In her latest ‘Not Just the Tudors’ podcast, Suzannah Lipscomb visits the ‘The Tudors: Portraits, Power and Politics’ exhibition at The Holburne Museum in Bath.
‘Professor Suzannah Lipscomb walks round the exhibition with curator Monserrat Pis Marcos to discuss the paintings and the turbulent lives of those portrayed.’
The ‘Lady Jayne’ Streatham portrait is part of the exhibition and features in the podcast.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb – ‘And we’ve got Jane. This was only relatively recently identified as Jane, if I remember correctly but she has this gorgeous red embroidery on her shift, lovely detail of the jewels. Funnily enough she looks older than her years and we all know she died as a teenager but she looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Monserrat Pis Marcos – Hardly surprising I would say. We don’t know for sure whether this is a good or a bad likeness of her because there are no surviving portraits of her time as Queen. It is possible that this was painted for a series of Protestant martyrs, so it could have been produced with not necessarily an idea of her likeness in mind but rather just having this gallery of people who had been martyred for their faith.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb – That makes a lot of sense. She is holding a prayer book which gives that image of her being both regal and pious.’
You can listen at Not Just the Tudors / The Tudors: Portraits, Power and Politics
