This painting has intrigued me since I first saw it, and I’ve included it in lectures on both Elizabethan gardens and art history, for reasons that I hope will soon become apparent. The sitter [or rather the recliner] is Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and the artist Nicholas Hilliard. The painting showing Henry in an unusual garden setting is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam having been sold by the family in 1937.
Of the two, Hilliard is, of course, the far better known. He was the most famous artist of his day in England and well known for his championing of the miniatureasan art form, although this picture is a little larger. But the Earl was equally distinguished in his day and lived a very intriguing, and often dangerous, life.
Before you read on take a close look at the picture and see if anything strikes you as in any way unusual or odd. If it’s doesn’t look again because I suspect it might be the most cryptic of all Elizabethan paintings.
Doesn’t time fly? This time last year I was lucky enough to visit this beautiful house and its even more beautiful garden. Despite appearances it’s not an elegant little 18thc chateau in France but a 1930s building on an island in the middle of Puget Sound, about half an hour by ferry from Seattle.
The Garden History Blog 
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