Queen Elizabeth I
1 portrait on display in Room 2 at the National Portrait Gallery
- Tudor and Jacobean Portraits Database
Queen Elizabeth I
by Unknown continental artist
oil on panel, circa 1575
44 1
Queen Elizabeth I
1 portrait on display in Room 2 at the National Portrait Gallery
- Tudor and Jacobean Portraits Database
Queen Elizabeth I
by Unknown continental artist
oil on panel, circa 1575
44 1/2 in. x 31 in. (1130 mm x 787 mm)
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Key findings: This portrait is the work of a highly skilled continental artist and was probably produced directly following a drawing from the life.
The portrait was purchased by the Gallery from the Earl of Darnley in 1925 and was previously in the earls collection at Cobham Hall, Kent. It was possibly painted for William Brooke, Lord Cobham (1527-97), Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, whose son forfeited his estates for his part in the Maine Plot of 1603, which meant that Cobham passed to the Dukes of Richmond and Lennox. It then descended via the Baroness Clifton to John Bligh, 1st Earl of Darnley (1687-1728).
The portrait is probably the source of a face pattern of the queen which was in use throughout the 1580s and into the 1590s. The pattern was reused in conjunction with different arrangements of dress and jewels, and could be turned to the right or left. No other face pattern of the queen was so widely disseminated, indicating the success of this composition. Strong argued that as the finest example of this face mask it ought perhaps to be the pattern portrait from which all the unending repetitions stem (Strong, 1969, p. 102). It would seem highly probable that this portrait was produced directly following a drawing from the life. The energetic and spontaneous underdrawn lines used to mark out the body indicate a search for a suitable composition and do not follow a pattern. The features of the face are carefully delineated and would appear to be transferred following a drawing from the life.
Notes on likely authorship and justification
Strong attributed the portrait to Federico Zuccaro, who visited England in 1575 and is known to have drawn the queen, on the grounds that a sitting by the Queen to an eminent Italian painter cannot have been other than a major event designed to produce a pattern image (Strong, 1987, p. 87). However, stylistically it appears more Northern in character. It therefore appears to be by a very highly skilled continental artist, who has yet to be identified.
Commentary on painting style, technique
The painting techniques display the artists knowledge and skill in manipulating oil paint to a very high level. The fan and the pendant jewel were painted at a