Portrait, Thomas 1st Earl of Southampton, ©Beaulieu Estate

Portrait
Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton (1505-1550)

After a drawing by Hans Holbein now in the Louvre, 49in by 39in

©The Beaulieu Estate

Beaulieu Image Terms of Use

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu has graciously contributed images from this collection to the Shakespeare Southampton Legacy Trust and Southampton Online Research Repository website and retains sole ownership of listed images. Visitors may link to and cite the images within Shakespeare Southampton Legacy Trust and Southampton Online Research Repository website for research and study purposes only. Any further use, including, but not limited to, unauthorized downloading or distribution of the image is strictly prohibited. Visitors must contact the Beaulieu Estate to request additional use at:

sslt@beaulieu.co.uk

Object Specific Information

Title(s):
Portrait of Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton (1505-1550) after Hans Holbein

Description:
Three-quarter length, seated Inscribed with a coat of arms and motto
Oil on canvas, in an 18th century, carved wood frame
After a drawing by Holbein now in the Louvre
49in by 39in

Other Sources:
Louvre
http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/detail/oeuvres/3/18319-Portrait-de-Thomas-Wriothesley-Earl-of-Southamton

In the Flameng collection, the design identity of this drawing was lost. Ganz, in his edition of facsimile drawings of Holbein the Younger (1925?), Recognizes Thomas Wriothesley (1494-1550), cleric of the Royal Seal at the court of Henry VIII. Other portraits of Wriothesley are known: miniature at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. 25.205), 2 oil paintings in the collection of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and that of the Duke of Bedford. According to Burroughs (1926), our drawing prepares the miniature, while Ganz (1939) considers it preparatory to a lost painting; his thesis is taken up by Starcky (1991), for which miniature and paintings are not in the hand of Holbein but seem to go back to the same model since the orientation of the head and some details of the clothes correspond; the drawing of the Louvre is in his eyes preparatory to this lost model today. All authors agree to date the drawing of Holbein's second stay in London, around 1534 (Calvet, 1965) and 1536-1540 (Foister, 2006). Two other portrait studies (Windsor Castle and British Museum, 1910, 0212.105) have also been cut along the outline of the figure and glued on a sheet; with the Louvre drawing, they belonged to Richardson Sr., and were presumably part of the collection of the "Great Booke", set of unrelated drawings present in Holbein's studio at the time of his death (Roberts, 1987, p. 23). Bibl: Bryson Burroughs, A Miniature by Holbein, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, No. 21, 1926, p. 97-99; Arlette Calvet, cat. exp. The sixteenth century European. Drawings of the Louvre, Paris, Louvre Museum, 1965, p. 29, No. 57; Susan Foister, cat. exp. Holbein in England, London, 2006, No. 54; Paul Ganz, The drawings of Holbein, facsimile, 1925 (?), Xxxvi, 3; Paul Ganz, The drawings of Hans Holbein the Younger, 1939, n ° 87; J. Roberts, in cat. exp. Drawings by Holbein from the Court of Henry VIII, Fifty Drawings from the Queen Elizabeth II Collection, Windsor Castle, Houston, 1987, p. 23; Emmanuel Starcky, cat. exp. Drawings of Dürer and the German Renaissance, Paris 1991-1192, p. 161-162, No. 147.

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436663
MET Catalogue of Miniatures
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/European_Miniatures_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
pp. 72-72.

After a drawing by Hans Holbein now in the Louvre, 49in by 39in

©The Beaulieu Estate

General Terms and Conditions of Image Use

Beaulieu Image Terms of Use

Object Specific Information