- Museum number
- 1890,0512.155
- Description
-
Portrait of Henry Parker, Lord Morley; half-length almost to front, head to half-l, with his hand tucked into his fur-trimmed coat, wearing a hat. 1523
Leadpoint on green prepared paper
- Production date
- 1523
- Dimensions
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Height: 378 millimetres
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Width: 305 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Entry from J. Rowlands 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German- speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no. 238:
'This was drawn at Nuremberg, where Henry Parker (1476-1556) newly created on 15 April 1523 Lord Morley, had come to confer the Order of the Garter on the Archduke Ferdinand. On 19 November Lord Morley wrote from Nuremberg to Cardinal Wolsey, ”we [have waited] the space of one month and three days th[e coming] to Nuremberg of Domfurnando. Are assured that within six days of the date of th[is letter] he will be here, and will be met by most of the gre[at] princes of Almayn, to hold a great diet” (‘Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII’, edited by J.S. Brewer, London, vol. iii, pt. 2, 1867, p. 1473, no. 3546). Evidently during the time of waiting Morley sat for this drawing, and also probably had a painted portrait done by Dürer, for a reference to such a portrait is in the 1590 inventory of Lord Lumley's collection: “Of the old Lo: Henry Morley, A 1523 done in watercolor by Albert Duer” (L. Cust, ‘Walpole Society’, vi, 1917-18, p. 23). Its description suggests that this is not, as Cust implied, the present drawing, the provenance of which indicates that it would not have been in England at this date, but a painting executed in tempera on canvas, which is a fragile medium that is susceptible to damage. A rare survival of such a portrait by Dürer is that of Jakob Fugger now in Augsburg (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, inv. no. 717; Anzelewsky, ‘Dürer’, pl. 168) which is not in good condition. Although the portrait in the Lumley Collection passed into that of the Earl of Arundel (M.L. Cox, ‘Burlington’, xix, 1911, p. 286, col. 2), its subsequent fate is unknown and it evidently has not survived. Anzelewsky did raise hopes when he noted a portrait whose description appeared to fit the lost work, seen by Waagen at Belvoir Castle in the collection of the Duke of Rutland (Waagen, ‘Treasures’, iii, p. 398). But unfortunately this portrait can be identified as one by a Bavarian master, perhaps from the circle of Hans Wertinger (1465/70-1533) which was lent by the then Duke of Rutland to an exhibition at the Guildhall, London, in 1892 (see ‘Reproductions of some Works in the Loan Exhibition of Pictures in the Guildhall’, 1892, pl. facing p. 6) and it is still at Belvoir Castle. Henry Parker was not the only Englishman portrayed by Dürer. The artist mentions in his Netherlands diary that he did a portrait of an English nobleman in Antwerp in 1521 (Rupprich, i, p. 172, col. 2) for which he was given one gulden, although this has not been identified among the surviving portrait drawings. Shortly afterwards, the same man commissioned Dürer to paint his coat of arms (Rupprich, i, p. 173, col. 1), which to judge from a surviving drawing was to form part of a hanging candelabrum (Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. no. 695; Winkler, ‘Dürer’, iv, pl. 829; E. Schilling, ‘Städel-Jahrbuch’, i, 1921, pp. 126f). Levey has established that the person concerned was a member of the Abarowe family of the manor at North Charford, Hampshire (‘The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight’, iv, London, 1911, p. 561). The arms drawn by Dürer agree with those of the Abarowe family (sable two crossed swords argent, their hilts and pommels downwards between fleur de lis or).'
Lit from Rowlands 1993: 'Ephrussi, pp. 326ff; Lippmann, part ii, pp. 19f., no. 87, repr.; Conway, p. 46, no. 855; Pauli, p. 41, no. 1151; BM Guide, 1928, p. 28, no. 280; Flechsig, Dürer, ii, p. 290; Tietze, iii, p. 51, no. 924, repr.; Winkler, Dürer, iv, pp. 83f., no. 912, repr.; Panofsky, ii, p. 107, no. 1034; RA British Portraits, p. 167, no. 537; Winkler, Leben, p. 339; Rupprich, i, p. 209, no. 75; Rowlands, Dürer, pp. 43f., no. 282; Anzelewsky, Dürer, pp. 86, 268, under no. 171z, repr.; M. Levey, Anz. Germ. Nat., 1971-2, pp. 157, 163, n. 8; J. Rowlands, Zeitschr. f. Kunstgesch., xxxvi, 1973, pp. 211f.; BM Portrait Drawings, p. 10, no. 16; Strauss, iv, p. 2238, no. 1523/17, repr.; BM Dürer and Holbein, p. 110, no. 80, repr.'
Further lit: S.Foister, Holbein & England, 2004, p.93; to be published in forthcoming 'Art Collecting in the Elizabethen Age: the Lumley Inventory and Pedigree' edited by Mark Evans, publ. by Roxburgh Club (2009 or 2010?)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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1891 Feb-Mar, BM, 'Exhibition of Drawings and Sketches'
1928 BM London, Guide Woodcuts, Drawings of A. Dürer, no. 280
1956-7, RA British Portraits, London, Royal Academy of Arts, no.537
1971, BM, Dürer no.282
1974 July-Dec, BM, Portrait Drawings, no.16
1985/6 Nov-Jan, Ashmolean, 'The Earl of Arundel', no. 39
1988 Jul-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no.80
2017 13 Jul-22 Oct, London, National Portrait Gallery, The Encounter: Portrait from British Collections
- Acquisition date
- 1890
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1890,0512.155
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: C,07.155