Talk:William Scrots

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A fact from William Scrots appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 29 November 2007.
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[edit] Portraits of Edward VI

Both Hearn in Dynasties and the Louvre accept the portrait I added as by Scrots/Stretes. - PKM (talk) 04:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

This one http://multitext.ucc.ie/viewgallery/1786 may be the second Scrots, but I want to find some written source other than this website to corroborate that. -PKM (talk) 04:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Some days I am very slow. This is one of the tipped-in color plates in Strong's English Icon, with full attribution to Scrots. Scanning now. - PKM (talk) 18:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Hearn cites two works we should see if we can track down:

  • Catharine McLeod, 'Guillim Scrots in England', unpublished [as of 1995] MA report, Courtauld Institute (McLeod seems now to be 17th-century curator, National Portrait Gallery, London).
  • Anthony Wells-Cole, Barbarous and Ungraceful Ornament (listed as "forthcoming" as of 1995, appears to have been published as Barbarous and ungraceful ornaments: Hans Vredeman de Vries and his influence in England in 2005). (Wells-Cole is the source for the French engraving that is the likely inspiration for the frame on the Surrey portrait.)

- PKM (talk) 17:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] More spellings

http://balat.kikirpa.be/DPB/FR/FMPro?-db=Dictionnaire.fp5&-lay=web&-format=Detail_notice.htm&ID_dpb=4700&-find goves more spellings to search on:

SCROTS, Guillaume (SCROOTS, SCROETS) (Willem) "sous les noms de Scrottes, Scroetes ou Scroth"

- PKM (talk) 17:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you see the Getty full list: [1]. They're always the best for these. Johnbod (talk) 18:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. - PKM (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More possible attributions?

Art Fund attributes this image of Katherine Parr to Scrots; the NPG site doesn't reflect that. (And this site has picked up Edward VI's dates as Scrots's, likely from some other painting, so I am cautious...) The notes on that page indicate that McLeod published a book (pamphlet?) on Tudor painting in the NPG - does anyone have that? - PKM (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Not me. Johnbod (talk) 18:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Doh, Scrots' documented work dates match Edward's dates - 1537-1553. - PKM (talk) 18:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] howard

Grove online (Mary Edmond) has this to say about the Howard portrait: "The royal accounts of March 1552 note that ‘Gwillm Stretes’ was paid for a third ‘table’, described as ‘a picture of [Henry Howard] the late erle of Surrey attainted and by the counsailes commandement fetched from the said Gwillms howse’ (London, BL, Royal MS. 18C.XXIV. fol. 69v). Howard had been executed for high treason in January 1547, largely on a flimsy charge of having just commissioned a portrait illegally quartering the arms of England; the Privy Council presumably called it in to destroy it. A connection between this lost panel portrait and four surviving versions on canvas of a striking Italianate portrait of the Earl of Surrey, formerly attributed to Scrots, is unproven. The National Portrait Gallery, London, concluded in 1987 that only one (Arundel Castle, W. Sussex), perhaps commissioned by Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel, dates from the 16th century, or possibly the early 17th. The others are later copies, presumably prompted by posthumous piety within the Howard family." - which version do we have? Johnbod (talk) 19:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

PKM scanned this from Hearn, so it is the Arundel one. It is inscribed 1546, and Hearn argues for its being the original: Anthony Wells-Cole's discovery that the grisaille surround is closely based on a print of the 1540s by an unknown artist of the School of Fontainebleau . . . strongly suggests that this work is contemporary with the date inscribed upon it. Anthony Griffiths, of the British Museum, kindly confirms that the fashion for these extremely distinctive prints was shortlived and that one would be unlikely to be used as a source seventy years later. There are some complexities, though (as always!). If this is one paid for in the account you quote, why would the Privy Council, asks Hearn, pay for a picture of Howard four years after his execution? Also, there has been some repainting of the picture.
The first time I saw it, this picture struck me as out of time with the mid-sixteenth century in England. But I am more familiar with Mannerism now, and Scrots seems to have been up to date with continental fashions, some of which chime precisely with the style of this painting, in my opinion.
Do you think we should say something in the article about the provenance issues? qp10qp (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I suppose Scrots was paid as after the commissioner was executed, nobody else would pay him, or he refused to let it go for free - it doesn't say here how much he got! I take the Griffiths point. I suppose it could have been done from a Scrots drawing (much mention of drawings in the trial); Grove I think assumes (perhaps too easily) that "table"= panel, so the Arundel one being on canvas means it can't be that. I see table=tableau & less specific. I think we should mention the doubt, at least in a note. Johnbod (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Righto. Hearn mentions that tables can refer to canvases. qp10qp (talk) 23:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Started. Btw, the article says he was paid for it in 1551 (refed to Hearn at #7), whilst Grove says March 1552 (quote above). Small point... Actually these are online I think, since we have the original ref. Johnbod (talk) 01:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)