Nicholas Lyzarde

Nicholas Lyzarde or Lizard (died April 1571) was an English sergeant-painter.

Biography

Lyzarde served as painter to the court in the time of Henry VIII, and as second painter under Anthony Toto to Edward VI and Mary. He attended the funeral of Edward VI.^[1]

His work at Somerset House in 1553 included "painting and trimming" the ceiling of the withdrawing chamber.^[2] Mary appointed him as a Sergeant Painter, with a fee of £10 a year levied on the customs.

In 1556 Lyzarde presented the queen as a New Year's Day gift "a table painted with a maundy."^[3][4] He decorated and gilded fountains at Greenwich Palace and Windsor Castle. The Windsor fountain included a dragon, with a giffin, a hart and a greyhound holding the royal heraldic badges, and the arms of England and Spain were displayed on the top of the structure. Some of the stonework was painted "lead colour" to match the plumbing.^[5]

Lyzarde worked on the decorations at Westminster Abbey for the funeral of Queen Mary and may have painted the effigy used at the ceremony.^[6] He continued to work for Elizabeth I, and in 1558 presented her on New Year's Day "a table painted of the history of Ashuerus," receiving a gilt cruse (a kind of cup) in return.

Lyzarde died in April 1571, and was buried on 5 April in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. In his will, dated 14 February 1571, he mentions five sons and four daughters, and also his wife Margaret.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cust, Lionel Henry (1893). "Lyzarde, Nicholas". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

1. Archaeologia, vol. 12, p. 391.
2. Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 253.
3. David Loades, Mary Tudor, A Life (Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 363–365: John Nichols, Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Antient Times in England (London, 1797), pp. 8–9
4. Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547-1625', Walpole Society Volume, 76 (2014), p. 131.
5. Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 108: Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (London: HMSO, 1975), p. 312.
6. Sarah Duncan, Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England's First Queen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 173: Philip Lindley, 'Mary Tudor', Anthony Harvey & Richard Mortimer, The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey (Boydell, 1994), p. 55.