Analysis Of John Bettes 'An Unknown Man In A Black Cap'

Kit Wedd tells us in Creative Quarters that the painter’s trade within the City of London was regulated by a guild that controlled the activities of the artists who lived inside the City walls. In order to be a painter in the City it was necessary to become a member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company, but because membership was only given to Englishmen, foreign artists gathered in the numerous artists’ quarters that were quickly appearing outside the walls. The reliability of Wedd’s following points can be contested when examined in relation to John Bettes’ 1545 portrait entitled An Unknown Man in a Black Cap.
Wedd tells us that because of the Court’s international taste and its preference for impressive paintings, especially when it came to …show more content…
John Bettes’ painting proves quite the opposite. It is clearly painted in the style of Hans Holbein, and if we were unaware of the date and the painter’s name we could assume that it was painted by a follower of Holbein or perhaps even the artist himself. Like in Holbein’s portraits, the sitter is depicted in a sympathetic manner, his likeness is not idealized and he is placed very close to the picture frame, which helps create the illusion of presence. Because there seems to be no attempt to idealize the man’s features it is difficult to tell what in this painting is and isn’t the creation of the artist, that is, how true to life this is. Still in Holbein’s manner, great attention is paid to specific facial details, for example the differences between the two sides of the face, the thickness and direction of eyebrows, or the shape of lips. Also, the inscription on the canvas resembles Holbein’s later portraits, when stopped depicting foliage in his paintings in favour of textual