ENGLISH SCHOOL
(c. 1600)
157 ALLEGORICAL PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH
Three-quarter length seated, in rich dress with jewels in her hair; her right elbow leaning against a cushion on a table, and her right hand supporting her head; in her left hand a book of prayer; two Cupids hovering in the air are holding a crown and sceptre over her head; behind the Queen on the right an allegory of death as a skeleton grinning; on the left Time with his scythe seated at a table on which lies a broken hour glass.
Panel, 44¼ by 37¾ in.
Acquired by Mr. Paul Methuen for £11 [c. £2500 today] os. 6d. at the Blathwayt sale (Dyrham, Gloucestershire), November 21, 1765.
Not in Britton. — 1891 Catalogue, No. 100. — 1903 Catalogue No. 251.
Exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, Loan Exhibition of National Portraits, 1886, No. 348.
Exhibited at Barking Museum, Loan Exhibition at Eastbury Manor House, 1935-6,
Exhibited at Bristol, Exhibition of Art Treasures of the West Country, 1937,No. 28.
James Pope-Hennessy, London Fabric, London 1939, illustrated in colour as frontispiece [“Queen Elizabeth haunted by Time and Death”].
Among the Corsham family papers there is a note saying that this picture was painted for Queen Elizabeth by her express desire after the condemnation of the Earl of Essex.
Source: Chapter THE METHUEN COLLECTION, p.97-98 in
A CATALOGUE of the PICTURES at CORSHAM COURT
by TANCRED BORENIUS, Ph.D., D.Lit., F.S.A.
Durning-Lawrence Professor of the History of Art in the University of London
LONDON 1939
See also: Friends of Swindon Museum & Art Gallery
If Henry Holiday alluded to that painting, he perhaps may have visited Corsham before 1876.
2023-11-18