Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs Clement Edmondes
- Artist: Unknown artist, Britain
- Date: c.1605–10
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 2100 x 1098 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs Clement Edmondes” painted by an anonymous artist from early‑17th‑century England. The sitter is almost certainly Mary Clerke, wife of the London remembrancer Clement Edmondes. You can see the open book in her hand – it’s the very volume of Edmondes’s *Observations on Caesar’s Commentaries*, first published in 1600. That detail is a proud nod to the couple’s public success.
Mary stands full‑length, her poise captured with the precision typical of the Tudor‑Stuart portrait tradition. Her dress is a riot of texture: a lace ruff and cuffs, a bodice and skirt in bold black and white with jeweled embellishments, and a petticoat embroidered with waves, fish, sea‑monsters and a sun—motifs likely lifted from woodcuts in emblem books. Some scholars think this extravagant petticoat may have been a gift from Queen Elizabeth’s own wardrobe, passed to Mary’s former mistress, Lady Stafford, who served in the queen’s privy chamber.
A small French inscription in the upper right reads roughly “never act in haste,” adding a subtle moral touch to the image. Together, the sumptuous clothing, the prominent book, and the inscription weave a story of status, lineage, and the subtle power of symbols in early‑modern England.
See it in person
Portrait of a Lady, probably Mrs Clement Edmondes is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
