On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Unknown woman, formerly called Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset

Portrait Miniature
1596-1600 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Oliver, Isaac (artist)
Place of origin
England (painted)

This miniature, one of Oliver's masterpieces, could not be more different from the brightly coloured, brightly lit, iconic formality of his master, Nicholas Hilliard. An example of the influence that Oliver's trip in 1596 to Italy had on him, it is a virtuoso performance of chiaroscuro, or 'light and shade', rendered in monochromatic colouring, with subtle gradations from grey into grey-black, and delicately touched with white, gold and silver. The figure emerges from the shadows enveloped in billowing veils and with an elusive and enigmatic half smile reminiscent of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. These veils would have been a form of ‘undress’, and with the lady's gesture of hand on heart, indicate that this is a private love token.

Unfortunately the red pigment used at that time for painting features fades easily, and here one can only imagine the striking effect the colour of her cheeks and lips would have had, seen within the cool monochrome of this elegant work.

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read Portrait miniatures at the V&A In 1857, the year the new South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) opened to the public, the museum acquired its first portrait miniature – an image of Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard. The miniature, housed in an enamelled gold locket with a jewelled cover, is a rare survival as most E...

Object details

Categories
Portraits
Paintings
Object type
Portrait miniature
TitleUnknown woman, formerly called Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on vellum stuck to plain card
Watercolour
Vellum
Cardboard
Painting
Brief description
Portrait miniature of an unknown woman, formerly called Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, watercolour on vellum, painted by Isaac Oliver, 1596-1600.
Physical description
Portrait miniature of a woman, circular, half-length, in a carved frame with scrolling at the edges.
Dimensions
  • Diameter: 130mm
  • Frame (max) height: 214mm
  • Frame (max) width: 200mm
  • Frame (max) depth: 30mm
Dimensions taken from: Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620.. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Content description
Portrait of a woman, half-length, looking to front, with her right hand held to her breast. The sitter is wearing a veiled headdress which extends to her shoulders.
Styles
Elizabethan
Tudor
English School
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'IO' (Signed at bottom left)
  • 'The Lady Frances Howard Countess of Essex and Somerset, by Isaac Oliver; from the collection of James West, president of the Royal Society, H. W. 1773.' (Inscribed on the reverse in the hand of Horace Walpole)
Credit line
Purchased with Art Fund support and the assistance of the Pilgrim Trust
Object history
COLLECTIONS: James West (1704?-1772); sold at Langford’s 27th February 1773 (lot 74): “A large and remarkable fine haead of the Countess of Somerset”; bought Morgan, £3.17.6; Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill (Description of the Villa…at Strawberry Hill, 1774, p. 98); sold Strawberry Hill sale, May 9th 1842 (13th day) (lot 52); bought by the 13th Earl of Derby for 18gns; Earl of Derby at Knowsley Hall; sold Christie’s June 8th 1971 (lot 80); purchased by the V&A with the aid of the N.A.C.F. and the Pilgrim Trust.
Subjects depicted
Veils
Woman
Jewellery
Frances Howard
Summary
This miniature, one of Oliver's masterpieces, could not be more different from the brightly coloured, brightly lit, iconic formality of his master, Nicholas Hilliard. An example of the influence that Oliver's trip in 1596 to Italy had on him, it is a virtuoso performance of chiaroscuro, or 'light and shade', rendered in monochromatic colouring, with subtle gradations from grey into grey-black, and delicately touched with white, gold and silver. The figure emerges from the shadows enveloped in billowing veils and with an elusive and enigmatic half smile reminiscent of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. These veils would have been a form of ‘undress’, and with the lady's gesture of hand on heart, indicate that this is a private love token.

Unfortunately the red pigment used at that time for painting features fades easily, and here one can only imagine the striking effect the colour of her cheeks and lips would have had, seen within the cool monochrome of this elegant work.
Bibliographic references
  • Snodin, Michael, ed. Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2009. xv, 368 p. : col. ill. ISBN: 978-0-300-12574-0.
  • Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983. Cat. 271, p. 163. Part Citation: This miniature is one of Oliver’s largest and finest painted from life. From its first appearance at the close of the 18th century it was identified as Frances Howard, Countess of Essex and alter Countess of Somerset (1593-1632), the notorious beauty whose career came to an end at the discovery of her murder by poison of Sir Thomas Overbury. Her iconography is thin but the oil portraits that depict her do agree in terms of the grey eyes and fair hair. To be her, however, the costume would have to be not earlier than 1609, when, at sixteen, she took up her role in court life in Jonson’s Masque of Queens. Enveloping veils similar, but not identical, to these occur in pictures about 1615 (e.g. Gheeraerts Catherine Killigrew, Lady Jermyn, dated 1614, Roy Strong, The English Icon, pl. 285 (no. 278)). This is deceptive for the real dating of the miniature depends on the dress beneath which can only be 1590’s. The line of the sleeves and outersleeves, with their narrow lace cuff and the farthingale, are paralleled exactly in the Ditchley Portrait of Elizabeth I, c. 1590-92 (ibid, p. 289 (285)). It is a silhouette which lasts throughout the 1590’s but which is suddenly abandoned with the new reign, when sleeves went tight upon the arms. The hair, which is composed almost into a halo surrounding the head with tiny ringlets near the ears, is similarly a feature of the 1590’s (e.g. ibid, p. 278, (no. 265), 295 (nos. 296-297)). The miniature is no doubt intended as a love token because her hand is placed on her heart as in Hilliard’s Young Man Among Roses [P.163-1910]. The veils may be a fashionable form of “undress” because to complete her formal attire she would discard the veils and add a fan-shaped ruff and adorn her hair with a jewelled head-dress. Until now the dating of the miniature has always been to the Jacobean period, based on the inaccurate identification of the sitter and on a parallel miniature of another lady of the same size, that of Oliver's Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford (Fitzwilliam Museum) the costume for which, however, is correct for 1615. There is no reason why Oliver should not have repeated the effect a decade later. His style and technique did not change and it is no argument as to date. The V&A miniature is one of Oliver’s masterpieces. It is faded which, to an extent, must be taken into account for, originally, the impact of the carnations of the face and rose of the lips must have been even more striking in contrast to the virtuoso chiaroscuro essay that dominates the image, conceived in terms of grey into grey-black with touches of white and highlights of gold and silver. The sitter was clearly a lady of high rank but we have not clues as to her identity."
  • p. 161 Catharine MacLeod with Rab MacGibbon, Victoria Button, Katherine Coombs and Alan Derbyshire.‎ Elizabethan treasures : miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver. London : National Portrait Gallery, 2019.‎ ISBN: 9781855147027‎
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
P.12-1971

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16411/unknown-woman-formerly-called-frances-portrait-miniature-oliver-isaac/
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