This portrait was painted only a few years after George Gower’s earliest known works from 1573, which depict Lord and Lady Kytson (Tate Britain, London). Previously attributed to John de Critz, an artist more active during the early Jacobean court, this portrait represents an important addition to the artist’s oeuvre. Sir Thomas has chosen to wear a purely black ensemble, suggesting he was a man of certain modesty; however, the multi-layered gold chain around his neck and bejewelled band that surrounds his stylish, plumed Italian bonnet suggests means commensurate with his role as a sheriff of Kent.

The panel is inscribed with the artist’s characteristic script, indicating the sitter’s age and the year in which he painted the portrait. It also features a colourful coat-of-arms, which identifies him as a member of the Fane family. His first marriage to Elizabeth Culpepper was tragically cut short when she died during childbirth and so, in his second marriage to Lady Mary Neville in 1574, he was clearly conscious in producing a male heir; and so he did, twice over, upon the births of Francis Fane (1580 – 1629) and George Fane (1581 – 1640), the former being raised in the peerage as the 1st Earl of Westmorland in 1624.[1]

Gower shows here that by 1576 he possessed an assured style and had finessed a distinctive format for his portraits. As a native English painter, he seems to have enjoyed a near-unique position within London’s portrait market that was otherwise mainly represented by Flemish émigrés; it might have been a reason why he was appointed Sergeant-Painter to Queen Elizabeth I in 1581. As the queen’s official portrait painter only he - and Nicholas Hilliard for miniature likenesses - had the authority to paint her portrait. Although it might be argued that George Gower’s primarily Flemish rivals achieved greater levels of illusionism and more painterly effects, none could rival his style and finish. His popularity with the queen ensured that he was cast as the principal architect of her iconography and remained the preeminent painter at Elizabeth I’s court for much her reign.

[1] Their descendants’ motto “Ne Vile Fano” [“Bring nothing vile to the temple”] is a Latin derivation of the Fane and Neville families.