William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC (1580-1630)
Abraham van Blyenberch (1575/76 - 1624)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1617 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
1130 x 800 mm (44 ½ x 31 ½ in)
Order this imageCollection
Powis Castle and Garden, Powys
NT 1180902
Caption
This three-quarter length portrait of William Herbert depicts him in the role of Lord Chamberlain – the senior official of the Royal Household. The staff of office he holds, and the key attached to his waist, allude to his status. He held this position from 1615 to 1625, under King James I. During this time, in 1724, the newly founded Pembroke College, Oxford, was named after him.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580-1630), by Abraham van Blyenberch (c.1576 - Antwerp 1624), signed (mid-left): Abraham/van Blyen/berch fecit and inscribed (top left & right): AETA 37. ANNO DOMI 1617. A three-quarter length portrait of William Herbert, aged 37, as Lord Chamberlain, holding a staff of office, with a key round his waist. The only signed and dated survival of the artist's work in Britain.
Provenance
Accepted by HM Treasury on 21st March, 1963 in lieu of tax and conveyed to National Trust ownership on 29th November 1963.
Credit line
Powis Castle, The Powis Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Abraham van Blyenberch (1575/76 - 1624), artist
Exhibition history
Making Art in Tudor Britain Research Exhibition , National Portrait Gallery, London, 2012
References
Steegman 1957 John Steegman, A Survey of Portraits in Welsh Houses, Vol.I: North Wales, Cardiff, 1957, No. 8, Pl. 42c Waterhouse 1948 E.K. Waterhouse, Portraits from Welsh Houses - The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Wales, Burlington Magazine, vol.XC, no.544, July 1948, pp.203-207, p.204 Strong 1969 Roy Strong, The English Icon, Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture, London, 1969, p. 27, fig. 20.