Re: Margaret (and Richard)

Dear Eileen,

> Marianne...check this out too.....Can you see the family likeness
> shared between uncle, aunt and niece....especially around the eyes.
> http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Pole,Margaret(CSalisbury)01.jpg


The Rous drawings are adorable - he makes everyone look like dainty
wee dolls (even knights in armour) - but I'm not sure that I would
want to base an identification on them. They're a bit too stereotyped
for that.

What always interested me in the famous miniature in the Jean de
Wavrin book is why no-one has ever identified Richard as the garter
knight in the blue hat, blue velvet doublet and long brown gown on
the right of the picture:
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/edward4wavrin.jpg ?
He's young, smaller than his companion, and his hairstyle is right,
re: the Society of Antiquaries picture - light brown, with soft
curls. He's also standing very close to the King.

The figure in the foreground in the short pink fur-trimmed outfit -
whether or not, as has been argued, he's just a stock playing-card
character - is clearly middle-aged and has frizzy hair. If I were to
identify him even loosely with anyone real, it would be Hastings.

Their shoes are deliciously 'Black Adder 1'...
best wishes,
Marianne

I was very lucky to have seen the Rous drawing of Richard and Anne at an exhibition yonks ago....faded but so lovely....and yes Richard does seem rather 'pretty' in them...Rous would have known Anne by sight so I cling on to the hope that his drawing of Anne is, at least a little, based on how she would have looked. The drawing of Clarence does seem to have a bit more character to it...although why that should be who knows...

Now that minature that may or may not be Richard from the de Wavrin book...I have read an article....damn I cannot remember where....that suggests this figure was stylised...Is it known whether the painter would have ever hand the chance to get a good look at Edward and Richard..? As you said very interesting...
Eileen

--- In , Dr M M Gilchrist <docm@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Eileen,
>
> > Marianne...check this out too.....Can you see the family likeness
> > shared between uncle, aunt and niece....especially around the eyes.
> > http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Pole,Margaret(CSalisbury)01.jpg
>
>
> The Rous drawings are adorable - he makes everyone look like dainty
> wee dolls (even knights in armour) - but I'm not sure that I would
> want to base an identification on them. They're a bit too stereotyped
> for that.
>
> What always interested me in the famous miniature in the Jean de
> Wavrin book is why no-one has ever identified Richard as the garter
> knight in the blue hat, blue velvet doublet and long brown gown on
> the right of the picture:
> http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/edward4wavrin.jpg ?
> He's young, smaller than his companion, and his hairstyle is right,
> re: the Society of Antiquaries picture - light brown, with soft
> curls. He's also standing very close to the King.
>
> The figure in the foreground in the short pink fur-trimmed outfit -
> whether or not, as has been argued, he's just a stock playing-card
> character - is clearly middle-aged and has frizzy hair. If I were to
> identify him even loosely with anyone real, it would be Hastings.
>
> Their shoes are deliciously 'Black Adder 1'...
> best wishes,
> Marianne
>
>
>

Marianne wrote:
> What always interested me in the famous miniature in the Jean de
> Wavrin book is why no-one has ever identified Richard as the garter
> knight in the blue hat, blue velvet doublet and long brown gown on
> the right of the picture:
> http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/edward4wavrin.jpg ?
> He's young, smaller than his companion, and his hairstyle is right,
> re: the Society of Antiquaries picture - light brown, with soft
> curls. He's also standing very close to the King.
>


I did suggest that very thing on the forum once, Marianne. The conventional ID of Richard as the middle-aged man with the big chin and the big bottom must surely have relied on whoever first suggested it having failed to notice the garter peeking out from the slash in the young man's long gown. Anne Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs base their rejection of the Richard = man with big bottom theory on the contention that these figures are stock characters, not portraits of individuals. But there we have it - two Garter knights in the picture, one young and one middle-aged: Richard and Hastings, perhaps? I also wondered if the white stick carried by the older garter knight could be some sort of symbol of office - what do you think?
Marie

mariewalsh2003 wrote:


//snip//two Garter knights in the picture, one young and one middle-aged:
Richard and Hastings, perhaps? I also wondered if the white stick carried
by the older garter knight could be some sort of symbol of office - what do
you think?

The white rod used to be the symbol held by the Lord Chamberlain, was it
not?
I know that when Queen Anne dismissed Lord Goldolphin (her Lord Treasurer)
he broke HIS staff of office and tossed the fragments in the fire according
to Churchill in his "Marlborough".
Which would give, at least tentaively, the identity of the older Garter
knight as Hastings.
Doug

Oh good, thanks Doug.
I don't think the identification of the stance of this man as that of a stock figure is incompatible with his also being Hastings. Some artists still use stock figures for their outlines, for instance Jack Vettriano, but that is only a stage in the creation of the character on the canvas.
Marie

--- In , "Douglas Eugene Stamate" <destama@...> wrote:
>
>
> mariewalsh2003 wrote:
>
>
> //snip//two Garter knights in the picture, one young and one middle-aged:
> Richard and Hastings, perhaps? I also wondered if the white stick carried
> by the older garter knight could be some sort of symbol of office - what do
> you think?
>
> The white rod used to be the symbol held by the Lord Chamberlain, was it
> not?
> I know that when Queen Anne dismissed Lord Goldolphin (her Lord Treasurer)
> he broke HIS staff of office and tossed the fragments in the fire according
> to Churchill in his "Marlborough".
> Which would give, at least tentaively, the identity of the older Garter
> knight as Hastings.
> Doug
>

Dera Eileen,

> I was very lucky to have seen the Rous drawing of Richard and Anne
> at an exhibition yonks ago....faded but so lovely....and yes
> Richard does seem rather 'pretty' in them...Rous would have known
> Anne by sight so I cling on to the hope that his drawing of Anne
> is, at least a little, based on how she would have looked. The
> drawing of Clarence does seem to have a bit more character to
> it...although why that should be who knows...

I don't think there's a huge amount to distinguish any of them from
each other. But they are all very sweet: even the heraldic animals
are more cute than fierce!

> Now that minature that may or may not be Richard from the de Wavrin
> book...I have read an article....damn I cannot remember
> where....that suggests this figure was stylised...Is it known
> whether the painter would have ever hand the chance to get a good
> look at Edward and Richard..? As you said very interesting...


Yes< I have read about this: certainly the older man in pink in the
foreground - bizarrely, the one usually speculated to be Richard,
despite looking over 40 - is a stock type (often used to populate
illustrations of this kind - like 15C hand-drawn clip art!), although
I daresay he may have been tweaked a bit to fit the scene. But my
interest is in the other figure, who strikes me as being a far more
plausible candidate. There's no great effort at portraiture  as you
say, it's a moot point whether the artist ever saw them  but the
author may have been able to say, "Well, the king's brother is
slight, young and has wavy light brown hair", just to give him a
general idea.

best wishes,
Marianne

Marianne wrote:
<snip>
>
> What always interested me in the famous miniature in the Jean de Wavrin book is why no-one has ever identified Richard as the garter
> knight in the blue hat, blue velvet doublet and long brown gown on
> the right of the picture:
> http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/edward4wavrin.jpg ?
> He's young, smaller than his companion, and his hairstyle is right,
> re: the Society of Antiquaries picture - light brown, with soft
> curls. He's also standing very close to the King.
>
> The figure in the foreground in the short pink fur-trimmed outfit - whether or not, as has been argued, he's just a stock playing-card character - is clearly middle-aged and has frizzy hair. If I were to identify him even loosely with anyone real, it would be Hastings.
<snip>

Carol responds:

Good thought, Marianne! I've always shivered with disgust when anyone suggested that the goblin-looking character in the green hat might be Richard (age aside, there's no resemblance whatever, and the identification as Richard probably traces to antipathy toward him). And would Richard, never depicted even by his enemies as a court dandy, have dressed like that? And no contemporary ever suggested that he had a double chin. So it's probably either the dark hair or the conspicuous garter that has prompted the suggestion. But note that Edward's hair is also dark in this picture, darker than that of the young man you point out. (Compare the picture from Dictes de Philosophes where Edward's hair is also darker than Richard's despite that strand of brown hair that you mentioned and I linked to earlier):

http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/58190/English-School-15th-century/Ms-265-f.VI-v-Edward-IV-with-Elizabeth-Woodville?search_context={%22url%22%3A%22\%2Fsearch\%2Fcollection\%2FLAMBETH-PALACE-LIBRARY\%2F469%22%2C%22num_results%22%3A%22261%22%2C%22search_type%22%3A%22supplier_assets%22%2C%22supplier_id%22%3A%22469%22%2C%22item_index%22%3A36}

Er, I guess I need a tinyurl here:

http://tinyurl.com/94fxecn

You could be right that it's Hastings. I don't suppose that it's Anthony Woodville given the looks and the coloring as shown in the Dictes de Philosophes picture (which, by the way, also shows Elizabeth Woodville's hair color.

Carol