The first thing which should be pointed out in reference to this frame is that it is currently incomplete. At some point during its sojourn in the Jersey collection, the consort’s crown – or, as it must have been created under the impression that the portrait was of Mary I, the queen’s crown - is missing from the crest. A black-&-white photo exists (undated, unattributed, no location) which illustrates the whole frame, with its most important emblem:
This frame with its royal crown is a product of the growing fashion for historicism, or historical revivals in art, architecture and the applied arts, which can be said to have begun with Horace Walpole’s invention of the Gothick, and his building and furnishing of Strawberry Hill (1749-70s).
It relates as well to the continuing production of contemporary royal trophy frames, which saw the coronation portraits of British monarchs proliferate during the 18th century, such that 92 portraits of George III and 86 of his queen were recorded in the books of the Lord Chamberlain [1], all of which had frames topped with a ceremonial crown supported by palms at the crest.
The collision of these trends at the turn of the 19th century catalyzed the retrospective framing of monarchs who had either come adrift from their original coronation frames or who had, for some reason, never acquired them. 'The frame on the right is almost certainly by the carver, gilder, picture dealer and art historian John Smith (1781-1855), who started his own workshop aged 20, and by 1812 had been appointed framemaker to George III [2]. It is in his characteristic style, like the frame of the portrait of the Prince of Wales (left) – an acanthus scotia with flamboyantly scrolling acanthus leaves around the corners – with, for the frame of George I, a crown very close to the one used on the coronation portraits of George III.
The same is true of another retrospective historical framing, of this small portrait of Edward VI, which was altered to a lozenge shape, had an inscription added to the spandrels, and was given its present strapwork tondo frame, crowned with Prince of Wales’s feathers (these echo the new ‘ICH DIEN’ inscription). Philip Mould suggests that this was executed in the 18th century, but it may date from slightly later, when pierced and scrolling strapwork frames like this one became a form of shorthand to indicate a 16th century or a northern ‘Renaissance’ style. The feathers, coronet, and inscription (including ‘E.P.’ in the top spandrel) have been carefully copied from the illustration of Edward’s badge in John Leland’s Genethliacon of 1543 [3]; so carefully as to suggest an earnestly antiquarian meticulousness which seems more 19th century, or at least very late in the 18th century.
Historicizing reframing of monarchs and aristocrats burgeoned in the 19th century, along with the numerous revival styles of furniture and applied arts which became increasingly popular. By the time of the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, the number of pieces in Renaissance style which were displayed in the various national sections caused Ralph Wornum, Keeper of the National Gallery, to summarize the thirst for revivalism like this:
'The best understood style is that which we have been obliged to designate the mixed Cinquecento or Renaissance: the apparently most able designers of Italy, France, Austria, Belgium and England, have selected this style for the Exhibition of their skill: if, therefore, the Exhibition can be considered as a test of the favourite style of the day, it is evidently the Cinquecento Renaissance.’
And this was the description of a peak, which in 1851 was only the current state of half a century of growth.
For example, Félicie de Fauveau (1801-86) designed – and possibly also carved, since she was a sculptor – the frame for Delaroche’s Jane Grey. She was commissioned in the 1840s by Prince Anatole Demidoff, then the owner of the painting, for whom she made other frames. This work ended up in the Tate in 1902, where it was damaged by flooding in 1928, destroying some of the carved cartouches and the main carcass of the frame. In the 1970s it was moved to the NG, restored and reframed in a 17th century stock frame, to which the top centre element by Fauveau has since been fixed. Other elements are stored in the NG framing department, and in 2013 an exhibition of Fauveau’s life and work at the Musée d’Orsay included a mock-up of the painting, suggested original frame and all these surviving decorative carvings. The second image, above, is a montage showing the extra elements more in scale with the central crest. There may have been demi-centres on the short sides.
This portrait may very well have entered the collection at Tatton Park from the remnants of the Stowe Collection (via the marriage of the 1st Earl Egerton to the widow of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos). At some point it was rather delightfully married to a late 16th or 17th century angel frame, either by a fervent antiquarian Protestant admirer of Elizabeth or by someone with a sense of humour, possibly before 1848.
This portrait of Bess of Hardwick was put into a stripped-down 18th century British pinewood frame, painted black, and embellished with ornaments designed by the NPG director, George Scharf, based on the 16th century decorative scheme of Hardwick Hall, and surmounted by a countess’s coronet.
Finally, this portrait of Elizabeth I from Warwick Castle was reframed as part of the post-fire restoration of the castle. The design is a chunky and inaccurate reproduction of a ‘Sansovino’ frame from the 1560s-90s, topped with a beefy variant of the crown used on the Hanoverian coronation frames.
These various retrospective crowned or symbol-laden frames, which reach back into the past of monarchs or aristocrats whose contemporary settings would have been mostly plain black and parcel-gilt entablature or architrave frames, suggest the contemporary 19th century interests which lie behind the frame of the Katherine Parr portrait.
This is how portrait and frame were designed to be seen, at a time when the former was believed to be a likeness of Mary Tudor. The profile and architectural ornament of the basic structure is copied from British panel frames of the late 17th and early 18th century, of the kind which are also known as ‘Lely’ frames, and which might have been used for portraits of Queens Mary II and Anne and their courts. This is perhaps to establish the ‘Britishness’ of Mary I as monarch; Ford Madox Brown used a similar frame structure for his paintings of Cromwell and other subjects which might be considered historical and British, later in the 19th century.
The additional ornaments include the festoons of naturalistic flowers, carved in deep relief, and including at the corners large central variations on roses. The centres hold paired strapwork scrolls, which relate to the strapwork frame of the small portrait of Edward VI, above, as does the strapwork cartouche at the top which holds the name of the supposed monarch, and supports the cushion bearing the crown. They suggest the ‘Tudor-ness’ of the work.
The combination of all these elements may point to a Catholic interest at work – the reverse, in fact, of the angel frame given to the portrait of Elizabeth I, above. The flowers are a feminine replacement for the military trophies which might be expected on the frame of a king [4], and can be seen in the original trophy frame on a portrait of Queen Anne [5]. However, the exaggeratedly large roses are not accompanied by thistles, daffodils or shamrocks, as might be expected; they are singular roses, bringing to mind with rather heavy emphasis the fact that roses are also the attribute of the Madonna. The use of a panel frame associated with Mary II and Anne may also, therefore, perhaps suggest that these were the heirs to another Catholic monarch, whose fall ended the likelihood of Britain reverting to its previous faith, and that Mary Tudor actively supported Catholicism, which they had failed to do. The crown is a feminized version of other coronation crowns, which may also be an attempt to set Mary up as an ideal female monarch against her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, who famously declared that she had ‘the heart and stomach of a king’.
It is difficult to date the frame; any of the 19th century owners might have been responsible for it. The three most likely candidates would seem to be Thomas Baylis, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, or Lady Jersey.
[1] Jacob Simon, ‘Allan Ramsay & picture frames’, Burlington Magazine, vol.136, 1994, pp.444 to 455
[2] More on John Smith here: https://theframeblog.com/2016/09/08/the-clue-is-in-the-frame-or-what-a-label-can-reveal/
[3] See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales's_feathers#/media/File:Badge_of_Prince_Edward_1543.jpg
[4] For example, William III of Orange https://theframeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/fig-17-netherlandish-school-william-iii-of-orange-1650to1702-c1670-77-museum-of-rotterdam-trophy-frame.jpg
[5] After Kneller, Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in coronation robes (r. 1720-14), c. 1710, private collection; https://theframeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/fig-17-queen-anne-in-trophy-frame.jpg
