Among the collection of predominantly Georgian pictures at Trewithen House in Cornwall can be found a curious portrait of the influential seventeenth-century divine William Laud (1573–1645; TN61). Laud is portrayed in the manner of a living bust in a trompe l’oeil architectural roundel of stone decorated with gilded and inscribed Baroque scrolling and his coat of arms. Until now, the picture has received little critical attention and has rarely been exhibited.¹ The style of the clothing and pose suggest the portrait was fashioned after a well-known earlier likeness of Laud (fig. 1) by the Principal Painter to King Charles I, Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641). Yet it differs in many respects and represents an important juncture in the iconography of Laud and the artistic legacy of Van Dyck. By unpicking the meanings found within this complex portrait, the present essay aims to throw light on why and when such a picture might have been created, and by and for whom.

Born the tenth child and only son of a wealthy Reading clothier and educated at St John’s College, Oxford, William Laud rose to be the most senior clergyman in the Church of England. Laud was a forceful personality whose High Church views courted controversy from early in his career, but he was protected by influential figures such as the royal favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628). After Buckingham’s death, Laud secured the patronage of Charles himself, which led to a series of senior roles, such as Chancellor of Oxford University in 1630, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and Lord Treasurer from 1635 to 1636. Laud was devoted to Charles I and was associated with the unpopular policies that led to the monarch’s downfall and, ultimately, his own. In particular, Laud championed the enforcement of uniform High Church worship across the kingdom, which met with opposition from puritans in England and Scotland. He experienced a rapid fall from grace in 1640, shortly after publishing controversial canons, when he was branded a papist, impeached, imprisoned and, five years later, executed on Tower Hill.²

As befitted his senior position, Laud sat for the leading artists of the Caroline court, notably Daniel Mytens, Hubert le Sueur and Van Dyck.³ There is no contemporary record of a portrait comparable to that at Trewithen, and its similarity to Van Dyck’s picture makes it most likely to be an adaptation of that well-known likeness. The Trewithen portrait nevertheless deviates from the Van Dyck prototype in a number of significant ways. In the Trewithen version, as in the Van Dyck, Laud wears the monochrome episcopal robes, ruff and Canterbury cap of his office. However, only his head and shoulders are shown and the column to the left is missing, as is the red and gold drape to the right. Van Dyck has Laud turning to his right, his languid eyes connecting with the viewer, but the Trewithen Laud is positioned, somewhat unusually, square on and glancing to his right. The pose, coupled with the wateriness of the eyes, raised eyebrows and furrowed brow, gives an expression of apprehension. Laud’s face, with his sunken eyes and papery, wrinkled skin, also arguably appears more aged in the Trewithen version. The cartouche above his head bears a coloured medallion displaying his coat of arms; to the left, right and below are Latin inscriptions that have been painted as if embossed onto the scrolls (figs. 2, 3 and 4). The effect is curiously reminiscent of a sculpted tomb monument.

Why might Laud have been shown in this different way, and when might such a work have been executed? Unfortunately, there is little known provenance to help answer these questions. There is no mention of the portrait before it was recorded at Bignor Park, Sussex in 1832, three years after the property had been rebuilt by John Hawkins (1761–1841; TN46), the younger brother of Sir Christopher Hawkins (1788–1829) of Trewithen.⁴ The portrait was recorded subsequently when exhibited in London in June 1846 as the property of J. H. Hawkins, Esq,⁵ John Hawkins’s son, John Heywood Hawkins (1802–1877), who inherited Bignor Park on his father’s death.⁶ The portrait stayed at Bignor until 1925, when it was sold by the executors of the will of Mrs Heywood Johnstone, the wife of John Heywood Johnstone (1850–1904).⁷ It was purchased subsequently for Trewithen by her son, George H. Johnstone (1882–1960),⁸ and features for the first time in a Trewithen inventory of 1928.⁹

John Hawkins was a wealthy polymath who evidently purchased pictures to furnish his residence at Bignor Park, among which may have been the Laud portrait. Alternatively, he could have inherited the work through his wife, Mary Esther Sibthorp of Lincoln. It is also possible that the portrait originated from the Hawkins family collection at Trewithen and was moved to Bignor Park after Hawkins inherited Trewithen from his brother in 1829. An inventory of the Library at Trewithen of 1768 suggests the family had been stoutly High Church for generations, with some Tory leanings, which would be in keeping with a commission of a portrait of Laud.¹⁰

One other possibility is that the picture came to Trewithen in the eighteenth century from Stowe, in Kilkhampton, Cornwall. The house, built by a close ally of Charles II, John Granville, contained a notable collection of Royalist images. When it was demolished in 1739, the collection and parts of the interior found their way into other Cornish houses.¹¹ Among the former Stowe pictures, a portrait of Charles II by Kneller (TN55) was acquired by the Hawkins family and was at Trewithen by the early 1790s. Perhaps the portrait of Laud was another such acquisition?

Even though the circumstances surrounding its creation are unknown, the unusual iconography and inscriptions suggest that the artist was accommodating the specific instructions of a patron. The side inscriptions commemorate Laud’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury at the age of sixty in 1633, with a pun on his surname and a maxim cited by Cicero: Laudari A Laudato [viro] (to be praised by a man of praise).¹² The lower inscription is a contracted version of the Latin poem Bonus Civis (The Good Citizen) by the Anglican clergyman and poet George Herbert (1593–1633), which can be translated as:

Shrewd humility, picking out

And making prominent the good

Man, makes that good one richer

Than if he alone

Were appropriating everything. She shows

Her prudence through another’s acts.¹³

Evidently, whoever commissioned this painting was sympathetic to Laud’s and Herbert’s religious beliefs and Laud’s actions as archbishop. It is, perhaps, a little odd that the characteristics of humility and prudence are picked out as particular traits to associate with Laud. At best, he has been described as ‘A man of great parts, and very exemplary virtues’ (according to the Royalist Earl of Clarendon);¹⁴ at worst, he was ‘a little, low red-faced man’ (so said the puritan Sir Simonds d’Ewes), ‘combative, eloquent and intractable’ and of undisguised ‘exopthalmic irascibility and . . . intransigence’.¹⁵

The combination of this encomiastic text with the honorific heraldry and monumental setting suggests that the painting was made to commemorate Laud sometime after his execution in 1645. That the portrait is posthumous might also explain his apprehensive expression, as if in anticipation of his fate, which elicits empathy from the viewer. Likenesses of Laud in the years directly following his death are mostly in the form of vituperative satirical prints.¹⁶ It is, therefore, more likely that this painting was made after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, when Laud’s reputation had begun to revive.¹⁷ This factor might explain also why Laud appears older than in Van Dyck’s painting: perhaps because the artist wanted to update the likeness to resemble the sitter’s age of seventy-two at the time of his death.

There are a few moments in the 1660s when the commission of a commemorative portrait of Laud might have been opportune: one was when Laud’s body was re-interred at his alma mater St John’s in 1663, having initially been buried at All Hallows, Barking; another was in 1668, the year Peter Heylyn’s heroic life of Laud, Cyprianus Anglicus, was first published.¹⁸ Herbert’s popularity also continued into the Restoration, with Izaak Walton publishing The life of Mr George Herbert in 1670: hence the inclusion of lines from his poem in the portrait would be in keeping with a post-Restoration date.¹⁹ There is a chance that the portrait is from even later in the century, as imagery of Laud, mostly prints based on the Van Dyck portrait type, as well as books on him and Herbert’s writings continued to be published in the late seventeenth and into the eighteenth century.²⁰

The design of the Trewithen portrait may also offer clues about the original display of the work. Rather than adopting the rectangular format more common in portraiture, the canvas is square, which suggests it might have been planned to fit in a specific space. Similarly, the feigned ornamental roundel around the bust may have been designed to complement a particular architectural scheme. The formal qualities and the choice of sitter also lend themselves to being part of a portrait set – perhaps featuring other Caroline martyrs such as Lord Strafford or leading Anglican divines such as William Juxton – that might have been displayed above doors or windows on four sides of a room. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon had one such set of eleven portraits of bishops, which included a portrait of Laud.²¹ However, to date, no such similar portraits have been identified.²²

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding its display, the trope of a portrait set in a roundel was common in prints of the time, so it is possible that a print of Laud after Van Dyck was used as the basis for Trewithen’s portrait.²³ This was also possibly the case with at least one other post-Restoration portrait of Laud – a bust length in a feigned oval – which was last recorded at Capesthorne Hall, Macclesfield.²⁴ The possible link to print sources may also help to explain why the direction of light is reversed from the Van Dyck original but the same as several printed copies after it, and the high ratio of text to image. Van Dyck’s portrait of Laud was first etched in half length by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677) in 1640,²⁵ followed in 1641 by another version framed in an oval (fig. 5). Other, later versions after the Van Dyck type in an oval include engravings by David Loggan of c.1663–84 and Robert White of c.1663–1700 (figs. 6 and 7).²⁶ It appears that the Trewithen portraitist might have consulted Hollar’s design of 1641 in particular for his likeness of Laud. Indeed, of all the prints of Laud in a roundel, Hollar’s shows the shadow by the archbishop’s head in the greatest – albeit inverted – contrast, similar to the shadowing in the Trewithen Laud. Other closely corresponding details include the pronounced gap at the base of the ruff and the black band below it, and Laud’s distinctly shortened and raised left eyebrow, none of which are evident in Loggan’s and White’s fashionably updated versions. Furthermore, the Trewithen inscription celebrates Laud’s appointment as archbishop, as was common in prints long after the prelate’s death, while Loggan’s image was the first print to proclaim him a martyr in its inscription: ‘Martyrio Coronatus’. Nevertheless, the inclusion of coats of arms with Laud’s portrait does not seem to have occurred until Loggan’s and White’s prints, which might indicate a date later than the 1660s for the Trewithen work.

In the seventeenth century, painters were required to carry out a wide range of tasks, including portraiture, decorative painting and copying the work of old masters and contemporary artists. Therefore, it is quite likely that a single versatile artist was responsible for all aspects of the portrait. In the past, the picture has been attributed to the English portrait painter William Dobson (1611–1646), although this suggestion has been dismissed on stylistic grounds by leading scholars.²⁷ Moreover, Dobson died just after Laud so he could not have created a post-Restoration portrait, as the Trewithen work seems to be. Several artists of a later generation, known both for their portraiture and decorative work, who may be considered in Dobson’s stead are Emanuel de Critz (1608–1665), Robert Streater (1621–1679) and Isaac Fuller (1606/20?–1672).

De Critz painted decorative schemes, such as that at Wilton House, Wiltshire, as well as portraits. One early portrait attributed to him, of John Tradescant the Elder, shows the sitter in an elaborate oval surround (fig. 8). He also worked as a copyist and would have been familiar with copies after Van Dyck, which were much in demand in the years following the artist’s death. Robert Streater (or Streeter) appears to have had a Royalist allegiance, travelling in Italy during the Commonwealth and becoming Serjeant-painter to Charles II after the Restoration. A versatile painter, he specialised in large-scale architectural and decorative allegorical and history paintings, such as Truth inspiring the Arts and Sciences in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (1668–9) and much work in churches, mostly lost, but also portraits, such as that of Sir Francis Prujean (fig. 9). Streater was particularly noted for his mastery of perspective and imitation, which are both qualities that are displayed in the Trewithen portrait.²⁸

Isaac Fuller was a painter and printmaker, who is thought to have trained in France under François Perrier (1584/90–1640) in the late 1640s, but was back in England by 1650 when some of his etchings were published. He spent periods of time in the 1650s and ’60s working in Oxford – a place with strong links to Royalism and Laud. Fuller is best known for his religious paintings in Oxford college chapels, such as All Souls, and secular decoration of London taverns and theatres, now lost, but he is also notable as a painter of arrestingly original portraits and self-portraits.²⁹ One of his self-portraits is set in a cartouche (fig. 10) and two other portraits in even more elaborate settings, comparable to the Trewithen picture, have been attributed to him (figs. 11 and 12). Laud’s striking visage in the Trewithen portrait is characteristic of the sort of charged expression found in Fuller’s faces, while details such as the slightly backlit head, the rendering of the nose, eyelids, mouth and modelling of cheekbones and the ridges of the stone surround are comparable to Fuller’s work of the 1660s.

Ultimately, the enigmatic portrait of William Laud at Trewithen stands apart from the numerous representations of the archbishop made during his life and after his death. It is argued here that Van Dyck’s well-known likeness of Laud at the height of his powers was adapted and its meaning augmented to meet the demands of an Anglican – and possibly Royalist – patron in the years after the controversial prelate’s death, most likely after the Restoration. The high quality of the painting indicates an artist adept at decorative painting, portraiture and copying, who apparently drew inspiration from reproductions of the celebrated Van Dyck portrait type and also, possibly, tomb sculpture. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the artist in question may be Isaac Fuller, although the attribution, like many other issues relating to this mysterious picture, remains a matter of speculation.