Portrait of Edward VI (1537-53), King of England

The support is a single horizontally grained oak panel, 0.4-0.6 cm thick. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1526. The panel could have been ready for use by 1537, but a date in or after 1551 is more likely. The whitish ground extends up to the edges of the panel. The rather schematic underdrawing consists of contour lines applied in a dry medium, probably black chalk. There are contour lines for the eyes, the wrinkles around the eyes, and for the nose and mouth. The paint was applied in thin, transparent layers.

Fair. There are paint losses around the edge and in the black detailing on the white collar. The dark clothing is abraded and there is much discoloured retouching throughout. The green background has turned brown in places. The varnish is uneven, with matte spots.

…; from a dealer, Dordrecht, fl. 200, with SK-A-979, as school of Hans Holbein, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 6016), 1884;¹¹Inventory NMGK. transferred to the museum, 1885

ObjectNumber: SK-A-980

This painting was acquired along with a portrait of Charles V (SK-A-979), which is probably by the same hand. When the portrait entered the collection it was incorrectly identified as an image of Charles’s son Philip II, and was attributed to Holbein. However, it is now apparent that that identification was unfounded, and that the panel instead portrays the English King Edward VI.²²Letter from Sir Oliver Millar to the Rijksmuseum, 22 December 1977.

Edward is portrayed here from the shoulders up, turned just slightly to the left. He wears a black doublet with gold buttons and a white shirt with a collar embroidered in blackwork. A black plume, gold aglets, and a gold bejewelled pin adorn his black bonnet.³³With thanks to Marieke de Winkel, 2007. Born in October 1537, Edward was the only legitimate son of Henry VIII. He was crowned at the age of ten on 20 February 1547, soon after his father’s death, and ruled primarily according to the dictates of his advisers. He died of tuberculosis on 6 July 1553 and was succeeded by his sister, Mary Tudor.⁴⁴For his biography see Hoak 2004.

The former attribution of the present painting to Vermeyen should be rejected. A portrait of Edward at Hampton Court attributed to the Flemish portraitist William Scrots (active 1537-53) probably served as the model for this image (fig. a).⁵⁵Letter from Sir Oliver Millar to the Rijksmuseum, 22 December 1977. Scrots was employed as the king’s official painter, a position he had previously held under Edward’s father, Henry VIII.⁶⁶Auerbach 1954, p. 77. Scrots is known to have painted Edward’s portrait from a payment recorded in March 1552, which refers to two ‘pictures of His Highness’ that were sent to English ambassadors abroad.⁷⁷Auerbach 1954, p. 77. The full-length portrait of Edward at Hampton Court is one of the best examples of a prototype that served as the king’s official portrait.⁸⁸Millar 1963, p. 66, no. 49. The attire and particularly the elongated face in the Hampton Court painting have strong affinities with the tondo portrait in Amsterdam.⁹⁹Auerbach 1954, p. 88. Given the inferior quality, the Rijksmuseum portrait cannot have been painted by Scrots himself. Various additional copies after the same model are also known.¹⁰¹⁰Strong 1969, I, pp. 93-94, II, figs. 172-73; sale, London (Sotheby’s), 11 July 1983, nos. 32-33 (ill.).
MBa

Ghent 1955, p. 133, no. 139 (as ‘Portrait of Philip II’, old copy)

1887, p. 47, no. 376 (as French school, 16th century, ‘Portrait of Philip II as a youth’); 1903, p. 4, no. 31; 1976, p. 573, no. A 980 (as manner of Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, ‘Portrait of the future King Philip II as a child’); 1992, p. 84, no. A 980 (as manner of William Scrots)

M. Bass, 2010, 'anonymous, Portrait of Edward VI (1537-53), King of England, Netherlands, c. 1550', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6423