Esther Inglis Kello - embroiderer, calligrapher & miniaturist. She made exquisite illuminated manuscripts of religious verses for numerous aristocrats & monarchs. She was born in France, probably at Dieppe.... Her parents, with their infant children, fled from France to England & then to Scotland a few years later.... Her father Nicholas settled at Edinburgh.... Nicholas was granted a pension by James VI for his teaching in Edinburgh. The royal letter mentioned his work forming his pupil's "hands to a perfect shape of letter." Esther was instructed in the art of calligraphy by her mother, & is said by Thomas Hearne to have become nurse to the young Prince Henry. Her patrons included Queen Elizabeth & her ministers, as well as the royal family of Scotland & David Murray. When she was in her 20s, Esther married a minister, Bartholomew Kello of Leith... about 1596. John, Kello, her father-in-law, & her mother-in-law Margaret were long dead by she the time she was born. He had been hanged. She had been murdered.... Esther often did not assume her husband's last name for the purposes of retaining her artistic identity. Upon moving to Scotland & becoming an artist, she anglicized her father's French name to Inglis. Though Esther & her husband were constantly plagued by poverty, their marriage seems to have been a productive one. They had 6 children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood... All but 3 of her books were signed with her maiden name (meaning 'English') in either its French (Langlois) or Scottish (Inglis) form, although in modern libraries her work is usually cataloged under the name Kello. She was an expert calligrapher, writing a variety of hands with equal skill in miniature form. Sometimes the letters were scarcely a millimetre high. She also decorated her books with paintings & drawings, & she often included self-portraits in them... she died in 1624, at 53. Continued at http://bjws.blogspot.nl/2015/09/biography-esther-inglis-kello-1571-1624.html undefined

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