Adrian Vanson

Adrian Vanson (died c. 1602) was court portrait painter to James VI of Scotland.

James VI, by Adrian Vanson
Edinburgh Castle

Family and artistic background

Adrian was probably born in Breda, the son of Willem Claesswen van Son by Kathelijn Adriaen Matheus de Blauwverversdochter. His uncle or cousin Peter Mattheus or Matteusen was a painter in London.[1]

Peter Matheeusen in his 1588 will left his cousin Adrian Vanson, named as "Adryan van Zont", portraits of his parents, Jacob and Agnes, and of himself, with a book The Arte concerning Lymning. Amongst the other bequests, Matheussen left money to the miniaturist Isaac Oliver and the painter Rowland Lockey, best known as a copyist working for Bess of Hardwick and her son the Earl of Devonshire.[2]

In Edinburgh he signed his name "Adrian Van Son".[3] His relative or brother Abraham Vanson was in Edinburgh working as a goldsmith.[4]

Agnes Douglas, attributed to Adrian Vanson
National Galleries of Scotland
John Maitland of Thirlestane, attributed to Vanson, National Trust
Anne of Denmark, 1595, circle of Adrian Vanson

Career in Scotland

Adrian's first recorded works for James VI in Scotland were two pictures to be sent to Theodore Beza in Geneva, for which he was paid £8-10s in June 1581.[5] These portraits of John Knox and George Buchanan had been sent to Geneva in November 1579 for inclusion as woodcuts in Theodore Beza's Icones (1580), but arrived too late for the book. The woodcuts of Knox and James VI published in Simon Goulart's 1581 edition of the Icones are thought to follow Vanson's portraits. Another woodcut image of George Buchanan, not used in the Icones, but appearing in other works, has been attributed to Arnold Bronckorst.[6]

Adrian Vanson succeeded Arnold Bronckhorst as "King's painter" in Scotland in May 1584.[7] His appointment and yearly fee of £100 was confirmed by privy seal letter on 20 August 1584.[8] When he was made a burgess of Edinburgh in December 1585, it was hoped he would teach his craft to apprentices.[9] No records of apprentices, or a workshop have been found. Vanson did not join the Edinburgh craft of Mason and Wrights, which welcomed painter-glaziers.

He may have been 'Lord Seton's painter', who was recorded drawing portraits for coins at the mint in Edinburgh in 1582, to be used by Thomas Foulis.[10] Lord Seton had served as a diplomat and had various European contacts, and his third son John Seton of Barns had joined the household of the Earl of Leicester in England 1575.[11]

John Knox from Beza's Icones, after Adrian Vanson

Vanson also painted heraldry on banners for the king's trumpeters, and ceremonial spears and banners and painted the Danish royal arms on banners for the coronation of Anne of Denmark.[12]

Attributed portraits include James VI; Anne of Denmark; Patrick Lyon, Lord Glamis; Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean; Agnes Douglas, Countess of Argyll.[13][14] Vanson's James VI of circa 1585 survives at Edinburgh castle.

In May 1586 a French ambassador in Scotland, the Baron d'Esneval, promised to get Mary, Queen of Scots a copy of a recent portrait of James VI from the only painter in Edinburgh, presumably meaning Vanson.[15] There had been rumours of an embassy to Denmark to discuss the king's marriage in April 1586.[16] It is thought the picture at Edinburgh Castle was made by Vanson for this embassy or a similar purpose.[17]

A portrait of John Maitland of Thirlestane by Vanson at Ham House was valued at £2 in 1683.[18][19] Examination by Caroline Rae in 2016 showed that it was painted over an image of Mary, Queen of Scots.[20]

James VI had gold medals with his and Anna of Denmark's portraits made, presumably following patterns by Vanson, and gave one to Vanson worth 20 gold crowns in October 1594.[21] The courtier Magdalen Livingstone owned a locket with a portrait of Anne of Denmark "raised" in gold.[22] In England James commissioned medallions with his portrait from the artist Nicholas Hilliard.[23]

The execution of Archibald Cornwall in April 1601 for attaching royal portraits to the gallows suggests that pictures of the king and Anne of Denmark were common household objects in Edinburgh.[24] Miniature portraits were also made in Edinburgh, the stock of a goldsmith, the younger John Mosman, in 1593 included a "tablet" or locket with the portraits of James VI and Anne of Denmark worth £57 Scots.[25]

In December 1601 Vanson was paid £20 Scots for a portrait of Anne of Denmark. Around the same time the goldsmith George Heriot made a chain with a miniature portrait of James as a diplomatic gift for an ambassador from the Duke of Mecklenberg, the queen's uncle.[26][27]

In 1604 he worked with other painters on a triumphal arch for the king's ceremonial entry to London, commissioned by the Dutch community.[28]

The date of his death is unknown. After Adrian Vanson's death, in 1610 and 1616 his widow Susanna petitioned the king for outstanding payments.[29]

Marriage and family

Adrian Vanson was married to Susanna de Colonia at Dordrecht, on 31 March 1577. She became an active business woman in Edinburgh.[30] Her brother was the portrait painter Adam de Colone. Their father Louis Jansz. Colonia was a saddle maker.[31]

Their children included:

  • Adrian Vanson, who was christened on 19 October 1595, the witnesses were the Flemish ambassador Adrian Damman de Bystervelt and Adrian Bowdowingis, a clockmaker. On 26 October 1600 Adrian Bowdowingis christened his son Adrian, and Adrian Damman and Adrian Vanson were witnesses.[32]
  • Susanna Vanson,
  • James Vanson
  • Frederick Vanson

Footnotes
  1. Murphy, Nathan W. and Leslie Mahler, "The King, Vanson, and de Colonia Ancestors of William Fitzhugh of Virginia," The American Genealogist, 88 (2016), pp. 152-157.
  2. Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters 1547-1625' (Walpole Society, 2014), pp. 140-1, 183.
  3. Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596', Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 88.
  4. Duncan Thomson, Painting in Scotland: 1570-1650 (Edinburgh, 1975), p. 25.
  5. Thomson, Duncan, Painting in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1975), 25-26; citing NRS E21//62 f.135v.
  6. Cameron, J. K., 'Further information on Portraits of George Buchanan', Scottish Historical Review, vol. 42, no. 134, part 2 (Oct. 1963), pp. 135-142: Thomson (1975) does not discuss the Buchanan.
  7. Thomson, Duncan, Painting in Scotland 1570-1650 (Edinburgh, 1975), p. 25.
  8. Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 396 no. 2287.
  9. Extracts from the records of the burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1882), p. 446.
  10. Thomson, Duncan, Painting in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 25, 31: National Records of Scotland, E21/62 f169v.
  11. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 120.
  12. James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836), Appendix p. 16
  13. Thomson, Duncan, Painting in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 25-31.
  14. Painters in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 99.
  15. Strickland, Agnes, Letters of Mary Stuart, vol. 3 (London, 1843), 194: Labanoff, A., vol. 6, 270-1, Mary had asked d'Esneval; "Je vous prie me recouvrer de mon filz ung sien pourtraict en grand, faict sur sa personne propre," Chartley 30 April 1586.
  16. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 8 (London, 1914), nos. 356, 362, 365.
  17. See 'information from Philip Mould' in external links.
  18. Alastair Laing, 'Fitting Rooms to Pictures', Christopher Rowell, Ham House (Yale, 2013), pp. 417, 427 no. 87.
  19. 'Sir John Maitland', National Trust, NT 1139943
  20. Revealing Ham House’s hidden portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots
  21. Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596', Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 83, 88.
  22. National Library of Scotland, Will of Magdalen Livingstoun, CC3/3/3 pp. 784-6.
  23. Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist (London, 2019), pp. 256-9.
  24. Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland vol. 2 part 2 (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 349-351: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 13 part 2 (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 809, 814.
  25. National Records of Scotland, Wilsoun, Susanna, CC8/8/25, p. 322.
  26. Painters in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 99.
  27. Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 33, 157.
  28. Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 157: Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters 1547-1625' (Walpole Society, 2014), p. 183.
  29. Michael Apted & Susan Hannabuss, Dictionary of Painters in Scotland (SRS, Edinburgh, 1978), pp. 98-99.
  30. Painters in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 98.
  31. 'Adam de Colonia (I)', RKD database
  32. Painters in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 98, citing National Records of Scotland, Old Parish Records, Edinburgh, vol. 1, fols. 9, 32, 59, 101.
Preceded by
Arnold Bronckorst		 Painter at the Scottish royal court
1581–1602		 Succeeded by
Jacob de Wet
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