It is my pleasure to report that this portrait which was once labeled “Lady Jane Grey” is now officially “Queen Katherine Parr.”

The Melton Constable Portrait of Katherine Parr

According to Dr. J.S. Edwards, Ph.D. and his website “Some Grey Matter“, this portrait owned by the Lord Hastings and now at Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, is a seventeenth-century copy of a sixteenth-century original formerly in the Royal Collection but lost in the dispersals of 1651-52. The painting was originally held at the seat of the Hasting family in Norfolk, but was moved.

Though long thought to depict Lady Jane Grey, it has recently been relabeled by the National Trust as Katherine Parr.

The “Melton Constable” portrait; courtesy of Dr. Edwards, Ph.D.

Melton Constable (c) National Trust, Seaton Delaval; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Detail of the “Melton Constable” portrait; courtesy of Dr. Edwards, Ph.D.

Detail of the girdle which is similar to that of Queen Jane Seymour’s in her painting by Hans Holbein; courtesy of Dr. Edwards, Ph.D.

You will note that the painting is owned by the Barons Hastings. The 1st Baron was Sir William Hastings, husband to Lady Katherine Neville as her second husband. Lady Jane did not descend from the 1st Baron Hastings, but from his wife’s first marriage to Lord Harrington (Sir William Bonville). However, Parr’s great-grandmother, Lady Alice FitzHugh (Neville), was sister to Lady Katherine Hastings.

For more information, see:

• “Some Grey Matter: The Melton Constable Portrait“
• “Some Grey Matter: The King’s College Portrait” (which further explains the decision to rename the portrait and has more info on these misidentified portraits of “Lady Jane Grey“)
• “BBC — Your Paintings — Queen Catherine Parr (1512-1548)“