Another ‘New’ Portrait Said to Depict Jane Grey Dudley

‘New’ or previously unknown portraits said to depict Jane Grey Dudley continue to appear at a rate of about one every two years. The most recent example appeared just a few months following the publication in February 2024 of the revised edition of Portraits of Jane Grey Dudley, England’s Nine Days Queen. Lee Porritt of Lady Jane Grey Revisited and Hope Walker of HansEworth.com each alerted me to the ‘new’ portrait after it came to auction through Bearnes, Hampton, and Littlewood (BHL) in Exeter, Devon, UK in July 2024.

Lady Jane Grey, inscribed 1553
Unknown Artist
Oil on wood panel
23.1 x 31 cm (9 3/32 x 12 7/16 in)

The auction catalogue described the painting as “British School, 19^th Century” and noted the inscription on the painted surface that reads, “LADI JANE DOUGHTER OF THE DVKE OF SVFFOLK, A[nn]o Do[mini] 1553.” BHL did not provide any further information on the item but gave it a pre-sale estimate of £400-600. It ultimately sold for a reported £900 to a well-known art dealer in Surrey.

The Surrey dealer likely spotted a so-called “sleeper,” or an auction item that has been misidentified and is therefore priced well below its actual value. In the absence of any provenance for the item, BHL assessed the portrait as nineteenth century in origin, but there are many elements of the portrait suggesting the strong possibility that it was created early in the sixteenth century. As a general rule, greater age means greater value owing to simple rarity.

The portrait is executed on a wood panel support, the grain pattern of which suggests oak. Artists switched from wood panels to canvas in the seventeenth century, so wood panels are not commonly seen in the nineteenth-century context. The reverse of the panel is chamfered across the upper and lower margins, consistent with sixteenth century practice. The visible wood is significantly oxidized, characteristic of great age.

The appearance of the identifying inscription likewise suggests a strong possibility that the painting is much older than currently thought. The spelling of both ‘Ladi’ with an ‘i’ and ‘doughter’ with an ‘o’ reflects the phonetically based spelling of the sixteenth century, before standardized spelling was developed for the English language. The use of ‘v’ for ‘u’, as seen here in the words duchess, daughter, and Suffolk, was also common practice in the sixteenth century but had disappeared by the nineteenth century.

Elements of the sitter’s costume likewise indicate an origin in the sixteenth century, especially when we consider the chronological consistency across those several elements. Every one of those elements point narrowly to the specific period between ca.1520 and ca.1540. The profile of the French hood, with a rounded crown following the natural contours of the head and sides that cover the ears and extend down to the angle of the jaw, is very similar in shape to the hood worn by Mary Tudor Brandon, Jane Grey’s paternal grandmother, in a portrait dated to about 1516 (below left). It is also similar to the French hoods worn by the sitter in each of the many portraits of Mary Magdalene and of female musicians painted in the 1520s by The Master of the Female Half-Lengths (below middle), including and especially the Althorp Portrait (below right) formerly said to depict Jane Grey Dudley (see Edwards, Portraits, pp.140-145). French hoods became flat across the top after about 1550, with a sharp angle as they extended down the sides of the head, as seen in portraits of Queen Mary I ca.1555.

The wide pleating of the lady’s undersleeves is again characteristic of fashions of the 1520s and 1530s. Similar sleeves are seen in Hans Holbein’s portraits of Mary, Lady Guildford of 1527 (below left) and Margaret Roper of 1535-6 (below center), as well as in a portrait of Jane Seymour ca.1536-7 from Holbein’s studio (below right). They are not seen in portraits painted after about 1540.

Pending dendrochronological (tree-ring) analysis of the wood of the panel, the possibility that the portrait dates to the first half of the sixteenth century cannot be ruled out. Dendrochronological analysis may also reveal a geographic origin for the wood, which may in turn provide evidence for the likely geographic origin of the painting (English versus Continental). But that study has not yet been performed.

If the portrait proves to be sixteenth century in origin, the inscription was likely added two or more decades after the painting was created. The reference in the inscription to the Duchess of Suffolk rather than to the Duke of Suffolk is unusual in the sixteenth century context, however. Tudor society was distinctly patriarchal, and the identity of one’s father was of greater social and cultural importance than that of one’s mother, in normal circumstances. But the reference here to the mother may be explained by genealogy. Jane possessed royal blood through her mother’s descent from King Henry VII, not through her father. The reference to Jane’s mother may have been intended to highlight Jane’s claim to royal status and to the Crown of England through her mother.

One clue to the sitter’s true identity may lie in the pendant bodice jewel suspended from her bodice trim (above). That jewel takes the shape of a love-heart, and the center is set with a small gold ‘E’. Because the letter is applied to a love-heart, it seems reasonable to assume that the jewel is a love token referencing the forename of either the sitter or a suitor or husband of the sitter. The use of letters or monograms as love tokens is perhaps most famously associated in the sixteenth century context with Henry VIII and several of his many wives, especially Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn (below, see also Tudor Jewel). Jane wed Guildford Dudley in May of 1553, so the ‘E’ monogram cannot reference either Jane or her husband. The reference for the ‘E’ monogram remains unknown at present.

Love heart with monogram of Henry VIII entwined with that of Katherine of Aragon, ca.1521

It is also possible that the painting is a deliberate forgery created in the nineteenth century to capitalize on the contemporary resurgence in popularity of Jane Grey in English culture as a heroic religious and political figure. Writers, artists, and historians frequently took Jane Grey as their subject matter in a wide variety of media, including plays, poems, early novels, prescriptive literature, scene paintings, and antiquarian collections. But outright forgery seems unlikely. The collective chronological precision of the costume, for example, is inconsistent with the level of historical awareness present in the nineteenth century, when artists possessed only a limited understanding of costume history.

More commonly, even well-regarded artists tended to depict a variety of costume styles from across the broader Tudor period within a single scene painting. In the famous painting (above left) by Paul Delaroche depicting Jane’s execution, for example, her ladies wear anachronistic Spanish gabled hoods, and the executioner is dressed in leggings evocative of previous centuries. In John Singleton Copley’s The Offer of the Crown to Lady Jane Grey (above right), several of the courtiers wear ruffs of a size and shape that did not become fashionable until after 1565. It seems improbable that any but a master forger would have depicted the costume details so correctly and with such chronological consistency. And the effort expended to do so would have far exceeded any compensation from a future sale of the small painting. It is therefore unlikely that the portrait, if produced in the nineteenth century, was intended to deceive a potential buyer by passing as sixteenth century in origin.

If the painting was indeed executed in the nineteenth century, as the catalogue indicates, it may be a copy of some unknown original, with the identifying inscription added to make the portrait ‘become’ Jane Grey.

But the evidence currently available suggests a strong possibility, even probability, that the painting was created in the second or third decade of the sixteenth century. Since Jane Grey Dudley was born late in 1536 or early in 1537, it is exceedingly unlikely that the painting is a life portrait of Jane. The painting is far more probably a portrait of some other as-yet-unknown lady of those earlier decades that was subsequently relabeled to ‘become’ Jane.

J. Stephan Edwards, PhD, FSA
Palm Springs, California
29 September 2024

Update, 6 November 2024:

The purchaser of the painting, Surrey Fine Arts of Camberley (UK), listed the portrait for sale on eBay and elsewhere.  The list price was £9000, ten times the £900 they paid for it.

Michael Charlton, owner of Surrey Fine Art, is in receipt of my written assessment of the painting, which I sent to him via email on 25 September 2024. I also sent him a link to this article on 8 October 2024. The eBay listing stated correctly that the painting may be 16th Century in origin. But Surrey Fine Arts made the claim that the painting was “possibly commissioned by her father, Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk.” That claim is almost certainly false and is not at all supported by the evidence. As above, costume dating places the portrait at least two decades before Jane’s death in 1554 and therefore before she was born.

The painting sold quickly, reportedly for significantly less than the price listed on eBay. The new owner is familiar with this website and plans to pass along the results of planned scientific studies for determining its actual period of creation.

Update, 17 November 2024:

Final results of a dendrochronology study of the wood panel are still pending, but the preliminary results confirm my assessment that the painting antedates the nineteenth century. Final results will be posted here within a week.

Examination of the painting under magnification reveals that the monogram on the bodice pendant brooch is a C rather than an E. The middle horizontal mark is a nick or divot in the paintwork that is deep enough to expose the ‘ground’ or artist’s preparatory layer on the surface of the panel. It is difficult to see in photographs, but the photograph on the right below was taken in raking light to highlight the irregularity of the painted surface. The white highlight at the lower right of the nick is light reflecting off the ‘wall’ of the divot.

Closeup of pendant in direct lighting

Closeup of pendant in raking light from the left

The C on the brooch, when coupled with the dating by dendrochronological analysis, raises a very exciting possibility! But more evidence is needed before that possibility can be revealed. Stay tuned!

Update, 21 November 2024:

Dr Christopher Basian and Dr Tomasz Ważny of the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona have now completed their dendrochronological analysis of the wood panel on which the portrait is painted. Dendro, as we call it, involves measuring the distance between tree growth rings and comparing the results to confirmed reference samples.

The panel for this painting has a terminal growth ring that corresponds to the year 1610. That means the tree was still growing in 1610 and was cut down sometime after that.

Trees produce two kinds of wood: heartwood and sapwood. The former is durable, while the latter is soft and decays easily over time. For the production of wood panels for use by artists, the wood is split lengthwise into thin boards. The split is done on a radial rather than a diameter. This YouTube video shows the first steps of the process. Imagine that the woodsplitter continued splitting until each piece of the pie was just 0.5 inches thick or less when he finished rather than the several inches seen in the video. This panel is about 7/16ths of an inch thick.

The result from repeated splitting is dozens of very thin slices from the diameter of the tree. The slices are board-length planks that are later cut to measure along the length of the board. The width of each resulting board represents one half of the diameter of the tree.

During processing, the soft sapwood is often removed. That sapwood is usually about a half dozen years’ worth of growth rings. Some heartwood rings are also often removed while shaping the length of the panel. Dendrochronologists have developed a very reliable set of variables to account for the loss of growth rings as a result of that kind of processing.

In the case of this panel, after accounting for the removal of sapwood and a standard amount of heartwood, plus allowing two years for seasoning of the wood after harvest, processing time, transport from source to market, sale, and usage, the dendro results indicate that the painting was created between about 1620 and about 1640. Jane died in 1554, so the painting was created long after her death. But that is not necessarily bad news! We cannot draw any conclusions until results are obtained from other forms of scientific analysis and the painting is restored and conserved.

I also contacted two well-known jewelry historians regarding the heart-shaped jewel to request their specialized input. The first was Geoffrey Munn, best known for serving since 2005 as a jewelry expert on the British version of Antiques Roadshow.  Mr Munn immediately suggested that the gold and black shape overlying the red enamel background of the jewel is unlikely to be a monogram. It is instead the goldwork of a setting for a square black diamond. Below is a photograph of the jewel that has been manipulated to recreate its original appearance.

I also contacted the UK’s Society of Jewellery Historians on the question and received an immediate response from Dr Hazel Forsyth, Senior Curator of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Collections at the Museum of London. Dr Forsyth is the author of  London’s Lost Jewels: The Cheapside Hoard (2013), a study of a collection of late Tudor and early Stuart jewels unearthed near St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1912. Dr Forsyth concurred with Mr Munn’s opinion. She also suggests, “The red ground of the heart is a red enamel or possibly a cabochon cut stone (perhaps a garnet or spinel).  The centre is pierced for a gem-setting, probably a diamond with a square girdle mounted on a black setting material. So what you can see are parts of the gold outline of the collet for this setting. Diamonds were almost always mounted on black setting material (essentially a mastic) which helped to bounce the light through the stone, so diamonds commonly appear black in portraits.”

I am very grateful to Drs Baisan and Ważny, to Mr Munn, and to Dr Forsyth for so kindly and generously sharing their expertise with me.