Background
Teerlinc may have worked in her father’s workshop before her marriage.
Teerlinc may have worked in her father’s workshop before her marriage.
Teerlinc was the second eldest of five sisters, the children of Simon Bening (sometimes written as Benninc or Benninck), the renowned illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges school. She then served as the royal painter to Henry VIII, whose royal painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, had recently died. Her annuity for this position was £40 - rather more than Holbein had been paid.
Later she served as a gentlewoman in the royal households of both Mary I and Elizabeth I.