This Painting of a Doomed Duke Just Became the Priciest Elizabethan Portrait Ever Auctioned, Selling for $4.2 Million
The 1562 likeness of Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, was created by Hans Eworth, a Flemish artist whose Tudor-era portraiture is second only to Hans Holbein’s
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A 16th-century painting of an English duke sold for $4.2 million last week, making it the most expensive Elizabethan portrait ever auctioned. The artwork depicts Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, a powerful nobleman during the reign of Elizabeth I, and was created by Flemish painter Hans Eworth in 1562. A decade after the portrait was painted, the Tudor queen had Norfolk executed for treason.
Sotheby’s London listed the 463-year-old portrait with an estimate of £2 million to £3 million pounds. According to a statement from the auction house, Eworth’s painting is among “the most significant” privately owned portraits from the era of the Tudors, the English royal dynasty that began with Henry VII in 1485.
“Paintings of this sort of quality and this kind of condition, of that age, very rarely appear on the market,” Julian Gascoigne, senior director of Sotheby’s old masters paintings department, told BBC News’ Neve Gordon-Farleigh in November. “It is spectacularly well preserved and in the most amazing condition, with very minimal, if any, retouching or damage to it, and for a painting that is nearly half a millennium old, it’s pretty impressive.”
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Born in Antwerp around 1515, Eworth moved to London shortly after the death of Hans Holbein the Younger, the famed artist behind some of the most iconic portraits of Henry VIII’s court, in 1543. Influenced by his predecessor, Eworth became “the most distinguished foreign painter to work in England in the Tudor period after Holbein,” wrote art historian Roy Strong in 2004.
Eworth was the principal court painter under Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary I, who ruled England between 1553 and 1558. Mary was a staunch Catholic who sought to bring the Anglican Church back under the pope’s domain following her father’s break from Rome two decades earlier. When Mary’s Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth, came to power after Mary’s death in 1558, Eworth fell out of royal favor due to his association with Catholicism.
According to Sotheby’s, Eworth’s portrait of Norfolk offers a “striking glimpse into the artistry and political intrigue of the Tudor court.” In 1562, the young nobleman was at the height of his power: Mary had named him Duke of Norfolk in 1554, and he’d remained in royal favor during the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. Norfolk was Elizabeth’s second cousin through her mother, Anne Boleyn, and England’s only duke at the time. He supervised all royal ceremonies and heraldic affairs.
“Norfolk was the most important, powerful man in the kingdom during the reign of Elizabeth I,” Gascoigne told BBC News. “Short of the monarch herself, he really is the most significant in the country … and acquired huge tracts of land across England.”
Eworth’s portrait of Norfolk is one half of a diptych, a pair of paintings meant to be viewed side by side. The other panel depicts the duke’s second wife, Margaret Audley, and is owned by the historic Audley End House. Eworth united the portraits with a continuous backdrop: a tapestry bearing the couple’s coats of arms.
In the painting, Norfolk wears rich black clothing adorned with gold buttons and intricate embroidery. Hanging from his neck is a chain of gold, diamonds and pearls, which signifies his membership in the chivalric Order of the Garter.
“By Tudor standards, he is as chicly and opulently dressed as a man of his period could be,” Gascoigne tells Artnet News’ Richard Whiddington. “[The portrait] demonstrates the understated opulence for the British aristocracy.”
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Did you know? The Howard family’s history of treason
- In 1547, Norfolk’s paternal grandfather, the Third Duke of Norfolk, narrowly avoided execution on charges of treason. Henry VIII, the king who ordered the third duke’s death, died the night before the scheduled beheading.
- Norfolk’s father, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wasn’t so lucky. A gifted poet with a knack for making enemies, Surrey fell out of favor and was executed for treason just days before the king’s death.
Unfortunately for Norfolk, his wealth and power weren’t enough to protect him from the chopping block. In 1572, he was tried for treason after Elizabeth discovered that he’d been plotting to wed Mary, Queen of Scots, her Catholic cousin and a claimant to the English throne. Norfolk was beheaded in London that June.
Clore Wyndham, a fine art firm in London, purchased Eworth’s portrait of Norfolk on behalf of the current Duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard. The painting will now return to its subject’s former home, Arundel Castle, which has been the seat of the Duchy of Norfolk for more than eight centuries.
“It fills a gap in the collection and is a highly significant Tudor portrait,” Henry Wyndham, co-founder of Clore Wyndham, tells Artnet News./https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/Sonja_headshot.png)