A Summer Portrait of Elizabeth I

A Summer Portrait of Elizabeth IBy Venetia Hughes

There is a stunning portrait, set outdoors, dating from around 1560-70, of a young woman who looks of very high status, wearing a lot of jewellery and a lavish black and white dress. It resides in the National Portrait Gallery and both the artist and the subject are unknown, although the portrait has formally been thought to depict Mary Queen of Scots. It has since been decided that it simply does not resemble Mary at all, as the lady’s features are not like Mary’s in the well known portraits of her. This past identification was based on a coat of arms that once hung from the tree, and the initials MR which were edged onto the sculpting of a pillar on the pendant (to which had been added another device of Mary’s, that of a crown.) These were all later additions which were removed during a conservation in 1975. The good condition of portraits from this period seems to be paramount to the paintings’ successful interpretation- because as conservation has revealed, there can be later additions in the form of over painting. This portrait, which was transferred from panel to canvas in the nineteenth-century, has unfortunately suffered more than most.

The subject may simply be of a noblewoman, a Lady or a Duchess, however when one looks at the portrait closely, symbols of power and very familiar facial features stand out far too strongly. In fact, the portrait is surely far more likely to be of Mary’s English cousin Queen Elizabeth I. For a start, note the reddish gold hair colour, (styled like in many of Elizabeth’s portraits) the infamous slight bump on the nose, and recognisably shaped eyes- easily compared to firstly the Coronation portrait of

1559, which shows Elizabeth in her gold coronation robes, with orb and sceptre, her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders. The Tudors were proud of their gold hair trait that was part of the Royal gene going back centuries. A miniature of Elizabeth, from 1560-65, also looks very similar in appearance to the unknown portrait. Like the Coronation portrait, both have the pale oval Tudor face, red lips, large eyes, golden hair and aquiline nose. There are contemporary accounts of Elizabeth having striking dark eyes but it was fashionable at the time to use a potion to enlarge the pupils. Elizabeth is depicted as having blue eyes in a number of miniatures, similar to the blue eyes in the unknown portrait. The unknown lady also has an oval face, and Elizabeth was described at her coronation as having a pale oval face, golden hair and piercing golden eyes. It may be that she did indeed have a golden eye colour that looked blue or green in a certain light and artists would have picked up on that.Nicolas Hilliard of course painted the famous miniature from 1572 in which Elizabeth appears to have blue eyes. Miniatures were personal items and would almost definitely have been painted from real life, with the sitter present. Confirming Elizabeth’s status as Queen of England in this miniature are the red and white roses in her hair, red for Lancaster, white for York, combining to make the Tudor rose. Although there are no red roses in our portrait in question, the lady does wear very lavish clothes and jewellery and Elizabeth in the miniature wears a long chain like gold necklace, which looks similar to the many gold chain necklaces the unknown lady wears.

Portraits from the early period of Elizabeth’s reign are in fact quite rare in comparison to the many powerful portraits that were produced twenty years later.The Hampden portrait of 1563 is another early portrait of Elizabeth, when she was about thirty, and this is very comparable also to the Portrait of a Lady, our unknown painting. For Elizabeth wears a satin red and white gown and holds gloves and a red rose. This dress is very similar in style to the black and white gown the lady wears and interestingly both dresses have what appear to be white roses attached at the top of the sleeves, contrasting against the red lips which stand out dramatically in the unknown portrait. However, if one looks closely, the white roses on the unknown lady's dress are actually white bits of material pulled through slits. Elizabeth of course actually wears a white rose on her shoulder in the 1572 miniature. However, on the unknown lady they still look like budding white roses, so perhaps it would not matter how exactly this effect was achieved.

It is quite telling that in this unknown early portrait, the goddess Venus is shown with Cupid on the top pendant the lady is wearing, and the fact that the painting as a whole, what with the romantic draping of the tree in the foreground and the peaceful expression on the lady’s face, resembles the 1486 portrait of the Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli, where the tree is on the other side of the main subject who has emerged from the sea, fully grown and shown to be both divine and earthly. Elizabeth was often compared to Venus, Goddess of Love, by her contemporaries due to her beauty and her many suitors- Queen of Hearts you might say. Of course, in the portrait of Elizabeth and the Three Goddesses she triumphs over Venus, Pallas, and Juna with her sheer majesty, suggesting that she incorporates all three of the Goddesses’ qualities. The lavish jewellery in the unknown portrait should be noted; interestingly the lady is wearing, as pendants, what seem to be open up timepieces with Greek columns and a wheel of fortune on the front.  The National Portrait Gallery recently consulted jewellery

and watch experts about this jewellery but the consensus was that they are not watch cases of any kind. However, Venus is shown along with classical columns on the pendants. Cecil even commissioned a Venus fountain at his home at Theobalds surrounded by roses to both represent and impress the queen! Robert Dudley commissioned a portrait of Elizabeth for her visit to Kenilworth in 1575 where she stands in front of a classical column. Furthermore, there is still a chance that the artist is depicting the jewellery as timepieces after all, they certainly appear to be so at first glance. Elizabeth owned twelve watches in total; wore them as pendants and even had a watch ring. Watches, as early as this however, were known to be quite inaccurate but within the hour! The dress the young lady wears in our mysterious portrait is similar to Elizabeth’s style and she is known to have had a great liking in wearing black and white. Since Tudor portraits are full of symbolism, it could be said that the black and white styling may loosely resemble the Protestant colours of black and white. Elizabeth of course had returned the country back to the previously established Protestant Church of England, following her sister Mary I’s somewhat disastrous Catholic reign.

If this portrait is of Elizabeth, and painted in 1560, then she would have only been twenty seven here and a year and a half into her reign. By all accounts the portrait is of a summer scene and appears peaceful and somewhat celebratory. Elizabeth’s summer of 1560 has been described as ‘glorious’ it was a hot summer and there was much to celebrate as in July, William Cecil (Elizabeth’s chief advisor) had managed to secure the Treaty of Edinburgh which meant that the French had agreed to withdraw from Scotland and under the name of Mary Queen of Scots, would renounce all claims to the English throne. In essence, they were finally recognising Elizabeth as Queen of England. At the start of the reign, one of the priorities was to secure the return of Calais, taken from the English in Mary I’s reign, and this was now looking more a possibility.The one problem in calling our mysterious portrait a depiction of Elizabeth is that there are some small mountains in the background, not very English looking, and of course Elizabeth never went abroad. However, the portrait could be of Elizabeth in a Romantic, or fictitious setting and the castle and mountains in the background look very similar to an early Tudor portrait of Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII at Calais in the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Could the portrait be making the political statement of symbolising what was rightfully Elizabeth’s? The peaceful depiction being the ideal outcome in Elizabeth being recognised as Queen by Catholic rivals.

Elizabeth was adverse to the idea of war and prioritised maintaining peace in England. One could easily imagine that this portrait, with its summery peaceful setting, symbolises this. All of Elizabeth’s palaces, primarily Greenwich, Whitehall, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Richmond Court, had beautiful gardens, orchards, and parks. For instance, Whitehall had a garden that was heavily scented with herbs and flowers with many tall wooden columns rising from a mini maze, and flags bearing the Queen’s arms. At the centre there was sundial ‘showing the hour in thirty different ways’. Nonsuch Palace garden was described (in 1599) as like an ‘earthly paradise’ and although Elizabeth did not re-regain this once royal palace until 1592 she enjoyed visiting it regularly and it is recorded that she hunted in its lavish park and was excessively entertained there while on progress in 1559. Greenwich was a riverside palace while Windsor Castle had a few changes made to its medieval structure. Elizabeth added a long indoor gallery onto her apartments that

looked over her privy garden so that she could enjoy the greenery and take walks even in bad weather. Windsor Castle can also be seen in the Three Goddesses portrait in the background. It is painted in a similar whimsical romantic style to the background in our unknown portrait of Elizabeth which has a river and indeed a castle beyond.

Having a person painted in their finery with a palace or castle in the background is making a powerful statement about who they are- it symbolises Renaissance power, wealth and influence. The more beautiful the portrait is, the more power it portrays. Elizabeth was driven to dress extravagantly and wore luminous make up to make her look like a semi goddess. She made sure her coronation was as decadent as possible. Her court was theatrical and her yearly Accession Day celebrations, to celebrate the day she became Queen, were excessive and merry. As her reign progressed her portraits became more glamorous, theatrical and striking. In the 16th century beauty was power and vice versa. Elizabeth knew this was one of the ways she could intimidate her enemies and consolidate her position was Queen of England. This was especially important after having been accused as a Protestant heretic and consequently being imprisoned in the formidable Tower of London by her own Catholic sister Mary in 1554. She was kept there for three months and then put under house arrest for a year at the Royal Manor of Woodstock. Although she did not like Woodstock Palace or the Tower as they brought back bad memories (she rarely stayed at either place) she returned to the Tower as part of the traditional Coronation progression, where the guards there would now recognise her triumph as their new Queen.

Our rather glorious portrait could be representing Elizabeth’s availability for marriage, often gloves in 16th century paintings would represent marriage, and she is holding them here and indeed in a many other of her well known portraits. However, she never did marry although she had many suitors and would set up marriage negotiations with the likes of the Archduke Charles, Phillip II, Prince Eric XIV of Sweden, and later Francis, Duke of Anjou. The latter whom she met face to face and was even quite taken with him. She was often pressured by her advisors, Council and Parliament to choose a husband and marry and many a time she would undercut this with, for the time, provocative statements such as that she ‘would rather be a beggarwoman and single than married to the greatest monarch’. Even if she wanted to rule alone, and thereby be both King and Queen, she had to be seen in making an effort to achieve marriage and secure the succession.The painter of this early portrait would also have expected Elizabeth to marry, and very quickly at that, which may explain why she is painted in such a ‘romantic’ idealist way with marriage symbols (such as the gloves) so as to make the young Queen seem as appealing as possible to potential suitors. Kings, as history has shown, selected spouses on the basis (and trust) of portraits, and Elizabeth, in the eyes of her contemporaries, would not have been an exception to this, thus she also was shown the portraits of the foreign suitors that she had not met. However, Elizabeth would often use delaying tactics, and there would be many obstacles. Elizabeth’s glorious victory of becoming Queen and the promise of a better life for her people was undermined by not only threats to Elizabeth’s throne but also pressure from her own advisors to marry foreign princely suitors that may not have England’s best interests at heart. Even if such a marriage would create a powerful alliance and produce an heir, England would surely lose its identity and autonomy.

Marrying a subject would be an unpopular choice among her people, although she had her favourites; such as Robert Dudley, her Master of Horse and later the Earl of Leicester, whom she was close to and enjoyed having him by her side, especially while on progress during the summer. Like in the portrait, she enjoyed walking and riding her horses in the palace parks. Robert Dudley once wrote to Cecil that ‘as oft as the weather serves, she hath not been in doors’.

It is very tempting to think that our unknown portrait is indeed an inspired, almost whimsical, summer portrayal of Elizabeth with underlying political symbolism. It surely raises many questions. What would it imply if this portrait really is in fact Elizabeth I? She indeed had a very successful reign, consolidating the Church of England which means even now that England still has religious independence from Rome. She even managed to win the respect of the despising Pope in 1588 when she inspired her troops to defeat the powerful Spain’s invading Spanish Armada. Of course, this peaceful portrait would be depicting her at the start of her reign when she deliberately chose to be tolerant to her English people who remained Catholic, stating that “she had no desire to make windows into men’s souls”. Her Act of Uniformity confirmed that England was now officially Protestant though Catholics could keep their private beliefs. Of course, this peaceful and surprisingly modern attitude would become complicated as the reign progressed due to uprisings, Rome’s ‘excommunication’ of 1570 and factors beyond Elizabeth’s control. However, the portrait could still represent the whole reign (1558-1603) for modern viewers as it was because of Elizabeth that generally England was now in a Golden Age. It became an age of exploration and I may go as far to say that our portrait may well be hinting at the subject of adventure, after all Elizabeth is not standing in a secluded pretty garden but in the great outdoors with a very rugged looking landscape, complete with the castle behind her, beyond a river.It was two of Elizabeth’s favourites, Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, who would discover the New World by sailing to the Americas and who would bring back tales of its primitive inhabitants and introduce England to some of its exotic foods. More importantly, it hailed the start of the British Empire, with the first colonies established in America, Virginia of course being named after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. In painting such a portrait at the start of Elizabeth’s reign, the artist may well have foreseen the great leadership qualities and potential the young queen had in making England prosperous and golden.

Bibliography

Elizabeth the Queen- (1998) Alison WeirElizabeth and Leicester- (2007) Sarah GristwoodElizabeth R- (1971) Roy Strong, Julia Travelyan OmanMemoirs of Sir James MelvilleLondon’s Lost Jewels- (2013) Hazel ForsythElizabeth’s Bedfellows-(2013)Anna Whitelock

The Hampden Portrait of Elizabeth I (1563) attributed to Steven van Herwijk

Miniature portrait of Elizabeth I (circ. 1560-65) Attributed to Levina Teerlinc or Nicholas Hilliard

Elizabeth I at her Coronation (1559)

Elizabeth and The Three Goddesses (1569) by Hans Eworth

The Birth of Venus (1486)