Rebecca Omer, Nee De Critz

I love an epitaph

And if it's in verse that's even better.



This ledger stone lies in the church of St Michael and All Angels, Offham, Kent. I read the text quickly, thought it interesting, took a picture and went home to search the web and find out as much as I could about the people it memorializes.

So...

Rebecca Omer was the youngest daughter (by his third wife) of the court painter John de Critz. She was born in London in around 1630 and so was in her early thirties when she died. Her husband, the Kentish gentleman Laurence Omer- who was seven years younger than her- had died in 1662. Frances de Critz, her elder sister, died in 1660. The daughter who is buried with her was called Mary. The son she left to the care of "friends and Providence" was called Charles.

The de Critzs were an artistic dynasty. John de Critz the elder, Rebecca's father, had fifteen children- at least five of whom became painters. John was born in 1651-2 and, came to England as a boy to escape religious persecution in the Spanish Netherlands. His father, Troilus de Critz, was a goldsmith. His reputation was established by the 1680s, he attracted the patronage of Elizabeth I's "spymaster", Francis Walsingham and was praised in verse by Francis Meres. He painted portraits of numerous Elizabethan worthies, including Philip Sidney, Henry Cecil and the Earl of Southhampton- and in 1603 was appointed Sergeant Painter to James I- with duties that ranged from painting and reproducing royal portraits to freshening up the paintwork on the royal barge. He died in 1642, aged 90 or thereabouts- and is buried in St Martin in the Fields.

Rebecca Omer must have had an interesting childhood- living on the fringes of the Jacobean court- in an atmosphere of turpentine and linseed oil...

I can't find what she died of. The writer of her epitaph suggests it was grief at the loss of her husband.

Here, anyway, is what he/she has to say in full. I've kept the spelling but inserted some punctation. The verse is awkward but colourful. I think "cold coverled" is rather good.

HERE LYES BURYED MTS REBECCA OMER, DAUGHTER OF IOHN DE CRITZ OF LOND ESQR, WHO WAS WIFE & WIDOW OF LAURENCE OMER OF STAPLE IN KENT, GENT, BY WHOM SHE HAD TWO CHILDREN- WHEREOF ONE LYES BURIED HERE WTH HER, THE OTHER SURVIUETH. SHE DYED DECEMBR THE 16 ANNO DOM 1663.

HIER LYES ALSOE WTH HER FRANCES DECRITZ SISTER TO THE SAID REBECCA OMER

HERE'S WIFE & MOTHER NOW AT REST
WITH HUSBAND ONCE & CHILDREN BLEST.
HE SLEPT AND SHE DID SIGH & WEEP
SOE SORE FOR HIM SHE FELL A SLEEP.
DAUGHTER & SISTER TOO'S IN BED
HERE UNDER THIS COLD COVERLED,
BUT SON SHE'S LEFT SINCE SHE'S GON HENCE
THE CARE OF FREINDS & PROVIDENS.

READER I COULD TELL A STORY
OF HER GREIF & OF HER GLORY
BUT ALLS HUSHT, TILL HIS POWERFULL CHARME
WHOSE TRUMP SHALL SOUND YE WORLDS ALARME
WHEN GOE THY WAYES & HENCE PREPARE
TO MEET (WTH HER) THE LORD I'TH'AYRE"

THESAL YE 4TH 16 & 17 VERS

A Dynasty Of Painters

Painting was the De Critz family business. All six sons followed in their father's footsteps. And the daughters probably painted too- or at least made themselves handy in the workshop. Two of John the elder's sisters married into the Gheerhaerts family, thus linking two artistic dynasties.

John the elder is the best documented member of the family. His surviving work consists entirely of portraits, though we know he also painted mythologies- some of which may still be knocking about in country houses and provincial galleries attributed to Anon. As a portrait painter his figures are stiff and flat- in the approved Elizabethan manner- but the faces are lively- and he wouldn't have been in such high demand if he hadn't been able to capture a likeness. There are many versions of his portrait of James I and VI, most of them probably produced in the workshop. They vary in quality. This one, in the National Gallery of Scotland, is of the finest and may be the original stock image- painted from life- and the source of all the copies




The De Critzs rarely signed their work- and none of them developed the kind of distinct artistic personality that would have made them stand out from their contemporaries. Therefore most attributions to members of the family are guesswork. John the younger succeeded his father as Sergeant Painter to the King- and was therefore a man of some importance- but his oeuvre has been swallowed up in his father's- and we have nothing that can certainly be attributed to him. The two Johns died in the same year, the father in the course of nature and the son by violence while serving the king in the Civil War.

Emmanuel de Critz, the 6th child, was described by felloe artist Robert Walker as the finest portrait painter in London. He is generally supposed to have been responsible for this very peculiar double portrait in which a troubled older husband seems to be drawing our attention to his wife's pregnancy.



The most accomplished member of the dynasty was Thomas (1607-53)- John's 5th child. He certainly painted the ceiling in the double-cube room at Wilton House- which is a confident exercise in baroque history painting- and one of the few de Critz works that is not a portrait- and is also credited with a series of very fine portraits of the family of the antiquary and gardener John Tradescant the younger, including this of Hester Tradescant and her stepson



and this of John Tradescant leaning on his spade....



Finally, here is the only portrait I'm aware of that shows an actual de Critz. This is Oliver, John's eldest child by his third wife Grace Plames- and full brother to Rebecca- whose ledger stone got me started down this track. The intensity of the gaze suggests that it's a self-portrait.