Richard Foxe

Key findings: This picture can categorically be confirmed as a later portrait on the basis of evidence from paint sampling and stylistic analysis. The painting is an interesting example of how later artists attempted to mimic Tudor painting techniques.

Historical summary
Purchased in 1981. The earliest known owner of the work is Viscount Galway (Avington Park) until 1951. The National Portrait Gallery acquired it when it was sold at Christie's on the 27 March 1981, Lot 109.

The portrait shows Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester (1446-1528). He appears here half-length, wearing a bishop's chimere, a black stole, and a black hat, his hands clasping the top of a stick. An inscription appears at the top left of the portrait: RICARDVS FOX ESPISC. WINTON.

Notes on likely authorship
The picture was certainly painted in the eighteenth century or later and is after an original attributed to Johannes Corvus at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, c.1528. This attribution derives from the note George Vertue made when he engraved the picture in 1723 which stated that the words 'Ioannes Corvus/Flandrus Feiciebat' appeared on the frame.

Commentary on condition, painting style, technique
The painting style and technique show clear signs of more modern elements and methods than those contemporary with the sixteenth century. There are some distinctive 'modern' touches in the handling of the flesh tones (for example in the yellows and highlights).

The background paint is freely applied with the ground showing through. In some parts the background paint overlaps the edges of the white sleeve paint. A paint sample from the green background of the portrait contains the pigment prussian blue which is heavily embedded into the paint layers and cannot be later restoration. The earliest recorded picture containing this pigment dates from the early eighteenth century. An x-ray of the painting revealed the use of a thick dense priming layer, evidently lead white. This technique would be consistent with that used in the eighteenth century. An early nineteenth-century pigment known as chrome yellow may also be present but this could not be fully confirmed.

Justification for dating
The portrait is inscribed with the letters MDXXII, indicating a date of 1522. However, the key indicator for the eighteenth-century dating is the presence of a later pigment. In addition the handling of the underdrawing has the appearance of hesitant sketch marks, comparable to those made by an artist trained in a late eighteenth-century academy style. The handling is a good example of the eighteenth-, or early nineteenth-century, interest in the Tudor period, but the artist has taken considerable trouble in attempting to mimic early Tudor painting techniques.

Analysis of the wooden panel by dendrochronology revealed the wood derives from a tree which cannot have been felled before 1597, showing that a late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century panel has been employed at a far later date.

Drawing and transfer technique
Some underdrawing is evident in the eyes, nose and eyebrows. The drawing style is free and is not consistent with the style and technique used in the sixteenth century.

Relevance to other known versions
There is another late sixteenth-century portrait at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 874) of similar size and pose, but in very poor condition. There were originally seven portraits at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
- Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, 7
- Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, 4
There are others at:
- Magdalen College, University of Oxford, P0350
- Pembroke, Cambridge
- Wolvesey Palace, Winchester
- Aukland Castle, Durham
- Taunton and Grantham Schools
- Sudeley Castle
- Touchstones Rochdale, 1226
Others certainly exist but their whereabouts cannot be traced.

Literature
Tudor Exhibition Catalogue, The New Gallery, 1890, p.42, (No.118)
Tudor Exhibition, Manchester, 1897, p.7, (No.17)