Rare portrait of aged Queen Elizabeth I authenticated
A painting of Queen Elizabeth I that portrays her in all her aging glory hasrecently been authenticated as in now on display at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. This version of Elizabeth eschews the alabaster smooth skin and preternaturally youthful look that characterize her portraits long after the bloom of her youth had faded. She has deep wrinkles, bags under eyes, a greyish skin tone underneath the blobs of blush.
She’s dignified and majestic in her posture and attire, but that wouldn’t have garnered the painter any favor with the queen. Realism was not her thing, and she started exerting control of her image from early in her reign. She was 30 years old and had been queen for just four years when she issued a Royal Proclamation in 1563 regulating the production of portraits. According to this proclamation, the Queen would approve one portrait of herself which would then be distributed to other painters to use as a template. That was fine when production was limited, but demand increased after Elizabeth’s excommunication in 1570 inspired a wave of patriotism. Displaying the portrait of Elizabeth was a way for everyone to declare support of queen and country.
The next decade would see war with Spain and the defeat of the Spanish Armada which engendered even greater peaks of patriotic fervor and even greater demand for images of the queen. It became impossible for all the portraits in circulation to be pre-approved. In 1596, the Privy Council took action against this state of affairs, ordering officers “to aid the Queen’s Sergeant Painter in seeking out unseemly portraits which were to her ‘great offence’ and therefore to be defaced and no more portraits to be produced except as approved by [the] Sergeant Painter.” Many paintings of Elizabeth were seized and burned.
One of the portraits to survive the conflagration, the 1592 Ditchley Portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, is one of the few surviving images of the queen which allows some small indications of her age. The newly revealed portrait has key elements in common with the Ditchley Portrait. The position and posture are the same, as are the hair jewels, necklace and lace collar. The faces are also similar, only one of them looks like she chose … poorly in that cave where the ancient crusader knight was guarding the Holy Grail.
The oil on panel portrait was purchased by Ruth Coltrane Cannon, founding member of the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, for $3,000 from a New York art dealer in the 1950s. If Mrs. Cannon or the dealer knew anything about its history, they left no evidence of it. She donated it to the Elizabeth Gardens, a botanical garden dedicated to the first British settlements in the New World founded by Sir Walter Raleigh during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. When the Gardens opened on August 18, 1960, the portrait of Elizabeth was hanging on the Gatehouse wall where it greeted visitors for 50 years.
The Gardens staff didn’t try to find out more about the painting until 2007. With growing scholarly interest in the portrait, in 2010 it was removed for conservation and then moved out of the Gatehouse permanently to a more secure, climate-controlled location. The materials in the paint and the wood panel and frame date it to the Elizabethan period. Experts now think it may have originated in the London studio of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger in the mid 1590s, although who commissioned it and which hand painted it remain unknown.
I wonder if it was a student piece. It doesn’t look complete to me. The lace on the collar, the relatively plain dress, that giant heart-shaped thing behind her are much sketchier in the Elizabeth Gardens portrait. The Ditchley Portrait was a popular model and several versions of it were made by the Gheeraerts studio. One iteration with an idealized younger face, simpler background and slightly different accessories was sent to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, as an official diplomatic gift. It’s now in the Palazzo Pitti. Perhaps the Elizabeth Gardens version was a scrapped incomplete attempt which somehow got out into the world.
With its age confirmed, the portrait has left North Caroline for the first time in more than 50 years and is stepping into the national spotlight. It will feature on an upcoming episode of Treasure Detectives, a new appraisal and authentication program debuting on CNBC Tuesday, March 5th, at 9:00 PM. You can see it live at the Folger’s Nobility and Newcomers in Renaissance Ireland exhibit which examines the relationship between England and Ireland in the age of Shakespeare. It runs through May 19th.
Old portrait of an aging Queen Elizabeth I gets a second look.
A rare portrait from 1593 of Queen Elizabeth I is on display at The Museum of the Albemarle in North Carolina. This overlooked gem hung without notice for over 50 years in the Elizabethan Gardens Gatehouse on Roanoke Island at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Many walked past the portrait without giving it a second thought. Professor Larry Tise from East Carolina University “discovered” the portrait in 2008.
After a very detailed analysis by historians, curators and restorers, it was discovered that the portrait and frame materials indeed were from the Elizabethan era. It was also discovered that the wood from the frame originated from the materials set aside solely for royal portraits of this time period. The painting dates to 1593 and was possibly produced by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, who was a well-known painter during the Tudor period. Those who researched the painting came to this conclusion after viewing how similar this Elizabeth I portrait was to the Gheeraerts Elizabeth I (Ditchley portrait) that is hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
One may wonder why this portrait is special. Also, why is it so important to North Carolina of all places? Firstly, the portrait is unique since it is painted in a rather unflattering way. Unlike paintings one has seen of Elizabeth I in her youthful exuberance, this painting shows an aged and wrinkled Queen. Perhaps, this is the reason it was overlooked for over five decades.
Sir Walter Raleigh, the reason perhaps for the portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in North Carolina.
So why North Carolina you may be thinking. The simple answer would be: Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina. If one recalls from history class, from 1584-1587, Sir Walter Raleigh put for the funds for the exploration to Roanoke Island which is present day Outer Banks.
On 25 March 1584 according to the North Carolina History Project online, Queen Elizabeth I gave Raleigh the approval to “discover, search, find out, and view such remote heathen and barbarous Lands, Countries, and territories….to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy.” Although Raleigh did not partake on the journeys, with HM approval he funded and sanctioned them. Some historians say Raleigh caught the Queen’s fancy and favour, others disagree. Whatever the story may be, the Museum of the Albemarle certainly holds a unique treasure from the Elizabethan Age.
photo credit: Stifts- och landsbiblioteket i Skara via photopin cc- See more at: http://www.royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/old-portrait-of-an-aging-queen-elizabeth-i-gets-a-second-look-17640?fb_source=pubv1#sthash.ZLwdNi40.dpuf
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