Painting in Britain, 1500–1630 is a collection of studies of Tudor and early Stuart painting—with a focus on its most representative genre, the portrait—presented in twenty-four exceptionally well-illustrated essays. Tarnya Cooper and fellow editors Aviva Bunstock, Maurice Howard, and Edward Town bring together scholars in the fields of art history and conservation to provide a “holistic” (105) approach to picture dating, attribution, authorship, patronage, and audience. The volume benefits from extensive new data gathered from the technical analysis of over a hundred portraits in the National Portrait Gallery and smaller collections, research conducted for the project Making Art in Tudor Britain, jointly run by the National Portrait Gallery, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the University of Sussex between 2007 and 2014. Each essay has a thorough bibliography that provides a summary of the literature and up-to-date reference material for experts and nonexperts.

Following Cooper and Howard's comprehensive introduction, the book is organized into three main sections: material practice, painters and their workshops, and patronage, market, and audiences.

Part one deals with the making of paintings in Tudor and early Stuart Britain through a consideration of material practice grounded in technical analysis. Some essays focus on specific techniques, adding to our knowledge of dating, pictorial practices and materials. Ian Tyers discusses dendrochronology, Rachel Billinge deals with infrared reflectography, and Klaas Jan van den Berg et al. examine pictorial stratigraphy and the composition of binding media. A broader use of technical analysis is made by M. L. Sauerberg in her discussion of the conservation and restoration of Tudor and Jacobean portraits of Elizabeth I.

A recurring comparison between native and Netherlandish painting practice informs several contributions in the volume. Libby Sheldon explores the question of pigments in native and Anglo-Netherlandish painting, while Sophie Plender discusses the correspondence between the results of technical analysis on canvases, underdrawings, pigments, and so on, and the assertions made in British and Netherlandish painting treatises of the time. With the help of four case studies (Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, John de Critz, Robert Peake, and William Larkin), Caroline Rae employs technical analysis to understand the extent to which the Netherlandish manner had been absorbed in Britain by the end of the sixteenth century.

Part two focuses on Tudor and Jacobean painters and their workshops, paying attention to the interweaving practices of native and foreign artists, and to additional genres beside the portrait. Following Susan Foister's analysis of the similarities and differences between the practice of native British painters and émigré artists from the Netherlands and Germany, several contributions reassess existing evidence on individual British and foreign painters. Victoria Button studies the technique and practical function of Holbein's portrait drawings, while Cooper and Hope Walker consider the art of Hans Eworth in Antwerp and London, casting light on technique and attributions, on the basis of new technical evidence. Nicholas Hilliard's limning methods—from his notion of ad vivum to his application of line and shadow—are the focus of Katherine Coombs' and Alan Derbyshire's essay. In light of new technical data, Catharine MacLeod redresses previous knowledge of Robert Peake's authorship.

The importance of workshops, companies and corporations in London and the provinces does not go unnoticed. Lucy J. Wrapson looks at early workshop practice of pre- and post-Reformation rood screens in the East Anglian region; Edward Town's essay is concerned with the status, working methods, and production of the Painter-Stainers' Company; and Elizabeth Goldring's illuminates the function and market of heraldic painting produced by the College of Arms and the Painters-Stainers' Company.

While helpfully anticipating part three, some contributions in part two focus on changes in style in relation to patronage both in Britain and abroad. Anita Jansen and Johanneke Verhave consider English patronage in the Netherlands, and, more specifically, Michiel van Mierevelt's portraits of Sir Dudley Carleton and his wife. Karen Hearn analyzes the paintings on canvas and panel produced in Jacobean and early Caroline England by Dutch and Flemish émigré artists and English-born painters trained in the Netherlands, while David Taylor provides new insight into the influence of portrait practice from the Low Countries and England in Jacobean Scotland.

Part three provides fresh perspectives on patronage, market, and audience in the context of Tudor and early Stuart gentry and aristocratic culture in London and the provinces. With an eye to court and royal circles, Charlotte Bolland focuses on the anonymous 1546 portrait of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, to discuss the native and foreign sources and fashions which provided inspiration to patrons and artists, while Frederick Hepburn reassesses the companion portraits of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York produced in the late 1480s, in relation to the European tradition of royal portraiture. Catherine Daunt's study considers the growing interest of the provincial gentry and nobility in companion portraits of famous men and women (heroes, worthies, and royalty). Robert Tittler studies changes in regional practices and links between painters and patrons in the provinces. Susan Bracken's essay concludes the volume, discussing the development and evolving tastes of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English collectors.

A great merit of this impressive book is its ability to benefit a variety of readers. While it will be an essential work for art historians and conservators of Tudor and early Stuart British art, its findings are also of interest and importance to scholars from other disciplines, such as cultural and intellectual history and literary studies. The volume illuminates how Tudor and Jacobean painting practice was shaped by international trade in materials and skills, the ways in which visual culture reflected and was reflected in society, and the development and importance of cultural exchange between Britain, Germany, and the Low Countries.