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Summary

Lucas de Heere: The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession  wikidata:Q29108223 reasonator:Q29108223
Artist
Attributed to Lucas de Heere  (1534–1584)  wikidata:Q2419460
 
Alternative names
Lukas de Heere
Description Southern Netherlandish painter and drawer
Date of birth/death 1534 Edit this at Wikidata 29 August 1584 Edit this at Wikidata
Location of birth/death Ghent Paris (?)
Work location
France, Ghent (1555-1568), England (1569-1576), Ghent (circa 1577-1582)
Authority file
artist QS:P170,Q2419460,P5102,Q230768
image of artwork listed in title parameter on this page
Title
The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession
Object type painting Edit this at Wikidata
Genre allegory Edit this at Wikidata
Description

The inscription shows that the work was a gift for Francis Walsingham, to whose family its provenance can be traced. Along the bottom, it reads: "THE QUENE. TO. WALSINGHAM. THIS. TABLET. SENTE. MARKE. OF. HER. PEOPLES. AND HER. OWNE. CONTENTE". Inscription around the frame: "A FACE OF MUCHE NOBILLITYE LOE IN A LITLE ROOME. FOWR STATES WITH THEYR CONDITIONS HEARE SHADOWED IN. A SHOWE A FATHER MORE THEN VALYANT. A RARE AND VERTUOUS SOON. A ZEALUS DAUGHTER IN HER KIND WHAT ELS THE WORLD DOTH KNOWE. AND LAST OF ALL A VYRGIN QUEEN TO ENGLANDS JOY WE SEE SUCCESSYVELY TO HOLD THE RIGHT, AND VERTUES OF THE THREE".


Mixing portraiture and allegory, the painting anachronistically shows Henry VIII, his three children, and Queen Mary's husband, Philip of Spain, alongside figures from mythology. Henry sits on his throne in the centre, with his son Edward, the future Edward VI, kneeling beside him receiving the sword of justice. Henry died in 1547, but on the left of the picture his daughter Mary is shown next to Philip, whom she didn't marry until 1554 when she was queen, with Mars, god of war, behind them, symbolising the wars they fought. Elizabeth, by contrast, stands on the right of the picture holding the hand of Peace, who treads the sword of discord underfoot, as Plenty attends with her cornucopia. Painted in Elizabeth's reign c. 1572, the picture stresses her legitimate descent from the Tudor dynasty and her role as a bringer of peace and prosperity to the realm.


Owing to a similarity of style and composition with Lucas de Heere's Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1559) and other works, the art historian Roy Strong has attributed the work to de Heere; the art scholar and curator Karen Hearn, however, regards the attribution as speculative. Another source for the composition may be the anachronistic (Queen Jane Seymour died shortly after giving birth to Prince Edward) group portrait The Family of Henry VIII (c. 1545). Prototypes for the portraits have been detected in paintings by Holbein (Henry), Scrots (Edward), Mor (Mary and Philip), and, less confidently, Hilliard (Elizabeth). (Reference: Hearn, pp. 81–82.)
Date circa 1572
date QS:P571,+1572-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902
Medium oil on panel
medium QS:P186,Q296955;P186,Q106857709,P518,Q861259
Dimensions 131.2 × 184
institution QS:P195,Q1321874
Current location
on show at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire.
Inscriptions
  • THE QUEEN TO WALSINGHAM THIS TABLE SENT + MARK OF HER PEOPLES. AND HER OWN CONTENT. Edit this at Wikidata
References RKDimages ID: 306598 Edit this at Wikidata
Source/Photographer Karen Hearn, Dynasties, London: Tate, 1995, ISBN 1854371576, p. 81.
Other versions
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Derivative works of this file:  Tudors.JPG

Licensing

This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domain

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".
This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details.

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