John Day
© National Portrait Gallery, London
John Day
by Unknown artist
woodcut, 1576
10 3/8 in. x 6 1/2 in. (263 mm x 164 mm) paper size
Given by the daughter of compiler William Fleming MD, Mary Elizabeth Stopford (née Fleming), 1931
Reference Collection
NPG D25570
Sitterback to top
- John Day (Daye) (1521 or 1522-1584), Printer and bookseller. Sitter in 3 portraits.
This portraitback to top
The woodcut portrait of the prolific London printer John Day and was widely used as his printers mark in many of the books he published and printed from 1562. The oval format for printed author portraits was common at this date and derives from Italian models. The page includes an advertisement for his shop 'at the west doore of St. Paules' in London.
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Making History: Printed Portraiture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (7 July 2007 - 9 December 2007)
Events of 1576back to top
Current affairs
Parliament presents Queen Elizabeth I with a petition complaining of ecclesiastical abuses.The member of Parliament Peter Wentworth is imprisoned for attacking royal interference with Parliamentary freedom of speech.
The explorer and privateer Martin Frobisher sets out to find a Northwest passage to the Far East. He becomes the first European to visit Baffin Island, Canada.
Art and science
The actor and theatre manager James Burbage builds the Theatre, the first permanent playhouse in England, at Shoreditch, London.The composer Thomas Whithorne writes the earliest known autobiography in English.
International
Pacification of Ghent - an alliance between the Protestant northern and Catholic southern provinces of the Netherlands to collectively fight for the expulsion of Spanish troops from their territories.The Spanish army serving in the Low Countries mutinies and sacks the city of Antwerp.
Death of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian II and succession of his son Rudolf II.
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