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Lady Jane Grey

2 of 57 portraits of Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey)

Lady Jane Grey, by Unknown artist, circa 1590-1600 - NPG 6804 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Lady Jane Grey

by Unknown artist
oil on oak panel, circa 1590-1600
33 3/4 in. x 23 3/4 in. (856 mm x 603 mm)
Purchased with help from the proceeds of the 150th anniversary gala, 2006
Primary Collection
NPG 6804

On display at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

This is one of the earliest surviving portraits of England's shortest-reigning monarch, Lady Jane Grey, despite being made some forty years after her death. A commemorative portrait, this panel may have formed part of a set of Protestant martyrs. Scratched lines across the eyes and mouth suggest that the painting has been subjected to an iconoclastic attack at some point in its history.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG D24103: Unknown woman engraved as Jane Shore (based on same portrait)

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Bolland, Charlotte; Cooper, Tarnya, The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered, 2014 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 12th September 2014 to 1st March 2015), p. 100
  • Cannadine, Sir David (Introduction); Cooper, Tarnya; Stewart, Louise; MacGibbon, Rab; Cox, Paul; Peltz, Lucy; Moorhouse, Paul; Broadley, Rosie; Jascot-Gill, Sabina ., Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits, 2018 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA, 7 October 2018 -3 February 2019. Bendigo Art Gallery, Australia, 16 March - 14 July 2019.), p. 99
  • Williamson, David, Kings and Queens, 2010, p. 95

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1590back to top

Current affairs

King James VI of Scotland brings his wife Anne of Denmark to Edinburgh for her coronation at Holyrood Abbey.
Death of Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I's Principal Secretary and spymaster.
The colonial governor John White returns to Roanoke Island (in present day North Carolina, USA) to find the settlement deserted. The lost colonists include his granddaughter Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in America.

Art and science

The courtier, poet and soldier Sir Philip Sidney's pastoral romance Arcadia is published posthumously. It is one of the first English vernacular works to achieve a European readership, with translations into French, German, Dutch and Italian.
The poet and administrator Edmund Spenser publishes the first three books of The Faerie Queene, an epic allegorical poem in praise of Queen Elizabeth I.

International

Henry IV of France defeats the Catholic League under Charles, Duke of Mayenne at the Battle of Ivry. The King marches on Paris before being driven back by Catholic forces sent by Philip II of Spain.
Abbas I, Shah of Persia makes peace with the Ottoman Empire, allowing him to campaign agaist the Uzbeks.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats the Hojo clan at the Siege of Odawara, Japan. The victory completes Hideyoshi's military reunification of Japan.

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