Lucas Horenbout
Encyclopedia
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
c. 1490 to 1495 - London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
1544) was a Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
artist who moved to England in the mid-1520s and worked there as "King's Painter" and court miniaturist to King Henry VIII
Henry 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...
from 1525 until his death. He was trained in the final phase of Netherlandish illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
painting, in which his father Gerard was an important figure, and was the founding painter of the long and distinct English tradition of portrait miniature
Portrait miniature
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century...
painting. He has often been suggested as the Master of the Cast Shadow Workshop, who produced royal portraits on panel in the 1520s or 1530s.
Life and family
Horenbout trained in Ghent with his father, Gerard HorenboutGerard Horenbout
Gerard Horenbout was a Flemish miniaturist, a late example of the Flemish Primitives. He has been identified with the Master of James IV of Scotland.-Biography:...
, becoming a Master of the local Guild of Saint Luke
Guild of Saint Luke
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was identified by John of Damascus as having painted the...
in 1512. Gerard was an important Flemish manuscript illuminator in the dying days of that art-form, who had been court painter
Court painter
A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were often given the office of valet de chambre...
, from 1515 to about 1522, to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. Margaret was twice sister-in-law to Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
, still Henry's (first) Queen when the Horenbouts came to England. Gerard is sometimes identified with the "Master of James IV of Scotland
Master of James IV of Scotland
The Master of James IV of Scotland was a Flemish manuscript illuminator and painter most likely based in Ghent, or perhaps Bruges. Circumstantial evidence, including several larger panel paintings, indicates that he may be identical with Gerard Horenbout. He was the leading illuminator of the...
", one of the many artistic personalities identified as a significant illuminator in the Ghent-Bruges school of the period, to whom no historical person can be attached.
Horenbout came over to England at an unknown date with, or perhaps before, his sister Susanna and his father. It has been suggested that their move was in connection with an attempt by the King, or possibly Cardinal Wolsey, to revive English manuscript illumination by establishing a workshop in London, but this is controversial. His father Gerard is first recorded in England in 1528, and later returned to the Continent, probably after 1531; he had died in Ghent by 1540. Susanna, who was also an illuminator, is recorded in 1529 as married to a John Palmer and in England.
Lucas is documented in England from September 1525, when he was first paid by the King as "pictor maker". By 1531 he was described as the "King's Painter", and this appointment was confirmed for life in June 1534, when he became a "denizen" - effectively a naturalised citizen. Horenbout was very well paid, at sixty-two pounds and ten shillings (but only thirty-three pounds and six shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s according to Richard Gay) per year, a "huge" sum according to Strong, and better than Holbein
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...
's thirty pounds a year in his period as Henry's court painter. He was granted a "tenement" in Charing Cross
Charing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London, England. It is named after the now demolished Eleanor cross that stood there, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross is now occupied by an equestrian...
, and permitted to take on four foreign journeyman. Lucas was buried at Saint Martin in the Fields and left a wife and daughter, Margaret and Jacquemine. Margaret was paid sixty shillings three years later by Queen Catherine Parr
Catherine Parr
Catherine Parr ; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him...
for some paintings.
Work
Portrait miniature
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century...
painting, which begins suddenly at the time of his arrival in England, and had very few continental precedents, although three lost miniatures, possibly by Jean Clouet
Jean Clouet
Jean Clouet was a miniaturist and painter who worked in France during the Renaissance. He was the father of François Clouet.-Biography:Clouet was allegedly born in Brussels....
, sent from the French to the English court, may have inspired the new form. Horenbout later taught the art of illumination to 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...
, also a court artist of Henry, at least according to Karel van Mander who refers to a "Lucas", assumed to be Horenbout. However, this has been doubted.
Twenty-three surviving portrait miniatures have usually been attributed to Horenbout in recent decades; all but one, a portrait of Holbein, are of members of the English or other royal families. Paintings of at least four of Henry's Queens are attributed to him. A high proportion of those capable of being dated come from the 1520s.
Horenbout's miniature of Holbein (1543) is among his most accomplished works, not least because he copies the face from a self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
drawing by Holbein; his own drawing skills are not the strongest. This miniature was also nearly always regarded as a self-portrait, until recent technical examination made clear that the style of painting is actually very different from that of undoubted Holbein miniatures: there is "an absence of his subtle gradations of flesh tone and colour" and "no sign of the extremely thin pen-like lines which are so notable a feature in Holbein's drawing of such details as the embroidered edges of costume". There are two versions attributed to Horenbout, of which the better is in the Wallace Collection
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
It may be a memorial portrait, painted in the six months interval between the death of Holbein and that of Horenbout.
He is recorded as working in other forms, probably including panel paintings, woodcuts and decorations for festivities, but there are no certain survivals from these, except for illuminations on documents. He has often been suggested as the Master of the "Cast Shadow Workshop", who produced a series of rather undistinguished portraits mostly of English monarchs past and present, presumably working for the King.
Illuminated decorations on some charters, Acts and similar royal documents are also attributed to him, and an illuminated manuscript with two elaborate full-page miniatures at Hatfield House
Hatfield House
Hatfield House is a country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean house was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I and has been the home of the Cecil...
has been attributed to him or his sister. More tentatively, some illuminations from the major Sforza Hours have been attributed to one of the two. Unlike that of Levina Teerlinc
Levina Teerlinc
Levina Teerlinc was a Flemish miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I....
a generation later, Susanna's oeuvre, and that of another brother, remains obscure, although Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
records buying a miniature by her in Antwerp in May 1521. Fine illuminations in a collection of works by John Lydgate
John Lydgate
John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England.Lydgate is at once a greater and a lesser poet than John Gower. He is a greater poet because of his greater range and force; he has a much more powerful machine at his command. The sheer bulk of Lydgate's poetic output is...
(British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
) and the Letters Patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
for Cardinal College (Public Records Office) , Cardinal Wolsey's foundation in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, renamed Christ Church
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
after his fall, are attributed to one or more of Gerard, Lucas and Susanna, without specifying which one or ones.