Attributed to Cornelis Ketel

(Gouda 1548-1616 Amsterdam)

Portrait of Sir George Gill of Wyddial Hall, Hertfordshire, three-quarter-length, in armour

Footnotes

Provenance
Private Collection, Germany

From the date and the coat-of-arms the sitter in the present portrait can be identified as George Gill (or Gyll) of Wyddial (before 1565 – 1619) who was an officer in the English army and was on the expedition which sacked Cadiz in 1596, along with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Lord Thomas Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Vere, each of whom commanded a squad.

The coat-of-arms on the painting has been identified by Thomas Woodcock FSA, Garter King of Arms at the College of Arms in London, as follows: the first quarter is Lozengy Argent and Sable a Lion rampant guardant Argent; the second quarter, Argent two chevronels Sable each charged with three Mullets Argent on a Canton Gules a Lion passant gardant Or; the third quarter Argent on a Fess Sable between three Crosses formy Gules three Martlets Or; and the fourth quarter Argent three Bars and in chief three Mulletts Gules. Somewhat unusually the second as well as the first quartering can be identified as those of the Gill family. The third quartering is that of the family of Canon, indicating that the sitter is the descendant of the marriage of John Gill and Margaret, daughter and heir of George Canon of Wyddial in 1508. This couple had four sons, the eldest of whom was George Gill who was recorded as dying in 1568; this George Gill's eldest son was John Gill of Buckland and Wyddial who was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1575. His eldest son, another George, was the sitter in the present picture. Interestingly, the fourth quartering on the portrait seems to be a slight mis-interpretation of the arms of Washington, ancestors of the American President, which are Gules three bars and in chief three Mullets Argent (some of the tinctures have been reversed). There is no surviving evidence either to show that Gill's mother was or was not an heraldic heiress of the Washington family, but there is only one other coat (that of Kempston in Warwickshire) which is remotely similar.

Wyddial Park, formerly the seat of the Gill family, consists of an estate of 1,187 acres close to the village of Wyddial (or Widiall), which is a parish in the hundred of Edwinstree in the county court district of Royston, in the north-east corner of Hertfordshire. This tiny village lies on the pre-Roman Icknield Way, deemed to be the oldest road in Britain, and probably first used in the late stone age. The ancient church of Saint Giles there contains several stained glass windows, including two in the aisle thought to be by a Dutch or Flemish artist of the 17th century, and some monuments and brasses to the Gulston, Gill and Ellis families; there are also brasses commemorating the Gill family which date from 1535-1600.