HILLIARD, Nicholas
(b. 1547, Exeter, d. 1619, London)

Queen Elizabeth I

1592
Oil on canvas, 224 x 169 cm
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

This portrait, called the Hardwick Portrait, was executed by the workshop of Hilliard. It concurs with others of the 'Armada' type, painted after 1588, in which the Queen is characterised by a rigid and hieratic expression and depicted almost as an impersonal image. It is thought that it was Bess of Hardwick (by then Countess of Shrewsbury), who masterminded the design of the embroidery on the Queen's dress, and possibly worked on it herself, intending it to be a spectacular New Year's Day gift to the Queen. It is typical of the extravagant and sometimes bizarre late-Elizabethan style of embroidery which mixed together all manner of motifs taken from the natural world.

This portrait of the Queen was brought from London to Hardwick in 1599.




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