The art of portraiture was valued in England from the time of the Tudors, and used for royal propaganda and for diplomatic presents. The first great portraits – of Henry VIII and his court by the German artist Hans Holbein (AD 1497/8-1543) – immortalised their sitters’ images. By the reign of Elizabeth, miniature painters like Nicholas Hilliard (about 1547-1619), showed that English painting could compete with European work. The long galleries built in Elizabethan manor houses were designed to display portraits.

The Stuarts were great patrons of painting. Charles I’s (reigned 1625-49) association with the Flemish artist Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) produced paintings of the king that transformed their subject into an icon of majesty. Paintings by Van Dyck and the English William Dobson (1610-46) also helped to create the glamorous image of the ‘Cavalier’ court of the early Stuart nobility. Sir Peter Lely’s later portraits of the fashionable women of Charles II’s court (reigned 1660-85) reflected the hedonistic climate of Restoration England.

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries social divisions became less rigid and portraiture was no longer the sole preserve of the upper classes. The development of reproductive techniques such as engraving, helped to spread the influence of the art.