Levina Teerlinc (1510s – 23 June 1576) was aFlemish Renaissanceminiaturist who served as apainter to the English court ofHenry VIII,Edward VI,Mary I andElizabeth I. She was the most important miniaturist at the English court betweenHans Holbein the Younger andNicholas Hilliard. Her father,Simon Bening, was a renowned bookilluminator andminiature painter of theGhent-Bruges school and probably trained her as amanuscript painter. She may have worked in her father's workshop before her marriage.^[2]

Teerlinc was born inBruges,Flanders (which is now a part ofBelgium) in the 1510s, one of five daughters of renowned miniaturistSimon Bening and granddaughter of Catherine van der Goes (closely related toHugo van der Goes) andAlexander Bening.^[3][4] After marrying George Teerlinc ofBlanckenberge in 1545, Teerlinc left for England, and is documented there by 1546, when she became court painter to theTudor court, servingHenry VIII,Edward VI,Mary I, andElizabeth I. She received an annual salary of £40 from 1546 until her death in 1576, as granted by Henry VIII^[5] and recorded byLodovico Guicciardini (1567),^[5] which was more than was provided toHolbein.^[6] Levina passed before she was able to acquire her last £10, Queen Elizabeth was able to give this to her husband as a "gift". It is thought to have been rewarding the Teerlincs for their loyalty to her during the reign of Mary.[1] She was the onlyfemale painter in the court of Henry VIII,^[7] although Catherine Parr was said to have employed three women miniature painters and these wereSusannah Hornebolt, Levina Teerlinc andMargaret Holsewyther.^[8]

Queen Mary gave her aNew Year's day gift of a gilt silver salt in 1556 and she gave the queen a small picture of theTrinity.^[9] In 1559 Teerlinc was appointed tutor in painting to the King's daughter at the Spanish Court.^[10] She and her husband had one son, Marcus.^[7] She died inStepney, London on 23 June 1576.^[11]

Art historian Louisa Woodville writes:^[12]

Teerlinc’s contemporaries were impressed by her work. The sixteenth-century Florentine historianLodovico Guicciardini heralds Teerlinc as the best of the women painters practicing at the time. Seventy-five years later, Flemish historianAntonius Sanderus assured his readers that she was “very capable in the two specialties of art.”

No surviving works have been confirmed as Teerlinc's.^[14] Yet she was one of the most well-documented artists at court inminiature painting, providing various portraits ofElizabeth I in the years 1559, 1562, 1563, 1564, 1567 ("afull-length portrait"), 1568 ("withKnights of the Order"), 1575 ("with other personages"), and 1576.^[4] She also painted forMary I in 1556 as a New Year gift "a small picture of the trynitie".^[5] Teerlinc is best known for her pivotal position in the rise of the portrait miniature. She might have trainedNicholas Hilliard, by training agoldsmith, in the methods of miniature portraiture.^[15]

Attributing Teerlinc's works is challenging because she did not always sign them. However, there are a few existing paintings that are suspected to be Teerlinc's due to the fact she was the only active miniaturist of prominence in English court betweenHans Holbein the Younger in 1543 andNicholas Hilliard in the 1570s.^[16] Some scholars also speculate that many of the miniatures were lost in the fire atWhitehall.^[17]

A 1983 exhibition at theVictoria and Albert Museum represented "the first occasion when a group of miniatures has been assembled which can be attributed to Levina Teerlinc".^[6] Since the exhibition also performed the same function for her predecessor as court miniaturist,Lucas Hornebolte, it was especially useful in developing consensus on attributions. Five miniatures and two illuminated manuscript sheets were in the group, including a miniature ofLady Katherine Grey from the V&A, and others from theYale Center for British Art, theRoyal Collection (both of these possibly of the young Elizabeth I, and private collections). Strong considered there was "a convincing group of miniatures that emerge as the work of a single hand, one whose draughtsmanship is weak, whose paint is thin and transparent and whose brushwork loose".^[6] She also probably designed theGreat Seal of England forMary I and the earliest one used by Elizabeth (in the 1540s).^[10]

• Levina Teerlinc,Portrait of Lady Katherine Grey, ca. 1555–1560, Museum no. P.10-1979^[19]
• Levina Teerlinc,Portrait of a Young Woman, 1566, Museum no. P.21-1954^[20]
• Levina Teerlinc,Portrait of Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney, ca.1575, Museum no. E.1170-1988^[21]

• Levina Teerlinc?,Portrait of Queen Mary I,Duke of Buccleuch's collection
• Levina Teerlinc?,Portrait of a Young Woman,Royal Collection, Windsor Castle
• Levina Teerlinc?,Portrait of Elizabeth I in State Robes,Welbeck Abbey collection

• 
  Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1555-1560.^[19] The Victoria and Albert Museum, P.10&A-1979
• 
  Portrait ofElizabeth I attributed to Levina Teerlinc, c. 1565. The Royal Collection
• 
  Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1575.^[21] The Victoria and Albert Museum, E.1170-1988
• 
  Edward VI by Levina Teerlinc.^[22] AfterWilliam Scrots's portrait of the young King of c. 1550
• 
  Amy Robsart – The Beaufort Miniature by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1559.^{[note 2]} Private Collection
• 
  Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford by Levina Teerlinc. The Victoria and Albert Museum, P.21-1954. Heavily overpainted. The date of '1549' is a later addition and the costume is typical of Mary’s reign which would accord with the age of the sitter, about fifteen to twenty, circa 1555-60^[18]
• 
  Elizabeth I when a Princess by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1551. The Paine Miniature. In October 1551 Levina Teerlinc was sent with her husband to the Princess Elizabeth 'to drawe out her picture'
• 
  Mary Neville, Lady Dacre by Levina Teerlinc
• 
  Portrait of a man, possiblySir George Carew. Bought in 1970 together with the Yale Miniature from the collection of Miss Dorothy Hutton. At the time it was thought to have been painted by the same hand as the Yale Miniature
• 
  The Coronation Miniature – Portrait of Elizabeth I in State Robes. Welbeck Abbey Collection, formerly in the collection of theDuke of Portland.
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  Portrait of Elizabeth I of England in her coronation robes. Copyc. 1600–1610 of a lost original ofc. 1559[24]
• 
  Levina Teerlinc,Mary I with Figures in Landscape, Court of King's Bench,Coram Rege Rolls. Michaelmas, 1553^[12]
• 
  Levina Teerlinc,Indenture between the Queen, Elizabeth I, and the Dean and Canons of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, 30 August 1559^[12]
• 
  Elizabeth I, Court of King's Bench,Coram Rege Roll. Easter Term, 1572
• 
  Illuminated Royal Letters Patent, 1571. Elizabeth I by Levina Teerlinc on this document, on vellum, recording the elevation ofWilliam Cecil to the peerage as Lord Burghley^[25]
• 
  Mary I "healing" scrofula by touch. A 16th-century illustration by the Queen's miniaturist Levina Teerlinc fromQueen Mary's manual for blessing cramp rings and touching for Evil. Before 1558^[26][27]
• 
  Henry VIII. A recent technical analysis has shown that this miniature was painted by the same hand as the Yale Miniature^[28]
• 
  Katherine Parr by Levina Teerlinc. The Sudeley Miniature
• 
  Katherine Brydges, Lady Dudley by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1560. A courtier to both Mary I and Elizabeth I. The daughter ofJohn Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos and the wife ofEdward Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley^[29]
• 
  Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and 1st Duke of Somerset, 1550s^[30]
• 
  Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, c. 1545–1547
• 
  An ElizabethanMaundy, miniature by Levina Teerlinc, c. 1560^[26][31]
• 
  Elizabeth I, c. 1559. Has the spindly arms identified by Strong^[26]
• 
  Queen Elizabeth I of England receives Dutch ambassadors, attributed to Levina Teerlinc, c. 1560

Wikimedia Commons has media related toLevina Teerlinc.

• Arnold, Janet: "The 'Coronation' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I",The Burlington Magazine, CXX, 1978, pp. 727–41.
• Chadwick, Whitney (1990).Women, Art, and Society. London: Thames and Hudson.ISBN 9780500202418.
• Harris, Anne Sutherland andLinda Nochlin,Women Artists: 1550-1950,Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976.
• Strong, Roy: "From Manuscript to Miniature" in John Murdoch, Jim Murrell, Patrick J. Noon & Roy Strong,The English Miniature, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1981 (Strong 1981)
• Strong, Roy:Artists of the Tudor Court: The Portrait Miniature Rediscovered, 1520-1620, Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition catalogue, 1983,ISBN 0-905209-34-6 (Strong 1983)

• 1510s births
• Flemish portrait painters
• Portrait miniaturists
• Belgian women painters
• 16th-century births
• 1576 deaths
• 16th-century English women
• Flemish court painters
• 16th-century English painters
• People from Stepney
• Artists from Bruges
• Belgian expatriates in England
• Court of Henry VIII
• Court of Edward VI
• Court of Mary I of England
• Court of Elizabeth I
• 16th-century women artists

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