Court

"Court" is a general term for the artists who worked at royal and princely courts, painting portraits of monarchs, members of their families, and favoured courtiers. The post of court artist began to take shape in Western Europe as early as the mid-thirteenth century and provided the master with a salary, lodging, a studio, and sometimes noble status, in exchange for a permanent readiness to glorify the ruler and document the life of the court. Such an artist's duties extended beyond portraiture: he might design decorations for ceremonies, costumes, tapestries, coins, banquet settings, and even palace interiors. Among the most celebrated court painters were Hans Holbein the Younger at the court of King Henry VIII of England, Diego Velázquez at the Spanish court of Philip IV, Anthony van Dyck under Charles I of England, and Peter Paul Rubens, who served simultaneously as a diplomat. Portraits made at courts had not only an aesthetic but also a political function—to affirm the power, legitimacy, and grandeur of the ruling dynasty—and so often idealised the sitter according to the strict rules of court etiquette.