which combined music, dance and poetry. These required elaborate dress and stage designs and were a significant part of court culture under James I. Anne of Denmark, James’ wife, often played the leading role herself; her ladies also taking part.
Here, the anonymous court lady is playing one of the parts in The Masque of Queens. She is dressed as one of the masque’s twelve heroic and victorious queens. Her costume, with its heavy cloak pinned at the shoulder, resembles that worn by a classical Roman military leader. The ornament on her breast is like a cuirass, a piece of armour for the male chest. The piece was written by playwright Ben Jonson, designed by architect Inigo Jones, and performed at the palace at Whitehall in 1609.
The miniature artist, Isaac Oliver, was a French Protestant refugee who fled to London with his parents as a child, and grew up to become Anne of Denmark’s ‘limner’, or miniature painter. Miniature painting was known in England as limning - from the Latin luminare, meaning to give light. Portrait miniatures were very popular at the Stuart court; James I’s Queen, Anne, wore them often; in no.4 in this case she can be seen wearing a picture box, no doubt containing a miniature. Miniatures are often seen as an essentially private, intimate art form, but they could play a very public role at court; images of the monarch, especially miniatures, were given as diplomatic gifts, and miniatures often played a part in marriage negotiations. Interestingly, this miniature combines both private and public aspects of the art. It was probably intended primarily as a private token, perhaps for the unknown woman’s husband but the masque costume very publicly proclaims the sitter’s enviable intimacy with the queen.
Materials
Watercolour; Cardboard; Vellum
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Woman; Jewellery; Pearls; Headdress; Masque
Categories
Portraits; Clothing; Paintings; Stage costumes
Collection code
PDP
