Portraits, Painters, and Publics in Provincial England, 1540-1640

Abstract

This book investigates the growing affinity for secular portraiture in Tudor and early Stuart England, a cultural and social phenomenon which can be said to have produced a ‘public’ for that genre. The book places portrait patronage and production in this era in the broad social and cultural context of post-Reformation England, and it distinguishes between native English provincial portraiture, which was often highly vernacular, and foreign-influenced portraiture of the court and metropolis that tended towards the formal and ‘polite’. The book describes the burgeoning public for portraiture of this era as more than the familiar court-and-London-based presence, but rather as a phenomenon which was surprisingly widespread both socially and geographically throughout the realm. The book suggests that provincial portraiture differed from the ‘mainstream’, cosmopolitan portraiture of the day in its workmanship, materials, inspirations, and even vocabulary, showing how its native English roots continued to guide its production. The chapters consider the aims and vocabulary of English provincial portraiture, the relationship of portraiture and heraldry, the painter's occupation in provincial (as opposed to metropolitan) England, and the contrasting availability of materials and training in both provincial and metropolitan areas.

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