William Carey's portrait unveiled at Hever Castle
In January I wrote about William Carey’s portrait being sold at Christie’s for £63,000. Now we know that the portrait was bought by Hever Castle and has gone on display at the castle’s Great Hall on the anniversary of William’s death, June 22.
William’s portrait will hang next to the portrait of his wife, Mary Boleyn, with whom he had two children: Katherine and Henry.
Dr Owen Emmerson, Resident Historian at Hever Castle, says that “these two portraits have never been displayed together before” so “it is the first time in five centuries that husband and wife will be reunited – and to do so at Hever, Mary’s childhood home, is especially significant”.
“It’s incredibly moving to see these two enigmatic individuals reunited in a place so central to the Boleyn legacy,” says Kate McCaffrey who works as Historian and Assistant Curator at Hever. “As historians, we hope this display helps visitors feel closer to the real people behind the names – people whose stories we’re still uncovering.”
What is known about the portrait?
In the past, William’s portrait was attributed to Lucas Horenbout, a Flemish painter active at the court of Henry VIII in the period from c. 1525 to 1544. It was also believed that the portrait was originally created in 1526 because the left upper corner bears a Latin inscription suggesting that it was completed in 1526 when the sitter was 30 years old.
Today it is believed that William Carey’s portrait is not an original painted in 1526 by Lucas Horenbout but a copy by an anonymous painter based on a lost miniature executed in 1526 by one of the painters from the Horenbout workshop.
A dendrochronological analysis carried out in 1971 by John Fletcher showed that the present panel comes from a tree felled after 1570. Fletcher plausibly theorized that the portrait was commissioned by William’s son Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon, for his long gallery at Brooke House. Portraits hanging at Elizabethan long galleries were often called “corridor portraits”. Alison Palmer, Curator at Hever Castle, says that this type of portraiture “was popular in the later Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. They were designed to honour family lineage. Its presence here strengthens not just William’s story, but Mary’s too, echoing the rich collection of Tudor portraiture in our Long Gallery.”
Sources:
Hever Castle & Gardens, “New Portrait Unveiling: William Carey at Hever”, link here.
Hugh Paget, “Gerard and Lucas Hornebolt in England”, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 101, No. 680 (Nov., 1959), pp. 396-402. https://www.jstor.org/stable/872782
Details about the sale of William Carey’s portrait and an essay: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6507648
John Fletcher, “A Portrait of William Carey and Lord Hunsdon's Long Gallery”, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 123, No. 938 (May, 1981), pp. 304-305 https://www.jstor.org/stable/880243
Sylvia Barbara Soberton, “The 'lost' portrait of Mary Boleyn's first husband was sold at Christie's”, link here.
Thank you, Sylvia! Your account fills in all the background details sadly missing from news reports 🙏
Interesting to find out how these fantastic historical sites add to their collections. You can imagine how much research by their wonderful experts went into this important acquisition. Thanks for the great post!