This exquisite oil on panel portrait descended from the sitter through the family for almost 450 years, until recent. It is a splendid survival from the Elizabethan era - the golden age in England’s history.Portraiture occupied a central place in 16th century British painting. Artists portrayed their clients in the manner set out by the terms of the commission. They were almost always intended to convey the sitter’s social status and rank in society. The fundamental principle governing all Tudor and Jacobean portraits is the recording and defining in visual terms the position of a sitter in society. The expensive fabrics, the attire, and the grand coat-of-arms as seen in the present portrait proclaim to every onlooker that this is a superior being. In Elizabethan collections there was a total absence of painter’s names and they were often unrecorded and deemed unimportant. This confirms that to the Elizabethan mind the recording of human likeness was connected with this conce...