Portrait of Lady Jane Gray, liquid gold and body-color on vellum, with integral lettering ‘Ye Lady Jane / Graye [sic.]...'

After Hans HOLBEIN the Younger. - Emma ROBERTS (artist).

Portrait of Lady Jane Gray, liquid gold and body-color on vellum, with integral lettering ‘Ye Lady Jane / Graye [sic.]/ 1553 / Lady Jane / Gray d’apres … / l’original de / Holbein [sic.] / Emma Roberts’. [Great Britain?: undated but circa 1830-1860]. Liquid gold and body-color on vellum (visible area: 9 3/8 x 6 1/8in; 237 x 155mm), vellum stretched ‘flat’ using gummed brown paper [see images]. (Some slight chipping of liquid gold, some cockling to vellum). Framed.

An attractive re-interpretation of Holbein’s original: a contemporary lithographed version noted that (in about 1840) the “original of this picture, by Hans Holbein, is to be found in the Collection of Coll. Elliott of Nottingham.” Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey) (1537 - 1554) was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII's sister Princess Mary, and in 1533 married Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland. Acting under the influence of Northumberland, the young and ailing King Edward VI willed her the crown. She was proclaimed queen at his death in 1533, but reigned only briefly until she was captured by supporters of Mary Tudor. She was subsequently executed.