Nicholas Hilliard

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Alice Brandon, his wife, 1578.

Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547 – bur.January 7, 1619), the first true English miniature painter born in England, is said to have been the son of Richard Hilliard (1519–1594) of Exeter, Devon, England high sheriff of the city and county in 1560, and a daughter of John Wall, goldsmith, of London, by the name of Laurence Wall, although Laurence is a man's name and the name of one of Nicholas' sons, Laurence Hilliard (1582–1648), who was also a "limner." His wife, Alice Brandon (1556–1611) the daughter of Robert Brandon (d. 1591) and Katherine Barber, appears to have been either a niece or granddaughter of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk (1484–1545). Nicholas himself also appears to have been a close relative of Grace Hiller or Hilliar, first wife of Theophilus Eaton (1590–1657) the co-founder of New Haven Colony in America.

He was appointed goldsmith, carver and portrait painter to Elizabeth I and engraved the Great Seal of England in 1586. He was in high favour with James I as well as with Elizabeth, receiving from the king a special patent of appointment, dated May 5, 1617, granting him a sole licence for royal work for twelve years. He is believed to have been the author of an important treatise on miniature painting, The Art of Limning, now preserved in the Bodleian Library; but it seems more probable that the author of that treatise was John de Critz, Serjeant Painter to James I. It is probable, however, that the treatise was taken down from instructions by Hilliard for the benefit of one of his pupils, perhaps Isaac Oliver.

The esteem of his contemporaries for Hilliard is testified to by John Donne, who in a poem called The Storm (1597) praises the work of this artist. Hilliard painted a portrait of himself at the age of thirteen in 1560 [date altered from 1550 according to: Mary Edmund Nicholas and Hilliard (1983)] and is said to have executed one of Mary Queen of Scots when he was eighteen years old. He died on about January 3, 1619 and was buried on January 7, 1619 in the church of St Martins-in-the-Fields, Westminster, leaving in his will twenty shillings to the poor of the parish, thirty between his two sisters, some goods to his maidservant, and all the rest of his effects to his son, Lawrence Hilliard, his sole executor.

He visited France and is the artist alluded to in the papers of the duc d'Alençon under the name of "Nicholas Belliart, peintre anglois," who was painter to this prince in 1577, receiving a stipend of 200 livres. The miniature of Madame de Sourdis, certainly the work of Hilliard, is dated 1577, in which year she was a maid of honour at the French court; and other portraits which are his work are believed to represent Gabrielle d'Estrées (niece of Madame de Sourdis), la princesse de Condé and Madame de Montgomery.