Hieronimo Custodis (also spelled Hieronymus, Heironimos) (died c. 1593) was a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...

painter active in England in the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

.Strong 1969, p. 195

Life and work

A native of Antwerp, Custodis was one of many Flemish artists of the Tudor court who had fled to England to avoid the persecution of Protestants in the

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

. He is thought to have arrived in England sometime after the fall of Antwerp to the forces of the Duke of Parma in 1585. Three English portraits by Custodis signed and dated 1589 firmly establish him as resident in London by that year. Sir

Roy Strong Sir Roy Colin Strong, (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. ...

attributes a portrait of Sir Henry Bromley dated 1587 to Custodis, suggesting an earlier arrival, and has verified the recent attribution of a portrait of the young Edward Talbot dated 1586 to Custodis. In 1591, he was living in the parish of St Bodolph-without-Aldgate where "Jacobus the son of Ieronyme Custodis A Paynter" was baptised on 2 March.Hearn 1995, p. 114 He is assumed to have died in 1593, as all of his known works are dated between 1589 and 1593, and his widow remarried that year. Custodis's unsigned but dated works are identified by "palaeographical peculiarities" in the inscriptions which can be closely matched to those in his signed portraits.

Hieronimo Custodis portrait of Elizabeth Brydges later Lady Kennedy aged 14 inscription

Gallery

File:Hieronimo Custodis Edward Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury 1586.jpg, Edward Talbot, later 8th Earl of Shrewsbury, dated 1586 File:Hieronimo Custodis portrait of Giles Brydges 3rd Baron Chandos 1589.jpg,

Giles Brydges, 3rd Baron Chandos Giles Brydges, 3rd Baron Chandos of Sudeley (c. 1548 – 21 February 1594) was an English courtier in the reign of Elizabeth I. Life He was born at Sudeley Manor, Gloucestershire, the son of Edmund Brydges, 2nd Baron Chandos and his wife Hon ...

, signed and dated 1589 File:Sir John Harington by Hieronimo Custodis.jpg, Sir John Harington of Kelston, c. 1590–93Attribution by Roy Strong, 1969. A portrait of Haringotn's wife, Mary Rogers in the Tate, formerly attributed to Custodis by Strong, is now attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

Portrait of Mary Rogers. File:Sir John Ashburnham by Hieronimo Custodis.jpg, Sir John Ashburnham, 1593

Notes

References

*Hearn, Karen, ed. ''Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630''. New York: Rizzoli, 1995. * Strong, Roy. ''The English Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture'', 1969, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London (Strong 1969) *Strong, Roy. "Elizabethan Painting: An Approach Through Inscriptions. 1: Robert Peake the Elder." ''The Burlington Magazine'' 105 (February 1963): 53–57. Reprinted in Strong 1969. *Weiss Gallery.
Facing the Past: A catalogue of early portraiture 1530–1780
', Weiss Gallery, London.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Custodis, Hieronimo People of the Tudor period English art Renaissance painters 1593 deaths Flemish Renaissance painters Year of birth unknown 16th-century Flemish painters Male painters