MEULEN, Steven van der

(b. 0 Antwerpen, d. 1563 London)

Netherlandish painter, active in England. He was a pupil of Willem van Cleve the younger (c. 1530-1564) in 1543 and was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1552; by 1560 he had travelled to London, and he was naturalized in 1562. Van der Meulen brought with him a deep knowledge of the portrait style of Anthonis Mor. This sombre, shadowed style appealed to patrons at the English court who could not travel to Antwerp to sit to the greater artist. Early in 1561 an English merchant, John Dymoch, had visited Sweden in connection with negotiations for a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and Erik XIV, taking with him a Netherlandish painter described as ‘Master Staffan’, and it seems likely that this was van der Meulen. The King was much pleased with the resulting portrait of himself, for which he paid 100 daler; it was presented to the Queen in June. Its subsequent fate in England is not known, but it has been plausibly identified with a full-length at Gripsholm Castle, Mariefred, near Stockholm.

In England van der Meulen seems to have been extensively patronized by the collector John, 1st Baron Lumley, and his circle and can safely be identified with the ‘famous paynter Steven’ who appears in the Lumley inventory of 1590; this lists portraits that are presumably the Lord Lumley aged 30 and his first wife Jane Fitzalan, Lady Lumley, aged 27 (both dated 8 May 1563; Sandbeck Park, N. Yorks) that were noted in 1735 by George Vertue.

There are portraits in British collections attributed to Steven van der Meulen, e. g. that of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (two versions, one New Haven, Yale Center for British Art). No work has been identified after 1568, when his dated portrait of Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead (London, National Portrait Gallery; formerly attributed to Hans Eworth) was painted.

Portrait of a Woman

The sitter of the portrait is thought to be Catherine Carey, after her marriage Catherine Knollys and later known as both Lady Knollys and Lady Catherine Knollys (c. 1524-1569). She was chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, who was her first cousin. Catherine’s mother was Mary Boleyn, a mistress of Henry VIII before he courted and later married her sister, Anne Boleyn. Catherine is believed by some authors to be an illegitimate child of Henry VIII. She was the wife of Sir Francis Knollys, with whom she had 14 children.

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Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532-1588) was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death. He was a suitor for the Queen’s hand for many years.

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Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde

The portrait represents Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde (1531-1614) in three-quarter armour holding a wheellock pistol, with his coat of arms at upper left. He was an Irish nobleman who sided with the English in the rebellions in the mid-16th century.

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