Images and portraits
This tiny image was painted by Nicholas Hilliard in watercolour on fine calf skin. It shows Elizabeth I before a red curtain background, with her long unbound hair signifying her maidenhood, her virginity. Her necklace of rubies and pearls demonstrate her wealth, while her crown signifies that she is subject to no other worldly power, its arched top identifying it as a 'closed crown' which only emperors were entitled to wear.
This portrait seems a simple likeness of a young Queen. In fact it was painted in about 1600, when Elizabeth was 66. The puzzle is why it is not a realistic portrait and why it celebrates her virginity, emphasising her childless state, the cause of the uncertainty and anxiety surrounding who would inherit the throne.
'The puzzle is why it is not a realistic portrait...'
Today we are so accustomed to photographs of the rich and famous, that it is easy to forget the comparative novelty of image-making at the time of Elizabeth I, and the degree of artifice involved. We assume that a portrait is a likeness, taken from a sitting. But a draft proclamation of 1563 reveals how Elizabeth attempted to control the production of her portrait. 'Some special person that shall be by her allowed' would create a 'pattern' to be copied by licensed painters. The Queen rarely sat for her portrait and most portraits follow a small number of 'patterns'. Nonetheless there were many unauthorised images, and in 1596 the Privy Council ordered public officers to assist in destroying 'unseemly' portraits.
Published: 2001-07-01
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