Portrait of a Lady of the Wentworth Family (Probably Jane Cheyne)

An English lady of the Wentworth family — probably Jane Cheyne — stands half-length against a draped interior in the dark velvet and fine linen of Elizabethan dress, her hands folded and a coat of arms painted beside her. Such a portrait served as both likeness and genealogy, setting the sitter’s rank, family and piety in the exact language of Tudor fashion, and the panel’s cool, precise surfaces show why Hans Eworth, a Netherlandish painter who settled in London, became one of the most sought-after portraitists at the court of Elizabeth I. It is dated 1563, and its restrained grandeur is characteristic of the finest English portraiture of the reign. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.