The artists of the Tudor court were the painters and limners engaged by the English monarchs' Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603 (from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I). Typically managing a group of assistants and apprentices in a workshop or studio, many of these artists produced works across several disciplines, including portrait miniatures, large-scale panel portraits on wood, and illuminated manuscripts.
The Tudor period was, for England, one of unusual isolation from European trends. At the start, the Wars of the Roses had greatly disrupted artistic activity, which apart from architecture had reached a very low ebb by 1485. In the Tudor period, foreign artists were recruited and often welcomed lavishly by the English court, as they were in other artistically marginal parts of Europe like Spain or Naples. The Netherlandish painters remained predominant, though French influence was also important for both Lucas Horenbout, trained in illuminated manuscripts, and Nicholas Hilliard, the founder and greatest exponent of the distinctively English tradition of the portrait miniature. Horenbout's portrait miniature of Katharine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, with its relatively flat subject matter and gold outlines, bears a closer resemblance to illuminated manuscripts than to the realistically modeled classical style appearing elsewhere in Europe at the time.
Katharine of Aragon with a Monkey by Lucas Horenbout, 1525–26.
Miniature.
Possibly the best known painter employed in the court of Henry VIII was the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who worked in the style of the Northern Renaissance. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a record of the court in the years when the king was asserting his supremacy over the English church. By 1533, when Holbein painted his famous double portrait The Ambassadors, Henry VIII had severed the Church of England from Rome when the Pope refused to allow the king to divorce Katharine of Aragon and marry Anne Boelyn.
The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533.
Oil on panel. National Gallery, London.
Although Holbein's sitters Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve were ordained Catholic priests from France, religious symbolism in the painting is significantly subordinated. Almost hidden behind the green curtain in the upper left-hand corner is a crucifix. On the second level of the table between the ambassadors is a lute (typically a symbol of harmony) with a broken string, symbolizing the separation of the English church from Roman Catholicism. The book in front of it provides an explanation for the discord, as it is opened to a hymn to Martin Luther, who began the Protestant Reformation. Unlike Holbein's native land, in which Lutheranism permitted a certain degree of religious imagery, the subject matter in The Ambassadors foreshadows the new direction in religious austerity in English art as Catholicism became less tolerated.
With the virtual extinction of religious painting during the Reformation and little interest in classical mythology until the very end of the period, the portrait was the most important form of painting for all the artists of the Tudor court, and the only form to have survived in any numbers. How many of these have also been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection), containing preparatory drawings for portraits. Of 85 drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived. Portraiture ranged from the informal miniature—almost invariably painted from life in the course of a few days and intended for private contemplation—to the later large-scale portraits of Elizabeth I, such as the Rainbow Portrait, filled with symbolic iconography in dress, jewels, background, and inscription.
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The Rainbow Portrait by Isaac Oliver c. 1600.
This portrait of Elizabeth I as the "Queen of Love and Beauty" epitomizes the elaborate iconography associated with later Tudor court portraiture.
Elizabeth I took a personal interest in painting, keeping her own collection of miniatures locked away, wrapped in paper on which she wrote the names of the sitter. She is reputed to have had paintings of her burnt that did not match the iconic image she wished to be shown. One portrait that she did retain was painted before she ascended the throne. Elizabeth I as Princess (c. 1546), once attributed to William Scrots but now believed to have been painted by Levinia Teerlinc, depicts a young literate woman standing erect and exchanging her gaze with the viewer in the confident manner in which Jean Clouet painted François I of France. Whereas Holbein subordinates the crucifix in The Ambassadors, the only hint at religious symbolism in this portrait of the future Defender of the Faith are the abstract cruciform designs on her brooch and her belt. The book in her hand and on the easel behind her bear no title or writing, allowing them to be interpreted as secular literature, as opposed to Biblical scripture.
Elizabeth I as Princess by Levinia Teerlinc [?], c. 1546.
Oil on panel. Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.
While the portrait style of the classically rendered confident sitter against a decorative background shows French influence, the gender of the sitter was unique to England at the time. Because Henry VIII's only surviving son had died during his adolescence, the English law of succession had to be amended to allow Elizabeth and her elder sister Mary access to the throne. Later portraits of Elizabeth would often depict her holding a globe in her hand to symbolize her growing international power in an age of exploration and conquest. In France, on the other hand, women were barred from serving as sovereign rulers and would never be pictured as possessing such power.