King John

DPG521-536 (and possibly After De Critz DPG384), one of sixteen or seventeen portraits surviving from a set of twenty-six assembled by Edward Alleyn in four batches from 1618 to 1620. These may well have been acquired, like Alleyn's similar set of Sibyls (British School DPG537-45), from 'Mr Gibkyn'. The images of the earlier Kings (from William Rufus to Henry IV) seem to be taken from the engravings of R. Elstrack in H. Holland's 'Baziliwlogia, a Booke of Kings', 1618.