Introducing the Edwards Portrait of Lady Jane Grey Dudley

Lady Jane, Daughter to the Duchess Suffolk
Unknown artist (possibly Studio of Cornelis Saftleven)
inscribed 1553
Oil on oak panel
31 x 23.1 cms. (12 7/16 x 9 3/16 in.)

© Copyright is asserted for all images of the Edwards Portrait 

Emanating from a “large and diverse Devon family collection that had been passed down for generations,” this portrait came to auction for seemingly the first time in the summer of 2024 through Bearnes, Hampton, and Littlewood (BHL) of Exeter, UK.[1] Surrey Fine Arts of Camberley purchased the painting and “reglazed” it, as they described the treatment, before offering it for sale. Baumgartner Restoration of Chicago fully conserved and restored the painting early in 2025.[2] Using my own published mnemonic tool for distinguishing between the many portraits of Lady Jane Grey, I have unabashedly dubbed this portrait the ‘Edwards Portrait.’

The BHL auction catalogue described the painting as a nineteenth century work, but subsequent dendrochronological analysis of the wood panel support reveals that it dates instead to the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Dendrochronologists Christopher Baisin and Tomasz Ważny determined that the wood came from an oak tree that was felled shortly after 1610. The analysis further revealed that the wood originated from forests near Vilnius, Lithuania, as was common among panel paintings produced throughout northwestern Europe in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. After adding a standard number of years to account for the removal of fragile sapwood growth rings, seasoning of the raw wood, transportation, processing into panels, and marketing of the panels to end users, it becomes likely that the panel was used no earlier than 1620. More probably, the artist used this panel sometime after 1625 and perhaps as late as the 1640s.[3]

The portrait bears an inscription at the top that reads, “Ladi Jane Dovghter to the Dvchess Svffolk A[nn]o Do[mini] 1553” (Figure 1, detail, above). The reference to the sitter’s mother is unusual in the context of sixteenth-century English portraiture. English society followed a patriarchal hierarchy, with one’s familial and social identity ordinarily deriving from that of the father rather than that of the mother. In the specific context of Jane Grey, however, the reference to Jane’s maternal lineage highlights her status as a young woman of royal blood. Jane’s father, though a noble of the highest rank, did not possess royal blood. But Jane’s mother Frances Brandon Grey was the daughter of Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s younger sister. Jane therefore possessed Tudor royal blood as a great-granddaughter of Henry VII, a grandniece of King Henry VIII, and a first cousin once removed of King Edward VI. Further, the Third Succession Act of 1543/4 designated the descendants of Frances Brandon Grey as heirs to the English crown in the event all three of Henry VIII’s children failed to produce legitimate issue.

As the life of the childless Queen Elizabeth I drew to its close in the late 1590s, the question of who should succeed her became critical. Some favored the Seymour descendants of Frances’s second daughter and Jane’s younger sister Katherine Grey Seymour, as mandated by the Third Succession Act. Others, especially Elizabeth’s chief minister Robert Cecil, advocated for a traditional inheritance according to strict primogeniture, in contravention of the Act. That heir was, of course, James VI of Scotland. The reference in this portrait to Jane’s royal maternal lineage implies support for a succession in accordance with the Third Succession Act and in opposition to the Scottish Stuart line.

The Edwards Portrait is clearly not ad vivum, given that it dates to 1625-1640. But neither can it be ‘a copy of a lost original,’ to use the ubiquitous art history phrase. Instead, the artist adapted one or more existing images of other persons to create a presumably imaginary and representational portrait of Lady Jane. The portion of the sitter lying below the shoulders was undoubtedly adapted, with some iconographic changes, from a portrait of Henry VIII’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon (Fig.2, below left). That portrait, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, is attributed to Joannes Corvus and dated to Corvus’s residency in England in the 1520s.[4] The National Portrait Gallery holds a direct copy that dates to after 1720, based on the pigments used (Fig.3, below right).

Perhaps the most obvious change in the lower half of the composition is the addition of a colorful woven rug, known in the Tudor period as a ‘Turkey carpet,’ overlying a table. Its presence conveys the relative wealth and status of the sitter. Carpets were luxury items imported from the Middle East at significant cost. But the carpet and the unseen table on which it rests also help to mitigate the awkward, even unnatural, positioning of the hands in Corvus’s original. Further, art historian David Young Kim has proposed that the inclusion of a carpet in medieval and early modern paintings,

“could be considered a site of ‘chromatic rehearsal.’ The carpet, in other words, like a palette, might serve as a venue where the painter could test the permutations of colors to be inserted into a composition … an area where the painter might first assay effects of color, texture, and scale before embarking on the admittedly chief components of drapery, figure, and face.”[5]

The artist who created the Edwards Portrait also altered several detailed elements of Corvus’ composition to bring the overall image into conformity with the earliest hagiography of Lady Jane Grey. Corvus’s portrait of Katherine includes a sheaf of wheat held in the sitter’s right hand, symbolizing fertility and the hope for a male heir to Henry VIII’s crown. The creator of the Edwards Portrait removed the wheat to bring the composition into accord with the idealized attributes of virginity, sanctity, and martyrdom commonly ascribed to Lady Jane following her death in 1554.[6] He instead placed a ring set with a gemstone on the right thumb (Fig.4, below).

Similarly, Katherine’s personal badge of pomegranates featured in the embroidery on her sleeves is replaced in the Edwards Portrait with non-specific six-petaled flowers (Fig.5, below).

Additionally, Katherine’s pleated sleeves of cloth of gold denoting royal status are here rendered in red, the traditional color of martyrdom. The jeweled cross of what are probably diamonds worn by Katherine suspended from a fine gold necklace is eliminated, consistent with sixteenth century religious reformers’ iconoclastic practice of eschewing tangible symbols of Christ’s Crucifixion. The sitter instead wears a necklace of small pearls. The pearls may be purely decorative, or they may be read as symbolizing purity.[7] But they may also reference Jesus’s Parable of the Pearl of Great Price, the twelve gates of Heaven as described in Revelations 21:21, or even the reformist church itself.[8] The red heart in an ornate gold frame worn by Katherine may well have been a love token gifted to her by Henry VIII, similar to other such tokens exchanged between the pair.[9] But the artist has here added a collet-set square diamond inlaid in the center of the red heart. In the early modern language of gemstones, diamonds symbolize purity, even spiritual purity, owing to their relative indestructability and perceived power to drive away demons (Fig.6, below).[10]

The heart pendant therefore transforms from a symbol of erotic love to a symbol of pure spiritual love, consistent with Lady Jane’s reputation for exceptional reformist piety. Lastly, the added girdle chain comprised of interlocking golden circles can potentially be read as repeated vesicas piscium, the intersecting arcs of which form the ichthys or ‘Jesus fish,’ or as Ezekiel’s Wheel symbolizing the omnipresence of God (Fig.7, ‘ichthys’ highlighted).[11] Jane is here girded in the Divine.

In short, the artist who created the Edwards Portrait took exceeding care to ensure that his product would be read visually as entirely consistent with the version of Lady Jane Grey propounded by her sixteenth and early seventeenth century hagiographers.

If the artist copied the face seen in this portrait from a reference image, that image remains to be definitively identified. It is entirely possible that the face and head are products of the artist’s own imagination. Alternatively, he may have used a friend or family member as a model. The face is perhaps reminiscent of, but not identical to, the faces repeated throughout the imaginary works of the artist(s) known today as The Master of the Female Half-Lengths, however. The Master is best known for his/their many imaginary portraits of Mary Magdalene in an early sixteenth century setting and of female musicians depicted singly or in pairs or small groups (Fig.8, below). Many of the faces of those women are indistinguishable from each other, and it has been suggested that The Master produced his works in large quantity for speculative sale in a newly emerging market for art that was both inspirational and decorative.[12] Indeed, it is highly probable that the Edwards Portrait was produced “on spec” rather than on commission, and in response to the apparent demand in the seventeenth century for decorative images of Lady Jane Grey.

Artist Attribution

     The artist who created this portrait must remain unknown pending further research. But dendrochronologist Tomasz Ważny reveals a possible data match with the wood from a painting that he identified only as “Cornelius SAFTLEVEN,  STO693 TRINKENDE III.” Dr. Ważny is awaiting the restoration of full service for the RKD–Netherlands Institute for Art History dendrochronology database, which has apparently been compromised for some time now. If the data for this panel matches that for the Saftleven panel, however, it introduces the possibility that this portrait was produced in the Saftleven studio. The technical skill and execution in this portrait differ from that of Saftleven himself, but the work may have been executed by one of his apprentices, many of whom are documented. If an attribution of “Studio of Cornelis Saftleven” is supportable, then it is likely that the painting was created “on spec” specifically for export to the English consumer market for sale to an English buyer.

Iconographic Context

The Edwards Portrait is an important addition to the known iconography of Lady Jane Grey. It is chronologically one of the first amongst nine portrait images created before 1700 and that each bear inscriptions explicitly identifying their various sitters as Lady Jane Grey. Of those nine, seven are painted portraits and two are engravings. Only three of the painted portraits were likely intended by their respective original artists to depict Lady Jane Grey, however. The remining four of the painted portraits depict other women and had inscriptions added later in the life of the paintings.[13] Among the engravings, one is an anachronistic and entirely fictional depiction, while the other was copied without change from a portrait of Katherine Parr.[14]

The most prominent from among the three early painted portraits intended by the original artist to depict Lady Jane is the so-called Streatham Portrait now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.[15] Though that portrait bears an inscription by the original artist identifying the sitter as ‘Lady Jayne,’ dendrochronological analysis of the wood panel on which the work was executed dates it to no earlier than the mid-1590s, fully four decades after Jane’s death early in 1554. Susan James and others argue that the painting was likely copied or derived from a portrait of Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s wives.[16]

The Syon Portrait appears next chronologically among the painted portraits. Dendrochronological analysis of its wood panel support indicates that it was likely produced between 1610 and 1625.[17] It is inscribed ‘Lady Jane Grey’ over the lower left margin of the trompe-l’oeil frame included in the painted image. The date at which the inscription was placed is unknown, but documentary evidence from the Seymour family for whom the portrait was created confirms that they understood the sitter to be Jane when they commissioned the work. William Seymour, a grandson of Jane Grey’s younger sister Katherine Grey Seymour, and William’s wife Frances owned the painting from the time of its creation until Frances’ death in 1674. But despite the close family connection, the Syon Portrait was certainly copied from the earlier Berry Hill Portrait. And while the uninscribed Berry Hill was also long said to have been an authentic likeness of Jane Grey, dendrochronological analysis of the wood panel on which it is painted, together with costume evidence, places it in the period between circa 1558 and 1565, after Jane’s death. No consensus has yet been reached on the identity of the sitter in the Berry Hill Portrait, with some favoring Queen Elizabeth I and others favoring Jane’s sister Katherine Grey Seymour.[18]

The Edwards Portrait occurs third chronologically and dates to 1625-1640, as noted above. It is a seemingly unique addition to the iconography of Lady Jane Grey Dudley in that the artist carefully composed and constructed the image rather than copying en toto from a reference image. The unknown artist altered and adapted numerous elements within his one or more original reference images to maximize the utility of the final product as a propaganda tool.

The final composition is replete with specifically reformist Christian symbolism intended to counter the intrusion in the 1630s of Roman Catholic beliefs and practices into the English church established by the Edwardian Reformation and the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1562, discussed below. Lady Jane Grey, as she is represented in this portrait, is a follower of the seventeenth century Puritan religious movement rather than of the Laudian and Arminian movement. And she visually reminds conservative viewers of a sympathetic alternative line of royal succession fully supported by English statute law and that might replace the controversy-prone Stuart line established in contravention of the Third Succession Act of 1543/4. The artist’s careful attention to the composition and to the symbolism attached to many of the individual elements renders the Edwards Portrait the most complex of the entire group. It is also arguably the most aesthetically pleasing from among the small group of three painted portraits intended by their individual artists to depict Lady Jane.

 Historical Context

The identification of no fewer than nine supposed portraits of Jane Grey put forward within the first one hundred and fifty years after her death clearly evidences both a demand and an active market for such portraits. The market developed out of a posthumous re-emergence of Jane Grey into popular culture more generally. The historical character ‘Jane Grey’ became a vehicle through whom both religious and political propagandists might argue a particular agenda without incurring governmental censure, for example. Her religious-themed writings were published immediately after her death to assert opposition to the Marian Catholic restoration in England.[19] John Foxe famously included her in his anti-Catholic Actes and Monuments of 1563, an early Protestant martyrology.[20] Playwrights Thomas Dekker and John Webster produced a series of plays focused on Lady Jane and in which they expressed concern regarding the accession to the English throne of the Scottish King James in 1603.[21] Michael Drayton’s propagandist England’s Heroical Epistles of 1597 similarly relied on the literary character ‘Jane Grey’ to argue against a Stuart succession.[22] Sales of the Epistle were such that it was reissued annually in each of the next several years. The Streatham Portrait said to depict Jane was notably produced early in this period.[23]

The first quasi-biography of Jane Grey appeared in 1615. Similar to previous printed works focusing on religious concerns, The life, death and actions of … the Lady Jane Gray addressed indirectly the political concerns developing after 1612 in relation to the royal succession.[24] Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, died unexpectedly in November 1612. Henry’s twelve-year-old brother Prince Charles became heir apparent. But Charles was a sickly child who stammered, casting some doubt on whether he would survive into adulthood or be able to rule effectively should he eer wear the crown. Yet even as Charles continued to thrive, controversy attached itself to him. Both his father the king and his mother the queen consort favored a Roman Catholic bride for Charles. The prospect was unacceptable to large numbers of his future subjects. And the potentially tenuous nature of his place in the succession owing to his health was exacerbated by the fact that the next heir in both blood and statute law was William Seymour, Jane Grey’s grandnephew through Jane’s younger sister Katherine Grey Seymour. Seymour was twelve years Charles’ senior and reliably English Protestant in his religious observances, giving hope that ‘right religion’ might be preserved in England should he eventually mount the throne. William thus provided an acceptable English Protestant alternative in the event the Stuart line failed or was set aside. And it is in that context that the Syon Portrait of Jane was produced late in the 1610s or early in the 1620s.[25]

Charles did succeed his father in March 1625 at the age of twenty-five years, but his reign was fraught with a series of religious and political controversies. Charles became sufficiently unpopular over the course of the 1620s and 1630s that civil war erupted in 1637. At issue religiously were his choice of a Roman Catholic bride (Henrietta Marie of France), her continued adherence to Roman Catholicism after coming to England, Charles own anti-Calvinist religious policies and his appointment of the Arminian and anti-Calvinist William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Finally, in 1633, Charles attempted to impose his anti-Calvinist policies and theology on the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk. The First Bishop’s War of 1637 that followed initiated a lengthy series of military conflicts throughout Charles’s three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Charles’ political policies were equally divisive. He initially relied heavily on the advice of his father’s former favorite, George Villiers. Parliament demanded Villiers’ dismissal, but Charles refused. Villiers became so unpopular that he was eventually assassinated in 1628. Further, Charles began in 1628 to assert a right to collect taxes independent of Parliament’s approval and to impose forced loans on his subjects. After some struggle between the King and Parliament, Charles prorogued Parliament in 1629 and embarked on a controversial period of personal or autocratic rule. The effort proved unsuccessful as the religious wars in Scotland and rebellions in Ireland placed a heavy financial burden on the Exchequer. Charles recalled Parliament late in 1640, but the tensions between King and Parliament only increased. Civil war erupted in England in 1642, pitting Royalist ‘Cavaliers’ against Parliamentary ‘Roundheads.’ Charles was captured by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1647, tried for treason, and executed on 30 January 1649.

The Edwards Portrait dating to 1625-1640 is contemporaneous with these events, especially the religious controversies that led to the Bishops’ Wars of the 1630s. The religious future of the realm was at issue, and invocations of Lady Jane Grey harkened back to the idealized Edwardian English church, its Calvinist doctrines, and its iconoclastic liturgical practices. In the event, the Parliamentarian party that triumphed in the civil wars went on to establish an austere Puritan English Church that Jane would likely have recognized quite readily. And throughout the period between 1625 and 1649, Jane’s grandnephew remained a viable Protestant English alternative successor to Charles. It is in this historical context that the Edwards Portrait was produced.

J. Stephan Edwards, PhD, FSA
Palm Springs, California
26 March 2025

NOTES: 

[1] E-mail correspondence, Pola Durjaska, PhD, Bearnes, Hampton, and Littlewood to J. Stephan Edwards, 19 November 2024. The Park, Buckland Tout Saints, Devon (UK) is a modest 4-bedroom house of relatively modern construction atop a somewhat older stone masonry undercroft and is situated on 9.66 acres. The Park was listed for sale in the summer of 2023.

[2] Forthcoming video at Baumgartner Restoration YouTube channel.

[3] Christopher Baisin and Tomasz Ważny, “Dendrochronological analysis of wood panel painting ‘LADI  JANE THE DVCHESS, DOVGHTER OF THE DVCHESS OF SVFFOLK, A[nn]o Do[mini] 1553’[sic],” 18 November 2024, Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson.

[4] Katherine of Aragon, attributed to Joannes Corvus, oil on panel, 22 7/8 x 18 in., ca.1520s, Museum of Fine Art -Boston, accession number 48-1124.

[5] David Young Kim, “Lotto’s Carpets: Materiality, Textiles, and Composition in Renaissance Painting,” The Art Bulletin 98:2 (June 2016), 181-212.

[6] See, for example, Anon., Here in this booke ye haue a godly epistle made by a faithful Christian (London: Successor of A. Scoloker, 1554); John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of the latter perillous dayes touching matters of the Church … (London: John Day, 1563), 985-991; Grafton, Richard. Chronicle at large and meere history of the affayres of Englande and kinges of the same (London: Henry Denham for Richarde Tottle and Humphrey Toye, 1569); Anon., The life, death and actions of the most chast, learned, and religious lady, the Lady Iane Gray, daughter to the Duke of Suffolke (London: G. Eld, for John Wright, 1615; London: printed by I. H[aviland] for John Wright, 1629 and 1636).

[7] “Pearls: About the Exhibition,” Victoria and Albert Museum, 21 September 2013 – 19 January 2014.

[8] Matthew 13:45-46 and Revelations 21:21. A pearl emerging from the corruptible flesh of the oyster to become a thing of purity and beauty is considered by Protestant Christian theologians as analogous to pure (reformist) religion emerging from the corruptible world of humankind.

[9] Meilan Solly, “Metal Detectorist Discovers Rare Gold Pendant Celebrating Henry VIII’s First Marriage,” Smithsonian Magazine online, 31 January 2023.

[10] Bartholomew Anglicus, “De Adamante (On Diamonds),” De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things) (Strassburg: George Husner, 1505), 305; Cassandra Auble, “The Cultural Significance of Precious Stones in Early Modern England,” Unpublished MA Thesis (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2011), 15.

[11] Ezekiel 1:15-21.

[12] On the emergence in the Low Countries of a consumer-driven market in decorative art for the domestic setting, see Filip Vermeylen, “Exporting Art Across the Globe: The Antwerp Art Market in the Sixteenth Century,” Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek 50 (1999), 12-29; Neil De Marchi, “The Antwerp-Mechelen Production and Export Complex,” In His Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias, ed. Amy Golhany, Mia Mochizuki, and Kisa Vergara (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007).

[13] The four painted portraits of other women later inscribed to identify the sitter as Lady Jane include, in chronological order of production, the Wrest Park Portrait, the Norris Portrait, the Klabin Portrait, and the Huntington Portrait. See J. Stephan Edwards, Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England’s ‘Nine Days Queen’ (Palm Springs, CA: Old John Publishing, 2024), 60-65, 44-49, 112-115, and 108-111. See also, J. Stephan Edwards, “A Review of the New Evidence for the Sitter in the Wrest Park Portrait,” currently under peer-review, The British Art Journal.

[14] See, Called Lady Jane Grey, after unknown artist, line engraving and etching, after 1553, National Portrait Gallery, accession numbers NPG D21399, D21400, and D21401; Called Lady Jane Grey, Willem and Magdalena van de Passe, published by Frans van den Wyngaerde (Wijngaerde), line engraving, 1620, National Portrait Gallery, accession number NPG D21393 and NPG D19952. See also Edwards, Portraits, 18-23. The van de Passe Engraved Portrait is a direct copy of the Hastings Painted Portrait of Katherine Parr (see Edwards, Portraits, 28-33).

[15] Lady Jane Grey by unknown artist, oil on oak panel, ca.1590-1600, 33 3/4 in. x 23 3/4 in ((856 mm x 603 mm), National Portrait Gallery (London), accession number NPG6804.

[16] Susan E. James, “Lady Jane Grey or Queen Kateryn Parr? National Portrait Gallery Painting 6804: Analysis and Historical Context,” Cogent Arts & Humanities 5:1.  See also Edwards, Portraits, 50-53.

[17] Edwards, Portraits, 156-171.

[18] Roy Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 53-54; Edwards, Portraits, 156-171.

[19] Here in this booke ye haue a godly epistle made by a faithful Christian A comunication betwene Feckna[m] and the Lady Iane Dudley. A letter that she wrote to her syster Lady Katherin. The ende of the Ladye Iane vpon the scaffolde. Ye shal haue also herein a godly prayer made by maister Iohn Knokes (London: Successor of A. Scoloker, 1554).

[20] John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of these and latter perillous days (London: John Day, 1563), 5:969, 985-991.

[21] Thomas Dekker and John Webster, The famous history of Sir Thomas Wyat With the coronation of Queen Mary, and the coming in of King Philip (London: Printed by E[dward] A[llde] for Thomas Archer, 1607; London: Printed [by Nicholas Okes] for Thomas Archrr [i.e. Archer], 1612). This play was likely derived from the two parts of the lost play “Lady Jane” by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, John Webster, Henry Chettle, and Wentworth Smith.

[22] Michael Drayton, England’s Heroical Epistles (London: I.R. for N. Ling, 1597), 70v.-77r.

[23] J. Stephan Edwards, Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England’s ‘Nine Days Queen’: Revised Edition (Palm Springs, CA: Old John Publishing, 2024), 50-53.

[24] Anon., The life, death and actions of the most chast, learned, and religious lady, the Lady Iane Gray, daughter to the Duke of Suffolke (London: G. Eld, for John Wright, 1615).

[25] Edwards, Portraits, 172-177.