John de Critz - Life and Work

Life and Work

It is not certain in precisely which part of London de Critz had his studio, but it is known that he moved to the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields before his death in 1642. He stated in his will that he had previously lived for thirty years in the parish of St Andrew, Holborn. Horace Walpole notes George Vertue's comment that there were three rooms full of the king’s pictures at de Critz’s house in Austin-friars. De Critz is entered in a subsidy roll for the parish of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in 1607 and again in 1625; and since this parish adjoins St Andrew, Holborn, he possibly had his studio in St Sepulchre. He died in London in 1642; the exact date is unknown.

Although de Critz was a prolific painter, few of his works have been clearly identified. The portrait painters of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period present peculiar difficulties in this respect, since they often made multiple versions not only of their own paintings but of those of their predecessors and contemporaries, and they rarely signed their work. In addition, portraits by different artists often share poses or iconographical features. Although many paintings are attributed to de Critz, therefore, full authentication is unusual. The noted art historian and critic Sir John Rothenstein summed up the problems:

To make definitive attributions is a difficult undertaking. This is due to a variety of causes, the most important being the practice of successful painters of employing assistants. Another confusing factor is the tendency on the part of members of the artistic families to intermarry with one another; Marc Gheeraerts the elder and his son and namesake, for example, both married sisters of John de Critz. Similarities of style were also encouraged by legislation, and painters were for a time forbidden to portray the Queen pending the painting of a portrait such as might be taken as a model to be copied.

As part of the monarchy's advancement of its political and dynastic aims, numerous copies of standard portraits were required for presentation as gifts and transmission to foreign embassies. Gustav Ungerer has studied the interchanges of portraits, jewellery and other gifts during the negotiations and celebrations which surrounded the Treaty of London, a peace treaty signed with Spain in August 1604 during the conference at Somerset House, when diplomatic exchanges of miniatures and full-length portraits took place in a sustained show of brilliant self-representation. In this context, Ungerer discusses the contested authorship of the famous painting of the two sets of negotiators sitting opposite each other at the conference table, The Somerset House Conference, a work in which John de Critz may have had a hand, either directly or as a source for the copying of figures.

Both versions of the painting—one at the National Portrait Gallery and one at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich—are signed by the Spanish court painter Juan Pantoja de la Cruz; but scholars disagree about whether he was in fact the artist since, although the signatures appear authentic, he was never in London. It is possible that either the works are by a Flemish artist, possibly Frans Pourbus, or John De Critz, or were copied by Pantoja from a Flemish artist who was in London at the time. Pantoja may have worked up the likenesses of the English negotiators by "copying the faces of the delegates either from miniatures or from standard portraits given to him or to the constable in London or sent to Valladolid...He obviously used a Cecil portrait as model for The Somerset House Conference which was Cecil's standard type of portrait attributed to John de Critz". It is certainly on record that the leader of the English negotiating team, Sir Robert Cecil, gave the leader of the Spanish negotiators, Juan Fernández de Velasco, 5th Duke of Frías and Constable of Castile, his stock portrait as duplicated in the workshop of John de Critz. Pantoja's depiction of Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, also looks as if it has been duplicated from a standard portrait. Apart from the heads, the picture shows signs of workshop painting by assistants, perhaps revealing that numerous versions were produced, as there would have been many demands from those involved for duplicates of the painting, for purposes of historical record. The painting sheds light on the piecemeal process of constructing group portraits at this time.