God’s plenty: ‘The Tudors’ in San Francisco

A magnificent exhibition has just opened at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco.  “The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England” first appeared at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  The show includes paintings, sculpture, armour, furniture, tapestries, textiles, costumes, gloves, jewellery, gold medallions, coins, candelabra, tankards, ewers and basins, salt cellars, maps, letters, architectural drawings and illuminated manuscripts.  A three-foot high ceremonial wine vessel takes the form of a seated leopard with open mouth and fierce teeth.  The Tudors, unlike most 20th-century British monarchs, were great patrons of the arts.  As Dryden said of Chaucer, “Here is God’s plenty.”

The Tudor dynasty, 1485-1603, included Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.  Most notably, Francis Drake (and others) defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 and England became a world power.  If, as the Protestant King Henri IV said, “Paris is worth a Mass”, then surely England was worth a divorce — or, rather, a papal annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  But Pope Clement VII, under pressure from her nephew Charles V, whom he had recently crowned Emperor, refused to grant Henry’s wish.  When Henry defiantly married Anne Boleyn and was excommunicated, he severed relations with the Catholic Church and created the (later Protestant) Church of England.

Henry James declared, “there is no greater work of art than a great portrait.”  The stars of this exhibition are Hans Holbein and Nicholas Hilliard, and if monarchs wanted an artist to portray their majesty, Hans Holbein was the perfect painter.  His proud inscription on his portrait of the handsome German merchant Derich Born claimed that his subject lacked only breath to seem truly alive: “If you added a voice, this would be Derich his very self.  You would be in doubt whether the painter or his father made him.”

In Holbein’s bust-length Henry VIII as a Young Man (1509), the 18-year-old rests his curled hands and fingers on the front ledge.  He wears a triangular black cap with medallions, fur-trimmed robe, and gold chain encrusted with rubies and pearls draped around his shoulders and down his chest.  His pale bearded face, with wide-open eyes and narrow nose, looks to the right with a rather timid expression.

Holbein’s more familiar Portrait of Henry VIII (1540) has a subtle bluish-grey background.  His small eyes, nose and mouth provide a striking contrast to his wide shoulders, broad chest and big belly.  He wears a fur mantle over puffed sleeves and a jewel-encrusted shirt.  His right ringed hand clutches a pair of leather gloves symbolising honour and loyalty, his left hand holds the top of his ever-ready sword.  He radiates strength and power, with a hint of evil.

Holbein’s Portrait of Henry VIII (1540)

Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, was the mother of his sole male heir, Edward VI (1537-53).  She died a few days after his birth, and Edward died at the age of fifteen.  In Holbein’s three-quarter length portrait, Jane glances to the left and folds her hands in front of her.  The cap that extends down her cheeks is made of gold brocade bordered by emeralds, each luminous pearl perfectly painted, and her necklace of precious stones matches her headdress.  She’s rather dowdy looking, with a high forehead, small wide-apart eyes, long narrow nose and severely pursed lips.  Yet she aroused the King’s passion and became Queen after Anne Boleyn was executed.

Holbein’s Edward VI as a Child  (1538) is his most charming picture.  The toddler prince, a tiny version of his massive father, is painted with real gold.  He wears a tilted red-feathered cap over a tight cloth helmet, and a rich red costume with wide brocaded yellow sleeves.  He has a wide forehead, chipmunk cheeks, pursed lips and pointed chin.  His left hand holds a toy sceptre, his right hand is raised with an open palm as a greeting or blessing.  The pose was intended to evoke the future king.  Though Edward was a sickly child, Holbein has made him look strong and healthy; he seems much older than fourteen months.

Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), a contemporary of Shakespeare and El Greco, was born in Exeter and fled to Protestant Geneva during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary.  Trained as a goldsmith, he also created miniature portraits with elaborate clothes and rich jewels in the courts of Elizabeth and James.  He wrote The Art of Limning (1600), and was praised in John Donne’s poem “The Storme”: “a hand, or eye / By Hilliard drawne, is worth a history.”

In Hilliard’s Queen Elizabeth (1575), she is almost buried in her heavy jewels and elaborate costume.  Her curly red hair, grey eyes and ivory-pale face emerge from her wide lace ruff circling a black tunic with decorated sleeves.  She turns slightly to the right, with a large pearl depending from her forehead, and has a calm, pensive yet appropriately regal expression.

In the “Hardwick” portrait (1599), attributed to Hilliard, Elizabeth stands full-length on a Turkish carpet, beside a throne and in front of a red velvet cloth of state.  She has a flared wing-like collar, and carries a glove in one white hand and a feather fan in the other.  She’s gorgeously appareled in a fantastically ornate and richly bejeweled costume decorated with land and sea creatures embroidered on the petticoat.  Her wasp waist is contrasted to her expansive dress, and her small slipper feet peep out from under her dress.  Though she was 66, she is flattered with a timeless beauty and looks much younger.

Hilliard’s miniature of George Clifford (1587) portrays a soldier, privateer and sportsman.  The watercolour and gold on vellum is placed in a three-inch high oval.  Lightning flashes in the background, but Clifford maintains a steadfast expression.  He has a wide white collar, curly shoulder-length hair, pointed beard, high forehead and sharp eyes, and is well and truly armoured for a jousting tournament.

Sir Amyas Paulet was Elizabeth’s ambassador to France and jailer of Mary Queen of Scots, who was Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin and heir to the throne until beheaded for treason in 1587.  In Hilliard’s portrait (1578), Paulet wears a soft black hat with gold medallion, wide lace ruff and ruffled sleeves, and heavy black tunic with eight buttons down the front.  He has a pale face, blue eyes, and sandy red hair, moustache and beard.

Two portraits by unknown artists are unusually interesting.  Painted by a follower of François Clouet, the Duc d’Alencon (1572) pictures a suitor to Queen Elizabeth.  The duke was actually scarred and stunted by smallpox, but suitably portrayed by the French artist as dashing and elegant.

Depicted at life size and full length, the figure of Hercule-François, duc d’Alençon, youngest son of Catherine de’ Medici and Henri II of France, dominates the shallow stage of this formal portrait, on the day after his eighteenth birthday.  The editors of the exhibition catalogue write that “his white court costume shimmers from the shadows: leather slippers, silk hose, a finely slashed doublet, pleated ruff, and short trunk hose of silk overlaid with bands of cutwork or lace.  With his right hand he holds a pair of gloves; his left rests on the hilt of a rapier suspended from a thin belt.  A cape of white fur flecked with black (possibly snow leopard) is draped over one shoulder, and on his head is a black Spanish toque with a jeweled band and white aigrette.  Around his neck is a rope of pearls interspersed with jeweled medallions, from which is suspended the royal Order of Saint Michael.”

An unknown English artist painted an exotic Moroccan chieftain in 1600.  This Muslim secretary to the Sultan of Morocco visited England and formed an alliance against their common Catholic enemy, Philip II of Spain.  The emissary wears a heavy curved turban with a scarf folded under his bearded chin, and a long white robe under his heavy black cloak.  He has thick eyebrows, dark skin, lined face and the severe expression of a seasoned warrior.  In a gesture of friendship, his right hand rests on his chest; his left hand holds the gold handle and hilt of his sword.  The fierce fighter seems to be offering the choice between peace and war.

The Tudors justifies Leon Battista Alberti’s claim in 1435 that portraits bestowed eternal life by preserving the memory and virtues of the subject: “Painting possesses a truly divine power.  Not only does it make the absent present, but also represents the dead to the living many centuries later, so they are recognized by spectators with pleasure and deep admiration for the artist.”

Jeffrey Meyers will publish both James Salter: Pilot, Screenwriter, Novelist and Parallel Lives: From Freud and Hitler to Arbus and Plath with Louisiana State University Press in 2024.

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