File:Lady Beaufort Tudormother.jpg

English: Portrait of Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509)

English School Later 16th Century, Oil in panel

This portrait would probably have been commissioned as part of a set of corridor portraits in the later sixteenth century during the reign of Elizabeth I. Such sets were designed to emphasise a family’s loyalty to the Tudor regime, and would invariably have included images of Henry VII and Henry VIII, though perhaps not the Catholic Queen Mary. In this image, however, Margaret Beaufort is shown in an avowedly religious guise, with a devotional book of hours, and wears the costume of a vowess. Margaret testified in her lifetime to a number of visions, and was a strong advocate of the sanctity of Henry VI. All the portraits of Margaret show her in this pose, although they are all careful to avoid any overtly Catholic symbols, and here the white barbe of her outfit covers her chin, as decreed by her royal status. There is no surviving contemporary portrait of Margaret, and it is unclear whether this image derives from a lost original, or is a posthumous likeness based on other sources such as the Torrigiano tomb at Westminster Abbey. The present portrait is amongst the most impressive of Margaret’s iconography, not least because it is in a state of extremely good preservation. The majority of her portraits show her with a plain background, but here she is seen in front of a richly ornamented cloth of state, surrounded by a gold arch.