Steven van der Meulen
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
artist active c. 1543-1564. He gained prominence in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the first decade of 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...
as one of many 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...
artists active at 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....
. He is best known for the "Barrington Park" portrait type of Elizabeth I and for three-quarter length portraits of members of the English court in the first half of the 1560s. A recently discovered will indicates that he died in London between October 1563 and January 1564.
Life
Little is known about van der Meulen's personal life. He was probably born in Antwerp, where he studied under Willem van Cleve the younger in 1543 and was admitted to the Guild of St Luke in 1552. He was in London by September 1560, and he was naturalized on 4 February 1562.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
in connection with negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and Erik XIV, taking with him a Netherlandish painter (holländsk Konterfegare) described as 'Master Staffan' to paint the portrait of the King. It is generally accepted that this was van der Meulen. In 1935, W. G. Constable identified this portrait with a full-length of Erik XIV at Gripsholm Castle
Gripsholm Castle
Gripsholm Castle is a castle in Mariefred, Södermanland, in Sweden and is regarded as one of Sweden's finest historical monuments. It is located by lake Mälaren in south central Sweden, in the municipality of Strängnäs, about 60 km west of Stockholm....
, Mariefred, near Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
.
Scholar Elizabeth Drey has recently discovered van der Meulen's will, dated 5 October 1563 during an epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
of the plague in London and proved on 20 January 1564. His will indicates that his wife and children were resident in London with him at the time of his death.
Works
Van der Meulen's portraits in a simplified version of the sombre style of Anthonis Mor appealed to patrons at the English court in the early 1560s, and works by him dating to that period are recorded in the 1590 inventory of the paintings of John Lumley, 1st Baron LumleyJohn Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley
John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley was an English aristocrat.- Early life :John Lumley was born about 1533, was grandson and heir of John, Lord Lumley, being son and heir of his only son and heir apparent George Lumley by Jane second daughter and coheir of Sir Richard Knightly of Upton,...
where he appears as "the famous paynter Steven".
The recently discovered will, if accepted, indicates that many of the portraits dated 1564-68 attributed to van der Meulen by 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...
in the 1960s must now be reassessed, including two portraits of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death...
.
A portrait pattern of Queen Elizabeth dating to the mid-1560s is confidently attributed to van der Meulen. Called by Strong the "Barrington Park" type after a representative example, these sophisticated portraits are probably a response to a proclamation of 1563, which was designed to counter the existence of many unflattering images of the Queen. A life-size (2 m (7 ft)) portrait of this type c. 1563 by van der Meulen (above), identified as the earliest full-length portrait of Elizabeth and possibly associated with the various marriage negotiations of the early 1560s, was auctioned by Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
in November 2007 for £2.6 million, more than twice its expected price of £700,000–£1 million.