Elizabeth I created a standard for portraiture in the Early Modern English age of the artform of portraiture. Remember that the time when the paintings were created was often after death or around specific large events as the creation of anything bigger than a palimpsest book or illustrated biblical pocketbook was a marvel given the distance that the ingredients and materials required to create these works travelled and in the circumstances under which they were created. Portrait miniatures were often instead the primary visual medium at the time, not the grand canvas and tapestry scales many royal portraits took in this time. These were created specifically to conjure an idea of grandeur, majesty and awe. Portrait minatures were successfully launched to England by Levina Teerlinc (c.1510-1576) from illuminated manuscript production under the workshop of her continental Dutch father and prior artists who had dabbled after 1450 in some miniatures. She and Esther Inglis, as well as Thomas Hilliard are widely known as some of the more popular portrait miniaturists of the Elizabethan and Tudor court periods.
Keep in mind that Elizabethan portraiture is heavily edited as the portrait was always after the same Darnley likenesses of around 1560 which is why her portraits appear so similar after this time when she ascended to the throne. They were tools of power and authority to symbolise the literal editing of the historical narrative to one befitting a Gynocentric one from this time on. Feminism in the truest sense of the term. These symbolic tools incorporated Elizabeth widely read usage of European and further afield symbolic allegory of mythology taken from Classical and contemporary sources as Elizabeth herself spoke and read in around 6-9 languages fluently and certainly came into contact with many more, a large number of which are today extinct or obsolete languages.[1]
Some of the artists whom Elizabeth worked with being Hilliard, Cornelis Ketel, Federico Zuccaro or Zuccari, Isaac Oliver, and perhaps Gower and Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Many of these later editions were created with the intent of being shown to foreign powers, including foreign countries/regions and individuals in the earlier period of Elizabeth's reign. Local work for local owners of portraits in the British elites were laid along their long galleries which paid homage to Elizabeth as Queen specifically to curry favour within her royal court, and became fashionable architectural elements of Elizabethan grand manors. This zeitgeist has been referred to as the cult of Gloriana.
The Family of Henry VIII 1545
Not a sole portrait but this gives us the grounding for the type of world into which Elizabeth was born into. When she was first entering the world into which she found herself she was simply the image that was projected before the world for the benefit of her father.
That is she was the progeny of a great man in a world of great men and not regarded by those in charge of enough money to commission portraiture at the time worth much more, particularly in the idea of the formation of the state craft portraiture certainly for the Tudor s that these matters entailed. Here she is shown very simply as a child in their parental charges, albeit as a princess of a second failed marriage which had by then been moved on into the third, which was seen as surpassing both Mary and Elizabeths importance for that of their brother who would go on to die as a child and having left very little impact other than to confirm that he was indeed a 14 year old boy from the get-go.
Instead this is an image which represented for Elizabeth the hell into which she had been born. The dynastic succession disputes created and caused utterly by the rakish whims of her rakish father figure. This also confirms her position within the court circles of painters such as Hans Holbein and the role portraiture conveyed in her life, as well as her familiarity and adoption of painting and portraiture to convey particular roles into the forward motions of court life and states craft.[2]
Lady Elizabeth Tudor 1546
The earliest portraits of Elizabeth were her 1546 portrait as a teenager. At the time she was inbetween the care of her mother and being a ward of the crown due to her father's sinful displays of domination towards her father by cruelly ripping her away from her care and into the hands of her new cardinal, who proceeded to try to fondle her buttocks at the tender age of 14. This was the world Elizabeth was born into and expected to have her entire life dictated by, the whims and wishes of mediocre male mortals.
Instead we can also infer the symbolism inherent in the family lore Elizabeth was positioned between as the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Boleyn was the chaste mother of Elizabeth, who became pregnant after Henry VIII decided to be a little rake that year. He was inbetween his situationship with his current wife, and because he wanted Anne, he decided to make a new state religion and get with his mistress anyway because even the Pope thought he was being too much of a rake for anyone's good. Boleyn in this portraiture is thought to have given her teenage daughter this dress, as it was her favourite colour, and a short while after was sent to the execution block because Henry was back on his rake business because his gout had lead to his spermatozoa becoming infertile, but rather than blame his own failing, disgusting health and habits, he blamed his mistr-wife.
So in her 1546 portrait, we can see the sort of world and decisions that Elizabeth was allowed to make. None. She existed in a power vacuum based on her Rakish father's decisions of the week, leading to the death of her mother and the destruction of her half-sisters relationships, as a state between being the rightful heir and the ungrateful protestant allowed to live in a predominantly, albeit continental, Catholic European hierarchical structure until Henry created Anglicanism. Even by the artists own hand, this was meant to be a portrait which limited excessive ornamentation, therefore focusing the attention away from luxe towards the purity of Elizabeth in youth as a young, plain girl. This of course sounds ridiculous with hindsight, but remember that at this time Elizabeth's mother had just died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time according to the 'Men' around them both, and in making out Elizabeth to be just a plain, garden variety princess this emphasised her unimportant status at the time. In other words, masking her status to protect her from a fate like that of her mother's by attracting 'the wrong kind of attention' beheaded women of the period seemed to find themselves alongside. Instead, the 1546 portrait was meant to say to a viewer 'here is the daughter of an ex-royal, nothing to see here'. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was in grieving for her mother, whom she could not legally speaking mourn in the traditional manner given it was the kings will the women aforementioned be put to death, in a parting gift from her mother whilst balancing the duties of incumbent and non-incumbent royal court duties.
Symbolic objects such as roses or prayer books were included in some of Elizabeth's earliest portraits. Prayer books indicated her love of reading, study and piety, perhaps also an elevated sense of progressiveness associated with allowing a woman to rule at the time, along with the fact that Elizabeth could even read at the time at all. When these things came to be in the sense of roses, these were harkening to the Tudor lineage through the War of Roses succession crisis of the previous centuries. For her medieval audience (remember we are talking about matters of state) her roses would have signified a dual meaning of her lineage and also millefleur tapestries depiction of the Madonna, a significant replacement of the Catholic imagery when these were used in later portraiture.
On this matter of purity and the death of her mother, this was a constant in her early life. To the point that in a statement to her incumbent parliament on the matter of succession, she declared: ‘Assuredly, if my successor were known to the world, I would never esteem my state to be safe.’[5] Death for women was a constant, and in the Henry Tudor realm, they were seen as particularly replaceable objects. In this way, purity becomes a symbol for the matter of which Elizabeth projected out to the world, whilst also following her own follies and differing opinions from that of men. She instead projected herself onto England in a bid to both self-sacrifice and renew the flailing state the country had been left in under the succession crisis and disputes created by her father and some men in the time of her youth to lead her to needing to be a pure, chaste, virgin Queen outwardly, whilst her inwards world was one of books, learning, poetry, mythology, favourites, ladies in waiting, games, warfare, state policy and day to day theatricals.
After this time, this purity of image was perhaps as a coping mechanism maintained by Elizabeth in her portraiture. It is thought she may have requested this matter in the way Hilliard was said to reduce the amount of ornament, falsity and chiaroscuro included in portraits of her through 1560 to 1580 for example. This was held to be such the case that in a Proclamation from 1563 (1563 memorandum), there was a great discussion of Elizabeth's being depicted in 'blacke with a hoode and cornet', a style which held the wearer to be a pious Christian women, as found in the portrait miniature of her be Levina Teerlinc from 1550 for use in a private capacity.. something which by this time with Elizabeths ascendance to the throne and thus increased need for legitimacy to shoulder the Tudor dynasty as only the second female ruler in the Kingdom of England to do so, was an unbefitting image of the Elizabethan queen, instead more suitable for a Tudor princess.
Hilliard was introduced around this timeframe as the apprentice to Elizabeth's jeweller, Robert Brandon, showcasing that there was a general feeling by Elizabeth already at this time of the importance of having creatives around her and encouraging their work. Elizabeth in this way gave money to Protestant and British creatives, such as Hilliard, Brandon and Treelinc during these times to make miniatures, manuscripts, bibles, jewelry, portraits and paintings. She was in this way responsible for some of the overall milieu of the art world in the wake of Shakespeare, goldscraft, embroidery, tapestries and other artforms which sprang up and flourished during her reign.
Hampden portrait 1560
Thus the Hampden portrait was introduced into the fray by the English court painter, George Gower. Here she is depicted in the work as an upright person in colour. She is depicted as wearing the Red rose of the House of Lancaster and a gillyflower. The Rose sits atop a chair, commentating on her link to the royal lineage as a viably legitimate candidate in a time after 2 centuries of instability and random candidates from the leading Platagenet and other branch families of the English royal family. She is firmly stating that the House of Lancaster is where she does her allegiances and heritage towards, rather than perhaps the incredible instability the House of York had held during that century. The Gillyflower may be a reference either to Shakespeare, or to peppercorn rents, which may have indicated to a select few the actual budget allocation a young queen was intending to expend. This was a direct fiscal reaction to her father's lavish expenditures, such as those rakish matters of state as the Agincourt battle of the Field of the Cloth of Gold of 1520, where Henry VIII had a habit of overspending on. In turn however in the use of the Gillyflower, the implied message back from the Queen's barter was that of 'Socage shall be applied', ie, lords may have their lavish spending and the Queen hers on occassion to please the matter of appeasing the general populace and pleasing the aristocratic court, but in return Socage (pledging allegiance to a monarch whose land a feudal lord resided on) must applied in return, as had applied in the time of Edward VI under his Quia Emptores (1290) which dictated that English land cannot be given away willy nilly without the authorisation of proper authorities. In other words, I will be the head of your messy realm, but you will serve absolute allegiance to my authority or else. This was a regular message with implied undertones to a select number of aristocratic elites who may have been planning subterfuge or treasonous activities involving the usage of English land and coffers to do so.
The incredibly expensive carpet she stands atop which may have indicated her trade allegiances at the time as she began the initation in the 1570s (letters travel by boat then) towards the Anglo-Moroccan alliance of her loyalties and interests as a new monarch. Behind her is what appears to be either a tapestry or some kind of collection of fruit, most of which was mostly a brag about how much money and mostly connections she had to be able to afford such luxuries as fresh fruits, mostly as many of these seeds came from places like the New World or the earth of Elizabeth's many great estates. This is mostly signified by what appears to be some kind of tool or anchor (?) in the bottom right which seems to have be related to these fruit varieties most likely. This also makes reference to the peppercorn rents, as peppercorn was used as a bartering system during this time due to frequent famines, but was also an exotic luxury good deemed at the time more valuable than gold as a spice of the East Indies. Thus these items were traded for feudal rights to plough and own land to the crown and other feudal headmen systems.
All in all the Hampden portrait gives the idea that this a general portrait of a new stable queen. The significance of this is that most of the issue surrounding Elizabeth at this time were instability from other family members trying to take the throne. Albeit whilst her 'gloves are off', meaning she will wage war for her throne through her claim in the other hand, she is sitting for a generally human portrait in comparison to later portraiture claimature. This was a theme which was often revisited in the gloves, and which would start a long glove craze in the successive courts of James VI of Scotland in a bid to be even a tenth of the human being Elizabeth was whilst James burnt witches and screwed everything except his wife. In this way for Elizabeth, gloves were a sign of favour which came with the territory of kissing the hand so to speak. She though long fingers, her own in other words, were a sign of elegance and royalty.[4]
Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses 1569
Here Elizabeth begins to use portraiture as part of state crafting and nation building through her knowledge of classical mythology. The portrait here involves the usage of the story of the Judgement of Paris.
"Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. In revenge, she brought a golden apple, inscribed, "To the fairest one," which she threw into the wedding. Three guests, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, after some disputation, agreed to have Paris of Troy choose the fairest one. Paris chose Aphrodite, she having bribed him with the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus. Consequently, Paris carried Helen off to Troy, and the Greeks invaded Troy for Helen's return. Eris' Apple of Discord was thus the instrumental casus belli (or her not being invited to the wedding in the first place) of the Trojan War."
Instead of Paris, a figure whom Elizabeth deliberately depicts herself as thereby inducing the stature and posturing Paris is meant to invoke in a reader, as she would have seen and done so herself.
In the portraiture, she is the one now commanding the 3 goddesses Juno, Venus and Pallas-Minerva who abide by her command at the bottom of a step. This may have started as a sort of self insert fanfiction, however the end result is again, that of states craft. The matter at hand is that of the impending crisis that the Trojan wars depict the fall of Troy, whereas it is said that the portraiture herself is inversed. This was the rather unsubtle matter of saying 'I am in charge, and I will be stable'. The context here is more important the actual Queen staffage itself. The Queen here is shadowed by her predecessor, the first Queen of the realm, Mary I, also known as Bloody Mary for her particularly aggressive and cruel treatment of many of her 'subjects' during her rule. Elizabeth instead beguiles the specter by demanding the respect of her sex given that the previous Catholic monarch had fumbled the bag, earning her successive moniker.
IVNO POTENS SCEPTRIS ET MENTIS ACVMINE PALLAS / ET ROSEO VENERIS FVLGET IN ORE DECVS / ADFVIT ELIZABETH IVNO PERCVLSA REFVGIT OBSVPVIT PALLAS ERVBVITQ VENVS'. Translated as: 'Pallas was keen of brain, Juno was queen of might, / The rosy face of Venus was in beauty shining bright, / Elizabeth then came, And, overwhelmed, Queen Juno took flight: / Pallas was silenced: Venus blushed for shame'.[4]
Indeed the world in this painting is said to be the real world, and the world on the right pure fantasy, with the royal courts insignia part of the everyday Gloriana, and the right the land of fantasy envisaged by the flight of the goddess Venus in her chariot of swans.[4]
After 1570, the queens portraiture became something the English parliaments wished to display a sense of devotion and veneration from her subjects. These were meant to replace the Catholic imagery that had come before it, of Catholic saints, of the Madonna, of the miraculous Virgin birth of Jesus. Each of the prior lose strands of these public yarns about the Queens identity were spun into a tapestry which made up her new place as the head of her fathers Rake decisions. She literally took on the mantle of making the Tudor dynasty work, work Henry had been too busy shagging rosbif to do. For example her day of accession became Accession day (tilts), and just as Queen Elizabeth II started doing her TV appearances, these become fodder for the public imagination of what an 'English queen' got up to in England.
The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession 1572
This is basically a joke from Elizabeth to Francis Walshingham, Elizabeth's master spy.[3] Inside this allegorical satire, the modicum of decency shown in handing the legitimacy to the English throne is shown in the way Henry VIII directs his line of descent through the hand of her kid brother to herself shown in the age in which she was at the time the painting was commissioned by Elizabeth. This was a commentary on stability.
The carpet under which all of these individuals are stood represents the Anglican Church, which was ruled after Henry VIII by only Protestants and Catholics on occasion. Those on the carpet are said to be in Elizabeth's worldview, the rightful heirs by blood to this matter at the time. The Catholic opposition however, displayed on the right is the Spanish ruler Phillip II who had married Mary I who had died 20 years previously. Privately, this was a matter of ridiculing the Catholic supposition to the throne as the Pope was trying to at that very moment excommunicate Elizabeth from the religion. At this time, the fracture of England to Protestantism and Lutheranism, can be seen as whole when it was a matter of personal excommunication of the English queen who had so managed to rule without the problems of Mary. It was in this manner, that Elizabeth was communicating to her medieval and by then state craft image that she was the rightful ruler and had earned her spot in the geo-social-politics of medieval European court drama that established her right to rule.
Behind Philip is Mars, the God of War, implying strife caused by Philip II's rule, at this time in England and later down the line by invoking old tensions in the future. Behind Elizabeth however are the goddesses of Peace and Plenty, a clearcut message to the generals and leaders of Elizabeth mercenaries and armies that at the helm, she would lead England for Englands sake rather than as a personal moneypot which Philip used his lands, titles and possession for, much as occurred with the Philippines in later years, and the legend of the Black death arose around the Old and New World in raised heckle against.[3]
Indeed around the context is where Elizabeth situates herself, placing herself as specifically, in the inscription beneath it all, as 'last of all a Vyrgin Queen to England’s joy we see, Successyvely to hold the right and virtues of the three'.[3] This was most likely created to bolster the Treaty of Blois (1572) which was made to build upon an alliance of England-France versus Spain v Netherlands dynamic in a bid to make the Protestant nations stronger in continental Europe. Her master spy at the time, was the ambassador to France, so this was a cheeky way of saying, 'we shall overcome all odds Philip raises to us' as it was also implied that Philip at the time was in control of the Pope, meaning her excommunication was a personal attack from her brother-in-law who was trying to discredit her legitimacy on the basis now, not of her sex as her father had done, but on the basis of her religion, and in trying to excommunicate her and claiming she was a simply heretyck who would need to be burned at the stake to quell the anger of his omnipotent god. Philip was not a nice person. To top this off, the portrait was made by an exiled Protestant from the Spanish Netherlands.
Hilliard Miniatures
Some of the royal portrait miniatures at this time turned to Hilliard as there was some criticism of not enough royal patronage being spent on British designers and craftspeople, given that Holbein and Treelinc both came from the continent and other designers and craftspeople were often overlooked by more established craftspeople from areas such as Flanders, Antwerp and other established book publishing centres maintained by monks and other writers and manuscript illuminators.
Pelican and Phoenix 1576
During this time, Hilliard began the Pelican and Phoenix portraits. These were both made from the same wood and complemented one another in the way that these images symbolised the birth of the stable England Elizabeth had promised. At the cost of which was to become apparent later on, but the domestic economy of England by that point was more stable under her reign than it had been during the previous tumultuous reigns and wars of the previous rulers of the kingdom of England. Each of the portraits retain their titles from the jewelry worn by the Queen.
The pelican in her piety is a symbol of the medieval period. It was said that the pelican would feed its young with blood from it's own body to nurture the young. This gave the image of a self sacrificing being fostering the talent and future of its young over itself. The pelican pendant has it s wing outstretched and its beak in its breast, given the image of a self-effacing and humble monarch as derived in the lore of the time, an image that Elizabeth was fond of. In this way, it was said that Elizabeth sacrificed some creature comforts as well as her own blood sweat and tears for England.
Large pearls symbolising purity and Artemis, the god of the Moon, are also shown everywhere. Continuing the purity theme, 2 cherries adorned the Queens earlobes, an untouched Virgin reference. Fringing above her head implies the Queendom and the usual Tudor rose runs amock. In this particular portrait, a Flower of Lis gives the impression of her claim to the kingdom of France. Her gown also displays blackwork, a particular embroidery embellishment which showcased her local homegrown artefacts, replete in roses.
The Phoenix portrait is a mirror image copy of the Pelican, symbolising an animal which is rising from the ashes to be reborn anew. It should not be understated that this was most likely the idea of Elizabeth distinguishing her right to rule given mediocrity and other biases which allowed the double standard of men creating things and then cocking them up, whilst not allowing women the same ability, time nor place to do the same. This double portrait by Hilliard implied that here was a grandeur for the double here and is what the author of this blogpost takes to imply in the aftermath of state craft that Elizabeth had come to realize in private, but not to take up in public as it would have ruined her claim to the throne and ability to rule independently and alone as an older woman in particular.
The Phoenix represented for Elizabeth the rebirth of her image and use in society and for the realm. Unlike the Pelican, it was not a humble self-sacrificing emblem, but rather a matter of state craft once again, in that rejection of all that came before her to try something new so as to be able to create the overall immersion of a new England and new type of role model. By this point as quasi-absolute monarch, she decided what direction her fashion, her governments, her realm in other words would go. Slaving, the Protestant and Catholic wars and all of the succession disputes she had to mop up after her father was done were things with which the Phoenix was required as a symbol for. The Pelican on the other hand was invoked as a matter of taking the overall burden of the world into which she had newly birthed. She was as she once said not married to a single man, as she was 'already bound unto a husband which is the Kingdom of England'.[5] Instead Elizabeth used her messed up situation as Virgin Queen to benevolently for its populace move England towards a national state of independence. Her marriage, her womb, her bedchamber were a matter of state. As such, she would never marry foreign princes or even her own native lover. This would have drawn England into war and other men's realpolitik afterall, as Mary I had been done so to under her marriage with Philip II.[6]
Instead Elizabeth rejected this and made herself and England independent of others. We can see this in the way Elizabeth referred to her favourite in allegorical ways, 'Robyn' being Robert Dudley for example.[5] Albeit it that later on in his life, he became tarnished and for a being of state, this was not good enough. Mortal men were too mediocre for royalty, even in 1560. Instead Dudley was made an Earl and tucked into the footnotes of history as another British favourite. Her marriage prospects abroad as well are limited as a royal, and even though she wanted to marry a younger brother of the King of Anjou in 1581, this was called off after it was found out he was Catholic. In sacrificing her love life and giving her body over to the image of state craft and England, she arose from the ashes becoming invested by this time in her portraiture immensely, as one of the creative crafts and 'appropriate' ways she could let her own thoughts be felt.[5]
Gloriana
With the imposition of Gloriana in full swing, it became expected for those who curried favour to wear an image of the Queen's likeness. Usually in the form of a brooch (see the Drake or the Armada jewel).
1580s
By the time the Armada arrived, these had become the cult of Gloriana, with all of the long gallery's, poetry and popular plays of the day (Shakespeare) replete with reference and inference to the ongoings of Elizabethan court creativity.
Emmanuel College charter 1584
Given his position as royal limner Hilliard
By the 1590s, these portraits became stuck in time from the Darnley era and created an emerging age of eternal youth and beauty. An engagement in public relations to the greater political and global British empire that had begun proper under the Elizabethan and Tudor banner.
Purity to rule
Virginity and Purity were also present in a great amount of the symbolism of the works, take for example the naming of Virginia.
Allusions were often made to the moon and pearls for this very matter.
Moon symbolism was often in sway with Diana and Artemis, the Roman and Greek goddess of the Moon and the Hunt.
Portraits
The Family of Henry VIII 1545
The Lady Elizabeth Tudor 1546
Lady Elizabeth 1550
Hampton Portrait 1560
Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses, 1569
The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession 1572
Miniature by Hilliard 1572
Phoenix Portrait 1576
Pelican Portrait 1576
Emmanuel College charter 1584
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