Artists of The Tudor Court - The Tudor Serjeant Painters

The Tudor Serjeant Painters

The holders of the office were:

• John Browne, heraldic painter since 1502, appointed "King's Painter" in 1511/12, and as the first Serjeant Painter in 1527, when the imported artist Lucas Horenbout took over as "King's Painter" - now the superior position. Browne died in office in December 1532.
• Andrew Wright, 1532–1544, about whom little is known
• "Antony Toto", really Antonio di Nunziato d'Antonio, a Florentine pupil of Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, from 1544, who died in office in 1554. He was the first Serjeant Painter who can be evidenced as an artist rather than an artisan. None of his paintings are known to survive, but his New Year gifts to Henry, presumably his own work, are documented as including a Calumny of Apelles (1538/39) and a Story of King Alexander (1540/41), and then in 1552 a portrait of a duke "steyned upon cloth of silver" for Edward VI. He had a Florentine colleague Bartolommeo Penni, brother of the much more distinguished Gianfrancesco, Raphael's right hand man, and Luca, a member of the School of Fontainebleau. Both probably came to Henry from Cardinal Wolsey, as they first appear in the accounts just after Wolsey's fall in October 1529. "Toto" had been signed on in Florence in 1519 as an assistant to Pietro Torrigiano, who in fact left England for good later that year. Toto and Penni spent most of their time after 1538 working on Nonsuch Palace, including elaborate stucco work for Henry's most advanced building, now vanished.
• Nicolas Lizard (or Lisory), a French artist, held the post from 1554 to his death in 1571
• William Herne or Heron, 1572 to 1580
• George Gower 1581 until his death in 1596
• Leonard Fryer 1596-1607, about whom very little is known, joined after the death of Elizabeth by
• John de Critz the Elder from 1603.