Hannay, Kinnamon, and Brennan believe this to be a portrait of Mary Sidney, probably painted during her extended visit to Spa in the Low Countries from 1614 to 1616. The painter is anonymous. See Selected Works for details on the portrait.

Hannay, Kinnamon, and Brennan believe this to be a portrait of Mary Sidney, probably painted during her extended visit to Spa in the Low Countries from 1614 to 1616. The painter is anonymous. See Selected Works for details on the portrait.

Mary Sidney Herbert,
the Countess of Pembroke

Dates:
1561 – 1621

Background:

Mary Sidney was the most educated woman in England, comparable only to Queen Elizabeth. She was fluent in Italian, French, and Latin, and probably Greek; played the lute and virginals; sang; had all the refinements of an aristocratic woman, such as medical training, falconry, hunting, court life, etc. She had an alchemy laboratory and was close with the leading ”magicians“ of the day, including John Dee and Giordano Bruno.

For two decades Mary Sidney developed and led the most important and influential literary circle in English history, now called Wilton Circle. She is the first woman to publish a play in English (closet drama) and the first woman to publish an original pastoral piece in English. She translated and published work from French and Italian. Sister to Sir Philip Sidney, she published his sonnet sequence that created the passionate vogue for sonnet writing.

Scholars of Mary Sidney agree that her mission in life was to create great works in the English language, although as a woman she would have never been allowed to publish work for the public stage under her own name. Many of the original sources for the plays were written by herself, or her brother, writers in her circle, or were dedicated to her, and she was fluent in the three languages in which two dozen of the source materials were written. She sponsored an acting troupe and participated in courtly theatre throughout her life. Her life parallels the love story shown in the sonnets in that she had a long-term affair with a younger man who for a time she thought was having an affair with a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. Mary Sidney died in her London home two months after the First Folio went to press.

 

This portrait engraved by Simon Pass in 1618, three years before Mary Sidney died, shows her lace collar and wrist ruffs that are bordered by swans, and swan wings hold up the frame. It is topped with a laurel wreath, symbol of a poet, is bordered by quill pens in ink wells, and she holds one of her books in her hand, the Psalms of David. This is a woman who wants to go down in history as a writer. The caption names her as “MARY SIDNEY,” not as her husband’s property as Mary Sidney Herbert.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

 

Links for further information

Mary Sidney Society

Luminarium: Mary Sidney Herbert, includes collected articles about Mary Sidney (not as author of Shakespeare)

Another case for Mary Sidney