The Drake Exploration Society
A Note on the Drake Portraiture
Dr John Sugden (slightly edited, annotations by Michael Turner,
references and portraits omitted)
The Context
I wrote the note on Drake's portraits many years ago. I
became curious back in 1964, did some research at that time, and
wrote it up twenty years later. It was, however, very much an
exploratory piece, trying to clear away the obvious debris, and to
isolate the pictures I deemed worthy of further attention. However,
this tentative investigation did put some commonly reproduced, but
obviously apocryphal portraits out of the frame, as it were. I
revisited the subject for my
book, rejecting numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 and rehabilitating
the full-length Buckland abbey portrait.
The iconography of Drake is complex and, for the most part,
un-explored. In his own day the admiral's reputation fed a lively
demand for portraits, and after his death spurious and imaginary
likenesses continued to appear. Unidentified subjects in
Elizabethan portraits have repeatedly been represented as Sir
Francis Drake. Fortunately, contemporary evidence furnishes a clear
picture of the sailor's appearance. John Stow described him as,
low of stature, of strong limbs, broade
Brested, round headed, brown hayre, full Bearded, his eyes round,
Large and cleare, well favoured, fayre, and of a cheerefull
countenance...many Princes of Italy, Germany, and others as well
enemies as friends in his life time desired his Picture. In
1578, Nuño da Silva, a Portuguese pilot, found Drake short, thick-set and robust. He is of good
appearance, with a red beard and a ruddy complexion. He has an
arrow mark on his right cheek which is not apparent unless one
looks very carefully,.. In 1587, Garcia Fernández de
Torrequemada informed Philip II of Spain that Drake is a man of medium stature, blonde, rather heavy
than slender, merry, careful. Such comments, which confirm
Stow's observations, are echoed in other surviving descriptions,
all of which were written by Spaniards.
The best portraits of Drake vindicate these documentary sources.
However, the provenance of all the various pictures cannot now be
accurately determined. Some are manifestly apocryphal; others such
as the full-length purchased by the National Portrait Gallery in
1957, are more difficult to place. In the absence of extended
investigation which this subject merits, the discussion which
follows can only be provisional. Those portraits which seem to
possess the strongest claims to have been made from life are
itemised as a basis for further conjecture.
-
Miniature contained in an enamel locket attributed to Issac
Oliver and preserved by the Drake family, presumably at Nutwell
Court, Lymbscombe, Devon. Allegedly the earliest Drake likeness,
it shows a young man in a black suit with a budding moustache
but no beard. It may be Drake, but if the admiral was born in
the early 1540's, as it seems likely, it is difficult to accept
the claim. Drake was not prominent before the Hawkins voyage of
1567-69, when he would have been an older man than the painting
suggests. The attribution to Oliver has also been too readily
endorsed. The artist was then merely a boy, and his earliest
portraits date from the 1580's. If Drake is depicted in the
miniature, it was probably executed by Nicholas Hilliard,
himself a Devon man. His style was similar to that of Oliver but
he was born about 1547 and began painting portraits, generally
miniatures in lockets or on playing cards, in the 1560's. The
portrait has been published by E. F. Elliott-Drake.
-
A circular miniature by Hilliard, painted on the reverse of an
ace of Hearts playing card and inscribed "Aetatis Sua 42. Ano
dni: 1581", now held by the National Portrait Gallery. An
intricate work showing Drake basking in the glory of his
circumnavigation, it exhibits the characteristic "round" head of
the admiral, crowned with profuse curly hair shading into a
blonde moustache and beard. Several reproductions have been
published. Another version of the portrait, from the collection
of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol (1529-95), is now in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and there is some doubt as to
which is the original.
-
Portrait by an unknown artist, variously engraved by H. Meyer,
J. Cochran and S. Freeman, and published by Edmund Lodge.
According to Lodge the original painting hung in the collection
of the Marquis of Lothian at Newbattle Abbey. It may be an
authentic likeness. Certainly it represents Drake, one of the
few portraits to display the wart on the left side of the
admiral's nose, and being distinct from other portraits it is
not an obvious copy of another work.
-
Portrait attributed to Frederic Zuccaro showing Drake wearing
the green scarf and jewel awarded him by the Queen. It has been
preserved by the Drake family, and Lady Elliott-Drake believed
that it was painted about 1589, when Zuccaro may have been in
London. The picture was engraved by W. H. Moll and published by
William Laird Clowes, et al
-
Painting by an unknown artist, purchased by the National
Portrait Gallery in 1911 (no. 1627). A small head and shoulders,
measuring a foot square, this portrait was until recently
available as a postcard from the N.P.G. and has frequently been
published. It accurately depicts Drake, since it has no
counterparts among the other likenesses it may have been made
from life. Interestingly, the portrait employs the Dutch
spelling of the sailor's name, Sr Francis Draeck.
-
Oval engraving in the British Museum by Thomas de Leu purporting
to be copied from a portrait painted from life by Jean Rabel,
the French artist. About the perimeter is the inscription
"Francisvs Draeck Nobilissimvs Eqves Angliae Ano. Sve. 43, and
either the original or the engraving was dedicated to Edward
Stafford, sometime English Ambassador to the French court. It
has several times been reproduced, for example as the
frontispiece to Zelia Nuttall's New Light on Drake.
The portrait is undated, but another engraving of it by Paul de
la Houuse appears in a book published in Leyden in 1588. Since
De Leu, a Fleming, was domiciled in France from 1560 and was a
pupil of Rabel, the claim advanced by the portrait is plausible.
But Wagner speculates that Rabel may have simply copied a
portrait sent from England. There is no record of Drake visiting
France at this time, nor of Rabel in England, but on 26
September 1586 the Spanish ambassador to Elizabeth I wrote home
that the "French Ambassador has sent an account of Drake's
voyage in Latin...accompanied by a portrait of Drake sent to
Secretary Villeroy, who values it very highly, and copies have
been ordered to be made from it for presentation to Joyeuse,
Epernon and other favourites of the King." If Rabel's painting
was only a copy, the prototype has since disappeared. However,
De Leu's engraving is an excellent likeness of Drake. It appears
to have been the basis of an engraving made by Jodocus Hondius,
a Flemish cartographer, to illustrate a map of the world, upon
which were superimposed the routes of the voyages of Drake and
Cavendish. The Hondius engraving was made in London between
September 1588, when Cavendish returned from his
circumnavigation, and November 1593 when the engraver left for
the Continent.
-
Engraving in the British Museum, often alleged to be Dutch and
attributed, for no good reason, Jodocus Hondius. It bears an
identical inscription to that given by Thomas de Leu, referred
to above, and may have been copied from the Rabel portrait or
from a picture used by Rabel. The head is a fair depiction of
Drake, and not unlike De Leu's version, but the body is ill
proportioned and suggests in extenso the likeness
was not made from life. It may have been copied from a head and
shoulders portrait and elaborated, but it was not taken directly
from the De Leu engraving for, despite the similarities between
the two, it alone shows the mark on Drake's nose, alluded to
above. This engraving was retouched by George Vertue in the
eighteenth century, in which form it has repeatedly been
published, but a reproduction from the original plate is given
by Wagner.
-
Portrait once in possession of Drake in-laws, the Sydenham
family, engraved for John Harris. Harris reports that the
original painting was Communicated by the
Honble. Sr. Phillip Sydenham Bart Knt of ye shire for
Somerset. Set in an oval, this head and shoulders looks
nothing like Drake, and relies for its credibility purely upon
the connection with the Sydenhams. Conceivably, the family in
the eighteenth century, possessing an Elizabethan portrait,
merely assumed that it showed the famous admiral.
-
Three-quarter length oil portrait dated 1591 acquired by the
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, in 1932 from a Miss Grundy.
It has been credited to a Flemish artist, Marc Gheerardts the
elder, who may have been in England at this time. Another
portrait, preserved for long in Drake's country house, Buckland
Abbey, Devon, and reproduced as the frontispiece to Julian
Corbett's Drake and the Tudor Navy appears to have
been a copy of the Greenwich portrait, possibly made by Abraham
Janssen.
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Half-length portrait in oils, reputedly by Gheerardts, showing
Drake in later life, and now exhibited at Buckland Abbey in
Devon.
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