Nine Days Queen: Lady Jane Grey appears at National Portrait Gallery

Lady Jane Grey was nominal Queen of England for just nine days in 1553 as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor. This new display charts the posthumous iconography of Lady Jane Grey and explores how works in print promoted her as an archetypal Protestant heroine and martyr

It is not known for certain whether a portrait of Lady Jane Grey was painted during her lifetime. Given that Lady Jane came to prominence only for a very short period before her death (from July 1553 to February 1554), there would have been only a small opportunity in which a portrait from the life could have been painted. The reign and execution of the ‘nine days queen’ seems not to have made a considerable impact on the public consciousness of the day. It was not until the turn of the seventeenth century that a culture of producing posthumous portraits of Lady Jane Grey developed.

This display of twenty prints from the Archive Collection of the National Portrait Gallery includes der Passes’s influential engraving for Henry Holland’s Heroologia (1620), and prints of sentimental history paintings, popular in the nineteenth century. A posthumous portrait of Lady Jane Grey, acquired by the Gallery in 2006, hangs at the entrance to the display. Some early prints present an image of Lady Jane Grey that are comparable to this portrait but actually derive from the portrait of Catherine Parr, attributed to Master John, displayed in Room 1 of the Gallery. Later prints present fictitious narrative scenes from her short life.

Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey) (1537-1554) was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Princess Mary, and in 1553 married Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland. Under Northumberland’s influence Edward VI willed her the crown. She was proclaimed queen at his death in July 1553, and reigned for around nine days until imprisoned by supporters of Mary Tudor. She was executed at the age of sixteen in the aftermath of Wyatt’s rebellion.

LADY JANE GREY exhibition runs until 11 July 2010 – National Portrait Gallery, Room 16

National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE. Opening hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am – 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am – 9pm  (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) Nearest Underground: Leicester Square/Charing Cross Recorded information: 020 7312 2463  General information: 020 7306 0055 Website: www.npg.org.uk

Lady Jane Grey will also be the subject of the National Gallery exhibition Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey, 24 February – 23 May 2010.

Images with the consent of the NPG – please note these images are strictly © National Portrait Gallery, London and should not be reproduced without their consent.

Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey) by an unknown artist
oil on oak panel, 1590s?

Lady Jane Grey After Willem and Magdelena de Pass
Line engraving, after 1620 (Heroologia, Henry Holland)
Frans van den Wyngaerde, 1614 – 1669

Robert Ascham finding Lady Jane Grey reading Plato’s Phaedo by William Say, after Henri Jean-Baptiste Victoire Fradelle
Mezzotint, published 1825

Lady Jane Grey by George Dawe, after John Graham
Hand-coloured mezzotint, early 19th century

Lady Jane Grey the Night before her Execution by James Ward after Robert Fulton
Mezzotint, published 1793

The execution of Lady Jane Grey by Green; after Paul Delaroche
Engraving, after 1833. From an as yet unidentified newspaper.

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