The Mysterious Lady in Persian Costume
By Robert Brazil Dec. 22, 1998
This is in response to the numerous questions about the "Persian Lady" painting. I'm not a specialist in Art History, but I have read a good deal of the scholarly examinations of this painting, and I do have the Roy Strong essay where he sums up the history of the painting, and solves the puzzle of the picture.
Sir Roy argues convincingly that the woman is Frances Walsingham Essex, wife of Robert Devereux, the doomed Earl of Essex. Frances was the daughter of the Secretary of State, and grew up in the corridors of power. She was the young bride of Sir Philip Sidney. She was Sidney's widow, a national figure, a companion to the Queen. She was one of the most well known and influential women alive at the time, next to Elizabeth. By marrying Essex in secret, she incurred the Queen's wrath.
As to the painting itself, yes, it is true that George Vertue originally cataloged it as "Elizabeth in phantastik habit", and it has been at Windsor Castle all these years. That identification held until the era of methodological Art history and identification. There are a number of studies on the painting in this century, all of which have squeezed out new information. For me to explain all the arguments would take 100 pages ... I will mention the salient points.
* The painting is definitely by Gheeraerts the younger and dates from the decade he was patronized by Sir Henry Lee, roughly 1590 - 1600. Most of the portraits of this era by Gheeraerts relate to the circles of Lee and the Earl of Essex.
* The theme of the painting is the sadness of the Stag, the unnamed injustice he has suffered, and the compassion of the pregnant lady.
* The first modern discussion of the painting was 1914, Sir Lionel Cust. He was the first to say it couldn't be the Queen, but his best guess was Arabella Stuart as the sitter.
* In 1958, Dame Frances Yates made a breakthrough on the painting, discovering its design source to be a drawing from Boissard's 'Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium'. Yates noticed that other Gheeraerts paintings commissioned by Sir Henry Lee were influenced by the same book. Thus Yates discovered that this Persian Lady painting had so much in common with the other Ditchley Collection pieces, that the sitter in the fantastic dress had to be someone in Lee's social circle. She did not name a sitter, but she did not think it was a portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
* In 1977, historian Janet Arnold expanded on Yates' work, and concluded that the sitter was most likely Anne Vavasour, mistress to both Oxford, and then Sir Henry Lee. However, another painting by Gheeraerts that was originally Lee's is the famous painting of Anne Vavasour that we have seen in Oxfordian books. That painting is considered to be an authentic likeness, so Janet Arnold reasoned that perhaps the sitter was modeled after Anne's sister, Frances Vavasour.
* Roy Strong, Art Historian Royal of England, took up the challenge and around 1992 he published his identification of the actual nexus of the painting. The Weeping Stag is an image that goes back to Ovid's Metamorphoses. The Stag is Actaeon, after he has been transformed. He sees himself in a pond and weeps Bezoar Tears. According to Strong, and I concur, the Weeping Stag in this painting represents the defeated Earl of Essex. The symbol of he Stag was actually Essex's (the Devereux family) emblem. Strong argues that the painting was commissioned in 1600 with a plan to show it to the queen at the yearly Ascension Day Tilt, where Essex was going to attempt a political comeback. That Tilt was canceled, and in months, Essex was executed. In Strong's scenario, Henry Lee, who was a key Essex supporter, had the painting done to appeal to the Queen's mercy, for a pregnant Noble Woman, whose Noble husband was now in deep melancholy stag disgrace. The chronology works because Frances' last child by Essex, Dorothy, was born in Dec. 1600. She actually would have been visibly pregnant in the fall of 1600, when the painting was done. It was intended to be premiered on Nov. 17, 1600.
Another set of facts upholds Strong's dating of the picture. The painting is unique in its use of Persian costume. Costume historians have determined that there was no instance or occasion of "Persian style dress up" in England until the fall of 1600 when the news of the Englishman Anthony Sherley's adventure to Persia was published. Because Sherley was a rogue agent, Catholic collaborator, (and worse, in the eyes of Elizabeth), the book was immediately suppressed. Which only whetted the public imagination for forbidden Persian things. This started a "persian craze", and Lady Essex would have been rich enough to have the elaborate costume made.
The Baconians latched on to this picture, and reading no further than its original erroneous label ( Queen E ), decided it was a painting of the Queen circa 1563, pregnant with "her son Francis Bacon". Now Oxfordians have taken the bait and have reinvented the myth so that this is an image of the pregnant Queen, perhaps in 1572, carrying the prince subsequently to be known as Henry Southampton .
But stop and consider :
1. The Queen would never permit herself to be portrayed as pregnant.
2. If one still persists, and argues that the Queen had nothing to do with the creation of the painting, you would have to argue that Sir Henry Lee had this painting commissioned 28 years after the alleged pregnancy in question, as a kind of momento. (Or blackmail ? or what ? If this painting tells the story of the Virgin Queen's non-virginity, wouldn't it have been deadly obvious to people at the time, and wouldn't it have been destroyed?) There is no way the painting dates from the 1560's or 1570's. It is firmly linked to a large group of Gheerarts-for-Lee paintings that date from approx. 1592- 1601. During the same era, Gheerarts painted several portraits of Essex himself.
3. The fact that the painting has hung over the centuries in Hampton Court argues that it is not a picture of Elizabeth pregnant.
* There are many other little details in Strong's analysis that convince me that the painting is related to the doom of Essex and that the woman is the Countess. As for the specific royal symbolism in the painting ( pansies, pearls, the walnut tree, etc. ) Strong feels that it was part of the elaborate theme of trying to make an emotional impression on the principal intended viewer, the Queen.
* The melancholy stag features in As You Like it, and is there associated with Jacques. Shakespeares use of the image there and elsewhere certainly precedes the painting, deriving from the poets love of Ovid, not Essex.
Robert Brazil
Update January 1999
Once again we've found a hot-button issue where a Rashomon style 4-way standoff is the likely outcome. I posted Roy Strong's interpretation of the "Persian Lady" because it tells a coherent story; one that I wasn't expecting. Beyond that, I'm not prepared to answer and defend the minutiae of the Countess Essex theory. I was simply concerned that Oxfordians were/are on the verge of publicizing this image as a proof of the Southampton Theory, without having looked at the considerable existing literature about the piece. I appreciate the questions from the Steltings, who seem to want very much for this to be a picture of Queen Elizabeth. Since anything is possible, I can't say for sure the picture isn't some top secret allegorical momento of the Queen. It's just extremely unlikely. If you look into the scholarship on this painting, on Gheerarts Jr, & on Henry Lee, you will see why the date for the painting has to be between 1592 - 1600, with 1600 as the likeliest date, because of the costuming (and the link to Essex's trouble). Thus if this portrait shows the Queen in the 1570's, or Anne Vavasour or Anne Cecil in the 1580's, it would have to have been an imaginary looking back.
Reviewing the theories:
1. Baconian : The Queen pregnant with either Francis Bacon or R. Devereux(Essex)
2. Oxonian : The Queen pregnant (by Oxford) with love-child Henry Wriothesley
3. Oxtopian : The Queen pregnant with Oxford himself
4. J. Arnold : Anne Vavasour or Frances Vavasour
5. OxVavian : Anne Vavasour carrying Oxford's son
6. Cecilian : Anne Cecil Oxford carrying ... (Elizabeth, the disputed firstborn?)
7. Roy Strong : Frances Walsingham Essex carrying her last child by Essex
At present, I find Strong's theory the least naive, and most likely explanation. I would prefer the #5 theory because it's semi-credible, and useful... but the sitter doesn't look at all like the other Vavasour portrait, also by Gheeraerts. After writing, the other day, about Sherley's influence on a Persian craze in London in 1600, I did some follow up research in the library and on the net. I failed to mention that Sherley was one of Essex's own men, and there is the possibility that he sent the Persian Lady costume back to England himself, as a present for his Lord's wife ( Countess Essex )
* Who's Who in Shakespeare's England has an entry under Anthony Shirley. It includes this interesting tidbit that evaded my radar up until now.
"Shirleys (own) account of his Persian adventures was published in London in 1613. He died in poverty in Madrid(1635). The suggestion by Bishop S.F. Surtees, in 1888, that Anthony Shirley is the true author of Shakespeare's plays is engagingly eccentric."
Im speechless.
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Sherley Snips from the web :
Sir Anthony Sherley - Pirate
* Nationality: English
* Theatre of Operation: Caribbean, Mediterranean
* Active: 1565-1636?
Sherley was a rogue in the strictest sense of the word. He was born into a family of means but was forced to find his own way after his family property went into bankruptcy. He had had an Oxford education but had to take to soldiering, forgoing his education. In 1591 he went to Normandy as one of the Earl of Essex's soldiers. While in Normandy he was given knighthood by the French. In 1593 he was imprisoned until he renounced his foreign title. Striving to rise in stature, he married a cousin of the earl, but soon found his wife intolerable. Seeing nothing for him to gain by staying in England, he left to seek his fortune elsewhere. Sherley used his relation to the earl to aquire funds to assemble an expedition to capture Sâo Thomé, a Portuguese island off the coast of Africa. Sherley assembled eight ships carrying around 400 soldiers. They set sail in May 1596. The expedition was struck by disease early in the voyage. Sherley was forced to change his course to the north. Sherley's force took Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands but the booty was very sparse. His force much depleted, Sherley then attacked and took Santa Marta, Colombia. In early 1597, they sacked the poor Jamaican settlement of Santiago de la Vega. Their main purpose in the attack was to replenish supplies. So far the sum total of booty for his raids was very poor. While at Jamaica, Sherley encountered William Parker and Michael Geare. The two joined with Sherley in an attack upon Trujillo ( Honduras ). They were unsuccessful in their attack upon Trujillo. They next tried their luck in attacking Puerto Caballos, and after taking it, found it to be destitute. Sherley and Parker, after Geare had left to seek his fortune elsewhere, decided to try to march across the Guatemala mountains to the Pacific. Once again they were daunted by the severity of the trip and chose to take their remaining men through the Strait of Magellan. Sherley's men now totally at a loss of faith in their captain, deserted him. With his one remaining ship, Sherley went back to England to tremendous debts. Toward the end of 1597, Sherley was sent to Ferrara, Italy in the company of English troops. By the time of the troops' arrival, the differences between Italy and England were settled and Sherley was faced with unemployment. Sherley, once again using his relationship with the Earl of Essex, managed to raise enough money to sail to Persia. He planned to establish diplomatic relations ( without the consent of the crown ) with the new shah. The shah made Sherley his ambassador and enlisted him to gain allies against the Ottoman Empire. When Sherley returned to England his plan was condemned and he wasn't allowed to return to Persia. Sherley then made his rounds from royal court to court and conned nobles out of funds. In 1607, Sherley had managed to become an agent of the Spanish. During this time he wrote to Simon Simonson and John Ward trying to sway them to make attacks upon the Ottoman Empire. Two years later, in 1609, the Spanish had Sherley assemble ships in Sicily to attack the Barbary corsairs. It was planned that Sherley would join in a Spanish attack on Tunis, but instead Sherley attacked European merchantmen and looted the Greek islands. After Sherley's failure to support Spain's attack on Tunis, he lost all influence in the Spanish courts but stayed in Spain constantly trying to gain political stature. He died destitute in Spain sometime around 1637.
Snipped from :
http://home.swbell.net/seacast/gallery.html
http://home.swbell.net/seacast/sherley.html
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Now it happens that in 1609 a sensationally popular book had been published in London, A True Historicall Discourse of Muley Hamets rising to the three Kingdomes of Moruecos, Fes, and Sus , which gave a particularly detailed account of events of 1602 to 1604. Dedicated to the great friend of Robert Fludd, John Selden and William Camden, Sir Robert Cotton, the anonymous author related the "adventures" of Sir Anthony Sherley, his sons and other English "gentlemen" in the Moorish regions. John Davies of Hereford, whose Rosicrucian ties I explain elsewhere, dedicated commendatory verses in various works to several of these travellers, some of whom were his personal friends. One feels that Maier had been privileged with anecdotes from these travels that never saw print in England. Even George Sandys, who later recommended Maier's works, had spent time in the Middle East.
Snipped from :
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/h_maier.html
There were a number of Englishmen who encountered coffee in their Eastern travels, and wrote of it, long before most people at home acquainted themselves with the drink. In 1599, Anthony Sherley, a merchant adventurer, went to Persia to foster English trade interests, and to persuade the Shah to join with the West against the Turks. Sherley was the first Englishman to write of coffee (but not the first European--that was a German traveller to Aleppo in 1574), telling of "infidells drinking a certaine liquor, which they do call Coffe."
http://users.aol.com/MAist/coffee.htm
Another Update, January 1999
There is one nice connection so far between Sherley and the Vere's, and it's interesting how it brings our whole cast of characters together. In 1597, the Earl of Essex, desperate to recapture the glory of his Cadiz raid, got permission to assemble a war party of ships and adventurers to attack Spanish treasure ships in the Azores Islands. They departed Aug.17, 1597. Essex was expedition leader.
Under him were the Five Expedition Commanders who served as the War Council:
* Vice Admiral Thomas Howard, (the brother of Lord Admiral Charles Howard)
* Sir Charles Blount (now Lord Mountjoy due to his brother's recent demise)
* Sir Walter Raleigh (as Rear Admiral)
* Sir Francis Vere, (Marshal & second in command on land to Mountjoy)
* Sir Anthony Sherley (Sargeant Major)
The expedition was an embarrassing disaster and both Essex and Raleigh made major mistakes. They came back to England with nothing. Essex was in the doghouse until Francis Vere came forward to the Queen and defended Essex' s conduct.
The point of all this is that Sherley was in close quarters with Francis Vere for months, serving as a near equal. At the very least, the Earl of Oxford would have heard of Sherley through his first cousin.
I repeat that I am in no position to defend Strong's theory, iota by iota. The alleged *motive* and "plan" of Mr. & Mrs. Essex is indeed the weakest part of Strongs argument, but perhaps I did a poor job of explaining it. As for when an interest in Persia began, it was a costuming and perhaps culinary & cultural boom that began after Sherleys return from Persia to England in 1600. Literary references to Persia, as in the cited Licia sonnet or quotes from Shakespeare, clearly predate Sherley, and are based on the classical tradition.
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The Elizabethans did not generally mix and match these Middle East references.
Persia meant one thing (riches, exotic drugs and spices). Turkish meant warlike and beyond the reach and reason of Christendom. Arabia was mystic & sparse. Home of the Phoenix, as in the Shakespeare Poem. Moor usually meant a black African or a very dark Arab. Moor & Turk could be generic words, but Persia and Arabia were still far away places.
There are only four references to Persia or Persian in the Shakespeare Canon. : in The Comedy of Errors, King Lear, and Merchant of Venice. (all post-Sherley in conventional dating)
What follows are some of the key sources on the Persian Lady Painting,
paintings of Elizabeth, Gheeraerts Jr & Sr, Henry Lee, etc.
* Roy Strong : "My Weepinge Stagg I Crowne" ( essay on the Persian Lady ) in The Art of the Emblem, edited by M. Bath & A. Young, NY, 1992
* Roy Strong : "Elizabethan Painting: An Approach through Inscriptions", Burlington Magazine, 105, 1963
* Roy Strong : The English Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture, 1969
* Roy Strong : The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry, 1977
* Roy Strong : Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, 1980
* George Vertue : Notebooks : reprinted in the Walpole Society , 1930's
* E. Law : The Royal Gallery of Hampton Court, 1898
* Lionel Cust : "Marcus Gheerarts", Walpole Society # 2, 1914
* Frances Yates : Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century, 1975
* Oliver Millar : The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the collection of H. M. The Queen, 1963
*E.K. Chambers : Sir Henry Lee, 1936
* Samuel C. Chew: The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England during the Renaissance, 1937
* Janet Arnold : Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, 1988
* Alan Young : Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments, 1987