Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hornebolt, Gerard
HORNEBOLT, or HORNEBAUD, HORENBOUT, HOORENBAULT, HOREBOUT, GERARD (1480?–1540), painter, was born about 1480 at Ghent, of a family which had produced numerous artists since 1414. The earliest notice of him is a payment to him in the communal accounts for the year 1510–11 for a plan of part of the town of Ghent. His chief patron at Ghent was the Abbé Lievin Huguenois of the cathedral church, for whom he executed two pictures—one of the ‘Flagellation,’ and the other of ‘The Deposition from the Cross,’ formerly in the church of St. Bavon—a diptych with the portrait of the abbé adoring the Virgin and Child, lately in the collection of M. C. Onghena at Ghent, by whom it was engraved (see Messager des Sciences Historiques, 1833, p. 16), and the designs for the fine chasuble and cope still preserved in the treasury of St. Bavon, also engraved by Onghena (Kervyn de Volkaersbeke, Eglises de Gand, i. 164). In December 1517 Hornebolt was already married, as appears by a deed preserved at Ghent to which he and his wife, Margaret Svanders, daughter of Derick Svanders and widow of Jan van Heerweghe, were parties. Hornebolt was celebrated as one of the best illuminators of the day, and was largely employed by Margaret of Austria, the regent of the Netherlands, for whom he executed several walls, including a portrait of Christian II of Denmark. He attended her at Bruges, Mechlin, and Antwerp, and it was probably on one of these journeys that Albrecht Dürer met him at Antwerp in 1521, as recorded in Dürer's diary of his journey to the Netherlands. His reputation as an illuminator has led to the identification of Gerard Hornebolt with the ‘Gherardo da Guanto,’ one of the traditional collaborators in the famous breviary of Car dinal Grimani in the Library of St. Mark at Venice (see L'Anonimo da Jacopo Morelli, ed. Frizzoni); but it has been satisfactorily proved that this designation belonged to Gerard David, the famous painter of Bruges (see Ellis and Weale, The Hours of Albert of Brandenburg). Little of Hornebolt's illuminated work can be identified. A small manuscript, lately in private hands at Ghent, is believed to be by him. Gerard Hornebolt came over to England with Luke Hornebolt (see below) about 1528, and was appointed painter to Henry VIII. Payments occur to him in the household accounts, beginning in October 1528, at a rate of 20l. per annum. He died in 1540, as is proved by an entry in the communal accounts at Ghent. His wife died at Fulham, 26 Nov. 1529, and was buried in the church there, where a brass, designed no doubt by her husband, still remains to her memory (see Messager des Sciences Historiques', 1857, p. 233).
Hornebolt, or Hornebaud, Hoorenbault, Lucas (d. 1544), painter, was a near relative of the above. Guicciardini (Descrittione di tutti i Paesi-Bassi) speaks of Gerard's daughter Susanna as his sister when extolling their merits as illuminators. If Guicciardini be correct, Lucas would therefore be Gerard's son, but it is more probable that he was his brother or cousin, for his name occurs in the accounts of the household of Henry VIII in 1528 conjointly with that of Gerard, but in receipt of a larger salary, 33l. 6s. per annum, paid monthly. In one of these entries he is styled ‘pictor-maker.’ In 1531, and again in 1532, he had a license granted him to export four hundred quarters of barley. He was made a denizen by patent 22 June 1534, and was appointed by another patent on the same day to the office of king's painter, with a tenement and piece of ground in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster (see Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 356). In the list of New-year's gifts to the king in 1540 appears ‘by Lewcas, paynter, a skrene to set afore the fyre, standing uppon a fote of wode, and the skrene blew worsted,’ for which in return ‘luke hornebaude, that gave the skryne, received vis. viijd.’ He was without doubt the ‘Meister Lucas’ who taught Hans Holbein [q. v.] the art of miniature-painting. He died in May 1544; an entry of that date in the household books runs: ‘Item, for Lewke Hornebaude, paynter, wagis nihil, quia mortuus.’ In his will, dated 8 Dec. 1543, he leaves one-third of his property to his daughter Jacomina, and the other two-thirds to his wife Margaret, to whom letters of administration were granted on 27 May 1544. He expressed his wish to be buried in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The name of Hornebolt has attached itself to the portrait of Henry VIII, of which various versions exist at Warwick Castle, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and elsewhere, but there is no evidence to support the tradition.
Hornebolt, Susanna (1503–1545), who was daughter of Gerard and Margaret Hornebolt, is mentioned by Dürer as being with her father at Antwerp in 1521. Dürer purchased an illumination of ‘The Saviour’ by her. Guicciardini and Vasari extol her excellence as an illuminator. She came to England with her parents, and married John Parker, yeoman of the robes in the royal household. She is stated in another account to have died at Worcester in 1545 as the wife of a ‘sculptor’ called Worsley. One Worsley is mentioned in the list of the royal household, and she may have married him after Parker's death.
[De Busscher's Peintres et Sculpteurs du Gand; Messager des Sciences Historiques etc. de Belgique, 1833, 1854–7; Woltmann's Life of Holbein; Letts. and Papers Henry VIII, ed. Gairdner; Archæologia, xxxix. 28; Carel van Mander's Vies des Peintres, ed. Hymans; Pinchart's Archives des Arts, Sciences, et Lettres, i. 16; information from Mr. W. H. J. Weale; authorities quoted in the text.]