ABSTRACT
The Flemish artist Levina Teerlinc (1510/20–1576) was appointed royal paintrix to the court of Henry VIII in 1546 and continued painting miniatures for the Tudor heirs until her death three decades later. Despite Teerlinc’s high profile during her lifetime, her reputation diminished in later centuries. Recent years have seen a sharp rise in scholarly interest in Teerlinc’s artistic legacy, as well as an increased fictional presence. Working from the same limited sources, five novels deploy very different versions of “Levina Teerlinc” for distinct purposes. As with other biographical novels of women artists, these shore up the artist’s role in public memory, making visible another apparently “lost” or “forgotten” female antecedent while simultaneously reflecting contemporary concerns with continued gender inequities.
