Attributed to Hieronimo Custodis

(active Antwerp and London second half of the 16th Century)
A portrait of a lady, probably Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wearing a white ruff and an embroidered and beaded robe,
oil on panel, 37.5 x 29.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Elizabeth Goldring for her help in indentifying the sitter.

This finely wrought bust-length portrait depicts a lady of high rank presented against a dark, unadorned background which accentuates her features with striking immediacy. She wears a sombre black gown enriched with pearls arranged as star-like motifs and a cartwheel ruff of crisp linen edged with lace. Her coiffure is swept high above the temples and is adorned with a discreet hair jewel, while her other ornaments include a pearl necklace and a single pendant pearl earring, a detail of refined restraint that would become one of the most fashionable accessories at the Elizabethan court in the 1570s and 1580s

The detailed observation of the sitter’s face, the meticulous handling of costume, and the stark presentation would appear to belong to the English style of Hieronymus Custodis, a Flemish émigré painter who became one of Elizabeth I’s leading portraitists in the late 1580s. Custodis, who was born in Antwerp, fled to England after the fall of his native city in 1585. By 1589 at the latest, he had established himself in London, securing commissions from prominent Protestant nobles. His surviving oeuvre is relatively small but distinctive: half-length figures on dark grounds, linear precision in drawing ruffs and jewels, combined with a fine painterly elaboration of the flesh tones. His sitters include Elizabeth Brydges, Giles Brydges, 3rd Baron Chandos, Sir John Ashburnham, and Admiral Sir John Hawkins. Custodis died around 1593, but in his brief English career he left an indelible mark on Elizabethan portraiture, distinguished by gravity and clarity of form.

The probable subject of this painting, Frances Sidney, later Countess of Sussex, was born into the powerful Sidney family, niece of the poet Sir Philip Sidney. She was married to Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, one of Elizabeth I’s most trusted counsellors and Lord Chamberlain. Widowed in 1583, she spent her last years in relative seclusion but retained status as one of the highest-ranking noblewomen at court. Her enduring legacy is the foundation of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, endowed through her will and established in 1596. Portraits of Frances are scarce. Two certain oil portraits of Frances serve as excellent points of reference: the first, executed life-sized and full-length, dates from between 1570 and 1575, the second, executed in half-length, from about 1575. Both are now at Sidney Sussex College, depicting her when she was in her early forties. In the present painting the sitter appears to be somewhat older in age, but shares with the earlier paintings common features such as the fair skin, the red hair, dark brown eyes, a large, prominent nose, and a hairline that recedes slightly at both temples, creating a characteristic heart-shaped appearance of the face. These features appear again in the marble and alabaster monument to the memory of Frances, Countess of Sussex in the Chapel of St. Paul in Westminster Abbey where the dowager countess was buried at her death in 1589. The physiognomic similarities between this late portrait of the Countess in Westminster Abbey and the portrait offered here are particularly remarkable and it is therefore probable that the present portrait might offer a rare surviving testament to one of the most important female patrons of Elizabeth I’s reign.

The sitter’s attire accords with fashions current in England from circa 1585 onward. The cartwheel ruff, heavily starched and wired, is one of the most recognisable innovations of Elizabethan dress, appearing in portraiture by the 1580s such as the ‘Ermine’ portrait of Elizabeth I by an unknown hand and dated 1585 (Hatfield House). The gown, decorated with spangles or ‘oes’, would have glittered in candlelight, providing understated magnificence. The single pendant pearl earring was particularly fashionable in the later Elizabethan court, symbolising purity and constancy and popularised in both male and female portraiture.