Levina Teerlinc

Levina Teerlinc (1510s – 23 June 1576) was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

She received an annual salary of £40 from 1546 until her death in 1576, as granted by Henry VIII[5] and recorded by Lodovico Guicciardini (1567),[5] which was more than was provided to Holbein.

Seventy-five years later, Flemish historian Antonius Sanderus assured his readers that she was “very capable in the two specialties of art.”No surviving works have been confirmed as Teerlinc's.

However, there are a few existing paintings that are suspected to be Teerlinc's due to the fact she was the only active miniaturist of prominence in English court between Hans Holbein the Younger in 1543 and Nicholas Hilliard in the 1570s.

[17] A 1983 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum represented "the first occasion when a group of miniatures has been assembled which can be attributed to Levina Teerlinc".

Strong considered there was "a convincing group of miniatures that emerge as the work of a single hand, one whose draughtsmanship is weak, whose paint is thin and transparent and whose brushwork loose".

Miniature portrait, possibly of Levina Teerlinc, painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1572, when the lady in the picture was 52 years of age. Buccleuch Collection [ 1 ]
Self-portrait by Simon Bening, Levina Teerlinc's father
Portrait of Elizabeth I attributed to Levina Teerlinc, c. 1560–1565. The Royal Collection. [ 13 ] The likeness the sitter bears to those in miniatures of Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford, has led to many suggestions that Lady Katherine Grey may be the sitter instead
Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford with her eldest son Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp , by Levina Teerlinc. Late 1562 or early 1563. [ 18 ] Private collection
Possible portrait miniature of Amy Robsart on the occasion of her wedding, 1550, [ note 1 ] by Levina Teerlinc. In the Yale Center for British Art