Levina Teerlinc

Levina Teerlinc (also Lievine Teerlinc , nee Levina Bening ) (* 1510/1520 in Bruges or Ghent , † June 23, 1576 in London ) was a Dutch painter and the daughter of the famous miniaturist Simon Bening . In 1545 she emigrated to England , where she was court painter at the English royal court from 1546 until her death in 1576 , first under Henry VIII and after his death with all three of his children, Edward VI. , Maria I. and Elisabeth I. She also served the latter two as lady-in-waiting .

Although Teerlinc achieved a reputation as a miniature painter almost like her father and enjoyed extraordinary social recognition for a painter of her time, hardly any works by her have survived today and the few assignments are controversial.

Life

origin

Levina Teerlinc's father, the painter Simon Bening

Levina Teerlinc was born as the eldest of five daughters from the first marriage of the painter Simon Bening . Teerlinc's grandfather, Alexander Bening, was already a famous miniaturist and her father is now considered the most important illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges School of the 16th century. Levina followed the family tradition and probably learned miniature painting in her father's Bruges workshop. Her sister Alexandra also got a foothold in the artistic trade - she became an art dealer.

Working in England

By the end of the 1530s, Teerlinc was already well known for her skills. Around 1545, King Henry VIII , who had heard of her talent, invited to England. His court painter Hans Holbein the Younger died recently. Levina and her husband, Georg Teerlinc von Blankenberge, then moved to England, where in November she was granted an exceptionally good salary of 40 pounds a year for life as a royal paintrix , much more than the much more famous and well-known today Holbein had received. It was to remain the highest salary for an English court painter until the end of the 16th century. Her husband Georg received the office of Gentleman Pensioner of the Royal Household , the former designation of the Honorable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms .

No works by Teerlinc are known from Heinrich's reign, only from the reign of his son Edward VI. you know from a portrait. In October 1551 the painter was commissioned for the high sum of 10 pounds to portray his sister, Princess Elisabeth , the future Elisabeth I. Today, however, it is disputed which of the surviving portraits of Elisabeth it is.

During the reign of Mary I , Teerlinc made miniatures of the queen praying and portraits of other noble ladies, such as Catherine Gray , a royal cousin. In 1553 she presented the Queen with 'a small picture of the Trinity' as a New Year's gift. Other depictions showed the queen blessing the cramp rings that were widespread at the time and touching a scrofula patient who hoped to be cured by the laying on of hands by the king .

All four Tudor monarchs appear to have valued Teerlinc's work. After Elisabeth ascended the throne in 1558, she confirmed her father's patent on Teerlinc. According to one story, Elizabeth saw a courtier one day carrying a miniature painted by Teerlinc. The Queen liked the picture so much that she ordered the courtier to give it to her. As a court painter, Teerlinc presented a miniature every year as a New Year's gift and nine of them are documented from the lists of royal New Year's gifts that have been preserved between 1559 and 1576. These were either portraits of the new queen alone or in a group, e.g. B. with her knights of the Order of the Garter , on the annual round trip through the kingdom or during the traditional washing of the feet of poor women on Maundy Thursday. The first state seal of Elisabeth is also said to have been made according to a design by Teerlinc, including the seal of Maria I, for which there is no evidence.

Social status

Teerlinc's social status was exceptionally good for her profession. In the gift list for the New Year 1563 she is referred to as a noble lady ( gentlewoman ) and in 1595 as "sworn in as one in the private chambers of the Queen, Her Majesty" by her son, ie as a lady-in-waiting . The list shows that Elisabeth gave Teerlinc golden spoons as a token of her high esteem. Her husband Georg was one of the ceremonial bodyguards of the Queen as a gentleman pensioner under Elisabeth, and in 1566 received the lease for a piece of land in Stepney , where he let the family build a house for 500 pounds. In the same year Levina, Georg and their son Marcus were naturalized. She remained court painter until her death on June 23, 1576 and obviously lived in comfortable circumstances. Her funeral took place on June 25th in the parish church of St. Dunstan.

Style and work

No signed or otherwise documented works by Levina Teerlinc have survived; an oeuvre can only be compiled from the few miniatures that have survived between 1545 and 1575. Five Miniatures were assigned Teerlinc, including Elizabethan Maundy , the representation of the traditional washing of the feet by the Queen on Maundy Thursday (Engl. Maundy Thursday ) and an early portrait of Elizabeth. However, none of the works can be attributed to Teerlinc with certainty, they may not even be by the same artist. The 18-year-old girl is reminiscent of Lucas Horenbout's style and could have come from the miniaturist Susanna Horenbout .

Based on the assumed oeuvre, Levina Teerlinc's style can be classified in the tradition of the illuminators of the Ghent-Bruges district. The miniatures ascribed to her, however, show the influence of Lucas Horenbout and, in their composition, Hans Eworth . The art historian Roy Strong describes their most distinctive features as “a head on a body that is too small and thin. The technology is clumsy, thin, and often fleeting, which may be surprising considering the reputation it enjoyed. "

Nicholas Hilliard Levina Teerlinc and Susanna Horenbout may have thought when he wrote in his work The Art of Limning in 1600 : “You can make an excellent white from mercury, which draws a very fine line, this white is used by the painters.” That Teerlinc, however, Hilliards Was a teacher is completely unproven, especially since Hilliard himself praises Hans Holbein as his great role model.

Some researchers consider the portrait of a lady to be a self-portrait by Teerlinc, since she wears dice as jewelry and teerlinc is the Flemish word for dice .

Assumed works (selection)

image	title	year	Size / material	Exhibition / collection / owner
	To Elizabethan Maundy (washing feet on Maundy Thursday)	circa 1565	65 × 55 mm, parchment drawn on a playing card	Madresfield Court, Worcester
	18 year old girl	unknown	approx. 52 mm in diameter, parchment glued to paper	Collection of Yale University Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
	Catherine Gray	approx. 1550-60	Watercolor on parchment on cardboard	Victoria and Albert Museum
	Elizabeth I (?)	circa 1565

Web links

• Levina Teerlinc's Portrait of a Young Woman , 1566, on the homepage of the Victoria and Albert Museum, museum no. P. 21-1954
• Levina Teerlinc's portrait of Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney , ca.1575, on the homepage of the Victoria and Albert Museum, museum no. E. 1170-1988

literature

Technical articles

• Roy Strong: Artists of the Tudor court: the portrait miniature rediscovered l520-1620. Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition Catalog, London 1983, ISBN 978-0-905209-34-0
• Roy Strong: The English Renaissance miniature. Thames and Hudson, London 1983, ISBN 978-0-500-23370-2
• Erna Auerbach : Tudor artists; a study of painters in the royal service and of portraiture on illuminated documents from the accession of Henry VIII to the death of Elizabeth I. University of London, Athlone Press 1954

Lexicons

• HCG Matthew, Brian Harrison: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to the year 2000. Oxford University Press 2004
• Jo Eldridge Carney: Renaissance and Reformation, 1500-1620: a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Press 2001, ISBN 0-313-30574-9 ( excerpts can be read on Googlebooks )
• Jane Turner (Ed.): The Dictionary of Art. Volume 30, New York, Macmillan Publishers Limited 1996, ISBN 978-1-884446-00-9

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrich Thieme (Ed.): General Lexicon of the Fine Arts. Leipzig 1909, Volume 3, p. 327
2. ^ ^{A b c d e} HCG Matthew, Brian Harrison: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to the year 2000. Oxford University Press 2004
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Jo Eldridge Carney: Renaissance and Reformation, 1500-1620: a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Press 2001, p. 354
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jane Turner (Ed.): The Dictionary of Art. Volume 30, New York, Macmillan Publishers Limited 1996, pp. 411f
5. ↑ ^{a b} Carole Levin: Levina Teerlinc . In: Extraordinary Women of the Medieval and Renaissance World. A Biographical Dictionary . Greenwood Press 2000, p. 278
6. ^ Letters and Papers November 1546 Royal Bills "Mrs. Levyna Terling, paintrix, to have a fee of 40 l. A year from the Annunciation of Our Lady last past during your Majesty's pleasure. Preferred by my lady Harbert."
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Carole Levin: Levina Teerlinc . In: Extraordinary Women of the Medieval and Renaissance World. A Biographical Dictionary . Greenwood Press 2000, p. 279
8. ↑ ^{a b} Carole Levin: Levina Teerlinc . In: Extraordinary Women of the Medieval and Renaissance World. A Biographical Dictionary . Greenwood Press 2000, p. 280