Hieronimo Custodis (died c. 1593) was a Flemish

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

 painter active in England in the reign of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

.

A native of Antwerp, Custodis was one of many Flemish artists of the Tudor court

Artists of the Tudor court

The artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I....

 who had fled to England to avoid the persecution of Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands. He is thought to have arrived in England sometime after the fall of Antwerp to the forces of the Duke of Parma

Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma

Alexander Farnese was Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1586 to 1592, and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592.-Biography:...

 in 1585.

Three English portraits by Custodis signed and dated 1589 firmly establish him as resident in London by that year. Sir Roy Strong

Roy Strong

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London...

 attributes a portrait of Sir Henry Bromley dated 1587 to Custodis, suggesting an earlier arrival, and has verified the recent attribution of a portrait of the young Edward Talbot

Edward Talbot, 8th Earl of Shrewsbury

Edward Talbot, 8th Earl of Shrewsbury and 8th Earl of Waterford , was the younger brother and nearest male heir of Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he succeeded as Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord High Steward of Ireland in 1616.He was born in Sheffield, the son of George Talbot, 6th Earl of...

 dated 1586 to Custodis. In 1591, he was living in the parish of St Bodolph-without-Aldgate

St Botolph's Aldgate

St Botolph's Church, Aldgate, St Botolph-without-Aldgate, or just Aldgate Church, is a Church of England liberal and inclusive parish church in the City of London, standing at the junction of Houndsditch and Aldgate High Street. The current 18th century church is made of brick with stone quoins...

where "Jacobus the son of Ieronyme Custodis A Paynter" was baptised on 2 March. He is assumed to have died in 1593, as all of his known works are dated between 1589 and 1593, and his widow remarried that year.

Custodis's unsigned but dated works are idenitified by "palaeographical peculiarities" in the inscriptions which can be closely matched to those in his signed portraits.