Pregnancy Portraits

It has often been said that it was the iconic image of a naked Demi Moore at 8mths pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair which began the role Pregnancy Portraiture for todays expectant parents. However, on a visit to the Tate recently Courtenay discovered a portrait which defies that impression - by around 400 years!

Marcus Gheeraerts II (1561/2-1636) was one of the great portrait artists of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he painted many of the leading Britons of the time, including Elizabeth I.

His speciality, however, was the 'pregnancy' portrait, considered at the time to have been celebrations of dynastic continuity, and perhaps also to record the features of a beloved wife about to face the sometimes fatal hazard of childbirth.

It has recently been realised that a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean portraits unmistakably show women who are clearly - even exaggeratedly - pregnant.

The Flemish-born but London-raised Gheeraerts painted a number of these and the London Tate in 2001 acquired an exceptionally beautiful example, Portrait of an Unknown Lady c.1595. It has not been exhibited for more than thirty years and has been newly conserved for this display.

Although the identity of the sitter is unknown, her sumptuous costume, with numerous pearls, indicates her high status. Pearls also symbolised purity, appropriate in a chaste wife. It is unusual for a sitter at this period to be shown smiling, but it seems entirely appropriate in a pregnancy portrait.

There is a very interesting article on the history of another enigmatic Pregnancy Portrait hanging in Hampton Court Palace located here.