Name Levina Teerlinc | ||
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Died June 1576, London, United Kingdom Artwork Portrait of Lady Katherine Grey | ||
Attributed to Levina Teerlinc Lawrence Hendra
Levina Teerlinc (b. Bruges, 1510–1520?; d. London, 23 June 1576) was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
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Teerlinc was the second eldest of five sisters, Alexandra, Anne, Claire, and Barbara, the children of Simon Bening (sometimes written as Benninc or Benninck), the renowned illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges school. Bening probably trained his daughter as a manuscript painter. Teerlinc may have worked in her father’s workshop before her marriage.
Career
In 1545, she moved with her husband, George Teerlinc of Blankenberge, to England. During her time in England, she served as the royal painter to Henry VIII, whose royal painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, had recently died. Her annuity for this position was £40 – rather more than Holbein had been paid. Whilst she was a real celebrity, no works by her are currently known. Later she served as a gentlewoman in the royal households of both Mary I and Elizabeth I. In 1559 Teerlinc was appointed tutor in painting to the King's daughter at the Spanish Court.
Works
Her documented works include paintings presented as gifts to the sovereign at the New Year including an image of the Trinity for Mary I in 1553. However, Teerlinc is best known for her pivotal position in the rise of the portrait miniature. There is documentation that she created numerous portraits of Elizabeth I, both individual portraits and portraits of the sovereign with important court figures. She might have trained Nicholas Hilliard, by training a goldsmith, in the methods of miniature portraiture. Hilliard would go on to be the supreme miniature portraitist of the era.
Attributing Teerlinc's works is challenging because she did not always sign them. However, there are a few existing paintings that are suspected to be Teerlinc’s due to the fact she was the only active miniaturist of prominence in English court between Hans Holbein the Younger in 1543 and Nicholas Hilliard in the 1570s. Some scholars also speculate that many of the miniatures were lost in the fire at Whitehall.
A 1983 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum represented "the first occasion when a group of miniatures has been assembled which can be attributed to Levina Teerlinc". Since the exhibition also performed the same function for her predecessor as court miniaturist, Lucas Hornebolte, it was especially useful in developing consensus on attributions. Five miniatures and two illuminated manuscript sheets were in the group, including a miniature of Lady Katherine Grey from the V&A, and others from the Yale Center for British Art, the Royal Collection (both of these possibly of the young Elizabeth I, and private collections). Strong considered there was "a convincing group of miniatures that emerge as the work of a single hand, one whose draughtsmanship is weak, whose paint is thin and transparent and whose brushwork loose". She also probably designed the Great Seal of England for Mary I and the earliest one used by Elizabeth (in the 1540s).