Room 2 - Images of Anna of Denmark, Series B: The English and Irish Accession
A Brief Biography of Anna of Denmark’s Early Years in England:
Early
in the morning of 24 March 1603, Elizabeth I of England and Ireland died. A few
hours later, the English Privy Council proclaimed that James VI, King of Scots,
had succeeded to the English and Irish thrones as James I. Anna of Denmark was now Queen
of England and Ireland, as well as Scotland. Although James’s accession to the
English throne had gone more smoothly than he might have expected, Anna’s own
journey to England began with much more drama. James departed for England on 5
April, while Anna remained in Scotland. She was determined to secure custody of
her eldest son, the nine-year-old Prince Henry, who was in the care of the Earl of
Mar at Stirling Castle on James’s orders. Mar, however, was away, so his family
asked Anna to wait for Mar’s return or get a warrant discharging Mar from his responsibility.
The Earl of Montrose reported to James: ‘The Queen’s Majesty is not of mind to
depart, unless the prince goes with her, and will noways rest contented that
the Earl of Mar should accompany her.’ [1] During this ordeal, Anna suffered a
miscarriage that was reportedly self-induced. [2] After Mar’s return, James was
informed of what was taking place and sent a commission for Henry to be
delivered into Anna’s custody. [3] Anna and Henry departed for England on 1
June 1603. Princess Elizabeth departed shortly after, while Prince
Charles remained in Scotland for another year due to his poor health. James and
Anna’s English coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on 25 July 1603. Anna
never returned to Scotland.
It
took nearly three years for Anna’s English jointure to be finalised, though her
income rarely covered her expenses. [4] Anna wrote to her brother, Christian IV
of Denmark-Norway, that James had given her the same jointure that Henry VIII
had granted to Katherine of Aragon and more, as Anna’s desire was ‘to imitate
her, that was borne a kinges daughter... so as we are satisfyed in that poynet
of honour, to be used accordinge to our Ranke’. [5] Anna was granted Nonsuch
Palace and Somerset House, with Oatlands Manor and Greenwich Palace being later
additions. [6] In 1617, James changed the name of Somerset House to Denmark
House, which, in the words of Jemma Field, ‘endorsed Anna’s autonomous court,
celebrated her lineage, and recognised the bond between Anna and Christian as
one that extended beyond bloodlines and natal pride, to shared cultural
interests’, as well as announcing ‘James’s continued goodwill, respect, and
support of the Danes’ in response to England’s involvement in securing peace
between Sweden and Russia on favourable terms for Sweden, Denmark’s traditional
enemy. [7]
While
living in England, Anna and James had two further children, but both died young.
Princess Mary, named after James’s mother, was born on 8 April 1605. At Mary’s
christening, James gifted Anna ‘a certain jewel of diamonds, with pearls
pendant, and 2 dozen of buttons’ worth £2,530. [8] Princess Sophia, named after
Anna’s mother, was born on 22 June 1606 but died the following day.
Unfortunately, Mary also died on 16 September 1607. Sophia and Mary were both
buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey’s Lady Chapel, and James
commissioned funerary monuments for them from Maximilian Colt. [9] These
monuments can still be seen today.
Anna’s
international status and significance was most clearly on show when her family
members visited her in England. Anna’s brother Ulrik, Prince-Bishop of Schwerin,
visited England in 1604-1605, during which time he was invested as a Knight of
the Order of the Garter and attended Princess Mary’s baptism as her godfather. [10]
Anna’s other brother, Christian IV of Denmark-Norway, came to England in 1606,
when he was also installed as a Knight of the Order of the Garter. During this
visit Anna gave birth to the short-lived Princess Sophia, and Christian
attended Anna’s Churching on 3 August 1606. On his departure, Christian gave
Anna his portrait miniature richly set in jewels. [11] Anna’s nephew Frederick
Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, visited England in 1610. Christian IV then made
a surprise second visit in 1614, during which time he was painted by
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, one of Anna’s favoured painters. [12] Christian
and Ulrik’s mobility maintained links between Anna and her mother in Denmark
and her sisters in Braunschweig, Dresden and Gottorf. Anna was the only sibling
who could not travel abroad, so these visits must have been very important to
her. [13]
For
those privileged enough to have access to Anna’s residences, her family
connections were also demonstrated through the display of portraiture and the
widespread use of her coat-of-arms on all kinds of objects. For example, a
portrait of Christian IV was on display in the Great Gallery of Denmark House [14];
portraits of the Elector of Brandenburg (brother-in-law of Christian IV) and
the Duke and Duchess of Württemberg (sister-in-law of Christian IV) were on display
in the Cross Gallery of Denmark House [15]; and portraits of Christian IV’s three sons (as well as a
portrait of one of his illegitimate sons) were on display in the Gallery of
Oatlands Palace. [16] Portraits of Anna’s sister, Elizabeth, Duchess of Brunswick,
her husband and children (which survive today in the UK Royal Collection) were also
likely in Anna’s collection. [17] Anna also displayed her family connections on
her own person, as she had cipher jewels shaped like a crowned ‘S’ (for her
mother, Sophia) and a crowned ‘C4’ (for her brother, Christian IV, who gifted
it to her) which she is shown wearing in various portraits. [18]
[1] Letters
and State Papers during the Reign of King James the Sixth. Chiefly from the Manuscript
Collections of Sir James Balfour of Denmyln (Edinburgh, 1838): 50. The spelling has been
modernised for ease of reading.
[2] William Fraser, Memoirs
of the Earls of Haddington, volume 2 (Edinburgh, 1889): p. 211.
[3] Memoirs of the Earls of Haddington, volume 2: 213. For more on this incident, see: Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001): 28-32.
[4] Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts, 1589–1619 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020): 46-47.
[5] Anna
of Denmark to Christian IV of Denmark-Norway, undated copy. Cecil Papers, CP
97/12. Calendared in M.S. Giuseppi, ed., Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most. Hon. The
Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, volume
15 (London: HMSO, 1930): 347-348.
[6] Field,
Anna of Denmark: 47.
[7] Field,
Anna of Denmark: 56.
[8] Frederick Devon, ed., Issues of the Exchequer; Being Payments Made Out of His Majesty’s Revenue During the Reign of King James I (London, 1836): 48-49.
[9] Issues
of the Exchequer: 60, 88.
[10] For Ulrik’s visit, see: Leeds Barroll, “Defining “Dramatic Documents,”Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, volume 9 (1997): 112-126. For more on Ulrik, see: Mara Wade, “Duke Ulrik (1578-1624) as Agent, Patron, Artist: The International Perspective c. 1600,” in Reframing the Danish Renaissance: Problems and Prospects in a European Perspective, ed. Michael Andersen, Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen and Hugo Johannsen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2011): 244-261.
[11] Robert Folkestone Williams, ed., The Court and Times of James the First, volume 1 (London, 1848): 67.
[12] The
Art Museum, Princeton University, inv. no. 83-31.
[13] See:
Mara Wade, “The Queen’s Courts: Anne of Denmark and her Royal Sisters—Cultural
Agency at Four Northern European Courts in the 16th and 17th Century,” in Women
and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens, ed. Clare McManus (London:
Palgrave, 2003): 49-48.
[15] Payne, ”An inventory of Queen Anne of Denmark’s ‘ornaments, furniture, householde stuffe, and other parcells’ at Denmark House, 1619”: 36; England as Seen by Foreigners: 162-163.
[16] Wendy
Hitchmough, “‘Setting’ the Stuart Court: Placing Portraits in the ‘Performance’
of Anglo-Spanish Negotiations,” Journal of the History of Collections 32,
no. 2 (2020): appendix 3.
[17] RCIN
405814, 405815, 404963, 407222, 406783, 404914, 402627; see also RCIN 406168.
[18] See: Jemma Field, “A ‘Cipher of A and C set on the one Syde with diamonds’: Anna of Denmark’s Jewellery and the Politics of Dynastic Display,” in Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, ed. Erin Griffey (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019): 139-159.
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A Catalogue of Images of Anna of
Denmark, Series B: The English and Irish Accession
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Depicting England and Ireland’s New
Queen in Painted Portraits:
The
accession appears to have given rise to a requirement for new portraits of both
king and queen. This pattern for Anna, catalogued below, is one of her
most beautiful. This head and shoulders treatment shows the queen in a red
dress and hair worn high, an ensemble richly ornamented with jewels. Again,
this portrait formed a complementary pendant to one of James, also wearing red
and astonishing jewels. Several painted iterations of this face pattern survive
across the world, indicating its diplomatic transmission across Europe to
courts desirous of adding portraits of the new king and queen of England,
Ireland and Scotland to their galleries. While Serjeant Painter John de Critz
(1551/2 – 14 March 1642) has been mooted as the originator of this pattern, the
attribution remains insecure.
Intriguingly,
each iteration is a variant, not an exact copy. It has traditionally been
important to identify which of a series of early modern extant portraits of a
sitter arising within the frame of an identifiable face pattern might be the
original and which should have the status of copies. The original accrues the
mythic status of the one object made by the hand of the artist, that most
likely to have been made within the living, breathing singularity of its sitter,
the truest and most authentic of representations, in which we are confronted most
forcibly by her historical presence as the artist witnessed it. Meanwhile,
those objects deemed copies dwindle in economic and experiential value the
further they recede into the copyist’s studio, away from the artist and the
sitter. Yet, the consistent high quality and diversity of detail within these
portraits’ otherwise stable compositional framework seems to work against this
conceptual model of the singular original and the multiple copy. Catharine
MacLeod has noted that surviving examples all seem to be by different hands,
perhaps resulting from a dispersed, and hence, increased rate of production
taking place at different artists’ studios simultaneously. [1]
This
room brings together a constellation of scarlet, equally brilliant Annas,
glittering in palaces across Western Europe, each distilling for its viewers an
exceptional moment of encounter with the same living body.
[1] Catharine MacLeod, “Facing Europe: the Portraiture of Anne of Denmark (1579-1619),” in Telling Objects: Contextualizing the Role of the Consort in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jill Bepler and Svante Norrhem (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018): 67-86.
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Anonymous artist, König Jakob I. (1566-1625) von England und Schottland, (after 1605), Oil on canvas, 67 x 47 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 9379. Copyright of this image belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
B1: Anonymous artist,
Anna von Dänemark (1574-1619), (early 1600s), Oil on
canvas, 66 x 55.5 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG_4421.
Copyright of this image belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Inscription
top right: ANNA.D.G.ANG.SCOCIA.REGINA.
References
to these portraits:
www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/2438/
www.khm.at/de/object/7cf64379eb/
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B2: Anonymous artist, Anne of Denmark (1574-1619)
(c.1595-1603 (surely 1603 or later, given the inscription)), Oil on panel,
65.50 cm x 49.50 cm, Government Art Collection, currently in Denmark,
Copenhagen, British Embassy, inv. no. 3541. Copyright of this image belongs to
the Government Art Collection.
Inscription
top right: ANNA.D.G.MG. / BRITAN.REGINA.
References
to this portrait:
https://artcollection.culture.gov.uk/artwork/3541/
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B3: John de Critz the elder
(1551/1552–1642) (attributed to), Anne
of Denmark (1574–1619), Queen Consort of James I, (c.1603), Oil on
panel, 65.3 x 52 cm, Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service, inv. no. R.1935-306.
Copyright of this image belongs to the Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service.
References
to this portrait:
https://cim-web.adlibhosting.com/ais6/Details/collect/54101
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B4: Follower of John de Critz the
Elder (ca. 1552/3-1642), Portrait
of Anne of Denmark (1574-1619), (1606-1615), Oil on canvas, Unframed: 28 5/8
x 22 3/4in. (72.7 x 57.8cm) and Framed: 36 3/4 x 32in. Williamsburg Museum, inv.
no. 1936-695. Copyright of this image belongs to the Williamsburg Museum.
References
to this portrait:
https://emuseum.history.org/objects/37973/portrait-of-anne-of-denmark-15741619
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B5: Follower Of John De Critz The
Elder, Portrait Of
Anne Of Denmark (1574-1619), (n.d. post 1603?), Oil on canvas, unframed:
66.2 x 55.1 cm.; 26⅛ x 21¾ in., framed: 73.2 x 62 cm.; 28⅞ x 24⅜ in.
Inscription
top right: ANNA D.G.ANGL / REGINA
Sold at
Sotheby’s in the Old Master Paintings sale, London, 23 September 2020,
2pm. Lot 97. Sold for £5,292.
References
to this portrait:
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B6: Follower Of John De Critz The
Elder, Portrait of
Queen Anne of Denmark (1574-1619), (n.d.), on panel, 26.6 x 21 cm.
Sold
at Christie’s in the British Pictures,
Drawings and Watercolours sale, London, 13 July 1993, 2.30pm. Lot
103 (with a portrait of James VI & I). Sold for £3,680. This black and
white image is taken from the sales catalogue, p. 91.
References
to this portrait:
https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-follower-of-john-de-critz-3020019
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Depicting England and Ireland’s New
Queen in Engravings:
With
the accession of James and Anna to the English and Irish thrones, there was an
increased demand not only for painted portraits of the couple, but also
depictions of them in engraved form. Multiple copies of an engraving could be quickly
produced and they were also cheaper to buy, so engraved images could be
distributed widely and reach a larger audience, both geographically and
socially, than paintings.
It
was common for these engraved portraits to be accompanied by a genealogy of
James’s descent from Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor king and
queen of England. This explained James’s hereditary claim to the English and
Irish thrones and why his new subjects should accept him as their rightful
ruler. The inclusion of these genealogies was especially important because
public discussions of the succession had been forbidden in the reign of
Elizabeth I, and James was only Elizabeth’s first cousin twice removed, making
his familial connection to the English royal family more difficult to understand.
Some of the genealogies do not end with James but also include his children, as
well as a small engraving of his eldest son, Prince Henry. This informed the
viewer that the succession was guaranteed into the next generation, another
reason to celebrate James’s accession after the uncertainty of the childless
Elizabeth’s reign. [1]
The likenesses of James and Anna that were used in these engravings date from their time in Scotland, as the engravers probably did not want to wait for new likenesses to be produced in England. Two different likenesses of Anna were used: one follows the 1595 portrait pattern and its engraved copies, which show Anna with a wider hairstyle which curves slightly downwards above the forehead; and the other is based on the image of her in A Trewe Description of the Nobill Race of the Stewards (published in two editions, 1602 and 1603), which shows Anna with a high ovaloid hairstyle. By contrast, the likeness of James used in most of these engravings appears to be derived from the 1595 portrait pattern and its engraved copies, with only one of them following the image in A Trewe Description—the latter shows James in armour, so the engravers may have wanted to avoid the implication that James had secured the English and Irish thrones by conquest and thus had the power of a conqueror to subvert the state and its law in their existing form, a cause of concern at the time.
[1] For more on genealogies relating to James and Anna, see: Arnold Hunt, Dora Thornton and George Dalgleish, “A Jacobean Antiquary Reassessed: Thomas Lyte, the Lyte Genealogy and the Lyte Jewel,” The Antiquaries Journal, volume 96 (2016): 169-205; Joseph B.R. Massey, “The Saxon Connection: St Margaret of Scotland, Morgan Colman’s Genealogies, and James VI & I’s Anglo-Scottish Union Project,” Royal Studies Journal, volume 8, issue 1 (2021): 79-110; Margit Thøfner, “On Magic, Time and Exchange: The Arts of Sophia of Mecklenburg‐Güstrow and Anna of Denmark‐Norway,” Art History, volume 43, issue 2 (2020): 384-411; Sara Trevisan, “Michael Drayton: National Bard and Genealogist,” in Poly-Olbion: New Perspectives, ed. Andrew McRae and Philip Schwyzer (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2020): 188-210; Sara Trevisan, “Noah, Brutus of Troy, and King James VI and I: Biblical and Mythical Ancestry in an Anonymous Genealogical Role,” in Mythical Ancestry in World Cultures, 1400-1800, ed. Sara Trevisan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018): 137-164; Sara Trevisan, Royal Genealogy in the Age of Shakespeare (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2020): 174-245, 255-259.
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B7: Renold Elstrack (engraver) and
John Speed (publisher), The
most happy Unions contracted betwixt the Princes of the Blood Royall of theis
towe Famous Kingdomes of England & Scotland (1603), engraving on paper, 46.4
x 39.3cm. British Museum, inv. no. 1856,0614.149. Copyright of this image
belongs to the British Museum.
Renold
Elstrack’s genealogy traces James VI & I’s descent from Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York, thereby demonstrating the source of his hereditary claim to
the English throne. However, it also traces James’s Scottish and English
ancestry further back, to Robert II, King of Scots, and John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster; this is done so that the marriage of Joan Beaufort (John of Gaunt’s
granddaughter) to James I, King of Scots (Robert II’s grandson), can also be
included as an example of an historic Anglo-Scottish royal marriage. This fits
with the accompanying text panels, which list seven Anglo-Scottish royal
marriages which took place over the previous five centuries.
Anna
is shown at the top of the genealogy alongside James. The image is ultimately
based on the 1595 portrait pattern, possibly being based on a later engraved
copy. The text below identifies her as ‘Anne. daughter to Frederik 2. King of
Denmark’. To her right is her coat-of-arms, encircled and crowned.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1856-0614-149
Antony
Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain, 1603-1689 (London: British
Museum Press, 1998): 45-46.
Arthur
M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth
Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions; Part II, The Reign of
James I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955): 209-210.
Catherine
MacLeod, The Lost Prince: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart (London:
National Portrait Gallery, 2012): 48.
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B8: Renold Elstrack (engraver) and
John Speed (publisher), James
I and Anne of Denmark (c.1603), engraving on paper, 28.3 x 37.8cm. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 28.7.13. Copyright of this image belongs
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art has dated this engraving to 1651 on their website,
but this is probably an error. The engraving itself is undated, but it was
almost certainly created around the time of James’s accession to the English
and Irish thrones in 1603; that was when similar engravings were produced,
explaining as it does James’s hereditary claim to the English and Irish
thrones, and Elstrack and Speed produced other engravings for this same purpose
in 1603. The text panel below the image of James states: ‘Blesse his raigne o
Lord wt true religio[n], peace, & nombers of yeres’, a sentiment that
suggests it was written at the start of James’s joint reign. Also, B11
(discussed below) appears to be directly based on this engraving, and since B11
is dated 1604 this engraving must pre-date it.
Elstrack
uses the same likeness for Anna in this engraving as he did in B7, but this
engraving includes a full-length portrait of her. Given that the surviving
full-length images of Anna that date from her time in Scotland do not show her
wearing a dress of this style, it is possible that Elstrack copied the dress
from another image—perhaps one of Elizabeth I, who is shown wearing similar
clothes in contemporary engravings (for example, see here). Anna is shown crowned, wearing an
ermine-lined mantle and the collar of the Order of the Garter, holding a
sceptre surmounted by a dove in her right hand, and she has knotted the cords
of her mantle into the shape of a heart with her left hand. Anna’s coat-of-arms
is displayed above her.
The
text panel below Anna reads: ‘ANNE the second daughter of Frederick the
secound of that name King of Denmarke and Norwaye: and Sister to
the most noble King Christianus now raig[n]ing over thosse Kingdomes was
borne in the yeare of Grace .1574. and at the age of 16 yeares maried Iames
the sixt. King of Scotland: and now of England, Scotlande,
Fraunce, and Irelande the first. the yeare of Christ his incarnation
on thousande five hundred fourscore and tenn. Shee was crowned Queene of Scotlande
in Edinburgh the’. The rest of the text panel is left blank,
presumably because the author did not know when Anna had been crowned Queen of
Scots. Anna was actually fourteen when she married James, and they married in
1589, not 1590.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/821651
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B9: Claes Jansz Visscher
(attributed engraver), Portraits
of James I and Queen Anne (c.1603-1612), engraving on paper, 40.2 x 45.1cm. British
Museum, inv. no. 1935,0413.82. Copyright of this image belongs to the British
Museum.
This
engraving closely resembles B8, so it is possible the engraver acquired a copy
of B8 and made a new plate based on it. This engraving was evidently intended
for a different audience, however, as the text is written in Latin, making it
suitable for an international audience while B8 was intended for a domestic
English audience as the text is in English. James’s accession to the English
and Irish thrones was also of concern and interest to the international
community, so this engraving would familiarise them with the appearance of
England and Ireland’s new royal family as well as explaining James’s hereditary
claim to those thrones.
There
are some notable differences between B8 and this engraving: while in B8 James
and Anna stand in front of imaginary landscapes, in this engraving they stand
in niches, like statues; in B8 their coats-of-arms are suspended on a ribbon
above them, with each ribbon being held by a putti who also holds a crown over
the central genealogy, while in this engraving their coats-of-arms sit above
the niches and are each held in place by two putti who also lift a crown above
the shield; and in B8 James faces to the left, while in this engraving he faces
to the right, which makes the couple appear more symmetrical.
The
names of the engraver and publisher are not included on this engraving, but a
reworked version of the same plate (for example, see here)
lists Claes Jansz Visscher as the engraver, so this earlier impression can also
be attributed to him. Visscher was an artist and publisher based in Amsterdam,
so we can assume that was the place of publication for this engraving. This is
further evidence that this engraving was intended for an international audience.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1935-0413-82
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B10: Unknown artist, James VI and I, and Anne of Denmark
(c.1603-1612), etching on paper, 20.2 x 24.8cm. British Museum, inv. no. 1948,0315.5.25.
Copyright of this image belongs to the British Museum.
This
engraving is similar to B9, and may have been based on it, as James and Anna
are once again shown in niches rather than in a landscape setting as they are
in B8. This engraving differs from those above in that James and Anna’s
coats-of-arms are displayed at the top of the genealogy on either side of
Prince Henry, rather than above their niches. Another difference is that James
is shown standing beside a table on which an open book is placed, which he
points to while holding a document in his hand. This may have been a reference
to his own written works, which were known to an international audience.
The
text on this engraving is also in Latin, suggesting it was produced for an
international audience and possibly on the continent.
It
has been suggested that this engraving is based on B11, but visually it has
more in common with B9.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1948-0315-5-25
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B11: Nicolaas de Bruyn (engraver)
and Jean le Clerc (publisher), IACOBI
I. BRITANNICARVM INSVLARVM MONARCHÆ (1604), engraving and letterpress on
paper, 48.5 x 36.2cm. British Museum, inv. no. 1974,1207.6. Copyright of this
image belongs to the British Museum.
This engraving is very similar to B8, so it seems likely that it was copied from it. As with B9, the image of James has been changed so that he faces right rather than left, which makes the couple appear more symmetrical.
This
engraving has been printed with a text panel below. The left column explains
Henry VII’s Union of the Houses of Lancaster and York, which was reputed to
have ended the Wars of the Roses. The right column explains James’s hereditary
claim to the English and Irish thrones which resulted in the Union of the
Crowns of England and Scotland. It was common in the Jacobean period for the
Union of the Houses and the Union of the Crowns to be paralleled with one
another.
The initials ‘NB’,
written to the right of James’s feet, identify the artist as Nicolaas de Bruyn.
At the end of the text panel, it is explained that this engraving was published
in 1604 by Jean Le Clerc, based at the time at La Salamandre Royale, rue
St-Jean-de-Latran, Paris.
This is a further example of an engraving of James and Anna being produced for
an international audience.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1974-1207-6
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B12: Benjamin Wright (engraver) and
Hans Woutneel (publisher), The
Roial Progenei of our most sacred King Iames... (1603), engraving on paper, 37.2
x 27cm. British Museum, inv. no. 1882,0812.540. Copyright of this image belongs
to the British Museum.
This
engraved genealogy is very similar to B7. It has been suggested that this
engraving is derived from B7, though it is difficult to make a conclusive
statement about this. Both engraved genealogies were released by the same
publisher, Hans Woutneel. The two works are clearly related to one another, but
serve different purposes: while B7 promotes both James’s hereditary claim to
the English and Irish thrones and the historic legitimacy of the Union of the
Crowns through James’s descent from various Anglo-Scottish royal marriages,
this engraving is only concerned with his hereditary claim to the English and
Irish thrones.
This
engraving only shows James’s descent from Henry VII and Elizabeth of York,
while B7 went further back in his Scottish and English ancestry. This engraving
shows Anna of Denmark’s coat-of-arms as a lozenge—a shape reserved for
women—while B7 shows her coat-of-arms as a regular shield. The two genealogies
use different likenesses for many of the subjects, including Anna. This
engraving uses a different likeness for Anna than those discussed above; this
likeness is based on the image of her in A Trewe Description of the Nobill
Race of the Stewards (published in two editions, 1602 and 1603). It is
interesting, however, that the likeness of James is not based on the image of
him in A Trewe Description, so the artist used different sources for
husband and wife—the likeness of James in this engraving is the same as that
used in B7.
Another version of this engraving was published in 1619, with updated likenesses used for James and Anna. It can be seen here.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1882-0812-540
Arthur
M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries:
A Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions; Part I, The Tudor Period (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1952): 215.
Arthur
M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth
Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions; Part II, The Reign of
James I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955): 210.
..........
B13: Johannes Wierix (engraver), Iacobus et Anna, Rex et Regina
Angliae, Franciae, Scotiae et Hiberniae (c. 1603-1618), engraving on paper, 28.5
x 22.6cm. British Museum, inv. no. O,8.168. Copyright of this image belongs to
the British Museum.
Johannes
Wierix was an engraver working in Brussels at the time of James and Anna’s
accession to the English and Irish thrones in 1603. As such, this engraving was
also likely intended for an international audience.
The
likenesses of James and Anna are based on the images in A Trewe Description
of the Nobill Race of the Stewards (published in two editions, 1602 and
1603); however, there are some differences. This engraving shows full-length
portraits of James and Anna, while the originals only show them from the waist
up. We might speculate, therefore, that Wierix invented the designs for the
lower portions of James and Anna’s bodies, since no earlier full-length
versions of these likenesses have survived. James and Anna’s hands are not
visible in the images from A Trewe Description, so Wierix has given them
both objects to interact with; while James holds the pommel of his rapier with
his left hand and a baton in his right hand, Anna holds a fan (while also touching
the pearls of her girdle) in her right hand and a handkerchief in her left
hand. In addition, James has been given a hat in this engraving, while he was
bareheaded in the original image. Also, he is shown here wearing a doublet
under a breastplate, while in the original image he wears a full suit of
armour.
References
to this engraving:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_O-8-168
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How to cite this blogpost: Sara Ayres and Joseph B.R. Massey, “Images of Anna of Denmark, Series B: The English and Irish Accession,” Depicting Anna of Denmark (blog), 11 June 2021, Accessed [Date Month Year]. https://depictingannaofdenmark.blogspot.com/2021/06/room-2-images-of-anna-of-denmark-series.html