The Petre Family pictures were a collection of portraits and other paintings housed at Ingatestone Hall and Thorndon Hall. [1] The pictures were initially displayed in the long gallery at Ingatestone Hall. By 1600 the displayed paintings included a portrait of William Petre which remains at Ingatestone Hall. At that time it was the only family portrait on display. [2]
By the end of the 18th century, the collection was housed at Thorndon Hall - the Petre's newly built Palladian mansion. The collection included two works by Stubbs showing members of the Petre family hunting. [3]
In 1878, Thorndon Hall was extensively damaged by a fire which destroyed 23 pictures. [4] Lost works included the Petre's large collection of royal portraits and a possible full-length portrait of the Earl of Portland by van Dyck. Many works were damaged, requiring them to have significant repainting. Following the fire, the family (and its picture collection) occupied the East Wing, but later moved to Ingatestone Hall. Among the paintings in the collection at the time of the fire was a version of the family of Sir Thomas More after Holbein that is now owned by the Chelsea Society. [5]
The collection remains on display at Ingatestone Hall and includes a portrait of Sir William Petre and of 15 of his descendants who bore the title Baron Petre. The exceptions are the 5th, 8th, and 15th Barons. [6]
In 1956, Sir David Piper prepared a descriptive catalogue of the family portraits in the collection for the Essex Record Office. [4]
Baron Petre, of Writtle, in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1603 for Sir John Petre. His family has since been associated with the county of Essex. He represented Essex in parliament and served as Lord Lieutenant of Essex. Lord Petre was the son of Sir William Petre, Secretary of State to Henry VIII, Mary I, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Sir William acquired Ingatestone Hall and the surrounding manor from Henry for the full market value after it had been surrendered to the King by Barking Abbey during the Suppression of the Monasteries.
Sir William Petre was Secretary of State to three successive Tudor monarchs, namely Kings Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Mary I. He also deputised for the Secretary of State to Elizabeth I.
Ingatestone is a village and former civil parish in Essex, England, with a population of 5,409 inhabitants according to the 2021 census. Just north lies the village of Fryerning, the two now forming the parish of Ingatestone and Fryerning, in the Borough of Brentwood. Ingatestone lies in the Metropolitan Green Belt 20 miles north-east of London. Its built-up area straddles the A12 trunk road and the Great Eastern Main Railway Line.
John Patrick Lionel Petre, 18th Baron Petre, is a British peer and landowner who was the Lord Lieutenant of Essex, succeeding Robin Neville, 10th Baron Braybrooke in October 2002. He is the 18th Baron of the Petre family, an old recusant family.
Ingatestone Hall is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Essex, England. It is located outside the village of Ingatestone, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) south west of Chelmsford and 25 miles (40 km) north east of London. The house was built by Sir William Petre, and his descendants live in the house to this day. Part of the house is leased out as offices while the current Lord Petre's son and heir apparent lives in a private wing with his family. The Hall formerly housed Tudor monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth I.
John Petre, 1st Baron Petre was an English peer who lived during the Tudor period and early Stuart period. He and his family were recusants — people who adhered to the Roman Catholic faith after the English Reformation. Nevertheless, Lord Petre was appointed to a number of official positions in the county of Essex.
Rowland Lockey was an English painter and goldsmith, and was the son of Leonard Lockey, a crossbow maker of the parish of St Bride's, Fleet Street, London. Lockey was apprenticed to Queen Elizabeth's miniaturist and goldsmith Nicholas Hilliard for eight years beginning Michaelmas 1581 and was made a freeman or master of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths by 1600.
Thorndon Hall is a Georgian Palladian country house within Thorndon Park, Ingrave, Essex, England, approximately two miles south of Brentwood and 25 miles (40 km) from central London.
William Bernard, 12th Baron Petre "a pattern of charity and piety", was an enthusiastic builder of churches. To a greater or lesser extent, he was responsible for new churches in Brentwood, Chipping Ongar, Barking, Romford and Chelmsford and a mortuary chapel in the grounds of Thorndon Hall, as well as twice extending the chapel at Ingatestone Hall, which then served as the parish church for the locality.
William Henry Francis, 11th Baron Petre was an English nobleman, based in Essex. He was the first Baron Petre to take his seat in the House of Lords after the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829.
Robert Edward Petre, 9th Baron Petre was a British peer and prominent member of the English Roman Catholic nobility. He hailed from an extraordinarily affluent family and devoted himself to philanthropic endeavors. Lord Petre played a crucial role in commissioning James Paine to design a new Thorndon Hall as well as a house in Mayfair.
Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre was a renowned horticulturist and a British peer. Petre was responsible in the late 1730s for the layout of the gardens at Worksop Manor in Nottinghamshire. He was also responsible for the first extensive planting of North American trees in Great Britain. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. A Caribbean genus of the verbena family was named for him.
Robert Petre, 7th Baron Petre was a British peer, the son of Thomas Petre, 6th Baron Petre (1633–1706) and his wife Mary Clifton, daughter of Sir Thomas Clifton. He succeeded to his title, at the age of 17, upon the death of his father.
William Petre, 2nd Baron Petre was an English peer and Member of Parliament.
The Lenthall pictures were a number of paintings owned by the Lenthall family and housed at Burford Priory. The collection was publicly commented on by art historians and tourists. It was largely dispersed in two sales in 1808 and 1833, although some works were retained by the family and sold in the late 20th century.
Sir David Towry Piper CBE FSA FRSL was a British museum curator and author. He was director of the National Portrait Gallery 1964–1967, and of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1967–1973; and Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, 1967–1973, and Director of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1973–85 and Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, 1973–1985. He was knighted in 1983.
The Lumley inventories are a group of inventories documenting the extensive collections of paintings, books, sculptures, silver and furniture accumulated by John, 1st Baron Lumley (c.1533–1609). The most celebrated of these, a manuscript volume which incorporates a considerable amount of heraldic and genealogical material as well as the inventory itself, is sometimes known as the "Red Velvet Book", and sometimes simply as "the Lumley Inventory". It is often dated to 1590, although it is in reality a more complex composite volume including material dating from 1586 to 1595. Further inventories were drawn up for purposes of probate on Lord Lumley's death in 1609; and others when parts of the collection were sold in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Sir Thomas Richard Fiennes Barrett-Lennard, 5th Baronet, was a British banker who had served as vice-chairman of Norwich Union and Chairman of the East Anglian Trustee Savings Bank.
Henry William Petre was colonial treasurer of New Munster Province. He was a member of the New Zealand Legislative Council from 31 December 1853 to 6 November 1860, when he was disqualified for absence.
Sir Thomas More and Family is a lost painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, painted circa 1527 and known from a number of surviving copies.