When we think of Elizabethan miniatures we tend to think of the wonderfully Hilliard portraits with their stunning azure backgrounds. However before Hilliard there was a professional female artist who created some equally evocative images. The image at the start of this post shows a young Elizabeth Tudor and is the work of Levina Teerlinc.
Levina started work for Henry VIII and in the twenty-first century in an era when we are still talking about the “pay gap” it’s worth noting that such was her repute as an artist was such that her pay was more than that of Holbein who had recently died and vacated the position of court artist. Levina was born in Flanders, the eldest of five daughters to Simon Benninck, a renowned illustrator of manuscripts. Simon must have seen talent in his daughter just as Holbein’s father saw talent in him because Levina trained to be an artist under her father’s tuition in their home town of Bruges.
In 1545 she is seen in the official record with her husband dealing with her father’s accounts suggesting that Simon may have died at this time. This in its turn might suggest why the daughter rather than the father arrived in London. In any event, even if Simon was still alive he may not have been of a mind or in sufficient health to make the journey.
In November 1546 Levina and her husband, George Teerlinc, arrived in London where Levina was paid forty pounds year to be Henry VIII’s court artist. Levina’s salary would go up every year and she would work for every one of the Tudors from Henry VIII onwards. She received £150 after the death of Mary Tudor suggesting that although she was much loved by the queen that her salary hadn’t always been paid. The only problem for art historians is that she did not sign her work.
Teerlinc in her turn was followed by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver. Hilliard thought that creating miniatures was the work of a gentleman rather than a woman not that it seems to have stopped some of the leading women of the period for sitting for Levina. Indeed, it may be that as a woman in Mary and then Elizabeth Tudor’s household that women were more able to sit for their portraits. It was Levina who painted the miniature of Lady Katherine Grey and her son (above). It should be noticed that she is wearing a ribbon round her neck from which a glimpse of another miniature can be seen – of her husband Edward Seymour. It should also be noted, I think, that this image is the first well-known secular image of a mother and child in the brave new Protestant world of Tudor England.
This image of Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney is painted in water-colour in vellum but rather than being mounted on ivory or precious metal the image is stiffened by playing cards.
The miniatures themselves are a bit different from Holbein’s portraits. They were designed to be given as gifts that could be worn, often tucked out of sight. Several of Levina’s appear to have been commissioned as New year gifts. They are painted on vellum in the style of a manuscript artist. In addition to being exchanged by lovers and friends Teerlinc’s works formed the basis for other jewellery as well as for the Great Seal. She may have even written a text on how to make a limning as these miniatures were known and trained Hilliard who gained prominence in the 1570s.
She did not only paint miniatures in 1556 her New year’s gift to Queen Mary was a picture of the Trinity and in 1561 she gave Queen Elizabeth a “finely painted” box. It is possible that the majority of her work was destroyed in the Whitehall fire. There is also the possibility that since she did not sign her works some of the earlier ones have been ascribed to Holbein whilst the later ones may now be viewed as the work of Hilliard.
Levina died on 26 June 1576 when she was about sixty-six. I love the fact that her father as an illuminator of manuscripts was working in an artistic tradition that went back to the seventh century and that in training Levina, her miniatures which became so popular during the Tudor period, are a clearly route-marked bridge between traditions and art forms. I also love the fact that she was paid more than Holbein. It seems a shame though that although we have heard of Hans Holbein and Nicholas Hilliard that Levina is not so well remembered in popular memory.
James, Susan E. (2009) The Feminine Dynamic in English Art 1485-1603, Aldershot: Ashgate.
Bergmans, Simone. “The Miniatures of Levina Teerling.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 64, no. 374, 1934, pp. 232–236. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/865738.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O174799/portrait-of-mary-dudley-lady-miniature-teerlinc-levina/
As those of you who know me may recall one of my most favourite historical figures is Robert Carey. He’s the chap who caught the ring his sister, Philadelphia Scrope, chucked it from the bedroom window having it plucked from Elizabeth I’s finger after her demise in 1603. Robert rode for Edinburgh and did the journey in a very impressive three days.
One of the portraits is unquestionably Elizabeth in her middle years. The other is a woman who looks remarkably like Anne Boleyn because of the french hood that she wears although it has been argued that it could be Katherine Parr- there are issues over hair colouring. It has even been suggested that it is the image of a more youthful Elizabeth – now Elizabeth was unquestionably vain but would she really cart around two secret images of herself? Not being an art historian I couldn’t comment. Dr Starkey observed, at the time he curated the exhibition in the National Maritime Museum where the ring was first displayed, it is likely to be an image of Anne because despite the fact that Elizabeth knew her mother for only a very short time she was likely to be a huge influence on her daughter’s life. This view is supported by Tracey Borman in The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen. Elsewhere it is pointed out that Elizabeth is known to have spoken of her mother only twice in her lifetime but it would also have to be said that if as Alison Weir suggests a youthful Elizabeth can be seen wearing her mother’s famous pearls in the Whitehall family group portrait along with a pendant that looks suspiciously like the letter A then she did indeed feel a closeness to her mother which History can only speculate upon.
1565 was a trying year for Elizabeth I. She was all to aware of the dangers of having an heir to the throne waiting in the background – after all she had been in that position seven years previously. Now as queen she was determined not to name her successor despite the fact that there had already been a succession crisis during the seven days when her privy councillors had feared for her life in 1561 when she had small pox. At that time Cecil had favoured Henry VIII’s will which would have seen the crown handed to Lady Katherine Grey the sister of Lady Jane Grey. There had been a couple of voices in favour of Margaret, Lady Lennox who was the grand-daughter of Henry VII by Margaret Tudor’s second marriage to Archibald Douglas, the earl of Angus. Other men mentioned Henry Hastings the Earl of Huntingdon. He was descended from the Duke of Clarence – so Plantagenet but most important of all he was male! Elizabeth herself had unexpectedly regained consciousness and given the regency into the hands of Robert Dudley.
Ferdinando Stanley (1559-1594), Lord Strange associated with the likes of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare as well as the poet Edmund Spenser. In the 1580s Lord Strange’s men performed in London and when Stanley’s father died and Ferdinando became the Earl of Derby the players became Derby’s Men. In short, Ferdinando splashed the cash like his mother Margaret Clifford before him except whereas she’d gambled he invested in becoming a patron of the arts. It is as such is is most commonly remembered and written about.
Henry Grey was the great grandson of Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband Sir John Grey of Goby – and incidentally it’s pronounced ‘Grooby’. He died at the second Battle of St Albans in February 1461 leaving Elizabeth a widow with two sons. The rest, as they say, is history.
