Important Set of Early 17th Century Embroidered Valances

It’s probable that the panels depict the visit of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, later King of Bohemia (see medallion image), to the English court in 1612 to claim Elizabeth Stuart (see portrait), daughter of James I (see portrait)and Anne of Denmark (see portrait), as his bride. The panels would therefore show his arrival accompanied by a page and large retinue and meeting with the King and Queen, perhaps in the gardens of Theobald’s Palace (see engravings)  – one of it’s four-turreted corner pavilions seems to be shown in the background; another scene shows the Elector with a chest of gifts meeting the Queen and her daughter with ladies-in-waiting, the building visible at the end of the pergola allée in the background again may be the long-vanished Theobald’s Palace, the attached couple on the left are probably the Elector with Princess Elizabeth; the divided panel seems to show the Queen with her daughter and a lady-in-waiting and the King in the garden with the Elector arriving, again with a coffer of gifts; final panel seems to show Elector Palatine accompanied perhaps by Prince Henry of Wales (see miniature portrait) or, more likely, Frederick Henry, Prince of Nassau or Count John of Nassau, the brothers who had accompanied the Elector on his trip to England, meeting the throned monarchs, again with a coffer of gifts, the Elector and Princess Elizabeth seem to be shown again in a vignette to the right of the scene, the elderly courtier is possibly the Earl of Salisbury, who had been instrumental in negotiating the marriage contract, signed in May 1612, though he died that same month so would not have been present at the arrival of the Elector at the English court in October of that year, Prince Henry of Wales also died in November of that year. It’s entirely possible that these panels were worked to celebrate the betrothal of Princess Elizabeth and the Elector and were a wedding gift to them on their marriage in February 1613. Anne of Denmark had a menagerie of exotic animals, including monkeys, and her daughter, Elizabeth, had her own special pet monkey who’s name was Jack – could that be Jack helping to unpack some of the treasures from the coffer in one of the panels? Theobald’s House was constructed in the mid 16th century by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and Queen Elizabeth stayed there on at least eight occasions. James I liked the estate, where William Cecil had made an elaborate garden, so much that in 1607 he persuaded the Cecil family  to exchange it with Hatfield House and so it became a favourite Royal residence. James frequently entertained foreign visitors in the famously exotic Italianate Gardens, including his brother-in-law, Christian V of Denmark, Johann-Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and the Polish nobleman, Tomasz Zamoyski, as well as the Elector Palatine. The garden was noted for its loggias, a fine grotto, a fountain in the form of a ship on water, a mount, known as the Venusberg, and a hanging container in the gateway, fashioned as a bunch of grapes, which dispensed red wine from one side and white from the other.

Presented within bespoke, glazed wood frames and protected by UV filtered glass.