Sir Anthony Mildmay, Knight of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire (c. 1590–93): Art, History and Details

Sir Anthony Mildmay, Knight of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire (c. 1590–93) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Nicholas Hilliard (English, c. 1547–1619).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Framed by the folds of a circular tent, Sir Anthony Mildmay strikes a relaxed and confident pose, with his right hand resting on a cloth-covered table and his left grasping the hilt of his thin, double-edged sword called a rapier. Helmet, gauntlet, and leg coverings are scattered about, as if Mildmay has been interrupted in the act of putting on or taking off his armor. Despite its small scale, this portrait reveals Nicholas Hilliard’s emulation of (and rivalry with) life-size court portraiture, while his meticulous attention to detail and use of costly materials like shell gold reflect the refined world of courtly tournaments.

Object facts

• Title: Sir Anthony Mildmay, Knight of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire
• Date: c. 1590–93
• Creator attribution: Nicholas Hilliard (English, c. 1547–1619)
• Culture: England, 16th century
• Type: Portrait Miniature
• Technique: Watercolor on vellum, laid on card, mounted on wood
• Dimensions: Sheet: 23.2 x 17.1 cm (9 1/8 x 6 3/4 in.); Unframed: 23.3 x 17.4 cm (9 3/16 x 6 7/8 in.); Overall framed: 32.7 x 26.8 cm (12 7/8 x 10 9/16 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1926.554

A detail from the museum

A little dog gazes adoringly at Mildmay who was by all accounts a very arrogant man.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Thieme, Ulrich, Felix Becker, Fred. C. Willis, and Hans Vollmer. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart XXV. Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1907.
• Milliken, William M. "A Miniature by Isaac Oliver." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art XIV, no.2, (February 1927) 19-21.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.