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Portrait of Princess Elizabeth of England, at around thirteen years old, circa 1546, attributed to Levina Teerlinc.

Levina Teerlinc (born Bruges, ?1510–20; d London, 23 June 1576) was a Flemish miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Teerlinc was the oldest daughter of the Simon Bening (sometimes written as Benninc or Benninck), the renowned illuminator of the Ghent-Bruges school. Bening probably trained his daughter as a manuscript painter. Teerlinc may have worked in her father’s workshop before getting married.

In 1545, she moved with her husband, George Teerlinc of Blankenberge, to England. 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 greater than that paid to Hans Holbein. Later she served as a gentlewoman in the royal households of both Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Her documented works include paintings presented as gifts to the sovereign at the New Year including an image of the Trinity for Mary I in 1553. However, Teerlinc is best known for her pivotal position in the rise of the portrait miniature. There is documentation that she created numerous portraits of Elizabeth I, both individual portraits and portraits of the sovereign with important court figures. She might have trained Nicholas Hilliard, then working as a goldsmith, in the methods of miniature portraiture. Hilliard would go on to be one of the most renowned miniature portraitists of the era.

Sadly most of these works have either not survived or are no longer attributable to Teerlinc. In fact, there are no surviving works that may be definitively attributed to her. A miniature of Lady Catherine Grey, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, has been attributed to Teerlinc but the attribution is not conclusive.

• Levina Teerlinc, Portrait of Lady Katherine Grey, About 1555–60, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum no. P.10-1979 [1]
• Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1549, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum no. P.21-1954 [2]
• Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of Queen Mary I, Collection of the Duke of Buccleuch
• Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of a Young Woman, Collection of H.M. the Queen, Windsor Castle
• Levina Teerlinc?, Portrait of Elizabeth I in State Robes, Collection of Welbeck Abbey

• Women artists

• Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art, and Society, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990.
• Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976.