Product Details

Original collagraph print by Sarah Godfrey

Unframed Paper Size Approx: 56 x 76cm (22 x 29.9 inches)

Unframed Image Size Approx: 42 x 58.5cm (16.5 x 23 inches)

Framed Size Approx (Oak, Black, White, Putty with mount frame options): 61.8 x 78.3cm (24.3 x 30.8 inches)

Framed Size Approx (Gilded aged black with mount frame option): 69.6 x 86.1cm (27.4 x 33.9 inches)

Date of Artwork: 2025

FRAME CHOICES: Oak with mount, Putty wood with mount, White wood with mount, Black wood with mount, Gilded aged black with mount

Please note: Our framers are recognised by the Fine Art Trade Guild for their quality because the custom frames have tightly pinned corners, and are made from precision cut wood in England, made bespoke for each order. All our frames are glazed with our Clarity+ Perspex. It's cut from the highest quality acrylic sheet that's both crystal clear, but also safe and filters out 99% of UV light to protect the artwork.
Read more about our FRAMING WORKSHOP here

THE PORTRAIT

Sarah Godfrey has placed Anne Boleyn within an entwining pattern of Tudor roses, taken from the detail carved into a lute that belonged to Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn holds a miniature bejewelled ship which she gave to Henry VIII as a New Year's gift. It symbolised her willingness to embark on a journey of marriage with him, despite the potential challenges. The ship with a droplet diamond and a maiden on the bow, holding a lantern, shows Anne’s acceptance of Henry's proposal and her readiness to face the "rough seas" ahead. This gift, sent during their courtship, is seen as a key moment in their relationship, marking a turning point in English history.

STORY

Exploring the women of the Tudor court and their contemporaries, Sarah Godfrey has created a very special collection of the most beautifully delicate works. 

Listen carefully, and a lute can almost be heard, carried in on the wind, through the leaded windows of Swarthmoor Hall, where we photographed the collection. 

Detail from Elizabeth I (Indigo)

The portraits include Tudor queens and 16th and 17th century women whose images and stories have been passed down through history. During her research, Sarah visited the Portland Collection at Welbeck Abbey and its astonishing Tudor and Jacobean portraits.

She also explored Hardwick Hall, a place she has visited since childhood, to explore the Nicholas Hilliard painting of Queen Elizabeth I, and to Hatfield House to see the famous Rainbow Portrait in which Elizabeth holds a rainbow with the inscription “Non sine sole iris”, “No rainbow without the sun”, reminding viewers only the Queen’s wisdom can ensure peace and prosperity.

Sarah Godfrey studied at the Norwich School of Art and followed with a postgraduate course in illustration at Central St Martin’s College of Art in London. During her time in London, Sarah says she ‘almost lived in the museums and galleries’, and it was at the Victoria & Albert Museum where she was most influenced.  Mesmerised by the layers of stories woven through the objects on display: tapestries, clothing, shoes, gloves, stitches. She saw all of these as ‘marks’ to be explored and worked with through her printmaking processes. 

Deeply rooted in historical research, many experiences and experimentations have led to this new Portrait Collection. From a childhood exploring Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, where her father worked on the estate, to opening a ‘non toxic’ print studio on the Welbeck Abbey Estate in Nottinghamshire, which is home to the magnificent Portland Collection of Tudor portraits.  Sarah was greatly influenced by her time as artist-in-residence at Burton Agnes Hall in East Yorkshire. She lived and worked in this rare Elizabethan manor house for several months, exploring its intricate plasterwork ceilings, lavish furnishings, the wooden panelling and sensory gardens - as well as the stories of the ghosts that lived there too.

Reflecting the layers of time that have passed and the multiple narratives which have developed about these women, Sarah uses layer upon layer of materials to bring these portraits to life.  Selecting from her box of treasures, Sarah chooses materials, collected over a lifetime, to use in the creation of her collagraph plates which burst with energy and give the sitter a startling presence.

Collagraphs are an intricate, labour-intensive process which is central to Sarah Godfrey’s practice. The deeply intuitive and personal process of creating a collagraph allows Sarah to achieve the lightness of an etching with the deep layers of a painting to achieve rich depictions of textiles and jewellery. 

These unique, one off pieces start life as a drawing which is used as a template to transfer onto a collagraph plate, making sure it is reversed. A collage of materials of different textures are built up onto the plate, understanding that some elements will absorb the ink, while others will resist it.  Understanding this duality and working in reverse is astonishing, a leap of faith in the hands of a skilled artist. Sarah may work on one of the collagraph plates for another piece, adding to the plate, inking it in a new way and, for some pieces, working into it with gold paint.

A magpie collector of materials, anything can be used in one of Sarah Godrey’s collagraphs. Pressed flowers, leaves, lace, textiles, seeds, sweet wrappers, plaster, grit, sequins, beads, stickers, tissue, tape, stamps, wool, thread - the list goes on. These materials are then scrunched, folded, layered, ripped, scuffed, scraped, incised, hammered, hit, torn, and stuck onto the plate ready for inking.

Inking the plate itself is another intuitive yet decisive process. All the textures hold the ink in different ways and deciding where to place the ink and in what opacity is another leap into the unknown. It is this rich depth of texture, from fully saturated colours to the faintest line, that creates these complex and ancient-looking works. 

When the plates are inked and ready to be printed, Sarah soaks the paper to ensure the fibres within it plump up like a sponge to soak up the ink. Held between layers of two soft wool blankets, the damp paper is pressed against the collagraph plate in an etching press, using the traditional intaglio technique. The ink is absorbed by the paper and drawn into the fibres, becoming like material, embossed by the collagraph plates and reflecting the textiles and paintings that originally inspired the works. 

The portraits have such a presence; some faces look out with a sense of their own agency, others with melancholy or hope. These are images from history made afresh in a delicate yet explosive way. Sarah has created textures and patterns that are reminiscent of old maps and bank notes. Placed within a background of patterns and symbols, these faces seem embroidered, embossed, ensnared into history - like a coat of arms that has entwined them. 

The process of Sarah Godfrey’s collagraph making and printing reflects the way we record and revisit history and the people and players from the past. In the printing process, areas are removed; faces added to, reprinted, assessed, adjusted. It is a constant process of revision, of forward and backwards. Like a changing reflection in a mirror, the challenge is to catch it at just the right fleeting moment. 

This is not an easy thing to do and comes with the skills and bravery of an artist who has spent decades printmaking, teaching and experimenting. It is not a process for the faint-hearted. Whilst these works seem delicate, the approach has to be robust and decisive - imagining an image then witnessing it emerge from the press is an exciting process. 

The results are truly beautiful and create works that feel like textiles or ancient crumbling walls painted with heraldic portraits. Like a rubbing, taken from an ancient carving with the faces almost disappearing into mist.

The delicacy of line work is just beautiful, with the tissue paper-like impressions of rings once worn and the frills of the cuffs. Details are everywhere; look closely and you’ll see that Queen Elizabeth’s collar is made from huge horse chestnut leaves and Bess is surrounded by an Elizabethan knot garden and heraldic stags.