Dictionary of


Art  &  Artist




 

 John Bettes the Elder

 

John Bettes the Elder     


( fl 1545–59; d ?1570).

Painter and wood-engraver. His signed Portrait of a Man in a Black Cap (1545; London, Tate) is painted in the tradition of Hans Holbein the younger and is a major factor in the unresolved debate about what studio, assistants or pupils Holbein had in England. A label on the back, cut from the portrait or from its original frame, reads faict par Johan Bettes Anglois, the ‘Anglois’ probably indicating that it was painted abroad. Three other portraits survive that might be by the same hand, the most likely on stylistic grounds being Sir William Cavendish (Hardwick Hall, Derbys, NT) and Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead (London, N.P.G.).
 

Man in a Black Cap