Unknown artist, The Portrait of Sir Henry Unton. Oil on panel, circa 1596. 29 1/8” x 64 1/4” (740 mm x 1632 mm). National Portrait Gallery of London Collection.
To call this painting The Portrait of Sir Henry Unton is a bit of a misnomer because it is actually contains several depictions of the same figure. Painted in oil on a wooden panel around 1596, the unusual narrative portrait chronicles the achievements of Sir Henry Unton, who lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudor monarchs.
While many Elizabethan portraits celebrated a single significant moment in a sitter’s life, this landscape-format painting spans Sir Henry’s entire life entire life. Indeed, much of the painting’s unique character lies in the multiple appearances of its subject. The Englishman appears no less than 10 times throughout, in a series of highly-detailed scenes unfolding around a large, central portrait.
Flanking Unton at his desk, two complementary allegorical figures overlook the events of the Englishman’s life. At his left shoulder, a skeletal figure of Death holds an hourglass. This commonly-used symbol serves as a memento mori, an inescapable reminder of fleeting time, which was intended to spur meditation on mortality. At Unton’s right shoulder, a triumphant, winged figure of Fame offers him her crown and trumpets his everlasting memory, underscoring the purpose of the portrait itself.
Anchoring the painting from opposing corners of the panel, a smiling sun and a crescent moon look down upon Unton’s life and death, serving as a reminder of the passage of time. Affirming the sitter’s place in history, the sun’s rays pinpoint his figure in each of the scenes from his life.
In the center of the painting, Unton looks out at us from his desk, writing dispatches and wearing a jeweled cameo on a chain. Unton was a soldier and diplomat who twice served as England’s ambassador to France, and it is the French king, Henry IV, whose profile appears on the cameo. This seemingly minor feature reflects a major achievement in the Englishman’s life. Such an unassuming inclusion could easily slip past 21st century- eyes, but tells us much about the politics of the time, Unton’s own interpersonal relationships and Tudor conventions.
How many more elusive details are woven into this intricate, sprawling portrait? To find out - download the Boulevard AR app, place the hundreds-of-years-old painting in your space, walk around it, and break out each the painting’s vignettes using augmented reality.