John Riley - Bridget Holmes (1591-1691) - Google Art Project

Bridget Holmes (1591–1691) was a domestic servant at the English royal court in the 17th century. Holmes was a necessary woman whose duties included emptying and scouring

chamber pot A chamber pot is a portable toilet, meant for nocturnal use in the bedroom. It was common in many cultures before the advent of indoor plumbing and flushing toilets. Names and etymology "Chamber" is an older term for bedroom. The chamber pot ...

s and cleaning the royal apartments. She served during the reigns of

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

, Charles II, James II, and William III and Mary II. She is best known as the subject of a full-length slightly over life-size portrait dated 1686 in the Royal Collection by John Riley, painted on a scale and "in a style...normally reserved for royalty" or the nobility. Though signed by Riley, the painting may owe much to the contribution of

John Closterman John Closterman (also spelt Cloosterman, Klosterman; 1660 – 24 May 1711 (buried)) was a Westphalian portrait painter of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His subjects were mostly European noblemen and their families. Career Born in Osn ...

, who often worked with Riley, because of its "impressive" composition.Lloyd, 112 It is not clear why James II commissioned the portrait, which was an extravagant way to "celebrate her great age and her loyalty to the Stuarts", and also seems to make a "satirical or moral comment" on the conventions of grand portraiture, as "a parody of all those martial portraits of dukes and generals. But the figure herself is treated with great dignity, very respectfully. The joke's not on her" as one curator put it. Critic Ronald Jones noted that "

olmes Olmes is a river of Hesse, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the Euro ...

is resonant with self-respect, and can play with her venerable position in the household; teasingly she brandishes her mop after a page-boy", a Page of the Backstairs according to the Royal Collection. Riley painted two other, smaller, portraits of servants: ''Katherine Elliot'' (also Royal Collection) and ''A Scullion'' in the

Christ Church Picture Gallery Christ Church Picture Gallery is an art gallery located inside Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The gallery holds an important collection of about 300 Old Master paintings and nearly 2,000 drawings. The ...

, Oxford. Other portraits by the Netherlandish painter

Pieter Aertsen Pieter Aertsen (1508 – 2 June 1575), called ''Lange Piet'' ("Tall Pete") because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the monumental genre scene, which combines still life ...

from the previous century show female cooks holding roasting spits like marshall's batons in what have been taken to be clear references to the conventions of elite portraiture, though whether these would have been known to James (who had spent his youth in exile in the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

) or Riley is unknown. Bridget Holmes died in 1691 at the age of 100 and was buried in

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

with a monument noting the monarchs whom she had served. She is believed to have been "one of the longest serving servants in royal history". The painting of Bridget Holmes is among the "few pre-eighteenth-century portraits of working-class people" in existence. It is normally on display in the state apartments of

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original c ...

. It was included in the "Below Stairs" exhibition of servant portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2003, and has also been shown in other exhibitions of the Royal Collection.

Notes

References

* Lloyd, Christopher, ''The Queen's Pictures, Royal Collectors through the centuries'', National Gallery Publications, 1991, * {{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, Bridget 1591 births 1691 deaths British servants British centenarians Burials at Westminster Abbey Women centenarians