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Mrs Jane Cartwright
John GreenhillMid-1660s
Dulwich Picture Gallery
London, United Kingdom
The Cartwright Inventory of 1686 lists "167 master Feilds pictur in his Shurt on a bourd . . . Actour". The actor's loose shirt, hand on heart, and the conceit of putting a portrait within an arched niche would have represented romantic melancholy to an Elizabethan, appropriate to a glamorous young leading man - or at least to many of his roles. This is Hamlet to the life, and much the best of Cartwright’s actor portraits.
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Details
- Title: Mrs Jane Cartwright
- Creator Lifespan: 1642 - 1676
- Date: Mid-1660s
- Physical Dimensions: w600 x h745 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil
- Work Nationality: British
- Support: Canvas
- Provenance: London, William Cartwright (inventory no. 116: 'my Last wifes pictur, with a black vaile on her head in a gilt frame 3 quarters Clouth £3'); Cartwright Bequest, 1686.
- Further Information: "Although unattributed in the Cartwright inventory, there seems to be no reason to doubt that this portrait was painted by Greenhill, perhaps in the mid-1660s, contemporary with his portrait of William Cartwright (DPG393). According to the registers of St Giles, Cripplegate, Cartwright married three times and the exact identity of his wives is still problematic. The sitter in DPG387 is identified as Jane Hodgson, who married a William Cartwright on 19 November 1654 at St James, Clerkenwell (a Hodgson coat of arms is recorded in the Cartwright Inventory, no.160). The woman in this picture was originally painted in a blue dress with red sleeves, with a pearl head-dress and ear-rings, pearl brooch at the corsage and a flowing veil around head. She was re-painted in mourning, probably after her death, to signify the widower’s grief."
- Artist: Greenhill, John
- Acquisition Method: Cartwright, William (Bequest, 1686)
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