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| Hans Besser Portrait of Ludwig, Count Palatine, aged 10 (later Ludwig VI, Elector Palatine, champion of the Lutherans) 1549 oil on panel Compton Verney, Warwickshire |
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| Hans Eworth Portrait of a Gentleman of the Selwyn Family 1572 oil on panel Wallace Collection, London |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of a Young Princess holding an Armillary Sphere ca. 1530 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Cornelis Ketel Portrait of a Gentleman holding a Flower 1579 oil on canvas Temple Newsam House, Leeds |
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| Cornelis Ketel Portrait of Sir John Smythe of Westenhanger, Kent 1579 oil on panel Yale Center for British Art |
"Sir John Smythe has remained an obscure figure in comparison with his father [Thomas], the customer of London [collector of customs duties], his young brother Thomas, who became governor of the East India Company, and his son, also Thomas, who was given a peerage by Charles I. For the most part he left the family's business interests to his brother, he himself enjoying the life of a country gentleman on the estates which his father had acquired in Kent, either through marriage or financial acumen. . . . Smythe succeeded to his father's property, apart from provision made for the widow, on Thomas's death in June 1591. The principal manors were at Ostenhanger (now Westenhanger), near Hythe, and Ashford, which Customer Smythe had inherited from his father-in-law, but there were also at least half a dozen more manors and much other property scattered throughout Kent. In addition, Smythe acquired in 1592, through his wife, the manor of Herne in north Kent and other Fyneux lands in the county. With these extensive estates he became one of the richest men in Kent."
– The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1558-1603, edited by P.W. Hasler (Boydell and Brewer, 1981)
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| attributed to Willem Key Half-Length Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1560 oil on panel Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Master of the Countess of Warwick Portrait of Thomas Knyvet (Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I) ca. 1569 oil on panel Compton Verney, Warwickshire |
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| Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli Allegorical Portrait of Alessandro Farnese embraced by Parma ca. 1560 oil on canvas Galleria Nazionale di Parma |
"Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, general, statesman, and diplomatist, governor-general of the Netherlands under Philip II of Spain, was born at Rome on the 27th of August 1545, and died at the Abbey of St. Waast, near Arras, on the 3rd of December 1592. He was the son of Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Margaret of Austria, natural daughter of Charles V. He accompanied his mother to Brussels when she was appointed governor of the Netherlands, and in 1565 his marriage with the Princess Maria of Portugal was celebrated in Brussels with great splendour. Alessandro Farnese had been brought up in Spain with his cousin, the ill-fated Don Carlos [subject of Verdi's opera], and his uncle Don John of Austria, both of whom were about the same age as himself, and after his marriage he took up his residence at once at the court of Madrid. . . . In 1586 Alessandro Farnese became Duke of Parma by the death of his father. He applied for leave to visit his paternal territory, but Philip would not permit him [to leave his post as governor-general of the rebellious Netherlands]. . . . Philip's whole thoughts and energies were already directed to the preparation of an Invincible Armada for the conquest of England, and Parma was ordered to collect an enormous flotilla of transports and to keep his army concentrated and trained for the projected invasion of the island realm of Queen Elizabeth."
– Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)
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| Quentin Metsys Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1510-20 oil on panel Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Antonis Mor Portrait of Sir Henry Lee (courtier to Queen Elizabeth I) 1568 oil on panel National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Giambattista Moroni Portrait of Giovanni Pietro Maffei (Jesuit and Professor of Rhetoric at Genoa) ca. 1560-65 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
"No accounts at present accessible to us establish the date of the first importation of tea by the Portuguese, but the article is mentioned in one of the earliest privileges or licences accorded to them for trade. It is not until the expiration of more than half a century from the beginning of that trade that we find a distinct account from an European pen of tea as a beverage. "The inhabitants of China, like those of Japan," writes Giovanni Pietro Maffei in his Historiæ Indicæ, "extract from an herb called chia a beverage which they drink warm, and which is extremely wholesome, being a remedy against phlegm, langour, and blearedness, and a promoter of longevity." Elsewhere he tells us that the Japanese are very careful to have their tea well-made, and that the most distinguished persons prepare it for their friends with they own hands, and even have rooms in their houses especially devoted to that service."
– Encyclopædia Britannica (1860)
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| William Scrots Anamorphic Portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VI 1546 oil on panel National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| William Scrots Portrait of King Edward VI 1552-53 oil on panel King Edward VI College, Stourbridge, West Midlands |
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| Cosmè Tura Portrait of a Young Man of the Este Family ca. 1470-80 tempera on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |