Who Painted Anne Dudley? A Tudor Mystery

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

For centuries, the name of an accomplished and popular portrait painter in the court of Elizabeth I has remained unknown. The renowned art historian Sir Roy Strong dubbed this artist the ‘Master of the Countess of Warwick’ but his identity has remained a mystery - until now. A fascinating new exhibition presents his works side-by-side - and it proposes a name for this mysterious artist.

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb visits the exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire to meet curator Amy Orrock and to find out more about the work - and probable life - of a great, forgotten painter.

This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we're talking about a Tudor mystery. Our story involves Elizabeth and London and
0:12.6	immigrant artists, then known as Stranger Painters, who are fleeing religious war in the Netherlands.
0:18.5	It encompasses the aspirations of English patrons and the booming industry of portraiture
0:23.6	in the 1560s. And it starts with a touchstone painting, believed to be of Anne Russell counters
0:30.2	of Warwick, born around 1548 and died in 1604. She was a maid of honour and close confidante
0:36.9	of Elizabeth I and wife to Ambrose Dudley III Earl of Warwick. In this painting of
0:42.4	hers she's wearing a black gown decorated with gold agglets. She's wearing a delicate black
0:48.2	workchief that you can see through her gauzy gold striped sleeves. She has a high rough
0:54.3	and a hood trimmed with pearls and she has an arresting, powerful gaze and beautifully painted hands.
1:01.0	This is a painting by an artist of extraordinary talent. But the artist is known only as the
1:07.7	master of the Countess of Warwick. Clearly he or she was the preeminent artist at the earlier
1:14.0	Elizabethan Court, but the identity of this artist is a mystery. But I'm going to be speaking
1:22.4	to the senior curator at Compton Bernie, Dr Amy Oruk, who has a new exhibition to explore the
1:29.9	identity of this mysterious artist and a theory to put forward about who it might have been.
1:44.8	Dr Oruk, I am delighted to have the chance to see this exhibition and to sit with you and talk
1:52.3	about it. I mean sometimes this podcast gives me such wonderful opportunities to have a meeting
1:57.8	with a curator of this exhibition is one of them. Lovely to see you. Thank you, it's lovely to meet you.
2:02.5	So this is very very exciting. We're thinking about a Tudor mystery. We're thinking about the identity
2:09.5	of a painter. So let's start by talking about what was going on in art and particularly in
2:16.6	portraiture in the middle of the 16th century. Who do we know is painting at this time and why is
2:23.1	there a bit of a question mark over what's going on? In the middle of the 16th century portraiture,
2:28.2	as we know it, is in its impency. So it's just really beginning as a genre. And one of the most
	...

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