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Lot Essay
Courtier, author and the 'witty godson' to both Queen Elizabeth I and William Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, the sitter was the eldest son of John Harington (d. 1582) and his second wife, Isabell Markham (d. 1579). He was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1581, but left to take possession of the family estate in Kelston, near Bath, on his father's death in 1582. In September the following year, he married Mary (d. 1634), daughter of George Rogers (d. 1582), of Cannington, Somerset, and grand-daughter of Edward Rogers (d. 1568), a prominent office-holder under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I.
Harington gained great renown as a poet, epigrammatist, satirical observer of human foibles and as a translator. While still attending Eton College in the 1570s, he translated into Latin the story of Elizabeth's sufferings during the reign of Mary Tudor from Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which he then presented to the Queen. He received advice on his studies from the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, while studying at King's College, Cambridge, between 1576 and 1581. Harington mastered the first complete translation into English of Ludovico Ariosto's epic romance poem Orlando Furioso, which he dedicated to Elizabeth I in 1591; and he presented a translation of the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid to King James in 1604. Harington is also popularly credited as the inventor of the water-closet, a device he outlined the design of (with illustrations supplied by his servant, the emblematist Thomas Combe) in his New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596).
Elizabeth I was a guest of the Haringtons at Kelston in 1592 and this double portrait may have been painted to celebrate that event. It is one of only two contemporary portraits of Sir John and the only recorded portrait of his wife, whom he addressed affectionately in some of his best letters as 'Sweet Mall'. The other portrait of Sir John, also attributed to Hieronimos Custodis, was sold in the Harington sale in 1942, as lot 96 (see Strong, op. cit., p. 203, no. 161). The Antwerp painter Hieronimos Custodis probably came to England to escape religious persecution after the surrender of Antwerp to the Duque de Alba in 1585. Only three signed and dated portraits by the artist survive, all painted in 1589.
We are grateful to Karen Hearn for her thoughts on this portrait.
Harington gained great renown as a poet, epigrammatist, satirical observer of human foibles and as a translator. While still attending Eton College in the 1570s, he translated into Latin the story of Elizabeth's sufferings during the reign of Mary Tudor from Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which he then presented to the Queen. He received advice on his studies from the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, while studying at King's College, Cambridge, between 1576 and 1581. Harington mastered the first complete translation into English of Ludovico Ariosto's epic romance poem Orlando Furioso, which he dedicated to Elizabeth I in 1591; and he presented a translation of the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid to King James in 1604. Harington is also popularly credited as the inventor of the water-closet, a device he outlined the design of (with illustrations supplied by his servant, the emblematist Thomas Combe) in his New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596).
Elizabeth I was a guest of the Haringtons at Kelston in 1592 and this double portrait may have been painted to celebrate that event. It is one of only two contemporary portraits of Sir John and the only recorded portrait of his wife, whom he addressed affectionately in some of his best letters as 'Sweet Mall'. The other portrait of Sir John, also attributed to Hieronimos Custodis, was sold in the Harington sale in 1942, as lot 96 (see Strong, op. cit., p. 203, no. 161). The Antwerp painter Hieronimos Custodis probably came to England to escape religious persecution after the surrender of Antwerp to the Duque de Alba in 1585. Only three signed and dated portraits by the artist survive, all painted in 1589.
We are grateful to Karen Hearn for her thoughts on this portrait.