The announcement that a mysterious portrait may be the only depiction of England’s shortest-reigning queen Lady Jane Grey created during her lifetime overlooks research undertaken nearly 20 years ago, an art historian has said. This follows the painting going on display at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire after English Heritage published analysis claiming to shed fresh light on its sitter and curious backstory.
Lady Jane Grey reigned as Queen of England for only nine days and was executed less than a year later at the age of only 17. She was a victim of the ruthless ambition of the tumultuous Tudor years, proclaimed as queen after the death of her cousin and fellow protestant Edward VI. However her support quickly melted away and she was deposed by Edward’s Catholic sister Mary who ordered her execution for treason to eliminate a rival to the throne.
It was long understood that no depiction of her painted during her lifetime exists. But evidence to the contrary is building after English Heritage was given the chance to undertake new analysis on the portrait in question when a private collector offered it on long-term loan to Wrest Park.
New analysis of the tree rings on the painted wood panel, which is comprised of two Baltic oak boards from two different trees, suggests a likely usage date between 1539 and circa 1571. This overlaps with Lady Jane Grey’s lifetime: 1537-1554. The back of the panel also displays a merchant or cargo mark, identical to a mark used on a royal portrait of King Edward VI, who reigned from 1547-53.
This isn’t, however, the first time the painting has been flagged as a possible portrait of the “nine-day-queen”. The art historian Bendor Grosvenor—a regular columnist for The Art Newspaper—pointed out on social media that he and the historian David Starkey exhibited the picture in their exhibition Lost Faces, held at London’s Philip Mould gallery in 2007.
Grosvenor told The Art Newspaper: “As part of the research into the Wrest Park painting we commissioned some dendrochronological [tree rings] analysis, because the key thing was to establish whether it was a contemporary portrait rather than a later confection. Once we knew it could indeed have been painted during Jane’s lifetime, or shortly thereafter, things began to fit into place in understanding the rest of the painting.” He added: “It was a little strange seeing the English Heritage press release suggesting their research was some kind of new discovery or conclusion. But I’m glad the picture is going on public display again with some fanfare, and the new infra-red images are interesting.”
Infra-red reflectography shows that the sitter’s costume was significantly changed after the initial portrait was completed. Another striking change is the eyes. These were previously looking to the right but are now shown looking to the sitter’s left. At some point the eyes, mouth and ears were also deliberately scratched out—likely to be an iconoclastic attack. An image of Lady Jane Grey in the National Portrait Gallery bears the same marks.
Peter Moore, a curator of collections and interiors at English Heritage, acknowledged the previous work by Grosvenor and Starkey and said the recent work built upon it. He told The Art Newspaper: “In addition to this previous research, we’ve used infrared reflectography to gain new information about changes made to the painting, which suggests the sitter once had a more elaborate hood—not just the simple linen cap or ‘coif’ we see today. And we’ve discovered that the sleeves were once much wider, and there was possibly a stole or shawl around her arms. This is new research, which indicates that the painting has been altered, and one hypothesis is that this could have been because there was a desire to portray Jane as a Protestant martyr, and therefore a more modest, plainer image was required.”
The portrait, and six other historic paintings are now on display at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire.
