Queen Elizabeth I

1 portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Queen Elizabeth I

after Unknown artist
line engraving, circa 1587
6 3/4 in. x 6 3/4 in. (173 mm x 172 mm) plate size; 8 1/8 in. x 8 1/8 in. (205 mm x 206 mm) paper size
Acquired, 1960
Reference Collection
NPG D20951

Sitterback to top

  • Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Reigned 1558-1603. Sitter associated with 138 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Unknown artist, Artist. Artist or producer associated with 6578 portraits.

This portraitback to top

It is likely that this unusual circular portrait of Elizabeth I was engraved by a Netherlandish artist. It was probably produced in Antwerp for a continental market during the period that English troops were fighting against the Spanish in Flanders.

Related worksback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1587back to top

Current affairs

Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots for conspiring to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth signs the death warrant of her cousin with considerable misgivings.
Queen Elizabeth I forces Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to resign his post as Governor-General of the Netherlands.
Sir Francis Drake sacks the Spanish port Cadiz thereby forcing Philip II of Spain to postpone his planned invasion of England by a year.

Art and science

First performance of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great.
The property developer Philip Henslowe builds the Rose Theatre in Southwark, London.
The Protestant reformer John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland is published posthumously.

International

Birth of Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in America. She is granddaughter to John White, the governor of the second colony to be established on Roanoke Island (in present-day North Carolina, USA).
Pope Sixtus V calls for a Catholic crusade against England to depose the Protestant Queen Elizabeth.

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