Yes, it’s that time of year again! I must be getting old as it only seems five minutes so I was putting together last year’s Advent calendar! Time really does fly!
This year, we have a theme – portraits. Each day, I’m going to be sharing with you an interesting Tudor period portrait and giving you some facts – details about the portrait or sitter etc. I do hope you enjoy the daily treats.
You can access the calendar by clicking here and then clicking on the relevant day. Do remember to check back on a daily basis. I will be posting on a daily basis to remind you, though.
Today is also the first Sunday of Advent and if you’re interested in reading what Anne would have read from her copy of French Reformer Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples’ “Epistres et Evangiles pour les cinquante et deux semaines de l’an”, or “Epistles and Gospels for the 52 Weeks of the Year”, then you can click here.
Dear Claire,
Thank you for your studies, your dedication, your empathy . The Tudors, wherever they may be now, will smile at you.
Mariella
Thank you so much, Mariella!
Look forward to this every year
Me too!
I love seeing the portraits of the Tudor characters and Holbein really was the master of them all, his sketch of Jane Seymour makes her look quite pretty yet with paint she does looks plain, iv noticed something about her right eye, it seems to be larger than her left and the painting by a foreign artist of the elderly man staring full face at us is so incredibly lifelike, see the veins in his hands and the lines in his face, it is like a photo, the joint portrait of Mary 1st with her husband I agree is rather odd, Mary is in proportion unlike her husband who looks top heavy and yes he has awful spindly legs, I bet his contemporaries used to chuckle at him, in fact men’s legs are dreadful, which I think is why Henry V111 did like to draw attention to his own, he was very proud of his shapely calves, in Philip you can see the Hapsburg jaw even though he’s wearing a beard, he was said to be good looking but I cannot see how anyone with such a jaw can be considered as such! Mary as we know adored him but sadly, her love was not reciprocated.
This latest portrait of the Sidney family is enchanting to say the least, a different world a different age, did people really dress like that did little boys wear long skirts like their sisters? The past is romantic because it takes us into a era where there were no ugly steel buildings no cars no noisy lorries on motorways, just beautiful fields and country lanes with the carriages of the rich rumbling over them with their fine horses, the tall majestic buildings with their mullioned windows and ornate carvedTudor chimneys, even the dwellings of the poor must have looked pretty then with smoke coming from the little chimneys, it is indeed a different world which is lost to us forever.
The Cholmondeley pronounced Chumley sisters portrait I must add I’m not that keen on, they look like cardboard cut outs with their babes, they look stiff and wooden as do their children there is no vestige of life in them, they were twins and at first glance as the Tate website records, they look identical but a closer study of their features shows they are not, one has a long nose and a wider mouth than the other, but they were both pale skinned and dark haired and look of slender build even after giving birth, of course it is not possible to say much on that subject as they are dressed in the ornate white gowns of the period, the painting is by an unknown artist and he possibly was not a professional but could have been hired cheaply by the girls mother, as she was involved in a long inheritance dispute, still it is an interesting picture.
Darnley painted beside his younger brother Charles is a beautiful painting yet these two siblings although born into an aristocratic family with links to both the English and Scottish crowns were also ill fated, Darnley as history tells us was murdered at the age of twenty /twenty one and Charles too died young it is believed of consumption, their royal blood caused animosity between them and Queen Elizabeth, the former- for his marriage to the young queen of Scots who was seen by many as the queens heir in waiting, was deemed both dangerous and presumptuous of both Darnley and Mary, and Charles who also risked Elizabeth’s displeasure for secretly marrying Bess of Hardwick’s daughter, Bess and her husband the Earl of Shrewsbury being joint custodians of Mary, his daughter Arbella or Arabella Stuart who became one of Mary’s companions was also ill fated, dying in captivity in the Tower of London, having been incarcerated by her cousin James 1st, an unlucky family indeed, in this they were about as fortunate as their Tudor cousins the unhappy Grey sisters, who also suffered because of their closeness to the English crown, this painting shows two young boys although by the day Henry was considered an adult, his angelic looks belied his cruel vicious and weak personality, born with royal blood he possessed not one decent trait that made him worthy to be the consort of the young vivacious and equally tragic Mary, a match that Mary pursued with ardour was one she bitterly came to resent and leads one to ask the hotly debated question, ‘ did this queen plot to have him killed was she the writer of the infamous casket letters’? Another puzzle to which history sadly leaves us guessing!
It’s not a very flattering portrait so if it was painted as part of a marriage proposal it’s hardly surprising wedding bells never appeared, but saying that, I have always been struck by Henry’s facial likeness to his mother, the indomitable Lady Margaret Beaufort, the jutting cheekbones the hooked nose, in looks his son Henry V111 took after his Plantagenet mother with her round face and rosy fair colouring, Henry V11 was described as being handsome in his youth tall, with fair hair but bad teeth, and the cast taken of his skull shows he still had a vestige of good looks about him, he was forty eight at the time this portrait was painted and maybe the stress of his rule aged him prematurely and robbed his countenance of any charm he may have possessed.
I agree it is an interesting painting, and a piece of pr for Protestantism, the figure of Henry V111 pointing towards his son and heir Edward V1, with the hapless figure of the pope sprawled rather undignified at his feet, with the words unholy and idolatry across his chest, and in the top right of the painting, men destroying the holy relics of the Catholic Church, Queen Elizabeth must have been delighted at this painting as it represented the struggle of the break with Rome, and the victory of the union between her beloved parents.
Yes this is a very beautiful painting of a young lady recently identified as Jane Grey, the cleft in the chin is visible and is no where in the portraits of the Princess Elizabeth or when she was queen, we can also see Jane resembled her older cousin as both had long oval faces and long noses, but Jane Greys was much straighter, Elizabeth inheriting her fathers hooked nose, both had the red hair and pale skin of the Tudors yet Jane was short and thin, and Elizabeth much taller, however, both were learned and cultured, Jane especially had a ferocious intellect and is said to have been more of a prodigy than her cousin, they both shared studies with Roger Ascham who in reminiscence about his younger pupil, recalled the bitterness of her harsh life with her parents, whether that was true we do not know, but Tudor parents were exceptionally harsh by todays standards, and in fact possibly by other centuries as well, gazing at the pensive face of this young woman it is sad that such youth, such a brilliant mind was wasted on the scaffold.
Hans Eworth painting of Mary is beautiful with its rich colouring and detail, we can see when young she must have been a very pretty child, she has a soft round face her mothers nose and her brown eyes, and as both parents were auburn haired she was bound to have the same colouring.
Another wonderful painting by the very talented Hans Eworth, in this study the three goddesses Juno Minerva and Venus, are being dazzled by Gloriana who surpasses all three by her beauty grace, wisdom and strength, how her contemporaries fawned over this queen! Was she really held in such high regard it seems so? But it was all just a PR stunt, she immortalised eternal youth and beauty and was represented as this ageless iconic monarch and maybe in the end, she came to believe it herself, but of course though she was born of royal blood and however much her courtiers and diplomats and foreign visitors praised her, even comparing herself to the immortals, she was only all too human and aged and died like the rest of us, a beautiful painting with a lovely building and fields in the distance, Venus is shown with a little cherub, maybe her son Adonis?
Interesting painting, an allegory of the Tudor succession, must add Philips legs still look spindly in this one!
Sorry I forgot to click on Xmas eve dear Claire, been so busy and tired rushing around all the time, I hope you are having a wonderful Xmas day with your family, your advent calendar is delightful thanks so much because I know you work very hard throughout the year and the advent calendar is a double treat in December, your Xmas message was lovely, seeing the different scenes come up, take care and looking forward to your next posts xx