Sir Thomas Kytson

Sir Thomas Kytson (1541-1603) was the son of a rich London merchant who had amassed a fortune through trading in cloth with the Low Countries. This wealth had raised the family up the social scale, so that when Thomas inherited Hengrave Hall in Suffolk and other estates, he was able to live in considerable style.

In 1560 Kytson married, as his second wife, Elizabeth Cornwallis and the couple remained Catholics throughout the Protestant reign of Elizabeth I (between 1558 and 1603) even briefly suffering imprisonment for their faith. Nevertheless, the Queen was to honour the Kytsons by visiting Hengrave in 1578, when she knighted Sir Thomas.

A payment in Kytson’s surviving accounts for 1573 indicates that this portrait, and its companion image of Lady Kytsonwere painted in London by George Gower.

These are the earliest extant works by Gower and, together with his Self-portrait of 1579 (private collection), form a nucleus upon which further attributions to him have been based.

Sir Thomas’s portrait has been cut down at the sides but may originally have been the same size as that of his wife.