DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67417#0205
THE PICTURES
161
to Windsor, while Benjamin West’s portraits of
George III. and his family have found a more
appropriate home at Kensington Palace.
Special interest attaches to the Tudor portraits,
which have for the most part hung on these walls
ever since they were painted, and are closely con-
nected with the history of the palace. Unfortu-
nately the only portrait we have of Wolsey is an
old copy of the well-known picture at Christ Church,
Oxford, which was brought here in the last century
and framed in a Jacobean mantelpiece in the lobby
of the Cardinal’s closet. Henry VIII. is much
better represented. The fine half-length (269),
ascribed in Charles I.’s Catalogue to Janet or Sotto
Cleef (Cleef the fool), is one of the best portraits
of the King in existence. He wears a dark vest,
richly trimmed with pearls, a white-frilled shirt
under a fur coat, and a black cap with a jewelled
plume and medallion of Our Lady, and has the fair
complexion and auburn locks which excited the
Venetian ambassador’s admiration in 1515. But
the beard which he allowed to grow in 1535, and
the text, “Go ye into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature,” inscribed on the parch-
ment in his hand, clearly point to a later date-
probably 1536, the year in which he accepted the
dedication of Miles Coverdale’s Bible and ordered
a copy to be placed in every church. This por-
trait has been ascribed by turn to Holbein, Clouet,
and Girolamo da Treviso, but is probably the work
of Joos van Cleef, whose early residence in France
may explain the French influence apparent in the
161
to Windsor, while Benjamin West’s portraits of
George III. and his family have found a more
appropriate home at Kensington Palace.
Special interest attaches to the Tudor portraits,
which have for the most part hung on these walls
ever since they were painted, and are closely con-
nected with the history of the palace. Unfortu-
nately the only portrait we have of Wolsey is an
old copy of the well-known picture at Christ Church,
Oxford, which was brought here in the last century
and framed in a Jacobean mantelpiece in the lobby
of the Cardinal’s closet. Henry VIII. is much
better represented. The fine half-length (269),
ascribed in Charles I.’s Catalogue to Janet or Sotto
Cleef (Cleef the fool), is one of the best portraits
of the King in existence. He wears a dark vest,
richly trimmed with pearls, a white-frilled shirt
under a fur coat, and a black cap with a jewelled
plume and medallion of Our Lady, and has the fair
complexion and auburn locks which excited the
Venetian ambassador’s admiration in 1515. But
the beard which he allowed to grow in 1535, and
the text, “Go ye into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature,” inscribed on the parch-
ment in his hand, clearly point to a later date-
probably 1536, the year in which he accepted the
dedication of Miles Coverdale’s Bible and ordered
a copy to be placed in every church. This por-
trait has been ascribed by turn to Holbein, Clouet,
and Girolamo da Treviso, but is probably the work
of Joos van Cleef, whose early residence in France
may explain the French influence apparent in the