Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I

by Unknown artist
oil on panel, late 16th - early 17th century (circa 1559)
50 1/8 in. x 39 1/4 in. (1273 mm x 997 mm)
Purchased, 1978
Primary Collection
NPG 5175

Sitter

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Reigned 1558-1603. Sitter associated with 117 portraits.

Artist

Unknown artist. Artist associated with 6491 portraits.

This Portrait

This painting is known as ‘The Coronation portrait’, and shows the Queen crowned, wearing the cloth of gold which she wore at her coronation on 15 January 1559, which had previously been worn by Mary I. She holds the rb and sceptre, symbols of her authority. The portrait appears to have been painted in about 1600, and is probably a copy of a lost original of c.1559.

Linked Publications

Clare Gittings, The National Portrait Gallery Book of Elizabeth I, 2006, p. 8
Cooper, John, Great Britons: The Great Debate, 2002, p. 39
Gittings, Clare, The National Portrait Gallery Book of The Tudors, 2006, p. 20
Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 199
Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, 1997 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 8 November 1996 - 9 February 1997), p. 16
Williamson, David, The National Portrait Gallery's History of the Kings and Queens of England, 1998, p. 101

Subject/Theme

Crowns and tiaras