Hans Eworth Sold at Auction Prices

Circle of Hans Eworth (Flemish, fl. 1540-1574) 3rd Quarter of the 16th Century

Circle of Hans Eworth (Flemish, fl. 1540-1574) 3rd Quarter of the 16th Century Portrait of Lady Mary FitzAlan, Duchess of Norfolk (1540-1557) head and shoulders, in red, wearing a magnificent jewel oil on panel 47 x 31cm Footnote: Provenance: Sale, London, Sotheby's, 11th October 1961, lot 98, as English School, 16th Century as of an unknown lady, for £20, where acquired by the present owner's father and thence by descent Literature: cf. Diana Scarisbrick, “Jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean Portraits at New Haven”, in Apollo, vol. CXXVI, no. 309, November 1987, p. 326 The sitter was the second daughter and in her own right, eventual sole heiress of the 19th (or 12th) Earl of Arundel and married in 1555 as his first wife, Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1537/8-1572) Earl Marshall of England. The following year her first child, Lady Anne, died shortly after birth. Then in 1557, on the 28th of June, she gave birth to a healthy son, Philip, who was christened four days later at Whitehall Palace in a gold font with King Philip II of Spain standing sponsor in person, whilst Mary lay dying. She lingered for eight weeks and was buried with great pomp in the Church of St Clement Dane. Like his father, Philip FitzAlan Howard (1557-95) fell foul of Elizabeth I's deep fear and distrust of Mary, Queen of Scots (whom the 4th Duke had conspired to marry as his fourth wife and thus restore Catholicism to England with him as 'King consort') and was stripped of all his honours for adhering to the Catholic faith. He died in the Tower after ten years of imprisonment and was canonised in 1970. Yet in 1660, Lady Mary's great-great-grandson was restored to the Dukedom of Norfolk and thus brought together the vast FitzAlan and Howard estates and possessions. A three-quarter length portrait of Lady Mary, painted by Hans Eworth to commemorate her celebrated marriage in 1555 (see Roy Strong, 'Hans Eworth Reconsidered', in The Burlington Magazine, May 1966, vol. 108, no. 758, pp. 222+225-231+233) passed to her sister Jane who had married the 1st and last Lord Lumley (of the 1547 creation) and later passed into the collection of the Dukes of Hamilton (see Strong, ibid). It is today in the Yale Center for British Art at New Haven, Connecticut. Hans Eworth was very much painter to the old Catholic circle at the court of Queen Mary I (see Strong, ibid) and an 18th century copy of the Eworth original, increased to full length, is today at Arundel Castle, in the collection of the present and 18th Duke of Norfolk. The literature (Strong, ibid) records no other repetition of any other original or any other likenesses of Lady Mary. The present head-and-shoulder reduction of the Eworth prototype is therefore an important and apparently rare image of the sitter who was, in her short life, at the very centre and at the pinnacle of influence and power in England during the reign of the Catholic Mary I. The young Lady Mary, as would be expected of a woman of her rank, was well-educated and was reputedly capable of translations of ancient text from Greek to Latin (see BL, Royal MSS 12 A. i-iv) and she was by all accounts a sweet-natured and pious girl (see Neville Williams, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Barrie & Rockliff, London, 1964). Though Mary FitzAlan died as a result, the child she bore, in living to adulthood and producing his own male heir, secured the fortunes and future of what can fairly claim to be the 'first family of England' after the Royal House itself. We are grateful to Dr Ian Tyers who has confirmed that the oak this panel came from, was still growing in 1557, the year Duchess Mary died. He has proposed that the tree would have been felled between 1562 and 1580 and the panel used within that time frame. Thus the image was made after the Protestant Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne but before the time Catholic conspiracies and plots were being unravelled by Burghley and Walsingham and before the sitter’s son, Saint Philip, Earl of Arundel came under suspicion and was cast into the Tower of London. The Getty Index lists three paintings identified as of the Duchess of Norfolk (no sizes provided) which may possibly be the present painting. One in particular from its description as being on panel and of “The Duchess of Norfolk, time of Henry the Eight, white shirt and collar, jewel at her breast”, which was sold in Samuel Oxenham, London on 1st June 1832, lot 189, is the most probable option.