Costume Dating Proves This is Not a Portrait of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford

Above: Called Edward de Vere (born 1550). Tall standing collar ending in pickadil tabs that support the small figure-of-eight ruff attached to shirt and garnished with blackwork embroidery. Small shoulder wings with pickadil tabbed fringe and padded bishop-style sleeves. Doublet (or perhaps it's a jerkin) slashed-and-puffed with embroidered shirt linen pulled through slash or perhaps the doublet is displayed open-pocketed to reveal embroidered lining. Silk embroidery also evident on wrist ruffles. Short hair. Dope boar pendant (the de Vere family crest) hanging by ribbon. Painted by unknown artist but sometimes attributed to Gheeraerts the Younger c. 1565. (Portrait formerly owned by the Duke of St. Albans, currently in the possession of the Minos Miller Trust Fund.)

I just watched a slickly produced de Vere documentary on Amazon Prime called NOTHING TRUER THAN TRUE, which was not, in my opinion, terribly convincing in regard to the authorship debate, but it was a fascinating look at the 17th Earl of Oxford's grand tour of Italy, and once again I saw the above portrait, supposedly painted by Gheeraerts the Younger, trotted out as a portrait of Edward de Vere. This is not Edward de Vere. Nor was it pained by Gheeraerts the Younger. 

Portrait inscribed, "Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford" (Portrait formerly owned by the Duke of St. Albans, currently in the possession of the Minos Miller Trust Fund. Image from Wikicommons)

And yes, I'm aware there's a giant inscription on the portrait that screams, "I'm Edward de Vere." How many times do I have to tell you? Never. Trust. Inscriptions. And especially never trust them when they are fitted on both side of the sitter's head (as well as behind it) in a manner no painter in England ever employed.  

The portrait shows a man dressed in the garb of the late 1550's to the mid 1560's. We know that English nobles donned their newest European-influenced finery for portraits, so its extremely unlikely (read "impossible") that a clothes horse like Fast Eddie de Vere would be immortalized playing dress up with his daddy's wardrobe, but, again, believe what you need to believe. 

Now let's have a closer look at that diabolical mug that appears to be contemplating your murder in hideous detail. Notice anything uniquely weird about the sitter aside from his cauliflower ear and large slithery-spooky homicidal eyes? 

Yes, correct, there are beaded strings or perhaps yarn attached to the end of his pickavent beard (or possibly attached to the standing collar). That's unusual, but not 100% unique. In fact, I've been able to locate two other portraits that show this same style beaded beard. So let's have a look at those two portraits, both of which immortalize earls, and see what we can glean from them. What do these three earls have in common? 

The portrait below depicts Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and arch enemy of Edward de Vere dressed with a equally tall standing collar that supports, via the same tabs known as pickadils (ahem), a small figure-eight ruff. Look a bit familiar style-wise to the called Edward de Vere portrait? Now lift up a magnifying glass and you'll see that Dudley also has the exact same type strings, with some type of bell-shaped ornamentation, dangling from his pointy beard (or possibly his collar top). Same clothes style, (minus bishop sleeves), same diabolical glare, same beard style, yet Dudley was painted c. 1560 when Edward de Vere was ten years old. 

Starting to get the picture? 

 Above: Robert Dudley, the First Earl of Leicester c. 1560 by van der Muelin (Yale Center for British Art). Wrist ruffles, jerkin slashed and pinked vertically with long skirt ending in pickadil border. Jerkin (outer jacket) sleeveless and winged with double layer of pickadil tabs. Tall standing collar also ends with pickadils. Sleeves of doublet are tight to skin without bombast padding. Non-peascod doublet attached down center with buttons top/bottom and hooks in center. Codpiece still prominent. Hose paneled, padded for onion-shape. Small figure-of-eight ruff collar worn open at neck (ruff likely attached to shirt as were wrist ruffles). Hair short all around. Beard forked and decorated with beaded strings or yarn. Black squat cap beret-like pleated with ostrich feather.

Okay, now let's examine another portrait that once again reveals a nobleman with stringed baubles dangling off his chin. Who is it this time? Why it's the 7th Earl of Northumberland, Thomas Percy, as painted by Steven van der Muelin (the same artist who painted Dudley). Now our man Percy isn't as dapper as Dudley and can't really pull off that cold-blooded "I'm killing you in my dreams" glare that the other earls manage so effortlessly, but his style of clothing--raised collar, small figure-of-eight ruff--looks rather familiar and of course dates the portrait to early in Elizabeth's reign 1566.

from wikicommons by Steven van der Muelin

Confirmation bias is a funny thing in that people who are aware it exists can still suffer from it. Oxfordians can be extremely reasonable on so many fronts, and yet here we have a portrait of a man who in no way resembles the sitter of the Welbeck portrait of Edward de Vere and is in fact decked out in the clothing of a previous generation; yet otherwise intelligent people will still go onto social media and call me names after I politely inform them it's not their boy Edward de Vere. Why do they throw insults? I guess because they really want it to be Edward de Vere. And I get it. It would make a great diabolical Shakespeare portrait. Except it's impossible. It's not Edward de Vere and therefore it's very likely his father Earl John. End of story. Sorry. The truth hurts sometimes but is worth it. No need to lash out in the comments.

 

If you want to educated yourself on costume dating Elizabethan portraits visit this post on my blog and then we will never have to engage in one of these awkward conversations again. Costume dating is fun! And until you finally learn how to do it you will always be an annoying novice, such as I was for many years, inside the world of Elizabethan portraiture. It will also give you a huge advantage because even inside the refined world of British art very few curators know much about costume dating. It's a great first step. 

 

Note: all the portraits in the post are used for identification purposes under Fair Use Laws. This is an educational blog. Also, go pick on somebody your own size. Or better yet learn to punch up.

A Courtier In White Spurned by Queen Elizabeth I: Is he Raleigh or de Vere?

 Detail from A Courtier and His Lady by Circle of Marcus Gheeraerts (private collection). Photograph taken from a print hung in my living room. I've been going back and forth on this portrait for decades now, but I think I've finally concluded, to my satisfaction at least, who the sitter is. See below post for details.

I have a print of this portrait hung in my living room and for decades now have been debating whether the shunned courtier in white, posing before a powerful woman with her back turned to him, is Sir Walter Raleigh or Edward de Vere. I once wrote a blog post arguing it was Raleigh. Then I began to suspect it was de Vere. And now I've reversed my opinion again and believe it's Raleigh. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding this portrait.

I recently learned from Stella Samaras, a reader of this blog, that a catalogue available from Weiss Gallery ("Tudor and Stewart Portraits 1530-1600") written by Mark Weiss, with the assistance of Sir Roy Strong, attributed this portrait not to Robert Peake but to the circle of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger and dates the picture to c. 1590-1595. As to this date, my first reaction was surprised that the wrist ruffles didn't cause Weiss to date the picture to 1584 or earlier since ruffles were replaced by cuffs around then. But we will get to that discussion in a moment.

The catalogue states the portrait was at some point "dramatically overpainted." The courtier was scamped with a head of dark hair, a beard, and a hat "so that he better resembled Sir Walter Raleigh." Stranger yet, the woman in the background so resembling Elizabeth I (with her back turned significantly to the male courtier) was overpainted out of the portrait entirely. And the inscription "Sir. Walt. Rawleigh" was added to the upper right corner.   

Note that in the portrait of Raleigh below he has cuffs instead of ruffles. The inscription, if accurate, establishes the portrait was painted in 1588, a few years after wrist ruffles went out of style, so the cuffs fit the inscribed date. As does the bombast stuffing in the bishop sleeves, the giant buttons on the doublet, and the Armada perm. This is in fact a textbook 1588 portrait.

Sir Walter Raleigh (NPG London; image via wikicommons). Note that in this 1588 portrait he was wearing cuffs, not wrist ruffles. If you look into the upper left corner you will see a painting of a moon above the sea, which was an emblem expressing Raleigh's devotion to Elizabeth, the moon goddess Diana who controlled the tides of the sea.

Regarding the woman shunning the courtier, the Weiss catalogue explains, "Closer examination of this figure in black reveals she has reddish hair, wears a coronet and carries a feather fan. . . . Around her neck she wears what is perhaps not just a necklace, but possibly a larger chain denoting an office or order. Could this image be of anyone else other than the Queen herself?"

Well, I think it's fair to assume the woman is Queen Elizabeth, but of course we can't be certain. This raises the question as to why any restorer would paint the queen out of the picture? Was this the act of somebody purposely trying to devalue a portrait or an act of political censorship? This portrait is a narrative and whoever overpainted this woman destroyed the story being told while devaluing the picture. To me that reeks of a political decision, but that is of course speculation. 

Note: The above photograph was taken of the print hung in my living room

I've also assumed, without any real evidence, that the portrait was set in the Tower of London, where the contrite nobleman had been imprisoned by Elizabeth I. (Southampton had a portrait of himself painted in the Tower shortly after he was released, so maybe this courtier did the same.) De Vere was held in the Tower in 1581 for siring a bastard. Raleigh was thrown in the Tower for the first time in 1591 for getting married without permission. So which courtier is depicted? And when was it painted?    

The identification of the painter as "circle of Gheeraerts" might suggest that the portrait was created as a ploy to regain favor with the queen. Sir Henry Lee employed Gheeraerts to this same purpose with the Ditchley portrait of Elizabeth I. Sir Roy Strong once noted that Gheeraert's influence on courtly portraits could be seen as early as 1586.   

Emblem upper right: the moon governing the sea (NPG London image via wikicommons).

Since the portrait in question is privately owned, its identification can best be resolved (if at all) via costume dating. Is the peascod doublet with padded bishop-style sleeves sans wings plus tilted French linen figure-of-eight collar 1581 or 1590?

When I wrote Mark Weiss regarding the portrait, he was kind enough to correct me on a few points. He also mentioned that he was unaware that wrist ruffs went out of style in the early 1580's (and wisely cautioned me that fashion cut-off points were not absolute). Mr. Weiss further stated he would inquire with the costume expert Susan North at the V&A regarding cuffs. I emailed him back an excerpt from a letter already written by Susan North on that subject of wrist ruffles to Barbara Burris (regarding another mystery portrait) that stated in no uncertain terms that ruffles went out of fashion in the 1580's:

"I would agree that the dress does not appear to date from 1611 . . . The general shape of the doublet with close fitting sleeves and a waistline dipping only slightly below its natural place in front corresponds with men’s dress of the 1570’s . . . Regarding your comments on the wrist ruffs, I agree that those go out of fashion in the 1580’s."

So, for a while at least, I was left believing it might be de Vere pictured in the Tower c. 1581, but since then two things changed my mind. The first was that I came upon a portrait of Raleigh at the National Portrait Gallery of Ireland wearing very similar type wrist decorations in 1598.  (One likely mistake I made was assuming these were wrist ruffles when they were, strictly speaking, extensions of a wavy transparent linen fabric more like a fall collar.) Then I realized how small Raleigh's thumbs were, almost baby thumbs. That same tiny thumb is clearly visible in our mystery portrait. (Many thanks to Graham Appleyard for pointing out the childlike size of the hands in the comments section.) This, to me, was the deciding factor: the tiny thumb pointed at Raleigh.

 But, again, that's hardly conclusive evidence.

One other consideration is the buttons on the doublet appear to be decorated with seed pearls, and pearls were a personal symbol for Raleigh that turn up in many of his portraits (see below example). However I haven't been able to confirm these are seed pearls on the buttons. If they are, then that's would seem to settle the matter.

Sir Walter Raleigh by William Seger 1598 (National Portrait Gallery Ireland, image via wikicommons). In this portrait Raleigh's costume is fabulously decorated with pearls. His wrist extensions are a transparent stached linen similar to those worn by the Courtier in White.

It's worth noting that the glove visible in the portrait is not a gauntlet. Gauntlets, with their large and decorated wrist coverings, came into fashion in the 1590's. So there's still confusion about when the picture was painted, but I suspect it's Raleigh. The confirmed 1598 portrait of Raleigh shows a courtier much older looking than the unknown courtier in white. With all this in mind, I have to agree with Mark Weiss that this is likely a portrait of Raleigh c. 1592. That date coincides with Raleigh's release from the Tower of London. The portrait might well have been a gift to Elizabeth designed to show repentance and/or gratitude.

Above: This portrait of Horace Vere by G. Glower from 1594 (image from wikicommons) shows an nearly identical jerkin as that worn by the Courtier in White. There are no wings at the shoulder and the peascod bulge is extended. White was the fashionable color for the later years of Elizabeth's reign.

See also the post: 20 Essential Questions To Ask When Attempting To Date An Elizabethan Portrait By Costume. 
 

Special thanks to Stella Samaras for setting me straight about the Weiss Gallery write up and also to Graham Appleyard for pointing out the child-like hands of the sitter. 

Below: the controversial Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare mid-cleaning 1988 (Folger Shakespeare Library, left) & Gheeraerts' Courtier in White (private collection, right)

Above: ruffles instead of cuffs plus a glove lacking a gauntlet

The Folger Shakespeare Library owns the Ashbourne portraits seen above.