| Armada Portrait | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Unknown English artist (formerly attributed to George Gower) [1] |
| Year | 1588 |
| Type | Oil on oak panel |
| Location | Woburn Abbey |
The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I of England is the name of any of three surviving versions of an allegorical panel painting depicting the Tudor queen surrounded by symbols of royal majesty against a backdrop representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
The combination of a life-sized portrait of Elizabeth I with a landscape format is "quite unprecedented in her portraiture", [2] although allegorical portraits in this format, such as the Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, a 1572 portrait attributed to Lucas de Heere pre-date the Armada Portrait. [3]
English art in this period was isolated from trends in Catholic Italy, and owed more to Flemish manuscript illumination and heraldic representation than to Renaissance ideas of unity in time and space in art. The 'Armada Portrait' is no exception: the chair to the right is viewed from two different angles, as are the tables on the left, and the background shows two different stages in the defeat of the Armada. [2] In the background view on the left, English fireships drift towards the Spanish fleet, and on the right the Spanish ships are driven onto a rocky coast amid stormy seas by the "Protestant Wind". On a secondary level, these images show Elizabeth turning her back on storm and darkness while sunlight shines where she gazes, iconography that would be repeated in Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger's 1592 "Ditchley" portrait of the queen. [2]
The queen's hand rests on a globe below a crown (probably not the state crown), [4] "her fingers covering the Americas, indicating England's [command of the seas] and [dreams of establishing colonies] in the New World". [5] [6] The queen is flanked by two columns behind, probably a reference to the famous impresa of Charles V, Philip II's father, which represented the Pillars of Hercules. [7] The composition was painted following the greatest threats to Elizabeth's power, therefore this portrait aimed to reinforce her position as a capable female monarch [8] .
Art historians Andrew Belsey and Catherine Belsey have pointed out the striking geometry of the painting, with the repeating patterns of circles and arches described by the crown, the globe, and the sleeves, ruff, and gown worn by the queen. [6] They also contrast the figure of the Virgin Queen wearing the large pearl symbolizing chastity suspended from her bodice in front of her groin, it is also representative of Cynthia (Artemis), Greek Godess of the moon and Virgin [9] . They are further contrasted to the mermaid carved on the chair of state, which they claim either represent female wiles luring sailors to their doom, or that the mermaid symbolises the executed Queen Mary. Elizabeth is facing away from the mermaid, possibly indicating that their conspiracies and Mary's execution have been put behind by Elizabeth. The crown also symbolises the English monarchy. [6]
The chains of pearls in the portrait may represent the pearls which Elizabeth had bought from the collection of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1568, or further a reference to her mother Anne Boylen. [10]
There are three surviving versions of the portrait, in addition to several derivative portraits:
The first two portraits were formerly attributed to Elizabeth's Serjeant Painter George Gower, but curators at the National Portrait Gallery now believe that all three versions were created in separate workshops, and assign the attributions to "an unknown English artist". [1]
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last monarch of the House of Tudor.
Hans Eworth was a Flemish painter active in England in the mid-16th century. Along with other exiled Flemings, he made a career in Tudor London, painting allegorical images as well as portraits of the gentry and nobility. About 40 paintings are now attributed to Eworth, among them portraits of Mary I and Elizabeth I. Eworth also executed decorative commissions for Elizabeth's Office of the Revels in the early 1570s.
Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. It was built near the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London and is now in the London borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The Queen's House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a place to display artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.
Nicholas Hilliard was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, up to about 10 inches tall, and at least two famous half-length panel portraits of Elizabeth. He enjoyed continuing success as an artist, and continuing financial troubles, for forty-five years. His paintings still exemplify the visual image of Elizabethan England, very different from that of most of Europe in the late sixteenth century. Technically he was very conservative by European standards, but his paintings are superbly executed and have a freshness and charm that has ensured his continuing reputation as "the central artistic figure of the Elizabethan age, the only English painter whose work reflects, in its delicate microcosm, the world of Shakespeare's earlier plays."
Cornelius Johnson or Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen was an English painter of portraits of Dutch or Flemish parentage. He was active in England, from at least 1618 to 1643, when he moved to Middelburg in the Netherlands to escape the English Civil War. Between 1646 and 1652 he lived in Amsterdam, before settling in Utrecht, where he died.
Marcus Gheeraerts was a Flemish artist working at the Tudor court, described as "the most important artist of quality to work in England in large-scale between Eworth and van Dyck" He was brought to England as a child by his father Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, also a painter. He became a fashionable portraitist in the last decade of the reign of Elizabeth I under the patronage of her champion and pageant-master Sir Henry Lee. He introduced a new aesthetic in English court painting that captured the essence of a sitter through close observation. He became a favorite portraitist of James I's queen Anne of Denmark, but fell out of fashion in the late 1610s.
A zibellino, flea-fur or fur tippet is a women's fashion accessory popular in the later 15th and 16th centuries. A zibellino, from the Italian word for "sable", is the pelt of a sable or marten worn draped at the neck or hanging at the waist, or carried in the hand. The plural is zibellini. Some zibellini were fitted with faces and paws of goldsmith's work with jeweled eyes and pearl earrings, while unadorned furs were also fashionable.
George Gower was an English portrait painter who became Serjeant Painter to Queen Elizabeth I in 1581.
The artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth I of England has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction. The entries represent portrayals that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering rather than a complete catalogue.
WilliamScrots was a painter of the Tudor court and an exponent of the Mannerist style of painting in the Netherlands.
Sir William Segar was a portrait painter and officer of arms to the court of Elizabeth I of England; he became Garter King of Arms under James I.
Quentin Metsys the Younger was a Flemish Renaissance painter, one of several of his countrymen active as artists of the Tudor court in the reign of Elizabeth I of England. He was the son of Flemish painter Jan Massys, Matsys, or Metsys and the grandson and namesake of Quentin Massys or Metsys.
Robert Peake the Elder was an English painter active in the later part of Elizabeth I's reign and for most of the reign of James I. In 1604, he was appointed picture maker to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry; and in 1607, serjeant-painter to King James I – a post he shared with John De Critz.
Philip II of Spain has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries, as the most powerful ruler in the Europe of his day, and subsequently a central figure in the "Black Legend" of Spanish power. The following list covers representations of him in drama, opera, film, novels, and verse. A small selection of the many artistic portrayals of Philip is shown in gallery form.
The portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) spans the evolution of English royal portraits in the early modern period (1400/1500-1800), from the earliest representations of simple likenesses to the later complex imagery used to convey the power and aspirations of the state, as well as of the monarch at its head.
Tarnya Cooper is an art historian and author who is currently the National Trust's Curatorial & Collections Director.
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The Bacton Altar Cloth is a 16th-century garment that is considered the sole surviving dress of Queen Elizabeth I. The cloth, embroidered in an elaborate floral design and made of cloth of silver, is an important relic of Tudor fashion and luxury trade, containing dyes from as far away as India and Mexico. It was rediscovered in 2015 at St Faith's Church in Bacton, Herefordshire, where it had been used as an altar cloth for centuries. After several years of conservation and restoration, the garment was exhibited to the public in 2019 and 2020 along with the Rainbow Portrait, in which the queen is depicted wearing a highly similar dress.
The Pelican Portrait is an oil painting of Elizabeth I of England on a wood panel, named for the pelican pendant shown on Elizabeth's breast. It is generally attributed to Nicholas Hilliard, on the basis of a scientific study and similarities to his other work.