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Renold Elstrack (1570-c. 1625)

HENRICVS VI D.G. ANGLIAE ET FRANCIAE REX 1638

Engraving | RCIN 680473

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  • Engraving of Henry VI, King of England. Half length with short hair, crown, embroidered robes, and jewelled collar, holding sceptre in right hand and orb in left. Within an oval border bearing Latin inscription, with coats of arms above. With further English inscription below, without publisher's address. Fourth state, with text on the verso. A plate from the 1638 edition of the Baziliologia.

    During the late 1610s and 1620s, publisher Compton Holland oversaw the production of a series of portraits for publication in what came to be known as the Baziliologia. The first frontispiece dated 1618 presents the full title as : Baziliologia, a Booke of Kings, beeing the true and lively effigies of all our English kings from the Conquest untill this present with their severall coats of armes, impreses and devises and a brief chronologie of their lives and deaths.

    No copy of the 1618 edition is known, and after Holland's death in 1628 a second edition was published with text by William Martyn, the plates were later acquired by Thomas Geele, who published a third edition in 1630. Holland's octavo portraits were engraved by the pre-eminent engravers working in England, and their work came to epitomise and dominate portrait print publication for decades. Throughout successive editions, more portraits were added to the series. The Royal Collection holds a series of 238 prints linked to the Baziliologia, see RCINs 680452-680690.

  • Medium and techniques

    Engraving