Portrait of an unknown woman
Portrait Miniature
1585-1590 (painted)
1585-1590 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Portrait miniature of a young woman, oval, head and shoulders; there is a queen printed on the reverse of the backing sheet.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Portrait of an unknown woman (popular title) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour on vellum stuck to a playing card |
| Brief description | Portrait miniature of an unknown woman, ca. 1585-1590, watercolour on vellum, painted by Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619). |
| Physical description | Portrait miniature of a young woman, oval, head and shoulders; there is a queen printed on the reverse of the backing sheet. |
| Dimensions |
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| Content description | Portrait of a woman, head and shoulders, looking to front and wearing a ruff and a pearl earring. |
| Gallery label | Nicholas Hilliard 1547-1619
Unknown Woman
About 1585-90
Watercolour on vellum, stuck to a playing card
Purchased from the Earl of Radnor with the aid of a special Treasury Grant
Museum no. P.2-1974 |
| Object history | Provenance: This is one of a group of five miniatures that were acquired from the Earl of Radnor in 1974. The documentation on their history was first published by W. B. Squire and the Countess of Radnor in the catalogue of the collection at Longford Castle published in 1909. They came with a memorandum listing other items, most now untraceable, on August 2nd 1796 when they were purchased by the 2nd Earl of Radnor from a Mrs Anne Lewis for £52.10s. This is one of five miniatures from the Radnor collection (P.1 to 5-1974), all of which were reframed at the time of acquisition for conservation reasons and are now housed in 1970s frames. The original ivory box and lid for each medallion is currently held in storage. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Associated object | |
| Bibliographic reference | Strong, Roy. Artists of the Tudor Court: the Portrait Miniature Rediscovered 1520-1620.. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983.
Cat. 87, pp. 77-78. Part Citation:
Vellum stuck to a playing card with a queen showing on the reverse, oval, 46 x 39 mm, 1 3/16 x 1 ½ in.
Datable on costume to c. 1585-90 this is a relatively unfaded miniature with only very slight flaking. It is of fine autograph quality, reflecting Hilliard’s characteristic response to the charm of his young sitter. V. J. Murrell observes that the highlights of the pearls in the hair are deliberately painted with gold rather than, as was usual, with silver in order to heighten the warm reflections from the sitter’s hair. It is another instance of Hilliard’s use of the “close-up” as a portrait formula.
The identity of the sitter ought to lie with the family of Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Drury. It could depict her daughter, Frances, wife of Sir Nicholas Clifford.
COLLECTIONS: This is one of five miniatures that were acquired from the Earl of Radnor in 1974. The documentation on their history was first published by W. B. Squire and the Countess of Radnor in the catalogue of the collection at Longford Castle published in 1909. They came with a memorandum listing other items, most now untraceable, on August 2nd 1796 when they were purchased by the 2nd Earl of Radnor from a Mrs Anne Lewis for £52.10s.
“Original Portraits of / Queen Elizabeth /Mary Queen of Scots / James 1st / Lord Darnly / Rizzo / and two others / A Letter written by Queen Elizabeth to her / Maid of Honor Lady Rich upon her unhappy Marriage - / A Letter from Lady Rich to her daughter - / A curious smelling Bottle (oval) Spoon - / Hair pins, Coins and sundry antiquities - / The Cabinet was given by Queen Elizabeth to / Lady Rich – And by her Ladyship it was given to / the family of the present Professor – And has / never been in any other hands –“
This memorandum survives and other items listed those which are survive are five out of the seven miniatures and two letters which are still at Longford (information kindly communicated by Lord Radnor). One letter (undated) is from Lettice Rich, Lady Carey, to her mother, the celebrated Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich. The second is from Queen Elizabeth to Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Drury, on the occasion of the death of her husband, Sir William, in 1589. Of the two miniatures now missing, Squire records that one was set in a brooch for a fancy dress ball.
The cabinet in which these things were kept, Squire records, contained the following memorandum no longer traceable:
“The Cabinet was given by Q. Elizabeth to Lady Rich Maid of Honour to Q. Eliz. Her Daughter marr’d Sir Cecil / Christ Wray. His daughter married in to Askew’s Family. A Daughter of Askew’s Family married my Grandf. Ashton. This was I think Aunt Ludlam’s Account, 1739”.
There are from this evidence two possible lines of descent. The first, more romantic but less likely, is from Penelope Devereux, daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, wife of Robert Rich, 2nd Lord Rich and later 1st Earl of Warrick and celebrated as Sidney’s “Stella” and later mistress and subsequently wife of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire. For this to work the miniatures would have had to have passed via her first husband, whom she divorced in 1605, to his brother-in-law (by his second marriage to Frances Wray), William, husband of Lady Drury’s daughter, Frances.
The more likely descent is from Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Drury, who was Lady of the Bedchamber and the Privy Chamber to the Queen. In this instance the descent is: Elizabeth Stafford, wife of Sir William Drury of Hawsted, Suffolk; her daughter Frances, who married firstly, Sir Nicholas Clifford and secondly Sir William Wray (not Sir Cecil of Sir Christopher as on the memorandum); her daughter, Lady Ayscough; her daughter Elizabeth, Lady Ashton; her daughter, Anne, Mrs Ludlam, aunt of Mrs Anne Lewis who sold the miniatures to the Earl of Radnor.
LITERATURE: Countess of Radnor and W. B. Squire Catalogue of the Collection of the Earl of Radnor, 1909, II, p. 109 (2).
Pope-Hennessy, Lecture, 1949, p. 23.
V&A 1947 (41).
Auerbach, Hilliard, pp. 97-8, pl. 71; 298 (68).
Strong, “The Radnor Miniatures”, Christie’s Review of the Season, 1974, ed. John Herbert, 1974, pp. 254-57.” |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | P.2:1-1974 |
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| Record created | July 8, 2003 |
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