Katherine Parr Portrait Sets New Tudor Painting Record – Antiques And The Arts Weekly

LONDON — Sotheby’s July 5 Old Master and Nineteenth Century paintings evening auction, comprising just 49 lots, achieved $49.5 million against a $44.2/62.7 million estimate spread. One of the top lots of the night was a circa 1547-48 three-quarter length portrait of Queen Dowager Katherine Parr, attributed to Master John, which sold to a UK collector for $4.4 million, a new record for a Tudor painting. Likely painted shortly after Henry VIII’s death, it is one of just two surviving contemporary, or near contemporary, paintings of Katherine, the other being a full-length version also attributed to Master John that is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (UK). It was the first time in nearly 200 years that the painting had been auctioned, the last time by Christie’s on September 14, 1848, at Stowe House. Previously thought to have been destroyed by fire in the mid-Twentieth Century, it had descended in the family of the Earls of Jersey at Osterley Park (Middlesex) and Radier Manor (Jersey). For information, www.sothebys.com.