Early Stuart Chester as a centre for regional portraiture

ABSTRACT:Scholarship on provincial towns and cities has thus far overlooked their role as centres of painting in the early modern era, leaving the false impression that painting, and art itself, remained the preserve of London. Chester proves a vibrant centre for such activities in the era 1590–1640. This article shows how and why the distinctive characteristics of Chester and its wider hinterland encouraged and shaped its production of portraiture. It also places Chester in the wider context of painting activity in other such provincial centres.