Humorously, the Rich family motto, which translates as ‘I would rather be rich than be called so’ has been inscribed upon the portrait. Seemingly Edwin was particularly conscious about the temporary nature of life and was concerned about his legacy; indeed, the inscription on his monument at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Mulbarton reads:

“Our Lyef is like an Hower Glasse, and our Riches are like Sand in it…

Thetfoord gave me Breath, & Norwich breeding, Trinity College in Cambridge, Learning, Lincolne's Inne, did teach me Law and Equity, Reports I have made in the Courts of Chancery.

And now I have travell'd thro'all these Ways, Here I conclude the Story of my Days; And here my Rymes I end, then ask no more, Here lies Sir Edwyn Rich, who lov'd the Poor.”[1]

Our portrait was almost certainly commissioned to commemorate the engagement between Edwin and the twice-widowed Jane Suckling (c.1595 – 1662), who he married on 2nd September 1629 at St Mary Woolnoth in London.[2] Jane had inherited multiple properties in her previous marriages, so in marrying her Edwin Rich added the manors of Roos Hall and Ashman's Hall in Suffolk to his Norfolk estates. As they married later in life, the couple did not have any children, so Rich's estates passed to his remaining brothers, firstly Richard Rich and, after his death in 1676, to Charles Rich (c.1619 – 1677).

In this portrait Edwin, who was still based in Lincoln’s Inn in London, wears a fashionable black doublet, which has a distinctive swirled pattern and slashed sleeves – costume consistent with a well-heeled noble involved in the law. His hair is carefully coiffed, and a slightly upturned moustache is likely modelled on the king’s facial hair. A diamond ring has been tied to his collar strings, which clearly references his engagement to Jane Suckling. It is very likely that a pendant portrait of Jane formerly accompanied this painting, however they were likely separated when they left the family’s possession.

~

Cornelius Johnson was the British-born son of Dutch émigrés in London, though his great-grandfather haled from Cologne. In 1622, when he married Elizabeth Beck (or Beek), herself from a Dutch migrant family based in Colchester, he was living in the London parish of St Ann, Blackfriars. Blackfriars was popular with immigrant craftsmen of many different trades, because it was outside the jurisdiction of the guilds of the City of London. Johnson would therefore have been part of a mutually supportive incomer community there. Throughout the 1620s, Johnson was clearly extremely busy, producing portraits for an increasingly important client base. He must have begun to run a workshop, with assistants, although we know nothing about how this operated.[3]

On 5 December 1632 Johnson was appointed Charles I’s ‘servant in ye quality of Picture Drawer’, and the king seems to predominantly used Johnson to make small-scale royal portraits, either on wooden panel or in his speciality medium, oil on copper, occasionally even including miniature copies after Van Dyck’s images. Indeed, earlier the same year, Anthony van Dyck had arrived in London and had begun to work for Charles I, who had knighted him on 5 July, and had appointed him ‘principalle Paynter in Ordinary to their Majesties’. As Charles’s official painter, van Dyck was, of course, expected to settle there. However socially and professionally ambitious Johnson may have been, the overwhelming success of Van Dyck must have presented him with a considerable challenge. Indeed, later in the 1630s, Johnson can sometimes be seen discreetly adopting and adapting van Dyckian compositions and postures in his own work.

Van Dyck died in December 1641, which should have re-opened opportunities for the artists in London whom he had elbowed aside. However, the political situation was deteriorating, and the King and Court left London early in 1642. In October 1643 Johnson and his family emigrated to the northern Netherlands, where his career had a second blossoming, as a leading portrait painter until his death in Utrecht in 1661. Twelve people carried his coffin, indicating his final wealth and status.

[1] Edwin was, as his monument suggests, a proud local benefactor who left money and land for a charity to benefit the poor of Mulbarton; Rich's charity still benefits the local populace.

[2] Jane Reeve was the daughter of John Reeve of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. She first married Charles Hawkins of London, but after his death she married the widower Sir John Suckling (1569 – 1627).

[3] In January 1625, Johnson took on John Evoms.as an apprentice, and in April 1638 another (unnamed) apprentice joined him. According to George Vertue, Johnson’s nephew Theodore Roussel worked with him for nine years; see Hearn 2015, pp. 17, 18, 45.