Paul van Somer Sir Rowland Cotton 1618 oil on panel private collection |
Paul van Somer Lady Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent ca. 1619 oil on panel Tate Britain |
workshop of Paul van Somer Anne of Denmark ca. 1617 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
Paul van Somer Anne of Denmark at Oatlands 1617 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Paul van Somer James I ca. 1618 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Paul van Somer Portrait of a Lady ca. 1620 oil on panel Denver Art Museum |
Paul van Somer Francis Bacon 1617 oil on panel Ĺazienka Palace, Warsaw |
Paul van Somer George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham before 1621 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
attributed to Paul van Somer The 1st Earl of Monmouth and his Family ca. 1617 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
John de Critz the Elder Anne of Denmark ca. 1605 oil on panel private collection |
John de Critz the Elder Anne of Denmark ca. 1605 oil on panel National Maritime Museum, London |
John de Critz the Elder James I 1604 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
attributed to John de Critz the Elder James I ca. 1605 oil on panel Museo del Prado, Madrid |
John de Critz the Elder William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle and 11th Baron Morley ca. 1615 oil on panel Denver Art Museum |
John de Critz the Elder Posthumous Portrait of Sir Philip Sidney ca. 1620 oil on panel Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester |
In Britain during the reign of James I, as earlier under Elizabeth, royal and aristocratic figures of importance required portraits, and rarely entrusted themselves to the crude abilities of native painters. Throughout the seventeenth century the importation of painters to Britain from the Low Countries, from Germany, and more rarely from Italy, was taken for granted as the only way to obtain an acceptable level of quality. (Italians were difficult to lure into a cold climate populated by heretics.)