Style Imitating Art | Katherine Parr by Unknown Artist

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Marsha chose this week’s artwork. She has been intrigued by the stories about Henry VIII and his six wives ever since she watched the PBS special The Six Wives of Henry VIII in 1970. Although she has always favored Anne Boleyn of all the wives, Marsha is also impressed by Katherine Parr’s character. So in honor of Katherine, Marsha has chosen a beautiful portrait of her as our outfit inspiration for this round.

The Artwork

Katherine Parr by Unknown Artist

About the Artist: Unknown (or possibly William Scrots)

Although the artist is unknown, there is speculation that William Scrots painted this particular portrait of Katherine Parr. Scrots was a Mannerist artist of the Tudor Court from 1537 to 1553. He was first appointed in 1537 as a court artist to Mary of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. In 1546, he was appointed King’s Painter to Henry VIII and earned a substantial annual salary of £62 10s, more than double his predecessor. Scrots continued in his role as King’s Painter for Edward VI until Edward’s death in 1553.

Little is known of Scrots after this point although it is presumed he left England after Edward’s death.

About the Art: Portrait of Katherine Parr

The National Portrait Gallery dates this portrait of Katherine Parr to the late 16th century and Wikimedia Commons dates it circa 1545 with the possibility that it was painted by William Scrots.

The painting is oil on panel and measures 25 inches (63.5 cm) in height by 20 inches (50.8 cm) in width. It was purchased in 1968 by The National Portrait Gallery with assistance from the Art Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, H.M. Government, and Gooden & Fox Ltd. The painting remains in their primary collection located at St Martin’s Place in London, England.

A bit about the subject of the painting…

Katherine Parr (sometimes spelled Catherine) was the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII of England. She was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 12, 1543 (the day she married Henry), until his death on January 28, 1547. Katherine outlived Henry by one year and eight months and was the final queen consort of the House of Tudor. She was also the first woman to publish an original work in England in the English language using her own name.

Having been married four times, Katherine is also the most married queen consort in England’s history. She first married Sir Edward Burgh, son of Edward Burgh, 2nd Baron Burgh, in 1529, when she was 17 years old. He was in his 20s and most likely already suffering from ailing health. He died in 1533 leaving 21 year old Katherine a widow.

In the summer of 1534, Katherine married her second husband, John Neville, 3rd Baron Latimer, who was her father’s second cousin. He had two previous marriages and was almost twice her age. This marriage made Katherine the second woman in the Parr family who would marry into the peerage.

In 1543, Katherine married Henry VIII and would become the first of his wives to hold the title of Queen of Ireland following his adoption of the title King of Ireland in 1542. She was Henry’s sixth wife and the third wife to have the name Catherine. To distinguish herself from the others, she signed her name as Kateryn.

Katherine and Henry shared numerous royal and noble ancestors making them cousins in multiple ways. Shortly before Henry died, he made provisions for Katherine with an annual allowance of £7,000 and an order that she be granted the same respect as if she were still the Queen of England. When Henry’s son (Katherine’s stepson), Edward VI took the thrown on January 31, 1547, Katherine retired from court where she reunited with an old love, Thomas Seymour, who was the new king’s uncle and would soon be named 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. When he renewed his pursuit of marriage, Katherine quickly accepted. However, Henry had only been dead for four months which would have created a scandal so Katherine and Thomas were married in secret at the end of May 1547.

At the age of 35, Katherine became pregnant for the first time having never conceived during her first three marriages. On August 30, 1548, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Mary Seymour. Less than a week later, on September 5, 1548, Katherine died from “childbed fever”, a common illness caused by lack of hygiene during childbirth. Katherine’s funeral on September 7, 1548, was the first Protestant funeral conducted in English.

On March 20, 1549, less than six months after Katherine’s death, Thomas Seymour was beheaded for treason and their daughter Mary was taken to live with Katherine’s close friend, Katherine Brandon, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk. The last mention of Mary Seymour in historical documents is on her second birthday. Although stories have circulated that Mary eventually married and had children of her own, most historians believe that she likely died during childhood.

Obviously, there is tons of literature about Katherine Parr so I am going to leave off here. You can do your own research if you want to learn more. I have always found the history of royal families to be so intriguing.

Resources/References:

• National Portrait Gallery: Katherine Parr
• Wikipedia: Catherine Parr
• Wikimedia Commons: Catherine Parr

About My Outfit

As I am typing this on the morning of June 1, 2025, the current real feel temperature outside is 37˚F (2.8˚C), making it perfectly suitable to still wear sweaters, leggings, and boots. I actually wore this outfit for three consecutive days during the week before Marsha announced her choice of artwork for this round.

I had laundered it all and placed the sweater poncho on top of a pile of clothing waiting to be put away and then I didn’t think much about it after that. In fact, when I drafted the art announcement post last week, I had no idea how I was going to style an outfit inspired by this portrait. So I ended that post with these words…”May the closet magic work its magic!”

Immediately after finishing that post, I went into my closet room to brainstorm outfit ideas for this challenge when my eye immediately went to the folded up poncho sweater. Literally everything about it resembled Katherine’s dress from the color palette to the black vertical stripe going straight down the front. The closet magic really did work its magic! 

Since I had worn the outfit for three consecutive days, I decided to wear it exactly as I had before with this old sweater poncho over a long sleeved black tee shirt and black leggings with my white cowgirl boots, a burgundy paisley scarf, my black straw boater hat, my horn necklace, and feather earrings. By sheer coincidence, much of it represented different details from the painting. The scarf for Katherine’s collar, the beads on my necklace for her pearls, my feather earrings for the feather in her hat. The only thing I added specifically for this challenge are the stacks of beaded and pearl bracelets just because I wanted more pearls. I also wore a very old (I think I have had it since high school) bracelet with a garnet gemstone to represent the red jeweled pendant around Katherine’s neck.

This outfit is very me which is probably fairly obvious since I wore it for three days in a row! However, it would be really superb if we could get some warm weather over here so I can put the sweaters and leggings away for a month or two.

For photographs, we drove all through the cemetery looking for a headstone with the name Parr. We found a Parry and my leg handled the rest!

I hope you all enjoyed this round of Style Imitating Art. Be sure to check out how Marsha and Salazar have styled their outfits inspired by this portrait of Katherine Parr. If you want to play along and create your own art inspired outfit, please submit your photos to Marsha (mlrbanks57@gmail.com) by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, and she will feature your outfit in her style gallery on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Until then, happy styling! 

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

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