Lady Jane Grey

From Spring 2007
Room 3

Lady Jane Grey
by Unknown Artist

The National Portrait Gallery has acquired a remarkable portrait of Britain's shortest-reigning monarch Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554). Purchased with funds raised from the Gallery's 150th Anniversary Portrait Gala in 2006, the oil on panel portrait shows the only post-mediaeval proclaimed monarch who is not previously represented in the Collection.

While it cannot be stated with certainty that the source for this painting was a lifetime portrait, recent research indicates that it does depict Lady Jane Grey finally providing us with a reasonably reliable record of her features. The painting is a memorial portrait and dates from at least 40 years after her death, but it must be based upon an earlier likeness of her, and she is shown wearing costume from the 1550s. In the 1590s, the portrait was almost certainly considered to represent the Protestant claimant to the throne who reigned for around nine days before being executed at the age of 16.

Technical analysis including dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis) has confirmed that the wooden panel dates from after 1593. The picture may at one time have formed part of a set of protestant martyrs and the painting appears to have suffered from an iconoclastic attack across the face. In the Elizabethan period when the Protestant legacy was secure Lady Jane Grey's status as a martyr in the Protestant cause was being reconsidered.

No certain lifetime portraits of this short-lived monarch exist, but over the years numerous portraits have been thought to represent her. Given that Lady Jane came to prominence only for a very short period before her death (from May to July 1553), there would have been only a small opportunity in which a portrait from the life could have been painted. Another similar version of this portrait, which is also apparently a later copy, also remains in existence in a private collection.

Lady Jane Grey, the grand-daughter of Henry VIII's sister Princess Mary, married Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, in May 1553. Under Northumberland's influence, Edward VI willed her the crown. She was proclaimed queen at his death in July 1553, and reigned for around nine days until captured by supporters of Mary Tudor. She was executed in the aftermath of Wyatt's rebellion.

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All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 08 August 2008