Here is a portrait of Nicholas Carew. It’s an English miniature after Hans Holbein.
It seems as if his eyes are quite uneven. Is this just the slight angle at which he is holding his head, or are his eyes, in fact, uneven?
Most portraits from this period do a very good job of accurately representing the facial proportions, the point of idealizing them, so I would think that this effect is deliberate.
What do you think?
This (incredibly silly-looking) portrait seems to show nothing wrong with Carew’s eyes, for the record.
I’m guessing he was wall-eyed, or more accurately having strabismus (I think). The first painting has him looking at you, and the second is looking away, thus making the strabismus less apparent.
Also, I know people are probably getting sick of my questions about arcane hats, but what’s the deal with his hat in the second pic? It looks like he’s wearing a 16th-century version of a do-rag or bandana underneath the hat. Was this a common thing?
I agree - while the second painting, taken on its own, wouldn’t lead to a conclusion of strabismus, it does (to me) support the first painting, as the eyes are indeed uneven.
Slight asymmetry. None of us are perfectly symmetrical. Her’s is just a little more obvious than others.
I agree that the first painting in the OP, if it is accurate and not simply sloppy craft, demonstrates lateral strabismus (here’s a dog demonstrating the same symptom). Although, asymmetry + mediocre artist also works.
From what I understand (and I’m sure someone will be along in a bit to correct me), there are lots of different causes for lateral strabismus in one eye, some of them bad, some of them neutral. Depending on exactly what is wrong, there may or may not be interference with vision.
Fun time: I was talking with a woman once with one eye that did not seem to be attached to the muscles right. She’d turn away, and then turn back, but that eye would lazily rock to front a good three seconds after her head had stopped turning, then it would over shoot, then gradually settle back. It was amazingly distracting. Sadly, I didn’t have the balls to ask her what her vision is like. Totally regret it.
That’s the only picture of him I’ve seen with an enlarged right eye.
As for what Sir Nicholas was wearing under his hat, that looks to be a coif, which is a little hood or cap which men wore either by itself or under a hat, and women wore under veils. The main point of it was to keep the hair from getting dirty, and to keep hair oils from staining the hat/veil. You can see men wearing coifs (without the hats) in this painting by Holbein.
