William Scrots

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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, 1546. Attributed to William Scrots.

William (or Guillim) Scrots (or Scrotes or Stretes; active 1537–1553)

Mannerist style of painting in the Netherlands.[2]

Biography

Scrots is first heard of when appointed a

Edward VI. His salary was stopped on Edward's death in 1553, after which it is not known what became of him, though it is presumed he left England.[6]

Edward VI, attributed to Scrots, Hampton Court.
Edward VI
, 1546.

Little more is known of Scrots other than that his paintings showed an interest in ingenious techniques and detailed accessories. Scrots was paid 50 marks in 1551 for three "great tables", two of which were portraits of Edward delivered to the ambassadors

Whitehall Palace in the winter of 1591–92, it created a sensation, and important visitors were all taken to see it.[10]

Assessment

In the words of

art historian Ellis Waterhouse, "although Scrots was not a painter of high creative or imaginative gifts, he knew all the latest fashions, and a series of paintings appeared at the English court during the next few years which could vie in modernity with those produced anywhere in northern Europe".[11] In particular, Scrots seems to have helped popularise the full-length portrait at the same time as it became fashionable on the continent.[3]

Scrots's portrait of

Arms of England, as indeed he does here. He was of royal descent, but these were not his personal arms. A heraldic drawing was produced in evidence, but this painting does not seem to have been mentioned at his trial.[14]

A three-quarter length

Elizabeth I as princess (illustration), both dated to 1546, have been long suggested as undocumented works by Scrots,[8] but art historians have recently questioned that attribution.[16] Both paintings are in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle
.

Gallery

Notes

  1. ^ Getty Union Name List
  2. ^ a b Gaunt, 27.
  3. ^ a b Rothenstein, 24.
  4. ^ Gaunt, 28.
  5. ^ Gaunt, 29. Strong 1969 says that Scrots "presumably" died between September 1553 and September 1554 (p. 69)
  6. ^ a b Karen Hearn, Dynasties, p. 52: Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. 2 pt. 2, Oxford (1822), 217.
  7. ^ a b Strong, English Icon, 1969, p. 71
  8. ^ Art historian William Gaunt assumes that this painting is by Scrots. Gaunt, 28.
  9. ^ Lukacher, 74.
  10. ^ Quoted by Lukacher, 74.
  11. ^ The status of the portrait is the subject of debate, although it is clear there was a portrait of Howard by Scrots. Four versions exist, of which the one illustrated, still owned by Howard's descendants at Arundel Castle, is agreed to be the oldest, and the only one that could be original. The original is documented as a "table", which Mary Edmond (in Grove) takes to mean a panel painting, although Hearn says the term can be used for a painting on canvas, such as the Arundel version. Some historians consider that the rounded tops of the shields betray the painting as a later copy, since such shields were painted with flat tops in the Tudor period, but Hearn illustrates a French engraving of 1540 which may have been the inspiration for the frame and which features round-topped shields. See the arguments for the dating of the painting in William Sessions's biography of Howard, 341, and discussion of the French engraving in Hearn, p. 52
  12. ^ Williams, 228.
  13. ^ "The dangers of heraldry" – third item down
  14. ^ Hunsdon originated as a mid-fifteenth-century moated tower house, which was altered for Henry VIII (1527–34). Later, Queen Elizabeth granted the house to her cousin Sir Henry Carey (1558/59) and the house was subsequently altered. (Hunsdon House).
  15. ^ Dendrochronology suggests that the panels on which these two portraits are painted may have come from the same tree; see Karen Hearn, Dynasties, p.47-48
  16. ^ "Trinity College, University of Cambridge". BBC Your Paintings. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014.

References