National Gallery Technical Bulletin Volume 24, 2003

The Triptych of Saint Catherine and the Philosophers attributed to Goossen van der Weyden in Southampton City Art Gallery
Rachel Billinge and Lorne Campbell

Our interest in the triptych of Saint Catherine and the Philosophers (plate 1) was fired by the discovery that the overpainted coats of arms on the reverses of the wing panels had never been mentioned in the literature and by the fact that the triptych is attributed to Goossen van der Weyden (1465–after 1538). Since the collection at the National Gallery does not include a picture by Goossen, we wanted to try to identify one of his patrons and to find out how closely his painting technique resembled that of his famous grandfather Rogier. (The five pictures in the National Gallery attributed to Rogier van der Weyden and his workshop were studied in an article published in Volume 18 of the Technical Bulletin.) Since the National Gallery is fortunate in having well-developed facilities for the technical study and analysis of old master paintings, examination of the triptych presented an opportunity to cooperate with a regional gallery on a most rewarding project of interest to both institutions. 

Goossen van der Weyden 
Goossen was a grandson of the great Rogier van der Weyden (c.1399 –1464). Goossen’s father, Pieter van der Weyden, born in 1437, was the only one of Rogier’s three sons who became a painter. Pieter inherited Rogier’s houses in Brussels (note 1) and with them his workshop. Presumably Rogier bequeathed to Pieter his equipment, stock, pattern drawings and other reference material; Pieter doubtless continued to employ some or all of his father’s assistants. In January 1465 (note 2), seven months after Rogier’s death, Pieter married Catharina van der Noot, who died in 1510. She came of a younger branch of one of the most eminent families in Brussels (note 3). Pieter van der Weyden was still alive in 1514. 

Goossen would have been trained in his father’s workshop in Brussels, but by about 1492 he was active in Lier, where in 1497 he became a burgess (note 4). In 1498–9 he purchased burgess’s rights in Antwerp (note 5), where between 1504 and 1513 he owned a house in the Huidevettersstraat (note 6) (Quinten Massys lived in the same street) and where he was Dean of the Guild of St Luke in 1514 and 1530 (note 7). He must have run a large workshop, as he registered ten apprentices between 1503 and 1522, including a Portuguese (Symon Portugaloys in 1504) and a Spaniard (Allonse Crasto in 1522). None of his apprentices became a master of the Antwerp guild (note 8). Goossen’s principal patrons were Antonius Tsgrooten and Arnout Streyters, abbots of Tongerlo, a Premonstratensian foundation southeast of Antwerp. From 1514, Goossen was the concierge of their residence in Antwerp (note 9). Goossen seems to have worked for Portuguese and perhaps for other foreign clients (note 10). He was still alive in January 1538 (note 11). 

Although Goossen was born after his grandfather’s death, he commemorated him in a vast triptych of the Death and Assumption of the Virgin commissioned in 1533 for the abbey church at Tongerlo, completed in 1535 but lost during the Revolutionary period. On one wing-panel he represented himself and the famous Rogier; above them an inscription described Goossen as seventy years of age and the imitator in art of his grandfather Rogier, the Apelles of his time (note 12). 

Two of the paintings that Goossen executed for Tongerlo have been identified: the small triptych of Christ with the Instruments of the Passion, painted for the Abbot Tsgrooten and paid for in 1507 (Antwerp) (note 13), and the Donation of Kalmthout, delivered between 1511 and 1515 (Berlin) (note 14). A large triptych of the Life of Saint Dympna, painted for Tongerlo in 1505 and now cut into its component scenes, eleven of which survive, is reasonably attributed to Goossen (Antwerp, on loan from the collection of Dr Paul and Mevrouw Dora Janssen) (note 15). 

Several paintings are so similar to the two documented pictures and to the Life of Saint Dympna that they are unanimously attributed to Goossen: the triptych of the Marriage of the Virgin, also known as the ‘Colibrant triptych’, painted in about 1517 for the Sint-Gummaruskerk at Lier, where it remains (note 16); the triptych of the Crucifixion, painted in or shortly after 1517 for Marcus Cruyt, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of St Bernard on the Schelde at Hemiksem, and now at Springfield, Massachusetts (note 17); the Adoration of the Kings in the Royal Collection (note 18); and the triptych of Saint Catherine and the Philosophers which is the subject of this article and which is so similar in style to the Donation of Kalmthout and the Lier Marriage of the Virgin that it too may be dated during the 1510s. 

The triptych of Saint Catherine and the Philosophers 
In the nineteenth century the triptych was in the collection of Henry Danby Seymour (1820–1877) and afterwards in that of Sir John Charles Robinson (1824–1913), from whom it was bought in 1876 by Sir Francis Cook (1817–1901). It remained in the Cook Collection until 1958, when it was sold by the Cook Trustees to the Southampton City Art Gallery (note 19). The triptych illustrates more or less accurately the story of Saint Catherine as it is narrated in the Golden Legend. Catherine, the young and beautiful daughter of King Costus, has argued with the Emperor Maxentius and with fifty erudite men summoned by him from the ends of the earth to his palace at Alexandria. She has confounded them all and converted the fifty philosophers to Christianity. Further episodes from the saint’s life are represented in the frieze above the philosophers’ heads (note 20). The extraordinary statue depicted in the background of the right wing represents a naked woman holding a snake and sitting on the shoulders of a naked man; this curious travesty of Adam and Eve may perhaps refer to the idols worshipped by Maxentius. 

Goossen frequently ‘quoted’ from the work of his grandfather. In the Donation of Kalmthout, the figures of the Virgin and Child are taken from a Rogierian source previously exploited by the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine (note 21). In the Saint Catherine and the Philosophers, the figure of the saint seems to derive from a Rogierian ‘pattern’ which would have resembled the Virgin in the small Virgin and Child (Vienna) and which appears to have been used by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage for his Saint Catherine (Rotterdam) (note 22). 

Technical examination 
The triptych consists of a central panel measuring 110.2 × 86.0 cm, formed from three oak boards with the grain running vertically. Three dowels reinforce each join. The panel is 15 mm thick, which is probably the original thickness. The reverse has narrow rebates, 5 mm deep, on all four sides. Both wings measure about 110 x 37.5 cm and each is formed from two boards (note 23). All three panels have been trimmed and have lost some or all of the unpainted edges; but traces of a barbe found at various points on all the panels indicate that originally the triptych had an engaged frame. 

The main focus of the technical examination of the triptych was to discover more about the reverses of the wings (see below) but the opportunity was taken to examine the inside with a microscope and to make a full examination with infrared reflectography and X-radiography. 

The paintings on the interior 
The technique and materials used for the paintings on the three internal faces are entirely in keeping with those of Netherlandish paintings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: the panels are prepared with white chalk grounds; the pigments identified include azurite, a copper-based green (probably verdigris), red lake, vermilion, red and brown earths, lead-tin yellow, lead white and black; all are applied in heat-bodied linseed oil (note 24). 

Examination with infrared reflectography revealed extensive freehand underdrawing, probably in a dry material such as black chalk (note 25). The drawing is linear and quite schematic, especially in the faces, where eyes are indicated with circles or arcs and the brows are often defined by parallel hatching across the areas above the eyes (fig. 3). Elsewhere parallel hatching is used to indicate areas of shadow. The composition was clearly worked out in advance. The main figures show few changes: the only change in Saint Catherine is in her book, to which a chemise has been added during painting (fig. 1) – the underdrawing clearly shows the ends of the fingers, which are now hidden by the cloth, and the book without its cloth cover. The hands of the other principal figures are often drawn with rather short fingers which have been extended during painting, the reserves following the drawing more closely. Other smaller details such as hats were also changed (the figure in the left wing, for example, had a simple hat turned into a turban, while the seated figure at the left of the central panel had his hat altered from a turban into a simpler, straight-sided, blue hat). More significant changes have occurred in the background scenes outside the building, especially on the left of the central panel (fig. 2). Here the underdrawing shows a different group of spectators, while behind them larger buildings were planned, more in scale with those on the right, and there was a procession of smaller figures advancing towards the palace. Painting had started on this first scene before the changes were made. At least one of the front figures was sufficiently far advanced for his hands and sleeves to be visible on top of the wall in the infrared reflectogram mosaic; a wall and tower were painted in the middle-ground and the procession shows because it too had been partly painted. The final positions for the figures and the background behind them were not redrawn but painted directly. The X-radiograph of this area (fig. 4) shows a figure on the right of this group with the long folds of a sleeve or cloak falling inside the room, but it is not clear whether he was intended to be standing inside or leaning in from outside. 

The reverses of the wings 
The reverses of the wings (plate 2) are covered in brown paint. In raking light, the shape of a shield set into ornamental decoration can be made out on each of the wings. Someone has made a clumsy attempt to remove the brown overpaint from areas of the shield on the left wing and has revealed that two coats of arms are present, one painted on top of the other. Not realising that the upper coat of arms lies above a first coat, he has exposed areas of both. X-radiographs and infrared reflectogram mosaics of the shield areas on both wings have been made. The reflectogram mosaics (figs 5 and 6) give good images of the second shields on each wing but less information about the first shields. X-radiography, which penetrates all layers, yields information about the obverses of the panels as well as the reverses. Most useful is the X-radiograph of the left wing, (right). Southampton City Art Gallery. which shows clearly the basic lay-out of the first shield (fig. 7). The colours used in the various layers were established by surface examination using a stereo-binocular microscope and, where possible, pigment identification was confirmed by analysis of paint samples. 

Cross-sections from both wings were found to have a similar basic structure, analysis of which has enabled us to make a number of deductions about the history of the shields. Samples from the shield areas, the architectural ornament and an undecorated area all have, at the bottom, a layer of brownish-red paint containing red lead, red and yellow iron oxide, lead white and a little black (note 26). This layer appears to have been applied over the whole surfaces of the reverses and is acting as a ground onto which the first shields and the decorative ornament are painted. In all the samples taken from the area of the shields (but not in samples from other areas), a relatively thick creamy-white layer (lead white in heat-bodied linseed oil) lies over the paint of the first shield (plate 3). In some cross-sections there are traces of dirt and possibly a thin surface coating between the paint of the first shield and this white layer, which could indicate that it was applied some time later to block out the coats of arms. Over the white blocking-out layer is a thin, transparent, yellowish-brown proteinaceous layer, probably animal glue, which in places runs into cracks in the white layer. It may have been applied some time after the white. As this proteinaceous layer was also found in several samples from the background beyond the blocked-out shields, it was possibly applied as a general surface coating. The paint of the second shields lies on top of these two layers and is covered in turn by the opaque brown surface paint (note 27). 

The background of both wings was a creamy yellow (note 28). The ornamental shapes surrounding the shields, visible in the X-radiographs, were clearly painted at the same time as the first pair of coats of arms. The style of the architectural ornament, entirely different from the ornament on the reverses of the wings of Goossen’s triptychs at Antwerp and Springfield (note 29), allows the ornament, and therefore also the first pair of shields, to be dated during or after the 1550s – several decades after the scenes on the interior of the triptych (note 30). 

It has not been possible to establish with certainty how the exteriors of the wings would have looked when the triptych was first painted. The red-brown layer which lies under all the other paint layers of the reverses could have been applied in Goossen’s workshop, but it appears to have been painted directly onto the wood. This is unusual and not in keeping with the technique of the rest of the triptych, which has a chalk ground. The outside surfaces of the wings may have been left as bare wood, though that is very unlikely. Alternatively, the wings may have had some kind of decoration, perhaps marbling or plain black, which was later completely scraped away to allow the new owners to have their coats of arms painted in its place. 

The first two shields 
On the left wing, the lower and earlier coat of arms is that of the University of Oxford: azure, on an open book proper, leathered gules, garnished and having on the dexter side seven seals or, between three open crowns of the last, the words DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA (see plate 5) (note 31). 

The shapes of the crowns and the open book can clearly be seen in the X-radiograph (fig. 7). The field is blue (azurite and lead white); the crowns are gold leaf applied on a yellowish mordant; their interiors are red. The pages of the book are silver leaf with gold edges (all on the same yellowish mordant) and the cover is red. The seven seals attached on the left are also gold. The presence of the inscription is confirmed by the letter D visible in the infrared reflectogram mosaic (fig. 5). 

On the right wing, the lower and earlier coat of arms is: gules an annulet or within a bordure sable; over all, a canton argent (see plate 6). These arms are the most difficult to distinguish. Stereo-binocular microscopy, sampling, X-radiography and examination in raking light have established that the shield has a central field of red (vermilion), around which is a black border. The canton is silver leaf and the ring (annulet) is gold leaf. There are traces of gold in several places on the border, which could very well have been ornamented with golden objects. Because of the overlying paint, it is impossible to determine whether the silver canton carries any decoration. Though it is likely that it did carry a device or charge, no trace of one has been found. The arrangement of shapes and colours, however, is so unusual and so complex that it seems plausible to identify the coat of arms as that of a White family from Berkshire, who used very similar arms (note 32). Sir Thomas White (1495–1567), born in Reading, a merchant tailor of London and founder in 1555 of St John’s College, Oxford, bore gules an annulet or, on a bordure sable eight estoiles or; over all, on a canton ermine a lion sable (note 33). If the black bordure of the Southampton shield was charged with golden stars (estoiles) and if the canton argent was, in fact, a canton ermine charged with a black lion (the proper representation of ermine was, in fact, silver with black ermine-tails), then the arms are those of Sir Thomas White, which were afterwards used by St John’s College (plate 4). 

The second two shields 
On the left wing, the upper and later coat of arms is that of a Heron or Herne family: quarterly: 1 and 4, sable a chevron ermine between three herons argent (Heron or Herne); 2 and 3, gules on a chevron between three garbs(?) or three billets(?) sable (possibly Flatman: plate 7) (note 34). The basic shapes can be made out quite well in the infrared reflectogram mosaic (fig. 5). The fields of the first and fourth quarters are black, the birds are basically white and the chevron is white, with the ermine-tails in black and with grey edges. The second and third quarters have red fields. The three shapes that could be interpreted as wheat-sheaves (garbs) are gold, as are the chevrons. The rectangles (billets) on the chevrons are black, the red edges on the right and at the bottom making them appear slightly three-dimensional. 

On the right wing, the upper coat of arms is that of the same Heron or Herne family, unquartered: sable a chevron ermine between three herons argent. This shows clearly in the infrared reflectogram mosaic (fig. 6), where the birds can be seen to be slightly modelled to show details such as the wings and to give an appearance of roundness to the necks. Like its counterparts on the left wing, the chevron has grey edges. The painter at first included a white crescent in chief (see plate 8 and fig. 8) – the mark of cadency of a second son – but afterwards painted over it in black (note 35). The crest above the shield is that of Heron or Herne: a heron’s head and neck erased argent, ducally engorged or. 

The same Heron arms appeared on the tomb of Sir John Heron, who died in 1522 (note 36). Many of his descendants used this coat (note 37), as did members of a family named Heron or Herne settled in London and in Norfolk. The Hernes, who were doubtless related to Sir John, at first differenced the arms (note 38). In 1664, John Herne (1619–1665) of Arminghall in Norfolk was using a crescent as his difference. He died in 1665 and on his tomb, erected by his widow Mary (née Pitt, died 1698), appear the undifferenced arms (note 39). This John Herne had been a student at St John’s College in Oxford, where he matriculated on 24 July 1635 (note 40); in 1645 he accompanied to the scaffold Archbishop Laud, who had studied at St John’s and who had been President of the College from 1611 to 1621 (note 41). Francis Herne, John’s third son, was a London merchant in the Spanish trade and died in 1722 (note 42). He had married, at St Martin’s in the Fields on 16 July 1702, Franck Flatman (1675–1725), daughter of the painter, poet and barrister Thomas Flatman (1635–1688) (note 43). The coat of arms quartered with the Herne coat on the reverse of the left wing of the triptych is remarkably like the Flatman arms as they appeared on the tombstone at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, of Thomas Flatman (1673–1682), the poet’s eldest son: a chevron between three garbs (note 44). 

It is therefore possible to argue that the second (later) shields refer to Francis Herne (1703–1776), son of Francis Herne and Franck Flatman. The connection with St John’s College, Oxford, and so with the first two shields, is provided by his grandfather John Herne, whose heir he was in the male line; the fact that his branch of the family had once used the crescent as a mark of cadency but later used the undifferenced arms may explain why a crescent was at first included on the reverse of the right wing and then painted over; his connection with the Flatmans might explain the quarterings on the left wing. Both shields would refer to the same person, Francis Herne, who would have been entitled to quarter the Flatman arms or to use the Herne arms without quarterings. 

The history of the triptych 
The history of the triptych may be reconstructed as follows: painted by Goossen van der Weyden, probably in the 1510s, for an unknown patron, it would have been acquired by Sir Thomas White and given by him during the 1550s to his foundation, St John’s College, Oxford. Sir Thomas must have considered himself fortunate to have discovered a painting of an unusual subject but one eminently suitable for a university. He would have been responsible for having the reverses of the wings decorated with architectural ornament and the first two shields, with the arms of the University of Oxford and those borne by himself and by his College. At a time when it was dangerous to have associations with religious images, these shields would have been obliterated with white paint. Unfortunately it has not been possible to discover any reference to the triptych in the early inventories in the College archives, in the Bursars’ Accounts or in the College Registers (note 45). Subsequently the triptych would have passed into the possession of the Herne family, possibly through John Herne, who was a student at St John’s. The second two shields are perhaps to be connected with John Herne’s grandson Francis Herne, Member of Parliament for Bedford (1754–68) and Camelford (1774–76), who inherited (1751) and later (1763) sold the estate of Luton Hoo and who died unmarried (note 46). His property passed to his sister Mary Herne (died 1792) and subsequently to the stepsons of their sister Anne Herne or Page (buried 1741) (note 47). It may have been one of the Pages who sold the triptych. 

Summary 
Using infrared reflectogram mosaics and X-radiographs and studying paint samples in conjunction with repeated microscopic examinations of the paint surface, we have been able to reveal something about Goossen’s painting technique as well as much about the provenance of the triptych and its unexpected significance for the history of religious images during and after the English Reformation. Goossen’s painting technique shows him to have been well schooled in the Netherlandish traditions of which his grandfather had been an unequalled master. That he was proud of the family connection is clear, but by setting Rogierian figures in Italianate buildings he showed that he was also open to new ideas. Although we have had to abandon our hopes of identifying the patron for whom the triptych was painted, we have established that it belonged to St John’s College in Oxford and that it was probably given to the College by its founder, Sir Thomas White, at the time of its foundation in 1555. England was then ruled by Mary Tudor, who had married Philip II of Spain in 1554. The country was by this time more closely in touch with continental Europe and with artistic trends there than during the previous and succeeding reigns and it was safe once more to make and exhibit religious images.  

Acknowledgements 
For their assistance in the preparation of this article, we are grateful to our colleagues at the National Gallery, to Professor Robert Tittler, Concordia University, Montreal, and to Anthony Wells-Cole, Temple Newsam House. At Southampton City Art Gallery, Tim Craven, Acting City Art Gallery Manager, Rebecca Moisan, Conservation Officer, and Godfrey Worsdale, formerly Art Gallery Manager, have been unfailingly helpful. In Oxford, we have received much advice and information from Dr John Jones, Balliol College, from Dr Andrew Hegarty, Magdalen College, and particularly from Dr Malcolm G.A. Vale, Keeper of the Archives at St John’s College.

Notes and references
1 A. Pinchart, ‘Roger de le Pasture dit van der Weyden’, Bulletin des Commissions royales d’art et d’archéologie, Vol. VI, 1867, pp. 408–94, esp. pp. 461–7, 472–4; see also the monograph by G. Passemiers, Goossen van der Weyden (1465–1538/45), Peintre de l’École anversoise, Brussels 1987.
2 P. Lefèvre, ‘À propos de Roger van der Weyden et d’un tableau peint par lui pour l’église Sainte-Gudule, à Bruxelles’ in Mélanges Hulin de Loo, Brussels and Paris 1931, pp. 237–44, p. 239 note.
3 H.-C. van Parys, F. de Cacamp et al., ‘Généalogie des familles inscrites au lignage Steenweegs en 1376’, Brabantica, Vol. VI, ii, 1962, pp. 559–686, esp. pp. 603–4.
4 J.B. Stockmans, ‘Lyrana’, Académie royale d’archéologie de Belgique, Bulletin, 1908, pp. 267–313, esp. pp. 268–70.
5 Pinchart 1867, cited in note 1, p. 469.
6 L. de Burbure, ‘Documents biographiques inédits sur les peintres Gossuin et Roger Vander Weyden le jeune’, Bulletins de l’Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 2e série, Vol. XIX, 1865, pp. 354–83, esp. pp. 355–6.
7 P. Rombouts and T. Van Lerius, Les Liggeren et autres archives historiques de la Gilde anversoise de Saint-Luc, vol. I, Antwerp and The Hague 1864–76, pp. 81, 114, 116 note.
8 Ibid., pp. 59, 60, 66, 68, 77, 78, 80, 89, 100.
9 De Burbure 1865, cited in note 6, pp. 356–7; W. van Spilbeeck, De voormalige abdijkerk van Tongerloo en hare kunstschatten, Antwerp 1883, passim; Passemiers, cited in note 1, pp. 42–7, and passim; M. Koyen and L.C. Van Dyck, ‘Abbaye de Tongerlo’ in Monasticon belge, VIII, Province d’Anvers, Liège 1992–3, Vol. I, pp. 263–375, esp. pp. 317–27.
10 A triptych of the Presentation in the Temple (Lisbon) may have been commissioned by or for Emmanuel, King of Portugal (reigned 1495–1521), whose arms and device of the armillary sphere appear in the left wing: see M.-L. Lievens-De Waegh, Les Primtifs flamands, I. Corpus …, 16, Le Musée national d’art ancien et le Musée national des carreaux de faïence de Lisbonne, Vol. I, Brussels 1991, pp. 196–231. It is just conceivable that the large Adoration of the Kings in the Royal Collection may have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII (L. Campbell, The Early Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, Cambridge 1985, pp. 121–3). Goossen had Scottish relations (ibid., pp. xxxi–xxxii and references) and may perhaps have worked for Scottish patrons.
11 De Burbure 1865, cited in note 6, p. 357.
12 A. Heylen, Historische verhandeling over de Kempen, revised edn, Turnhout 1837, p. 160; van Spilbeeck, cited in note 9, pp. 12–14.
13 A. Monballieu, ‘Het Antonius Tsgrooten-triptiekje (1507) uit Tongerlo van Goossen Van der Weyden’, Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen, 1967, pp. 13–36.
14 G. H[ulin] de Loo, ‘Ein authentisches Werk von Goossen van der Weyden im Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum’, Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XXXIV, 1913, pp. 59–88, esp. pp. 76–84.
15 Ibid., pp. 63–7. We are grateful to Richard Charlton-Jones for enabling us to study the paintings before they were sold at Sotheby’s in London on 12 July 2001 (lot 14). The centre panel was made up of three of the surviving paintings and a lost Martyrdom of Saint Dympna, separated by scrolls bearing explanatory inscriptions; it measured approximately 262 x 163 cm.
16 Stockmans 1908, cited in note 4, pp. 290–313.
17 A.I. Davies, 16th- and 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings in the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., 1993, pp. 146–9; for Marcus Cruyt, see F. Marcus, ‘Abbaye de Saint-Bernard sur l’Escaut à Hemiksem’ in Monasticon belge, VIII, Province d’Anvers, Liège 1992–3, Vol. I, pp. 31–79, esp. pp. 60–1.
18 Campbell 1985, cited in note 10, pp. 121–3.
19 M.W. Brockwell, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House Richmond & Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt., Vol. III, London 1915, pp. 76–7 (No. 455); C. Wright, Renaissance to Impressionism, Masterpieces from Southampton City Art Gallery, London 1998, p. 119.
20 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. W. G. Ryan, 2 vols, Princeton 1993, Vol. II, pp. 334–41.
21 C. Deroubaix, ‘Un triptyque du Maître de la Légende de Sainte Catherine (Pieter van der Weyden?) reconstitué’, Bulletin de l’Institut royal du patrimoine artistique, XVII, 1978/79, pp. 153–74; D. Martens, ‘Identification du “Tableau de l’Adoration des Mages” flamand, anciennement à la Chartreuse de Miraflores’, Annales d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie, XXII, 2000, pp. 59–92.
22 M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, trans. H. Norden, 14 vols, Leyden and Brussels 1967–76, Vol. II No. 7 and Vol. IV No. 86.
23 Measurements (in cm): left wing 110.2 (left) – 110.3 (right) x 37.4 (top) – 37.5 (bottom), thickness 5 mm; right wing (in cm): 110.0 (left and right) x 37.4 (top and bottom), thickness 6 mm.
24 Inorganic pigments were identified microscopically and by EDX analysis by Marika Spring; organic analysis using FTIR spectroscopy and GC–MS was conducted by Catherine Higgitt.
25 Infrared reflectography was carried out using a Hamamatsu C2400 camera with an N2606 series infrared vidicon tube. The camera is fitted with a 36 mm lens to which a Kodak 87A Wratten filter has been attached to exclude visible light. The infrared reflectogram mosaics were assembled on a computer using an updated version of the software (VIPS ip) described in R. Billinge, J. Cupitt, N. Dessipris and D. Saunders, ‘A note on an improved proceedure for the rapid assembly of infrared reflectogram mosaics’, Studies in Conservation, 38, ii, 1993, pp. 92–98.
26 All identified with EDX, the yellow having distinctive needle-shaped particles.
27 Containing lead white, earth pigments and bone black. There are one or two slightly more grey-black particles which seem, from EDX analysis, to be manganese black (Mn only detected, not in combination with Fe). Some of the earth particles are umber (Fe, Mn and Si detected by EDX).
28 Lead white, lead-tin yellow and a silicaceous yellow earth.
29 See notes 13 and 17 above.
30 See A. Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, The Influence of Continental Prints, 1558–1625, New Haven and London 1997. Mr Wells-Cole was kind enough to give his opinion, in a letter of 10 July 2002, that ‘this ornament … could, I believe, have been painted in the late 1550s as you suggest’.
31 J.P. Brooke-Little, ‘The Arms of Oxford University and its Colleges’, The Coat of Arms, An Heraldic Quarterly Magazine, Vol. I, 1951, pp. 158–61, 198–200, 235–8.
32 An early sixteenth-century armorial gives for one Roger White the arms gules a bordure sable semé of estoiles or; over all, on a canton argent a lion sable (College of Arms MS Vincent 152, cited in T. Woodcock, J. Grant and I. Graham, eds, Dictionary of British Arms, Medieval Ordinary, Vol. II, London 1996, p. 206). A second armorial of the same period gives for a White family, not otherwise identified, gules a bordure sable semé of estoiles or; over all, on a canton ermine a lion rampant sable (College of Arms MS L 1).
33 Compare the description of his coat of arms in B.L., MS Harl. 5846 (a copy made in 1632 of a mid-sixteenth-century armorial), fol. 114 (‘G a qt Ermyn. a Lyon Rampant s. Armed and langued g a bordure s semy starrs wt vj poynts or his difference An Annulet or his crest an Eagle close ar …’); his arms on the 1562 Statutes of St John’s College, reproduced by W.H. Stevenson and H.E. Salter, The Early History of St. John’s College Oxford (Oxford Historical Society publications, n.s. Vol. I), Oxford 1939, plate between pp. 142–3; or the shield in the portrait of Sir Thomas belonging to the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, reproduced by F. M. Fry, A Historical Catalogue of the Pictures, Horse-Cloths & Tapestry at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London 1897, frontispiece (described on pp. 93–6). Sometimes the annulet appears in chief rather than in the centre of the shield (Stevenson and Salter, p. 392; Brooke-Little 1951, cited in note 31, p. 200).
34 See below.
35 A sample taken from this area shows the light grey paint of the crescent lying over the two layers which divide the two shields (the white blocking- out and the thin proteinaceous layer). Over the crescent is a thin black layer similar in composition to the black used for the field of the shield.
36 A. P. Newton, ‘The King’s Chamber under the Early Tudors’, English Historical Review, XXXII, 1917, pp. 348–72. For the tomb, see the notes by the herald Nicholas Charles, c.1610, in B.L., MS Lansdowne 874, fol. 119v; Richard Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclestiasticum Parochiale Londinense, 2 vols, London 1708–10, Vol. I, p. 617: ‘One … Heron, Esq; is taken by some to be the Founder of it, by his Arms engraven in Stone upon every Pillar of the same, which is a Cheveron- Ermin, between three Herons, but I rather think he was a very great Benefactor to the New-Building or Repairing of this Church, for which Reason his Arms is on every Pillar; and in the North-Isle thereof, in a Tomb of white Free-Stone, but without any Inscription, his Body lies.’; Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London, Vol. II, London 1795, p. 461: ‘Between each arch of the nave are the arms of Heron carved in stone. The same arms occur on one side of the chancel window; on the other side are the arms of Urswick.’ In a footnote, Lysons describes the arms as ‘Sable a chevron Erm. between 3 herons Argent’. See also W. Robinson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hackney, in the County of Middlesex, 2 vols, London 1842–3, Vol. II, pp. 6–7; J.R. Daniel-Tyssen, ‘Will of Sir John Heron, 1521’, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, n.s. Vol. I, 1874, pp. 50–3; R. Simpson, Some Notices of the Life of Henry, Lord Percy, sixth Earl of Northumberland, and of the Parish Church of St. Augustine, afterwards St. John at Hackney, Guildford 1882, pp. 3, 55.
37 For example his grandson the painter-stainer Thomas Heron, who died in 1603: see the copy of the grant of arms of 1600 copied in B.L., MS Add. 5533, fol. 115 (printed in ‘London Pedigrees and Coats of Arms’, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser., Vol. V, 1923–5, pp. 268–72, esp. p. 269); or, in 1634, James Heron of Panffield Hall (Walter C. Metcalfe, ed., The Visitations of Essex, 2 vols, Harleian Society publications XIII and XIV, London 1878 and 1879, Vol. I, p. 417). Other descendants quartered or varied the arms: James’s father, Sir Edward Heron, who died in 1609, seems on occasion to have used the arms sable on a fess ermine a rose or, between three herons argent (W. Bruce Bannerman, ed., The Visitations of Kent Taken in the Years 1530–1 by Thomas Benolte, Clarenceux and 1574 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, Part I, Harleian Society publications LXXIV, London 1923, p. 64) and at other times to have quartered sable a chevron ermine between three herons argent with Pickenham (B.L., MS Harl. 1550, Visitations of Lincolnshire 1564 and 1592, with later additions, fol. 90; MS Harl. 1551, fol. 40, printed in G. J. Armytage, ed., Middlesex Pedigrees as collected by Richard Mundy, Harleian Society publications LXV, London 1914, p. 183). Sir Edward’s descendants, the Herons of Cressey Hall, are said to have borne sable a chevron ermine between three herons or (A.R. Maddison, Lincolnshire Pedigrees, vol. II, Harleian Society publications LI, London 1903, p. 487: a fairly complete account of Sir John’s descendants is given on pp. 486–9). The arms were sometimes mistakenly appropriated for other persons named Heron: for example on the funeral certificate of Ralph Coppinger, who died in 1620 and who had married Susan Heron (G.S.S., ‘Pedigree of Heron, of Addiscombe, Surrey’, Collectanea Topographica & Genealogica, Vol. II, 1835, pp. 166–7).
38 Nicholas Herne of London bore in 1634 sable a chevron ermine between three herons argent, a mullet in chief. His grandfather Nicholas Herne, who came from Tibenham in Norfolk, cannot have been a descendant of Sir John Heron but was probably related to him. See J.J. Howard and J.L. Chester, eds, The Visitation of London Anno Domini 1633, 1634, and 1635, Vol. I, Harleian Society publications XV, London 1880, p. 378.
39 For the Herons or Hernes at Arminghall or Ameringhall, see F. Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, Vol. V, London 1806, pp. 420–2. In 1664 John Herne of Ameringhall bore Sable a chevron ermine between three herons close argent, legged or, a crescent for difference (A.W. Hughes Clarke and A. Campling, eds, The Visitation of Norfolk Anno Domini 1664 made by Sir Edward Bysshe, knt. Clarenceux King of Arms, Vol. I, A-L (Norfolk Record Society, Vol. IV), London 1934, pp. 98–9). The undifferenced arms appear on the tomb at Arminghall of the same John Herne, who died in 1665 (Blomefield, pp. 420–1).
40 J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1714, E-K, Oxford and London s.d., p. 697.
41 See the letter of 1 March 1703 n.s. written by John Herne’s son John to his brother and printed in F. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 2 vols, London 1732–5, Vol. II, Lib. XIV, pp. 52–3. John’s father, another John Herne (died 1649), had defended Laud and had taken communion with him in the Tower of London before his execution. Laud had given gold coins to John Herne II, from which his son John Herne III (born c.1648) wished to make a commemorative medal. The medal was indeed made and was acquired in 2002 for St John’s College, Oxford.
42 Will dated 15 June 1719 and 8 April 1722, proved 10 May 1722: PRO, PROB 11/585, sig. 97.
43 G. Saintsbury, Minor Poets of the Caroline Period, Vol. III, Oxford 1921, pp. 277–422.
44 W. Berry, Supplement to Encyclopoedia Heraldica or Complete Dictionary of Heraldry, London 1840, f. 2H2: ‘FLATMAN, [London, 1682,] quarterly; first and fourth …. a chev. … betw. three garbs ….; second and third, paly of six …. and …. a chev. ….’ (misquoted in J. W. Papworth and A.W. Morant, An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms … forming an extensive Ordinary of British Armorials, London 1874, p. 429, who gratuitously intruded the word argent: ‘ … arg. a chev. … betw. three garbs …’). The quartering was probably for the poet’s wife Hannah, who was an heiress: her surname is not known. For the tombstone, which was decorated with a coat of arms, an epitaph and a poem, see A. J. Jewers, ‘Monumental Inscriptions in City Churches’, Guildhall Library, London, MS 2480/2, p. 375, who in 1913 was working from descriptions, written by a former parish clerk, of floor slabs since hidden under a new floor. Even in 1720, the verses were ‘almost worn out and gone’ (J. Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. J. Strype, London 1720, Vol. I, Book III, p. 266).
45 Dr Malcolm Vale, Keeper of the Archives, most generously checked these records (his letter of 23 September 2002).
46 L. Namier and J. Brooke, The House of Commons 1754–1790, Vol. II, Members A-J (The History of Parliament), London 1964, pp. 614–15.
47 J.S. Cockburn and T.F.T. Baker, eds, A History of the County of Middlesex (The Victoria History of the Counties of England), Vol. IV, Oxford 1971, pp. 206, 209–10, 213, and passim.

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