Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) (posthumous)
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1585
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1360 x 1090 mm
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486237
Caption
Henry, 8th Earl, was imprisoned in the Tower on suspicion of conspiracy, and on his release was compelled by Elizabeth I to live at Petworth from 1573–1576. She was keen to prolong his late brother’s attainder, so that the Crown could benefit from the Percy estate revenues, but even after 1576 the Earl was forbidden to travel north, despite the Queen’s favour of a royal visit to Petworth in 1583. The 8th Earl now seems to have reverted to Catholicism and was gradually drawn into the Catholic plots on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots. Imprisoned for suspected treason in the Tower in 1584, he was found shot dead [through the heart] eighteen months later. The official cause of death was suicide (he may have wished to spare his family yet another attainder), but he was probably murdered.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641). A posthumous three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, short cropped hair, beard and moustache, wearing full armour, his right hand wearing his gauntlet and holding a baton his left elbow leaning on a ledge and his left bare hand hanging over it. On the ledge is his helmet.
Provenance
by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury. Moved within Square Dining Room in December 2006 from south wall, east side, over unused door
Marks and inscriptions
Sir Charles Percy (recorded by Collins Baker)
Makers and roles
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641), artist