The Art Output of a Royal Limner
With the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, Nicholas Hilliard lost his most important patron. This change could have unsettled him, but her successor, king James VI of Scotland, renewed his position as ‘His Majesties lymner’; and Hilliard was the first artist in England to whom James gave a sitting. As a key figure in the transition from Elizabethan to Jacobean art, Hilliard was tasked with presenting images of royal stability during a transformative period in Britain's history. Portraits of James I, made in the early 17th century, reflect the merging of Tudor traditions with the new priorities of the Jacobean era, as miniatures remained central to the court as instruments of statecraft.
In this talk, Karen Hearn will look at one of the most important portrait miniatures on display during Classic Art London – a portrait by Nicholas Hilliard of King James I/VI, dated 1609 (possibly a gift of King James I and Queen Anne of Denmark to Robert Sidney (1563-1626), 1st Earl of Leicester.)
The talk will last for 20 minutes and will be followed by questions, a chance to handle the artwork and light refreshments.
Karen Hearn FSA was the Curator of 16th & 17th Century British Art at Tate Britain from 1992
to 2012, and is now an Honorary Professor at University College London. She writes, teaches,
and broadcasts on art made in Tudor and Stuart Britain.
For her first major Tate exhibition, Dynasties: Painting in Tudor & Jacobean England 1530–
1630, in 1995, she received a European Woman of Achievement Award. She subsequently
curated shows there on Marcus Gheeraerts II, Van Dyck, Rubens and, at the NPG, Cornelius
Johnson. Her book Portraying Pregnancy accompanied her 2020 exhibition of ‘pregnancy
portraits’ at The Foundling Museum in London.
She is a co-author of Art & Court of James VI & I, the book of the current exhibition (closes 14
September 2025) at The Portrait gallery in Edinburgh, and has written extensively on portrait
miniatures.
Venue: The Limner Company at Guy Peppiatt Fine Art