Oil paint on wood
Captions
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-gower-220" aria-label="More by George Gower" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">George Gower</a>
Lady Kytson
Purchased 1952
actions: postures and motions
adults
arms folded
clothing and personal items
Cornwallis, Elizabeth
dress
hat
individuals: female
Kytson, Lady
named individuals
objects
people
portraits
woman
<p>George Gower painted these portraits of Lady Elizabeth and Sir Thomas Kytson in London in 1573. Gower, who was from a family of Yorkshire gentry, was an important portrait painter in the 1570s and 1580s. In 1581 he became Serjeant Painter to Elizabeth I, and supervised decorative painting in the royal palaces. In 1584, Gower and the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard tried to gain a monopoly to produce Elizabeth I’s portraits. As this painting demonstrates, Gower worked in the linear, shadowless style that the Queen is known to have preferred.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2024</em></p>
painting oil paint wood
23 April 2003 – 31 October 2010
2010-10-31
23 April 2003 – 31 October 2010
2010-10-31
2003-04-23
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-04-23
Tudor and Stuart Portraiture
Collection based display
14 December 2012 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
14 December 2012
2012-12-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-12-14
Gallery 91
Collection based display
26 September 2022
9 December 2019
2019-12-09
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 91
Collection based display
Lady Kytson
support: 685 × 522 mm
frame: 810 × 655 × 60 mm
Purchased 1952
<p>Elizabeth Cornwallis, Lady Kytson (c.1547-1628) married Sir Thomas Kytson (1541-1603), of Hengrave Hall in Suffolk in 1560. Of  their three children, a son John died in infancy in 1562. Their elder daughter Margaret married Sir Charles Cavendish of Welbeck in 1582, but died in childbirth the same year. In 1583 their younger daughter - and sole heiress - married Thomas Darcy, later Earl Rivers, but separated from him in 1594.

</p><p>In the present <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a>, Lady Kytson wears the bright colours that had then just come into fashion, notably her red gown with its high-status fur collar. Her sleeves, beneath gauze oversleeves, are embroidered in black thread with roses, honeysuckle and carnations. She is probably dressed for outdoors, as she is wearing, rather than carrying, her gloves, as well as a tall, masculine hat with a jewelled band and linen undercap. The exact shape of this hat was only revealed when the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> was cleaned in 1995. 

</p><p>A payment in Kytson's surviving accounts for 1573 indicates that this portrait, and its companion image of <i>Sir Thomas Kytson</i> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gower-sir-thomas-kytson-n06090" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06090</span></a>) were painted in London by George Gower (Cambridge University Library: Hengrave Papers 82 (3); cited in John Gage, <i>The History and Antiquities of Hengrave</i>, London 1822, p.40). The Kytsons had a town house in Coleman Street, in the City of London.

</p><p>These are the earliest extant works by Gower and, together with his <i>Self-portrait</i> of 1579 (private collection; see <i>Dynasties</i>, cat. no. 57), form a nucleus upon which further attributions to him have been based.

</p><p>Nothing is known of Gower's training but he was descended from a Yorkshire gentry family. In 1581 he was appointed Serjeant Painter to Queen Elizabeth, the premier royal post for an artist, but one whose duties generally involved the control of applied and decorative painting for the monarch. In 1584 a patent was drafted that would have granted Gower the monopoly of all painted and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraved</span></a> portraits of the Queen (while allowing another painter, Nicholas Hilliard, the monopoly of her portraits in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/miniature" title="Glossary definition for 'Miniature'"><span>miniature</span></a>) but it is not clear whether this was ever enacted. Nevertheless, Gower seem to have been one of the most fashionable portraitists of the 1570s-1580s.

</p><p><b>Further Reading: </b>
</p><p>Janet Arnold, <i>Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, </i>Leeds, 1988, pp.201-2<br/>Karen Hearn (ed.), <i>Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.102-3,107-8, cat. nos. 53, 54, 57, reproduced p.103 in colour

</p><p>Karen Hearn<br/>February 2001</p>
Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>George Gower painted these portraits of Lady Elizabeth and Sir Thomas Kytson in London in 1573. Gower, who was from a family of Yorkshire gentry, was an important portrait painter in the 1570s and 1580s. In 1581 he became Serjeant Painter to Elizabeth I, and supervised decorative painting in the royal palaces. In 1584, Gower and the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard tried to gain a monopoly to produce Elizabeth I’s portraits. As this painting demonstrates, Gower worked in the linear, shadowless style that the queen is known to have preferred.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-29T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions adults arms folded clothing and personal items Cornwallis, Elizabeth dress hat individuals: female Kytson, Lady named individuals objects people portraits woman