The Lyndhurst Portrait

Object Description:

This painting is executed in oil on a wooden panel and measures in whole 22 ½ x 17 inches.   The painting depicts the head and upper torso of an adult female who appears before a plain brown background.  The sitter is placed behind a red cushion or cloth that has been embroidered with the use of gold thread.  She is turned slightly to the viewers left. 

Her face is oval, with a high forehead.  Her hair is brown in colour, appears straight, and is worn parted in the centre of the crown and pulled back over her ears and under her coif.  Her eyes are brown in colour and her eyebrows are thin and arched.  The nose is slightly arched with a high bridge and her lips are small and thin.  The use of a pink tone has been added to the sitter’s cheekbones and bridge of her nose. 

The sitter’s costume includes a French hood, ending just below the jawline.  This is constructed of black fabric that includes the use of an upper and lower billiment of pearls; thirty-four pearls can be seen in the lower billiament and forty-three pearls have been depicted on the upper billiment.  A black veil is also seen hanging down at the back of the hood and under this the sitter wears a gold coif.  At her neck she wears two strings of pearls with a large letter B pendant of goldsmith work with three hanging pearls suspended from the upper necklace.  A gold chain constructed of circular loops is also seen at the neck, which falls and disappears into the front of the sitter’s bodice.  The gown itself is constructed of a black fabric, cut square at the neck and a chemise, embroidered with blackwork protrudes along the entire bodice margin. The hint of a kirtle made of brown fabric and embellished with forty-six pearls and twenty-two buttons of goldsmith work is also seen around the neckline of the bodice.  Large brown fur sleeves can be seen at the bottom edge of the panel. 

Inscription:

An inscription applied across the top of the panel in a bright yellow pigment identifies the sitter as ANNA REGINA VXOR 2A H 8 or Anna Queen, 2^nd wife of Henry 8.

Labels and other inscriptions:

A typed label has been applied to the reverse of the panel which reads

 ‘1236 Portrait of Queen Anne Boleyn/ by a Netherlands Master/ of the 16th century/ Stamped seal on back reads/ [  ] chutz. [ ] Zentrelstello [ ]/ Label on back reads/ Invent No. 1236 Preis 712007/ Anne Boleyn/ Von Johennes Corvus, Eng. ad. 1520/ Gutachten Von.’

Artist Association:

The label attached to the reverse of the panel associates the Flemish born painter Johannes Corvus as the artist who created the Lyndhurst portrait.  Born in 1490, Corvus is documented as working in England in the 1520’s and in France. He died in 1545 and a small number of works associated with him are still in collections today.[1]

Condition:

From the high-resolution photograph provided, the panel support appears to be in rather good condition.  The painted surface of the portrait does have some minor paint loss to the face, costume and background and the layer of varnish has discoloured over time.  The painting sits within a frame of moulded gilt with painted geometric designs, this in turn sits within a larger frame of painted wood and red velvet.   

Provenance Information:

The Lyndhurst portrait was purchased on June 7^th, 1940 by Anna Gould, Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord from the Meredith Galleries.  A copy of the bill of sale, recording the purchase of this painting and detailing the amount paid is currently held among the documents in the Lyndhurst archive.[2] 

Anna inherited the Lyndhurst estate on the death of her sister in 1938, however only maintained the estate as a country home and opted to live primarily at a hotel in New York.  Anna died in 1961 and bequeathed the Lyndhurst estate and the portrait to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  The Lyndhurst portrait of Anne Boleyn can now be seen today in the Star Bedroom on the second floor of the house. 

Discussion:

Two potential portraits of significance to the Lyndhurst portrait of Anne Boleyn are a portrait of Catherine of Aragon recently sold by the Philip Mould Gallery and another of Jane Seymour currently held in the collection of Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco. 

Both these portraits appear to have once belonged to part of a larger set of paintings and stylistically both show the naive painting style seen in the Lyndhurst portrait.  All three sitters are seen in an identical composition and are placed behind the embroidered cloth and depicted in front of a plain background.  The portrait of Jane Seymour appears to have been overpainted at some point during its history, however, both paintings have been associated with the artists Johannes Corvus in the past.

All three paintings would benefit from some scientific investigation to a establish a date of creation, origin, and the possible connection that they were all created by the same artist as part of a larger set of portraits depicting King Henry VIII queens. 

A further interesting aspect of the Lyndhurst portrait is the pattern used to create it.  This appears to be almost identical to another portrait of Anne Boleyn sold by the Howard Young Galleries.  The Howard portrait is also painted on panel and is of identical measurements to the Lyndhurst portrait. Unfortunately, this copy has vanished from public record and has not been seen since it was last photographed in 1926.  

A detailed photographic image of the Howard portrait is now held in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York.  From this image, we can see that both paintings contain an identical inscription and the composition of the sitter is also identical.  The Howard portrait does appear to have been painted by a more skilled artist than the artist who produced the Lyndhurst portrait, however, this cannot be known for certain until the Howard portrait is located. [3]

There are two possible theories to explain the similarities between both of these portraits.  The first is, that both are separate paintings, painted with the use of an identical pattern that was applied to the panel surface, by the artist, prior to painting.

The second theory is that the Lyndhurst portrait is, in fact, the Howard Portrait which had been heavily overpainted before 1926, when photographed by the Howard Young Galleries.  The photograph itself does suggest that an element of overpainting work has been completed, specifically, on the background.  As seen in the magnified image below, a thick black line can be seen between the edge of Anne’s French hood and the lighter background colour. This suggests that the original background colour of this portrait may possibly have been darker in colour and closer to that seen the Lyndhurst version.

It is possible that the Lyndhurst portrait may have undergone some restoration and cleaning work in an effort to return it back to its original painted surface prior to the portrait being purchased by the Meredith Gallery and subsequently selling it to Anna Gould. 

Email communication with Lyndhurst has confirmed that their portrait has not undergone any conservation work since it was bequeathed to the Trust in 1961.[4]  As discussed above, the Howard Young Portrait has vanished from public record. I have conducted a thorough search, in an attempt to locate the current whereabouts of this version, however, I have been unable to uncover any documentation concerning this portrait after 1926, when it was photographed by the gallery.

Until the lost Howard Young portrait reappears, I am currently in favour of the second theory being the most plausible one.

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[1] Campbell. Gordon, The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance, Oxford University Press, 2003

[2] Email communication between the author and Specialist Project Assistant, dated 18^th May 2020

[3] Frick Art Reference Library, Holbein the Younger, Hans 622-12h, accessed May 2020

[4] Email communication between the author and Specialist Project Assistant, dated 17^th September 2020