Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 1 (of 2)Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
History
Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 1 (of 2)
Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543 -- Criticism and interpretation; Painters -- Germany -- Biography
Another notable painter from the Low Countries who was a contemporary of
Holbein’s in England, was Johannes Corvus, of Flanders, whose style of
painting can be judged by two well-authenticated portraits—that of
Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, in Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
of which college he was the founder; and that of Princess Mary Tudor,
sister of Henry VIII and widow of Louis XII, painted in 1532, when she
was the wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, which was lent to the
Exhibition of Early English Portraiture at the Burlington Fine Arts Club
in 1909 by Mr. H. Dent-Brocklehurst (No. 28). A similar manner of
painting is to be found in a series of portraits of Princess Mary Tudor,
afterwards Queen, including the one in the National Portrait Gallery,
dated 1544, which is attributed to Corvus in the catalogue. This picture
has much resemblance to a portrait of a Tudor princess, possibly Queen
Elizabeth, belonging to Mrs. Booth, of Glendon Hall,[574] which has
always borne the traditional name of Katherine Parr. To this group may
be added the portrait of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, in the National
Portrait Gallery.[575] If the portraits of Queen Mary are by Corvus, he
may be identified with some certainty as the “one John that drue her
Grace in a table,” for which he received £5 in 1544, as noted in the
Princess Mary’s Privy Purse Expenses.
“Corvus,” says Mr. Cust, “may be safely identified with one Jan Raf, or
Rave, who was admitted to the Guild of Painters at Bruges in 1512, and
with the “Jehan Raf, painctre de Flandres,” who in 1532 painted for
Francis I “une carte ou est figuré les villes et pays d’Angleterre,” and
in 1534, “ung pourtraict de la ville de Londres dont il a ci-devant fait
présent au dict Seigneur.” These entries show that Jehan Raf was sent to
England from France, possibly more than once. The fact that no portraits
are attributed to him in England between 1532 and 1544 may be accounted
for by his return to France during the supremacy of Holbein, after whose
death he found an opportunity of establishing himself at the English
Court.”[576]
With regard to Guillim Stretes, the Dutchman, Gerlach Fliccius, or
Garlicke, as he is termed in the inventory of the pictures in Lumley
Castle made in 1590, and the clever painter who used the monogram H.E.,
whose true identity as one Hans Eworthe or Eewouts has been recently
discovered by Mr. Lionel Cust by means of the same inventory,[577] as no
works of theirs have been so far discovered in this country having a
date prior to that of Holbein’s death in 1543, consideration of them is
reserved until a later chapter dealing with Holbein’s successors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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