Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lockey, Rowland
LOCKEY, ROWLAND (fl. 1590–1610), painter, was a pupil of Nicholas Hilliard, and resided in Fleet Street, London. He is commended, together with Isaac Oliver [q. v.], by Richard Haydock (fl. 1605) [q. v.], in the preface to his translation of Lomazzo's ‘Art of Painting,’ 1598, and he is mentioned by Francis Meres in his ‘Wit's Commonwealth,’ 1598, among the eminent artists then living in England. He is stated to have painted ‘a neat piece in oil, containing in one table the picture of Sir John More, a judge of the king's bench temp. Henry VIII, and of his wife, and of Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, his son and his wife, and of all the lineal heirs male descended from them, together with each man's wife unto that present year’ (see Nichols, History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 490). This description corresponds very nearly to the group of the family of Sir Thomas More attributed to Holbein, formerly in the collection of Speaker Lenthall, and now in that of Mr. Strickland at Cokethorpe in Oxfordshire; a small copy of this group in water-colours, attributed to Isaac Oliver, is in the collection of Major-general Sotheby (Tudor Exhibition, 1890, No. 1087). A portrait of Dr. John King, bishop of London, formerly in the collection of Dr. Rawlinson, and engraved by Simon van de Passe, is stated on the engraving to have been painted by Nicholas Lockey, ‘Nicolas Lockey pinx. et fieri curavit.’ As the word ‘pinxit’ seems a later addition to the inscription, it may possibly have been painted by Rowland Lockey, and engraved under the direction of Nicholas Lockey.
[Authorities cited in the text.]