Portrait of Sir Henry Lee (1533-1611), half-length, in a white and gold doublet and gilt embroidered black cape, wearing the Garter Collar and Great George of the Order of the Garter

Despite no longer being a young man, Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, remains in this portrait the model of the sophisticated courtier, in a gilt embroidered cape and trunk hose, a white satin and gold braided doublet and a ruff à la confusion. In 1597, he had been made a Knight of the Garter, a fact he proudly proclaims though the prominent Garter Chain and Great George he wears across his chest. Between 1570 and 1590, Lee was champion to Queen Elizabeth I, in which capacity he organised the Ascension Day Tilts, the elaborate annual festivities he devised to celebrate the Virgin Queen’s ascension to the throne. Sir Henry also commissioned the Ditchley Portrait of Elizabeth, in which she is seen standing on a map of England, one toe neatly placed beside Lee’s home, Ditchley Court, to commemorate her stay there in 1592. This visit involved a lavish Spenserian entertainment, in which the queen rescued inconstant knights, notably Lee himself. This may have been a veiled apology for the fact that his mistress, the notorious Anne Vavasour, was now living with him. The present portrait is a studio version of Gheeraerts’ prime, which is currently on loan to the Tate Britain.

We are grateful to Professor Karen Hearn for her assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.