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Lot Essay
This enigmatic miniature is first recorded at Castle Howard and illustrated in Lord Ronald Gower's two volume work The Great Historic Galleries of England published in 1882 and has ever since provoked debate, discussion and even obsession. The pure Elizabethan image of the hand of a young gentleman clasping another hand descending from a cloud, combined with a seemingly baffling Latin motto, an unidentified sitter and a version in the Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. no. P.21-1942) has never been fully deciphered.
A recent technical examination of the present miniature alongside the miniature in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the first time the two have been compared side by side, has shone more light on the way in which both portraits were painted and has highlighted the differences between Hilliard's accepted work and this studio work, dating to circa 1588. Although the work at the Victoria & Albert Museum has faded, the sitter's left cheek is damaged and left pupil is chipped, the modelling of the sitter's face especially in the nose and the eyebrows, the gold border painted on top of the blue background and on which the clouds sit, the creation of the jewels in the sitter's hat, and the burnished gold in the flowing Latin motto are all characteristic of Hilliard's expert hand. In contrast, the present portrait demonstrates signficantly less modelling of the facial features and the hands and an absence of Hilliard's distinctive 'blobs' of black paint to form the pupils. The gold used in the Latin motto is not burnished and lacks the flourish of Hilliard's work and the blue background is not floated to extend to the extreme edges of the vellum support, but stops where the gold border and the cloud begin. The studio artist must have had direct refence to Hilliard's work as the technical examination of the two miniatures suggests that the present version is a direct copy of the one by Hilliard, with the slight variation in colour of the sitter's hat and of the lace collar and cuffs, and would therefore explain why there is less modelling in the present miniature. The provenance of the Hilliard miniature at the Victoria & Albert Museum can perhaps be traced back to a sale in May 1726 from the collectionof a writer, Mr Halstead 'there likewise several hds of Hilliard with writing about, gold letters. One of Leonard Dorns Aeta. 37. Ano<\sup> 1591...another Aeta. 33. 1611. the Earl of Essex. 1588. William Earl of Pembroke by Hoskins' (G. Vertue, 'Notebooks, II', The Walpole Society, XX, 1932, p. 13), acquired by Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) and passed with his collection to the British Museum in 1754, where it is recorded in the Sloane Inventory as 'The picture of the Earl of Essex in whose hand is another coming from the clouds, supposed to be that of Queen Elizabeth, wrote upon Attici Amoris Ergo 1588 in miniature'. It was purchased or valued at £2.2.od and transferred to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1939.
Katherine Coombs, Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum raised the question of the sitter's identity in her opening paper to a conference at the National Portrait Gallery in 2001. Possible sitters have ranged from Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565-1601); Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) (discussed by K. LeRiche, 1953, op. cit.); Anthony Jenkinson (1529-1610/11) (put forward by Margaret Morton in The Jenkinson Story, 1962); Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) (put forward in a letter to the Department of Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1968); Lord Thomas Howard (1561-1626), or possibly a portrait of him, as put forward by Sir Roy Strong in the 1983 exhibition Artists of the Tudor Court (op. cit.); Sir George Carew (1555-1629) (put forward by Stephen and Elizabeth Usherwood in 'The Counter Armada, 1956: The Journal of the Mary Rose', 1983); Lord William Howard (1563-1640) (suggested by Huon Mallalieu in 'Around the Saleroom', Country Life, 1993) to Arthur Dudley, the so-called bastard son of Elizabeth I and Sir Robert Dudley (1532/3-1588) (examined by Melanie Taylor in her novel The Truth of the Line, 2013). But it was Dr Leslie Hotson, an American scholar of Elizabethan literary puzzles who first saw and fell in love with the present miniature in 1958 (and later purchased it) who argued in his book Shakespeare by Hilliard, A Portrait Deciphered (op. cit.) that the sitter was none other than William Shakespeare. Hotson was convinced that Shakespeare was depicted as Mercury, grasping the hand of Apollo and that the Latin motto could be translated as 'Athenians because of love'. Hotson read allusions to Mercury in the sitter's plumed hat of amethystine hue, he argued that the spangled hat band was connected to Argos and that the squared motifs of the collar and buttons represent the god's favoured number four. He saw Apollo in the young white hand, and the extended healing forefinger of that hand appearing from seven clouds (seven being Apollo's favoured number). Hotson's book was met with scepticism. The hand descending from the cloud appears to belong to a lady, based on depiction of the frilled lace cuff and the pinkish sleeve. The clasped hands are a symbol of concord and plighted faith, presumably between the sitter and the unseen lady. This particular design choice would have most likely emerged from a discussion between the sitter and the artist surrounding the commission of the miniature.
The indexes and inventories at Castle Howard do not detail the Carlisle collection of miniatures, which has over the years been depleted in number to around one hundred today. Although the present work can be placed at Castle Howard in 1882, no miniatures were mentioned in the 1825 or 1849 probate inventories. The 1865 probate inventory for George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802-1864) lists a set of block references to miniatures 'in a bookcase in a small room'. They are not identified but number fifty. George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle (1843-1911), himself an accomplished painter and friend to many in the Pre-Raphaelite Movement including Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and William Morris (1834-1896), lent miniatures to the great exhibitions of the late 19th century; twelve to the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition of Portait Miniatures in 1889, including works catalogued as 'portrait of a lady in high ruff, N. Hilliard', Case XXIX, no. 25, and J. J. Foster noted in 1898 'that the collection at Castle Howard is one of great interest and value. It is largely of a family nature and contains examples by Cooper, Lens, Cosway, Plimer and other well known artists' (J. J. Foster, British Miniature Painters and their Works, London, 1898, p. 103). Viscount Morpeth's sale at Sotheby's in 1959 included four miniatures catalogued as by Nicholas Hilliard. Lot 116 was a miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard, now in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 1406). The sitter had been identified as Raleigh by C. S. Emden in 1953 but the miniature had not been illustrated in Gower's publication of 1882 (op. cit.). Lot 114 was a miniature of a lady wearing a high ruff and holding her right hand to her breast and had, in 1882, been captioned as Frances, Countess of Essex, a companion miniature to the present lot. Lot 113 was catalogued by Sotheby's as an Elizabethan Gallant by Nicholas Hilliard, dated 1576, and is now accepted as a portrait of Charles Howard, Baron Howard of Effingham by Nicholas Hilliard and is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1960-39).
Sir Roy Strong's suggestion that the sitter is perhaps Lord Thomas Howard derives from the provenance of the present lot from the Howard family of Castle Howard and the presence in the Howard Collection of the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, who served under Lord Thomas Howard on an expedition to the West Indies in 1791. Lord Thomas Howard, later 1st Earl of Suffolk and 1st Baron Howard de Walden was the second son of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk. He commanded the Golden Lion on the attack against the Spanish Armada in 1588 and was knighted by Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham on 25 July 1588, the year in the gold inscription on the present miniature. It is tempting to think that Howard would have been painted in the year in which he was knighted, however the few accepted portraits of him do not coincide with this date and depict him as an older man (see R. Strong, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, London, 1969, I, pp. 359-60).
Though Hilliard's Treatise on the Arte of Limning provides us with a detailed account of the techniques he employed and the environment in which he worked, it lacks any tangible evidence of who he employed to assist him in his studio. One artist who is recorded as having been apprenticed to Hilliard from September 1581 to around 1589 is Rowland Lockey (fl. c. 1581 - c. 1616). The lack of certainty surrounding his oeuvre has led to a less than clear understanding of this elusive artist, however the notes of antiquary William Burton (1575-1645) have led to the identification of some examples of his work: 'Nicholas Hilliard... left... another expert scholler, Mr Rowland Lockey [...], who was both skilful in limning and in oil-works and perspectives; at whose house I once saw a neat piece in oil, containing in one table the picture of Sir John More, a judge of the king's bench, temp. Henry VIII, and of his wife; and of Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, his son, and his wife; and of all the lineal heirs male descended from them; together with each mans' wife, until that present year living.' (J. Nichols, 'Descriptions of Leicestershire', History and Antiquities, p. 490). This passage appears to relate to the signed oil on canvas Thomas More family portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, by Rowland Lockey after Hans Holbein the Younger (NPG 2765). On the basis of this connection, a miniature version in watercolour on vellum, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (P.15-1873) has been attributed to him.
Rowland Lockey seems a plausble attribution for the present miniature given his presence at Hilliard's studio in 1588 and on the grounds that he appears to have been an adept copyist. However, the lack of comparable examples make this attribution difficult to confirm.
We are indebted to Dr Christopher Ridgway, Curator of the Howard Collection, Castle Howard, for his assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.
A recent technical examination of the present miniature alongside the miniature in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the first time the two have been compared side by side, has shone more light on the way in which both portraits were painted and has highlighted the differences between Hilliard's accepted work and this studio work, dating to circa 1588. Although the work at the Victoria & Albert Museum has faded, the sitter's left cheek is damaged and left pupil is chipped, the modelling of the sitter's face especially in the nose and the eyebrows, the gold border painted on top of the blue background and on which the clouds sit, the creation of the jewels in the sitter's hat, and the burnished gold in the flowing Latin motto are all characteristic of Hilliard's expert hand. In contrast, the present portrait demonstrates signficantly less modelling of the facial features and the hands and an absence of Hilliard's distinctive 'blobs' of black paint to form the pupils. The gold used in the Latin motto is not burnished and lacks the flourish of Hilliard's work and the blue background is not floated to extend to the extreme edges of the vellum support, but stops where the gold border and the cloud begin. The studio artist must have had direct refence to Hilliard's work as the technical examination of the two miniatures suggests that the present version is a direct copy of the one by Hilliard, with the slight variation in colour of the sitter's hat and of the lace collar and cuffs, and would therefore explain why there is less modelling in the present miniature. The provenance of the Hilliard miniature at the Victoria & Albert Museum can perhaps be traced back to a sale in May 1726 from the collectionof a writer, Mr Halstead 'there likewise several hds of Hilliard with writing about, gold letters. One of Leonard Dorns Aeta. 37. Ano<\sup> 1591...another Aeta. 33. 1611. the Earl of Essex. 1588. William Earl of Pembroke by Hoskins' (G. Vertue, 'Notebooks, II', The Walpole Society, XX, 1932, p. 13), acquired by Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) and passed with his collection to the British Museum in 1754, where it is recorded in the Sloane Inventory as 'The picture of the Earl of Essex in whose hand is another coming from the clouds, supposed to be that of Queen Elizabeth, wrote upon Attici Amoris Ergo 1588 in miniature'. It was purchased or valued at £2.2.od and transferred to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1939.
Katherine Coombs, Curator of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum raised the question of the sitter's identity in her opening paper to a conference at the National Portrait Gallery in 2001. Possible sitters have ranged from Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565-1601); Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) (discussed by K. LeRiche, 1953, op. cit.); Anthony Jenkinson (1529-1610/11) (put forward by Margaret Morton in The Jenkinson Story, 1962); Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) (put forward in a letter to the Department of Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1968); Lord Thomas Howard (1561-1626), or possibly a portrait of him, as put forward by Sir Roy Strong in the 1983 exhibition Artists of the Tudor Court (op. cit.); Sir George Carew (1555-1629) (put forward by Stephen and Elizabeth Usherwood in 'The Counter Armada, 1956: The Journal of the Mary Rose', 1983); Lord William Howard (1563-1640) (suggested by Huon Mallalieu in 'Around the Saleroom', Country Life, 1993) to Arthur Dudley, the so-called bastard son of Elizabeth I and Sir Robert Dudley (1532/3-1588) (examined by Melanie Taylor in her novel The Truth of the Line, 2013). But it was Dr Leslie Hotson, an American scholar of Elizabethan literary puzzles who first saw and fell in love with the present miniature in 1958 (and later purchased it) who argued in his book Shakespeare by Hilliard, A Portrait Deciphered (op. cit.) that the sitter was none other than William Shakespeare. Hotson was convinced that Shakespeare was depicted as Mercury, grasping the hand of Apollo and that the Latin motto could be translated as 'Athenians because of love'. Hotson read allusions to Mercury in the sitter's plumed hat of amethystine hue, he argued that the spangled hat band was connected to Argos and that the squared motifs of the collar and buttons represent the god's favoured number four. He saw Apollo in the young white hand, and the extended healing forefinger of that hand appearing from seven clouds (seven being Apollo's favoured number). Hotson's book was met with scepticism. The hand descending from the cloud appears to belong to a lady, based on depiction of the frilled lace cuff and the pinkish sleeve. The clasped hands are a symbol of concord and plighted faith, presumably between the sitter and the unseen lady. This particular design choice would have most likely emerged from a discussion between the sitter and the artist surrounding the commission of the miniature.
The indexes and inventories at Castle Howard do not detail the Carlisle collection of miniatures, which has over the years been depleted in number to around one hundred today. Although the present work can be placed at Castle Howard in 1882, no miniatures were mentioned in the 1825 or 1849 probate inventories. The 1865 probate inventory for George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802-1864) lists a set of block references to miniatures 'in a bookcase in a small room'. They are not identified but number fifty. George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle (1843-1911), himself an accomplished painter and friend to many in the Pre-Raphaelite Movement including Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and William Morris (1834-1896), lent miniatures to the great exhibitions of the late 19th century; twelve to the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition of Portait Miniatures in 1889, including works catalogued as 'portrait of a lady in high ruff, N. Hilliard', Case XXIX, no. 25, and J. J. Foster noted in 1898 'that the collection at Castle Howard is one of great interest and value. It is largely of a family nature and contains examples by Cooper, Lens, Cosway, Plimer and other well known artists' (J. J. Foster, British Miniature Painters and their Works, London, 1898, p. 103). Viscount Morpeth's sale at Sotheby's in 1959 included four miniatures catalogued as by Nicholas Hilliard. Lot 116 was a miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard, now in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 1406). The sitter had been identified as Raleigh by C. S. Emden in 1953 but the miniature had not been illustrated in Gower's publication of 1882 (op. cit.). Lot 114 was a miniature of a lady wearing a high ruff and holding her right hand to her breast and had, in 1882, been captioned as Frances, Countess of Essex, a companion miniature to the present lot. Lot 113 was catalogued by Sotheby's as an Elizabethan Gallant by Nicholas Hilliard, dated 1576, and is now accepted as a portrait of Charles Howard, Baron Howard of Effingham by Nicholas Hilliard and is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 1960-39).
Sir Roy Strong's suggestion that the sitter is perhaps Lord Thomas Howard derives from the provenance of the present lot from the Howard family of Castle Howard and the presence in the Howard Collection of the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, who served under Lord Thomas Howard on an expedition to the West Indies in 1791. Lord Thomas Howard, later 1st Earl of Suffolk and 1st Baron Howard de Walden was the second son of Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk. He commanded the Golden Lion on the attack against the Spanish Armada in 1588 and was knighted by Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham on 25 July 1588, the year in the gold inscription on the present miniature. It is tempting to think that Howard would have been painted in the year in which he was knighted, however the few accepted portraits of him do not coincide with this date and depict him as an older man (see R. Strong, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, London, 1969, I, pp. 359-60).
Though Hilliard's Treatise on the Arte of Limning provides us with a detailed account of the techniques he employed and the environment in which he worked, it lacks any tangible evidence of who he employed to assist him in his studio. One artist who is recorded as having been apprenticed to Hilliard from September 1581 to around 1589 is Rowland Lockey (fl. c. 1581 - c. 1616). The lack of certainty surrounding his oeuvre has led to a less than clear understanding of this elusive artist, however the notes of antiquary William Burton (1575-1645) have led to the identification of some examples of his work: 'Nicholas Hilliard... left... another expert scholler, Mr Rowland Lockey [...], who was both skilful in limning and in oil-works and perspectives; at whose house I once saw a neat piece in oil, containing in one table the picture of Sir John More, a judge of the king's bench, temp. Henry VIII, and of his wife; and of Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, his son, and his wife; and of all the lineal heirs male descended from them; together with each mans' wife, until that present year living.' (J. Nichols, 'Descriptions of Leicestershire', History and Antiquities, p. 490). This passage appears to relate to the signed oil on canvas Thomas More family portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, by Rowland Lockey after Hans Holbein the Younger (NPG 2765). On the basis of this connection, a miniature version in watercolour on vellum, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (P.15-1873) has been attributed to him.
Rowland Lockey seems a plausble attribution for the present miniature given his presence at Hilliard's studio in 1588 and on the grounds that he appears to have been an adept copyist. However, the lack of comparable examples make this attribution difficult to confirm.
We are indebted to Dr Christopher Ridgway, Curator of the Howard Collection, Castle Howard, for his assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.