Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 2 (of 2)Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
History
Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 2 (of 2)
Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543 -- Criticism and interpretation; Painters -- Germany -- Biography
ETATIS SVÆ XVII.” In appearance she is stolid and unattractive, but this
may be partly due to the present state of the picture.
Footnote 456:
Woltmann, 22. Reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 141.
Footnote 457:
Woltmann, 260. Reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 144.
There remains one other portrait of a lady of about this date—that of
Lady Rich,[458] which until 1912 had been for many years in the
possession of the Moseley family at Buildwas Park, Shropshire. The
sitter is represented to the waist, slightly turned to the right, and
wears the English diamond-shaped hood with black fall, and a black dress
with a gold medallion decorated with the figures of a man and woman by a
corpse, which, according to Wornum, are “exquisitely put in.”[459]
According to the same writer, it is “a fine expressive portrait, with a
thin rich carnation.” It is painted on wood, 17 in. by 13 in., and has
suffered some retouching. The face is a most determined one, as can be
seen from the fine preliminary drawing in the Windsor Castle
Collection.[460] Lady Rich was the daughter and heiress of William Jenks
or Gynkes, a rich London grocer, and she married, in 1535, Lord
Chancellor Rich, of notorious memory, who helped to ruin many of the
prominent men of his day, such as More and Fisher. In the seventeenth
century the portrait became the property of the Rev. Herbert Croft,
Bishop of Hereford, whose granddaughter, Elizabeth Croft, married Acton
Moseley, of Staffordshire. In 1792 the portrait, with some other
pictures, was bequeathed by Sir Archer Croft to his cousin, Mr. Walter
Michael Moseley. The latter’s descendant, Captain H. R. Moseley, parted
with the picture in 1912, and it is now in an American collection.[461]
It was last exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition at South
Kensington in 1866 as a portrait of “Queen Katherine of Arragon.” There
is also a drawing of her husband, Richard Rich,[462] at Windsor, and
Holbein must almost certainly have painted his portrait, but all traces
of it have been lost. A version of it was among the pictures destroyed
by fire at Knepp Castle in 1904.
Footnote 458:
Woltmann, 128.
Footnote 459:
Wornum, p. 296.
Footnote 460:
Woltmann, 319; Wornum, ii. 37; Holmes, ii. 10.
Footnote 461:
For a fuller history of the picture, see an article in _The Morning
Post_, May 23rd, 1912.
Footnote 462:
Woltmann, 318; Wornum, i. 8; Holmes, ii. 9.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S SELF-PORTRAITS]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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