The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England

Italian weavers were admired the world over for their virtuosity. Here, in the technique called "firefly effect", tiny loops of golden thread stand proud of the crimson velvet's surface. Amongst the Italian weavers' international clientele were the Tudor kings of England. Henry VII and his successors loved enormous scale velvet wall-hangings, like this rare survival. Visiting ambassadors marveled at expanses of such pricey textile, woven in Tuscany and exported- at great expense- for royal use in London. Henry VII adopted the pattern's double-rose motif as his dynasty's badge: the Tudor rose. Portable and pliable, these hangings brought splendor to any space, as Henry VIII used to full advantage at the 1520 temporary meet with his French counterpart, François 1er- evocatively coined by contemporaries, "the Field of the Cloth of Gold".

This impressive armor was made for Henry VIII (reigned 1509–47) toward the end of his life, when he was overweight and crippled with gout. Constructed for use both on horse and on foot, it was probably worn by the king during his last military campaign, the siege of Boulogne in 1544, which he commanded personally in spite of his infirmities. Originally, the harness was fitted with a detachable reinforcing breastplate, to which a lance-rest was attached, and a reinforce for the left pauldron (shoulder defense). A pair of exchange vambraces (arm defenses) remains in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.

The armor is described in the postmortem inventory of the king’s possessions, drawn up in 1547, as “of italion makinge.” Possibly, it was supplied by a Milanese merchant known in England as Francis Albert, who was licensed by Henry to import luxury goods, including armor, into England for sale. Subsequently, the armor was given to William Herbert (ca. 1507–1570), first earl of Pembroke, Henry’s esquire and an executor of his will. It is recorded at Wilton House, seat of the Pembroke family, from 1558 until it was sold in the 1920s. By the end of the eighteenth century, and until very recently, the armor was erroneously identified as having belonged to Anne de Montmorency (1493–1567), Constable of France, its royal English ownership having been forgotten.

The armor is an early example of the “anime” type, in which the breastplate and backplate are constructed of horizontal overlapping plates connected and made flexible by rivets and internal leather straps. The decoration, consisting of foliage, putti, running dogs, and Renaissance candelabra and grotesque ornament, is typically Italian.

Principally sourced from the interiors of exotic shells, Indian mother-of-pearl was admired and sought after by Europeans, and imports sold at astronomical prices. Though some vessels worked by Gujarati craftsmen (from Western India) were kept in their original forms, others—such as this one—were carefully dismantled and their mother-of-pearl inlays set in new precious-metal mounts. The extremely delicate gilded silver foot and cover decorated with miniature heraldic roses locate this piece to Elizabethan London.

The broad, shallow bowl of this wine cup is a borrowing into silver design of a Venetian glass form popular in the second half of the sixteenth century. Many glass examples survive, and we also know of their use from Italian paintings, in which typically a dimpled ground in the bowl served to enhance the sparkling, light-filled character of the wine.

Cruising serenely through little wavelets, the swan at the center of this bowl is an emblem of the Vintners' Corporation, the guild for men active in the wine trade whose responsibilities included monitoring conditions on the docks and securing honest trading. The Vintners' Corporation, one of the earliest guilds, received a charter in 1364. The four marks which seem to disfigure the side of the cup are in fact hallmarks, struck at the Hall of the Goldsmiths' Company, which regulated gold- and silversmiths and guaranteed the quality of the sterling stand and metal. The marks indicate year and place of manufacture as well as the maker or his workshop. The maker's mark on this tazza has not been identified.

The red-glazed ground of this cup was originally decorated with a finely-drawn gold decoration which has now largely worn off. This style of painting in gold on a colored ground was produced in China primarily for the Japanese market, where it was termed kinrande ("gold brocaded.") Queen Elizabeth I was presented with a similar mounted cup in 1582.

The sinuous painting on this fine blue-and-white bowl is in keeping with porcelain made for the domestic market in China and is unlike the coarser wares that later were made specifically for export. The gilt-silver mounts, which show the influence of Antwerp design, have finely stamped and cast motifs that refer to the ornament of classical architecture.

In the sixteenth century, Chinese porcelain occasionally arrived in England, sometimes by way of the Levant, sometimes by sea around the Cape of Good Hope. As it was very rare and considered a special treasure, the most accomplished English silversmiths were often commissioned to make mounts for it. Pieces such as these were regarded as suitable for royal gifts or for the furnishing of princely houses. The ewer shown here is one of a group of Chinese porcelains of Wanli period (1573–1620), with silver-gilt mounts made in London by an unidentified silversmith about 1585. They were all acquired by the Museum from the estate of J. P. Morgan.

The Old Testament tells the horrific story of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes murdering a Jewish family for their refusal to eat pork, a narrative of religious persecution that would have resonated with many groups in sixteenth-century Northern Europe. In his rendering, celebrated Antwerp artist Vellert relegated the gruesome subject matter to the background while showcasing his mastery of figural narrative and technical dexterity in stained glass. Vellert’s windows were once found in the cities Mechelen, Lübeck, and Antwerp, but most documented examples have been destroyed.

This is the earliest dated armor from the royal workshops at Greenwich, which were established in 1515 by Henry VIII (reigned 1509–47) to produce armors for himself and his court. It is also the earliest surviving Greenwich garniture, an armor made with a series of exchange and reinforcing pieces by which it could be adapted for use in battle and in different forms of the tournament. Furthermore, the overall etching and gilding place it among the most richly decorated of all Greenwich armors. The design of the decoration is attributed to the Swiss artist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who worked at the English court from 1526 to 1528.

The surviving exchange elements of this armor are a reinforcing breastplate with lance rest for use in the field or in the mounted tournament with lances; a left-hand gauntlet reinforce, or manifer, also used in the tournament with lances; and a right-hand locking gauntlet for the mounted tournament with swords.

A highly unusual and innovative feature is the ventral plate, which was worn strapped to the chest beneath the breastplate in order to lessen the weight supported from the shoulders. A ventral plate is found on only one other armor, made in Greenwich in 1540 for Henry VIII.

This armor is believed to have been made for Henry VIII and presented by him to the French ambassador François de La Tour d’Auvergne, viscount of Turenne, who led a diplomatic mission to London in 1527. After the viscount’s death in 1532, the armor presumably passed to his friend Galiot de Genouilhac, grand master of artillery and grand écuyer (master of the horse) of France, from whose descendants it came to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Needlework from England was prized throughout Europe, and was one medium for which the Tudors felt no need to import talent. This magnificent satin embellished with a broad border of elaborate, ornamental embroidery was almost certainly a bearing cloth- used to wrap and carry an infant during baptisms and other ceremonial occasions- from a particularly wealthy, possibly noble or even royal, household. Pomegranates were symbols of fecundity popular in English design since Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, introduced them as her personal badge. Here, they are interspersed with irises, lilies, and pansies topped by peacocks and caterpillars, all shimmering with spangles.

This ornamental table covering celebrates the aristocratic lineage of an English family, the Lewknors. It was made for an heiress, Constance Lewknor, who- like her queen, Elizabeth- remained single and independent throughout her life. Constance spared no expense for the carpet and the six matching cushions that originally accompanied it, apparently commissioning them from Flemish weavers working in Enghien (thirty miles southwest of Brussels), the recognized European center for such foliage-focused, or verdure, tapestries. The fruit in the border is a typical Enghien design, but the artfully naked boys and flower-strewn ground of red (Lancastrian) roses, white (Yorkist) roses, honeysuckle, and lilies suggest that an English cartoon, or preparatory drawing, for the central section was sent to Flanders.

Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and tric-trac (an early French variant of backgammon) served as diplomatic gifts and Kunstkammer display objects. Chess was integral to the instruction of potential rulers, as it helped develop the strategic thinking necessary on the battlefield. The game of goose, in which dice-throwing contestants raced to the center of the board while trying to avoid landing on certain symbols, was popular at the Medici court in Florence. This goose game board, designed after an Italian print and made by artisans in Gujarat for the European market, is the earliest known example in wood.

The subject was traditionally identified as John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and confessor to Henry VIII's first queen, Catherine of Aragon, but the identification has been increasingly called into question.

A young man rests his arm on a table. A book lies before him, a piece of paper tucked into its pages. From these simple ingredients, Holbein composed one of his most celebrated—and best preserved—portraits. The sitter came from a prominent family in Cologne, Germany, and served as a judge and alderman of the city’s assembly. The paper in his book quotes the Roman playwright Terence’s assertion that "flattery produces friends, truth hatred." Juxtaposing various kinds of text—the handwritten fragment, the gold-lettered inscription in the background, and the sitter’s name in an illusionistic inscription on the book—Holbein combines word and image to convey his subject’s identity.

This doublet is a rare example of sixteenth-century male clothing, very little of which has survived. The cut of the doublet, particularly the protruding "peascod" waist, is typical of fashionable costume of the 1570s and 1580s. The delicate silk embroidery and the use of gold and silver metallic yarns are additional indicators of its high quality. The padded ribs on the chest, back, and sleeves suggest that the doublet was also intended as a protective garment. It was probably made for wear during fencing practice, which was at the time an essential part of every gentleman's education.

The weeping eye. green parrot, and shimmering pansies adorning this pair of gloves indicate they were originally intended as a love token. In the Tudor period, the exchange of gifts was an essential rite of courtship. Gloves appear as fashionable accessories in the portraits of both men and women from the period, as in Marcus Gheeraerts's portrait of Ellen Maurice (also in The Met's collection, 2017.249).

The man in this portrait wears English royal livery, a uniform consisting of a red cap and coat embroidered with Henry VIII’s initials (HR), which identifies him as an artisan or attendant in the royal household. By having himself depicted in that costume, Holbein’s sitter emphasized his loyalty and service at court. The portrait likely once had a protective painted lid. Intimate portrait capsules of this type were both portable and more affordable than larger-scale likenesses.

George Clifford (1558–1605) was appointed Queen’s Champion in 1590 and was made a Knight of the Garter two years later. A favorite of Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558–1603), he chose for the decoration of this armor the Tudor rose, the French fleur-de-lis (then part of the English arms), and the cipher of Elizabeth, two E’s back to back.

The Cumberland armor is part of a garniture for field and tournament use. It was made in the royal workshops at Greenwich under the direction of the master armorer Jacob Halder (documented in England 1558–1608). The complete garniture is illustrated in the Jacobe Album, a late sixteenth-century manuscript of pen-and-wash drawings that records the decorated armors produced in the Greenwich workshops. The surviving pieces are the man’s armor and several exchange or reinforcing elements––a grandguard (defense for the lower face and upper left torso), passguard (defense for the left elbow), and four vamplates (hand defenses affixed to the lance) for the tilt; a close helmet with detachable visor reinforce for the tournament fought on foot––and horse armor, consisting of a shaffron (head defense) and saddle plates.

The Cumberland armor is the best preserved armor garniture from the royal workshops at Greenwich. It represents a technical and decorative high point of the Greenwich school.

With deceptive simplicity, skilled English embroiderers worked the finest Flemish linen, called "lawne," with black silk. Here, the Tudor roses, pomegranates, and rose hips are filled in with at least ten different minute patterns, highlighted with stitched chains of gilded silver-wrapped silk floss, called "Gold of Venice." Blackwork embroidery decorated royal household linens as well as items of clothing like neckerchiefs sported by Henry VIII; a pair of sleeves owned by his third wife, Jane Seymour; and panels for Queen Elizabeth's kirtles, the bodices and skirts worn under her gowns.

This most sumptuous of all Renaissance instructive manuals explained the use of the astrolabe (for calculating the altitude of stars) and other instruments used for computing planetary positions. The author, court astronomer to Emperor Charles V, also provided new observations on the comet of 1531 (Halley's Comet). Only about forty copies of this work survive; very few still have the seed pearls that were originally attached to the string markers on each of the eighteen disks.

This royal hunting portrait was modeled after an earlier type established by Netherlandish and German artists. The young Prince Henry sheathes his sword while his companion, Sir John Harington, holds the deer's antlers. The light palette and rich decorative effect are hallmarks of Peake's style.