Sir Henry Unton
- Artist: Richard Scarlett (Skarlett)
- Date: 1596-1606
- Medium: oil on panel
- Dimensions: 29 1/8 in. x 64 1/4 in. (740 mm x 1632 mm)
- Portrays: King Henry IV, Dorothy, Lady Shirley (née Wroughton, formerly Unton), Sir Henry Unton, Anne Dudley (née Seymour), Countess of Warwick
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
In this painting, the central portrait of Sir Henry Unton sits in a bright rectangle of light, framed by two allegorical figures—Fame on the left and Death on the right—whose gestures frame his life story. Around his figure, ten small scenes unfold in an anti‑clockwise flow: first we see the young boy cradled by his mother, then he studies at Oriel College in Oxford; later he travels across the Alps to Venice and Padua; then as a soldier with the Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries; next as ambassador to Henry IV in France, where a cameo jewel displays the French king himself. Afterward we catch his deathbed, a ship crossing the Channel, and a funeral procession that moves from his house at Wadley through the streets to Faringdon Church, where his monument with a kneeling widow appears.
The painting was made on panel, between 1596 and 1606, by Richard Scarlett (Skarlett), who may have been a heraldic painter. His wife Dorothy Wroughton ordered this “story picture” in her 1634 will, so the work is both a memorial and an illustrated biography of a soldier‑diplomat who served Elizabeth I abroad and died at France’s court.
See it in person
Sir Henry Unton is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
