Last week I visited the ‘On the Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women 1535-1620’ exhibition at Montacute House in Somerset.
The exhibition includes the ‘Unknown woman, formerly known as Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey).’
The following information is on display next to the portrait.
An unknown woman called Lady Jane Grey
By unknown artist
Oil on panel 1555-60
When it was acquired by the NPG in 1887, this small, circular portrait was identified as Lady Jane Grey because of its similarity to a seventeenth-century panel painting in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. However, no authenticated, contemporary likeness of the young queen has yet been found. Lady Jane Grey was executed in 1554 at the age of seventeen after reigning for just nine days.
Recent research indicates that the sitter may, in fact, be Queen Elizabeth I when a princess.
The richly dressed sitter was clearly a young woman of high status. The size and format of the panel and the sitter’s direct, outward gaze suggest that this might have been kept as a treasured personal memento.
For details about the recent research, see blog entry 28 May 2008.
The exhibition also includes portraits of the following: Margaret Pole (Countess of Salisbury), Elizabeth Hardwick, Unknown woman (formerly thought to be Mary Queen of Scots), Unknown woman (probably Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, Elizabeth Vernon (Countess of Southampton), Mary Throckmorton (Lady Scudamore) and Frances Howard (Countess of Somerset).
Montacute House, a regional partner of the ‘National Portrait Gallery,’ also has other paintings on display. These include: Richard III, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Unknown woman formerly known as Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Wyatt and Robert Dudley.
For further information about the exhibition.
Some of the portraits on display
National Portrait Gallery What’s On
National Portrait Gallery – Press Release
The exhibition runs from 30 April 2008 to October 2009. See the National Trust Montacute House website for which months of the year the House is open.
