A Space of Their Own

Susanna Horenboult

1503 – ca. 1554

Active in: Belgium and England
Alternate names: Horenbout, Hornebaud, Hoorenbault, Horebout

Biography

Susanna Horenboult was born in Ghent in 1503. She produced illuminated manuscripts and was admired by her contemporaries for her skill as a painter, but no surviving works have been identified. Both her father, Gerard, and her brother, Lucas, were practicing artists during her lifetime, and there is some evidence they shared professional opportunities as a family. In 1521, Albrecht Dürer recorded a meeting with Horenboult and her father in Antwerp. Sometime in the late 1520s, she moved to England, where she married an Englishman, John Parker.

For the rest of her life and career, Horenboult was affiliated with the English Tudor court. This affiliation included several New Year’s gifts for her and her husband from King Henry VIII. Horenboult’s first husband died in 1537 and two years later she married John Gilman. Later that year, she was sent by Henry VIII to accompany Anne of Cleves to England and Horenboult remained in Anne’s service for her reign as queen. She died in England in 1554.

Selected Works

Bibliography

Bachmann, D. G., and S. Piland. Women Artists: An Historical, Contemporary and Feminist Bibliography. Metuchen, 1978.

Campbell, Lorne, and Susan Foister. “Gerard, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout.” Burlington Magazine 128, no. 1003 (1986): 719–27.

Chapman, Caroline. Eighteenth-Century Women Artists: Their Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs. London: Unicorn, 2017.

Gray, Sara. The Dictionary of British Women Artists. Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2009.

Immerzeel, J., and C. H. Immerzeel, eds. De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters, van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden. Amsterdam: Van Kesteren, 1842–43.

James, S. E., and J. S. Franco. “Susanna Horenbout, Levina Teerlinc and the mask of royalty.” Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (2000): 90–125.

Kramm, Christiaan. De levens en werken der Hollanssche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten top op onzen tijd. Amsterdam: Gebroeders Diederichs, 1857–64.

Strunck, Christina. “Hofkünnstlerinnen. Weibliche Karrierestrategien an den Höfen der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Künstlerinnen: Neue Perspektiven auf ein Forschungsfeld der Vormoderne. Edited by Birgit Ulrike Münch, Andreas Tacke, Markwart Herzog, and Sylvia Heudecker, 20–37. Petersberg: Michael Imhoff, 2017.

“Susanna Horenbout.” Oxford Art Online. https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T038946.

“Susanna Horenbout.” RKD. https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/367727.

Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig: Seemann, 1907–50.