Queen Elizabeth I
1 portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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.
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.
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Making History: Printed Portraiture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (7 July 2007 - 9 December 2007)
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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