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Collection Displays   British Art 1500 -1900   Tudor and Stuart Portraiture (Room 2)  Work

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George Gower  circa 1540-1596

George Gower Lady Kytson 1573
Lady Kytson  1573

Oil on wood
support: 685 x 522 mm frame: 810 x 655 x 60 mm
painting

Purchased 1952

N06091

Elizabeth Cornwallis (1546/7-1628) married Sir Thomas Kytson in 1560. His portrait hangs nearby, as does a later full-length of their daughter Mary. As Roman Catholics under a Protestant ruler, Elizabeth I, the Kytsons were regularly fined. Indeed, Lady Kytson was briefly imprisoned for her faith. The couple were painted in London in 1573 by Gower, the foremost portraitist of the day. Subsequently, in 1584, Gower and the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard tried to gain a monopoly to produce Elizabeth I’s portraits. As this painting demonstrates, Gower worked in the linear, shadowless style that the Queen is known to have preferred.

 (From the display caption May 2007)