Notes on the History in the Seventeenth Century of the Portraits of Richard II

Reginald Lane Poole

doi:10.1017/S0003581500033631

Notes on the History in the Seventeenth Century of the Portraits of Richard II

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012

Reginald Lane Poole

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The history in the seventeenth century of a fourteenth-century picture can only be of secondary importance. But since many writers on the Wilton diptych and the Westminster Abbey whole-length portrait of Richard II have complained of disputed statements and doubtful evidence, it is worth while to set out a few new suggestions which appear to be adequately supported. They are based upon a close study of such sources of information as we possess, and may perhaps ultimately help to a clue to the undiscovered first owners and authors of the paintings.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1931 , pp. 145 - 159

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500033631 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1931

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^{page 145 note 1} Ashmole MSS. 1513, 1514 in the Bodleian Library.

^{page 145 note 2} B.M. Add. MS. 21111, fols. 32^b and 62. In Add. MS. 23071, fol. 21, Vertue made a tiny sketch of the picture.

^{page 145 note 3} See post, p. 152.

^{page 145 note 4} Description of the Wilton House Diptych, printed for the Arundel Society, 1882.

^{page 146 note 1} I owe this information to the kindness of the Librarian of the Royal Library, Major O. F. Morshead, D.S.O.

^{page 147 note 1} MS. 1514, fol. 99.

^{page 147 note 2} Painted by Richard Greenbury.

^{page 148 note 1} I owe the reading of these lines to the skill and kindness of my friend Mr. E. O. Winstedt of the Bodleian Library.

^{page 148 note 2} It is possible that ‘Liffens’ indicates Roland Lefevre, 1608–77.

^{page 148 note 3} In Ashm. MS. 1513, fol. 116, the print of the diptych is thus entered: ‘Item in a black ebbone frame a peece hatch (sic) in copper printed upon paper w^ch was coppied off the Kings ould alter peece w^ch his Ma^ty had of the Lady Jening by Sir James Palmers meanes for the w^ch in the way off exchang gave his Ma^tys owne Picture in oyle Cullo^rs don by Leeuons.’ (In the Vertue-Bathoe Catalogue, pp. 173, 174.)

^{page 149 note 1} The Palmers of Sussex, 1867, privately printed, p. 24.

^{page 149 note 2} Printed in two volumes by the Camden Society. The third part is still in MS. in the Record Office. The whole, together with inventories of royal treasures, has been examined for the purpose of this study by my friend Miss Maude Clarke to whom I am much indebted. A discussion by her of the date of the diptych, and of its interpretation, will be found in a forthcoming number of The Burlington Magazine.

^{page 149 note 3} Wills have been read of Lady Joan Beaufort, the Earl of Westmorland, Richard Earl of Salisbury, Sir William Stonor, Thomas Lord Wentworth, Anne Wentworth, and her husband, John Poley.

^{page 150 note 1} It is unfortunate that the coloured reproduction of the diptych published by the Arundel Society in 1882 appears to be too much influenced by this engraving.

^{page 150 note 2} It is significant that Hollar's print is described in the catalogue as of ‘the King's ould alter peece’.

^{page 151 note 1} Description of the Diptych, p. 14, see also Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of Early English Portraiture, 1909, p. 18.

^{page 151 note 2} Harleian MS. 1890, fol. 54. in the British Museum.

^{page 151 note 3} Not only Gambrini asserts this, but also Vertue many years earlier, in 1713, see Add. MS. 21111, fol. 62.

^{page 152 note 1} Dictionary of National Biography quoting Add. MS. 27448, fol. 342.

^{page 152 note 2} See Stemmata Chicheleana, p. 13; Foster's Alumni.

^{page 152 note 3} Both matriculated in 1672.

^{page 152 note 4} W. R. Lethaby, Westminster Craftsmen, pp. 278–9.

^{page 152 note 5} Pro pictura unius ymaginis ad similitudinem unius regis contrefacte in choro ecclesiae. Issue, Pells, 19 Richard II.

^{page 153 note 1} Royal Commission on Historical MSS. ix. i. 1883Google Scholar, Report of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, p. 30. Herebrecht as ‘painter to the Dean and Chapter’ petitions for a payment of £12 16d. for the work, in French. Ibid.

^{page 153 note 2} Funerall Monuments, 1631, p. 473.

^{page 153 note 3} P. 28 in the section on the reign of Richard.

^{page 153 note 4} History of the Civil War, ed. 1901 i, 132Google Scholar.

^{page 153 note 5} Dart, Westmonasterium, last section, p. 23.

^{page 153 note 6} Fine Arts Quarterly Review, 1867, p. 55. Essay on the Westminster Portrait of Richard II, by Sir George Scharf, to which I am much indebted.

^{page 154 note 1} Royal Commission on Historical MSS., 7th Report, 1879. Papers of the House of Lords, pp. 88–92.

^{page 154 note 2} Ibid.

^{page 154 note 3} The present writer, however, in a previous paper (Walpole Society, ii, 58) made the mistake that this reference was to the diptych—which can be described as a small whole length.

^{page 154 note 4} Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909, Early English Portraiture, p. 20. In the original MS. at the British Museum, Harleian MS. 1890, the entry is to be found on fol. 76.

^{page 154 note 5} Vetusta Monumenta, i, pl. IV. The plate was priced at twenty guineas including the copper, Lit. Anec. ii, 247.

^{page 155 note 1} i, 62.

^{page 155 note 2} Dart adds, however, pearls to the decoration of the shoes.

^{page 155 note 3} Fine Arts Quarterly Review, p. 27.

^{page 155 note 4} Both in the plan and in one of the illustrations. In 1687, however, when this work was published, the portrait of Richard was, as we have noted, at Hampton Court. Neale and Brayley, History of Westminster Abbey, accept Dart's view as to the position of the pulpit.

^{page 155 note 5} Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 5th ed., 1882, pp. 495–6. The return of the portrait to the Choir was due to Dean Stanley.

^{page 156 note 1} I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. Lawrence Tanner, F.S.A., assistant keeper of the Abbey archives.

^{page 156 note 2} The date of the Chapter order is 10th Mar. 1732–3. Mr. Tanner has kindly copied for me two bills paid by the Chapter: ‘for taking down the Kings picture in the State Pew (April) and for putting it up again, (June) 1733,’ and Capt. Broom's Bill ‘for cleaning an antient whole length picture of Richard y^e 2nd, for guilding the background & repairing the whole’.

^{page 156 note 3} Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, p. 90. From a drawing in the possession of Richard Bull, Esq.

^{page 156 note 4} Description of the Diptych, p. 24.

^{page 156 note 5} Neale and Brayley, ii, 301.

^{page 156 note 6} Fine Arts Quarterly Review, p. 49

^{page 157 note 1} Nichols, Bibliotheca Typographica Britannica, i, App. vii, 525–6.

^{page 157 note 2} Printed in full by Sir Lionel Cust, Walpole Society, vi, 1917–18, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

^{page 157 note 3} It is reproduced in the Records of the Lumleys of Lumley Castle, by Miss E. Milner and Miss E. Benham, 1904, p. 12.

^{page 157 note 4} I owe to the courtesy of the Assistant Librarian, Mr. F. E. Parsons, the information that this panel shows no features that are not in the Abbey portrait. Scharf notices only very slight differences. It measures 22¼ × 17 in.

^{page 157 note 5} Catalogue of the Wilton House Collection, 1907, i, 67.Google Scholar

^{page 157 note 6} Burlington Magazine, July 1929, p. 36.

^{page 158 note 1} It is not included in the earlier editions of 1615 and 1628.

^{page 158 note 2} Ashmole's History of the Order of the Garter, ed. 1715, pp. 173, 181.

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