Elizabeth, Lady Vaux (1509-1556) c. 1535
Black and coloured chalks with metalpoint, black ink and white heightening on pink prepared paper | 28.1 x 21.5 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 912247
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A portrait drawing of Elizabeth, Lady Vaux (1509-1556) on pink prepared paper. She is shown bust length, facing three-quarters to the left. She wears a yellow and black striped headdress and a necklace. The drawing is in black and coloured chalks worked up in ink and white heightening.
An eighteenth century inscription (a copy of a sixteenth-century original) at upper left identifies the sitter as 'The Lady Vaux'.
Elizabeth Vaux was born in 1509, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cheney, an Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII. She became a ward of the 1st Baron Vaux in 1516 and was married to his son Thomas (later 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden) before May 1523. This drawing of Lady Vaux with the companion image of her husband (RCIN 912246) was probably made as a study for a painted portrait. Holbein’s painting of Lady Vaux is known only through copies, one of which is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 402953). No painting of Lord Vaux survives.Provenance
Henry VIII; Edward VI, 1547; Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel; by whom bequeathed to John, Lord Lumley, 1580; by whom probably bequeathed to Henry, Prince of Wales, 1609, and thus inherited by Prince Charles (later Charles I), 1612; by whom exchanged with Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, 1627/8; by whom given to Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel; acquired by Charles II by 1675
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Creator(s)
Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Black and coloured chalks with metalpoint, black ink and white heightening on pink prepared paper
Measurements
28.1 x 21.5 cm (sheet of paper)
Markings
watermark: Briquet 1050: fleur de lys and other in crowned shield [same as 12204]
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
RL 12247