Levina Teerlinc
Encyclopedia
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....
of Edward VI
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
, Mary I
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
and 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...
.
Teerlinc was the oldest daughter of Simon Bening
Simon Bening
Simon Bening was a 16th century miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school, the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition....
(sometimes written as Benninc or Benninck), the renowned illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges school. Bening probably trained his daughter as a manuscript painter. Teerlinc may have worked in her father’s workshop before her marriage.
Career
In 1545, she moved with her husband, George Teerlinc of Blankenberge, to England. She then served as the royal painter to Henry VIIIHenry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, whose royal painter, Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
, had recently died. Her annuity for this position was £40 - rather more than Holbein had been paid. Later she served as a gentlewoman
Gentlewoman
A gentlewoman in the original and strict sense is a woman of good family, analogous to the Latin generosus and generosa...
in the royal households of both Mary I
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
and 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...
.
Works
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
in 1553. However, Teerlinc is best known for her pivotal position in the rise of the portrait miniature. There is documentation that she created numerous portraits 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...
, both individual portraits and portraits of the sovereign with important court figures. She might have trained Nicholas Hilliard
Nicholas Hilliard
Nicholas Hilliard was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, up to about ten inches tall, and at least two famous...
, by training a goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
, in the methods of miniature portraiture. Hilliard would go on to be the supreme miniature portraitist of the era.
Sadly most of these works have either not survived or are no longer attributable to Teerlinc. In fact, there are no surviving works that are unarguably documented as by her. A 1983 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
represented "the first occasion when a group of miniatures has been assembled which can be attributed to Levina Teerlinc". Since the exhibition also performed the same function for her predecessor as court miniaturist, Lucas Hornebolte, it was especially useful in developing consensus on attributions. Five miniatures and two illuminated manuscript sheets were in the group, including a miniature of Lady Catherine Grey
Lady Catherine Grey
Lady Catherine Grey , Countess of Hertford, was the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey. A granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, she was a potential successor to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, but incurred Elizabeth's wrath by her secret marriage to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford...
from the V&A, and others from the Yale Center for British Art
Yale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University which houses the most comprehensive collection of British Art outside the United Kingdom...
, the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
(both of these possibly of the young Elizabeth I, and private collections. Strong considered there was "a convincing group of miniatures that emerge as the work of a single hand, one whose draughtsmanship is weak, whose paint is thin and transparent and whose brushwork loose". She also probably designed the Great Seal of England for Mary I
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
and the earliest one used by Elizabeth.
Partial list of works
- Levina Teerlinc, Portrait of Lady Katherine Grey, About 1555–60, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum no. P.10-1979 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74851/miniature-portrait-of-katherine-grey/
- Levina Teerlinc, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1566, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum no. P.21-1954 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82007/miniature-portrait-of-an-unknown-woman
- Levina Teerlinc, Portrait of Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney, ca.1575, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum no. E.1170-1988
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O174799/miniature-portrait-of-mary-dudley-lady
- Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of Queen Mary I, Collection of the Duke of Buccleuch
- Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of a Young Woman, Collection of H.M. the Queen, Windsor Castle
- Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of Elizabeth I in State Robes, Collection of Welbeck Abbey