Patronage, Portraiture and Power: Tudor Portraits

The below text is a transcript of a talk delivered by Rosie Brennan, art historian and gallery assistant, covering the Tudor exhibition displayed at Darnley Fine Art during Classic Art London 2026

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Art and literature are seen as complimentary concepts - as da Vinci states in Paragone,  “painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen”. Both disciplines have, historically and to-the-day, benefitted from systems of patronage, where influential individuals would provide financial aid and protection to artists and authors, allowing these creatives to dedicate themselves to their work without the worry of falling into poverty. To complete the transaction, patrons would expect the work of art or literature to afford them prestige and a sort of cultural immortality.

Patronage in Tudor and Jacobean England resulted in the commissioning or financing of some of the most important and perennial images in British cultural history. In the literary world, Shakespeare, Marlowe and Spenser would not have experienced their high levels of pre and posthumous recognition without the backing of wealthy patrons. In the art world, we would not have any of the iconic portraits of Tudor monarchs and statesmen without the commissioning of talented artists such as Hans Holbein.

Two of the portraits on display in this room present two of the most important artistic and literary patrons of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. Alongside works of art and literature, these portraits would have also been commissioned by them or on their behalf - in 16th and 17th century England, as in the rest of Europe, portraits were seen as records of status, piety, and lineage. They aimed to portray characteristics of the sitter through established pictorial motifs. These current works depict the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Derby.

This rather modest portrait depicts Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange and 5th Earl of Derby. His slate-grey eyes stare towards the viewer in a gesture that is more pensive than commanding. His hair is neatly combed and styled in fashionable curls, whilst his neck is framed by a wonderfully detailed lace piccadill collar. The artist has kept the background plain, as if to draw attention towards the exquisite detail of Stanley’s collar, as well as the masterful reflection in his eyes.

Piccadill collars became fashionable in the late 16th century, and were endorsed by high society across Europe. There are many portraits depicting English nobility wearing these collars - two important examples include a portrait of statesman Sir Walter Raleigh, and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. These two figures are contemporaries of Stanley, and given his role as an Earl and Member of Parliament, he would have been well acquainted with Raleigh and the Queen. In an era where sumptuary laws governed fashion and dictated what clothing could be worn by which economic classes, maintaining an up-to-date and fashionable wardrobe would have been a form of soft power and a demonstration of social status.

Another form of soft power that Stanley employed was patronage of literature. He inherited his father’s troupe of acrobats and tumblers, known as Lord Strange’s Men, but aligned it to his own interests by insisting the group began to perform plays. This new group of players benefitted from performances at Court and at the first dedicated theatre in England - known rather aptly as The Theatre. It is believed that one of the members of this company was a certain William Shakespeare - after all, Stanley was known to have patronised Shakespeare, and Lord Strange’s Men performed the Henriad in 1592. Alongside his support for the Bard, Stanley is known to have patronised many other prominent Elizabethan writers, including Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, and Edmund Spenser.

Whilst this portrait uses fashion to demonstrate Stanley’s soft power, the Earl’s lineage carried a power of its own. He was a descendent of King Henry VII and had been detailed in the line of succession after Elizabeth, according to the will of her father King Henry VIII. This claim - however tenuous - was latched onto by the so-called ‘Papists’, who tried to convince Stanley to launch a Catholic rebellion. Stanley was private about his faith, neither outwardly Catholic or Protestant, which caused many to treat him with distrust - including Elizbeth I’s chief minister, William Cecil. Stanley met with his Papist contact twice and took him to London for further discussions with his mother, who had already been excluded from the Queen’s court for allegedly plotting against her, but ultimately handed the conspirator over to Cecil. The conspirator, Robert Hesketh, was interrogated and executed. Stanley clearly hoped that his loyalty to the crown would be rewarded - instead, he was ostracised at court and snubbed when Elizabeth gave the title of Lord Chamberlain of Chester to another nobleman, when Stanley had been the prime candidate for the role.

Shortly after this plot, now known as the Hesketh plot after its conspirator, Stanley met an abrupt and harrowing end. He was suddenly taken gravely ill, with his contemporaries suspecting poisoning in a deliberate act of murder. After all, Hesketh had threatened Stanley’s life if he did not persist with the plot to overthrow Elizabeth I. After being severely ill for over a fortnight, Stanley died at Lathom House in Lancashire in April of 1594, aged only 34.

Ferdinando Stanley’s death remains a mystery, and one can’t help but wonder what a life he could have led had he not met such an untimely and agonizing death. This is a man who may have been King, with an intriguing link to the line of succession. More importantly, and less speculatively, this was an ardent patron of the arts and literature - what other creatives would Stanley have patronised as his tastes changed with age? This modest portrait of an unassuming gentleman is a tad misleading, instead representing one of the most important figures of both the period and of British literary history.

Now, I would like to introduce you to William Herbert, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke - a nobleman, courtier, politician, and founder of Pembroke College at the University of Oxford, where he also served as Chancellor. It should come as no surprise, then, that Herbert was a learned man, supposedly tutored by the poet Samuel Daniel, with a deep appreciation for literature and plays. His mother was Mary Sidney, one of England’s first female poets, who undoubtedly instilled this bookishness in him and his brother Philip from a very early age. Herbert had a strong bond with playwright William Shakespeare having supported his plays over the years. In fact, the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare’s works was dedicated to Herbert and his brother, as a demonstration of their extensive support for the Bard. Some scholars even suggest that the ‘fair youth’ mentioned in many of Shakespeare’s sonnets refers to William Herbert, but this is supposition - even if it is well evidenced.

In this current work, Herbert is depicted in profile, a perspective reminiscent of antiquity and early Italian portraiture. Despite the dishevelled appearance of the sitter, with his open collar and the off-the-shoulder cloak,  his wealth is readily apparent in the garments he wears. The lace on the shirt’s collar, the red silk lining of the cloak, and the gold thread embroidery on the lapels all indicate a man of Herbert’s lineage and social status. But why would a nobleman present himself in such a way? Why not with a baton to hint at his brief military power, as his statue outside of the Bodleian Library presents him? Or a book, a hint at his academic prowess?

Such objects  - books, batons, swords - are part of an accepted pictorial language in which physical items symbolise personal attributes. The unkempt appearance of Herbert is also one such symbol, a visual representation of melancholy. In the early modern period, melancholy was one of the bodily humors and was strongly associated with creativity, intellect and genius - therefore, depicting oneself as melancholic was deeply fashionable in Elizabethan and Jacobean portraiture, indicating that the sitter was a romantic, literary fellow. Given Herbert’s adoration of literature and his associations with Shakespeare’s sonnets, this choice to commission a portrait of himself in this fashion suddenly makes quite a bit of sense.

As ascertained earlier, portraits were commissioned to convey attributes of the sitter to those viewing the work, which was of great importance for contemporary visitors who may not have met the sitter or know of their character. By commissioning such a portrait, it is clear that Herbert wished to portray himself - and to have others see him as - a learned, melancholic chap with a love of the arts.

The visual motif of the open collar is also utilised in this third and final painting, although no confirmed sitter has been identified for this work. The sitter absent-mindedly plays with the ties of his collar as he gazes out towards the viewer, sporting a fashionable slashed black doublet. The garments, the sitter’s ring, and the elaborate design of the ties indicates a man in the upper echelons of society, based on sumptuary laws. As with the Earl of Pembroke, this sitter uses established motifs to depict himself as a melancholic, romantic gentleman.

This current work bears a number of striking similarities to a very well known painting that every body in this room will have seen at least once in their lifetime - the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare. Whilst there is no portrait in the world that can be proven beyond doubt to depict the Bard, the Chandos portrait is believed to have been painted from life. The fact our work resembles the Chandos portrait is incredibly interesting - both works have the same bump over the sitter’s left eye, the shape of the eyes and nostrils are remarkable similar, and both works depict the sitter with an elongated nasal philtrum and thin upper lip.

When researching this portrait, we did indeed follow this lead - was it possible that we had a portrait of Shakespeare in our collection? We mapped the sitter’s facial features onto those of the Chandos portrait, and the findings were certainly compelling. Whilst there is no silver bullet or way to definitively prove that this does indeed depict one of Britain’s most beloved playwrights, it is certainly an intriguing line of inquiry. Is it possible that this sitter is Shakespeare, who was patronised by the two men beside him? We will leave it to you to decide.

These men - the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Derby - are, in part, responsible for the soft power elements of British national identity. Many writers and artists would have been unrecognised, unemployed, and unproductive without their financial aid and protection.  Their influence is undeniable - there would be no Faerie Queen or Ophelia to influence the pre-Raphaelites, no portraits of the Tudor monarchs and nobles so that we helpfully know which actors to cast in Wolf Hall, and certainly not as distinct of a playwriting culture. Without these men, it is hard to imagine that Britain would have such a well-established artistic and literary culture.