Taken from Face to Face Newsletter Issue 33,
Summer 2010 In
2007 the
National Portrait Gallery began a major research project,
Making Art
in Tudor Britain, with the aim
of using scientific analysis and art-historical research to find out
more about
the Tudor and Jacobean collections. Now in its fourth year, the project,
led by
16th Century Curator Tarnya Cooper, has already proved to be very
successful
and a number of important discoveries have been made. A display focused
on
research undertaken on four portraits of Queen Elizabeth I. It provides
an
opportunity for visitors to see these very different portraits of the
queen,
three of which are not usually on display, and to learn about the recent
findings.
Queen Elizabeth I
by Unknown artist
early 17th century with 18th century overpainting
NPG 542
All of
the portraits in the display have changed in some way since they were first created.
Advanced scientific techniques, such as paint sampling and infra-red reflectography,
have helped us to unlock clues to their original appearance. For instance, paint
sampling on the most well-known of the four, the ‘Darnley’ portrait,
has revealed that the now brown pattern on the queen’s dress would once have
been crimson, and her extremely pale complexion would originally have been much
rosier. The latter indicates that the common assumption that Elizabeth
had very pale features is largely a myth, true only for the later part of her
reign when we know that she did wear pale makeup. X-ray examination of another
of the featured portraits has revealed how an early
seventeenth-century panel painting of Elizabeth was completely painted over in the
eighteenth century to ‘prettify’ the queen in keeping with contemporary
standards of beauty and style. Several other portraits of Elizabeth I exist
that were similarly altered in the eighteenth century, indicating a posthumous
revival of interest in her at this much later date.
Perhaps
the most intriguing of the discoveries highlighted relates to a portrait that
has very rarely been exhibited in the Gallery (NPG 200). This portrait of
Elizabeth, created in the 1580s, has been painted over an unfinished portrait
of an entirely different sitter. Losses to the paint surface have made this
other face partially visible. The identity of the first sitter remains a
mystery but this discovery indicates that sixteenth-century wooden panels were sometimes
reused and recycled. Analysis has also revealed that a coiled serpent held by the
queen, now visible on the surface, was part of the original design for
Elizabeth’s portrait, but was painted out by the artist shortly afterwards. The serpent may have been intended to symbolise the queen’s intelligence
or prudence, but at some stage during the painting process a decision was made
not to include this rather ambiguous emblem. Although surface abrasion has made
the outline of the snake visible to the naked eye, scientific analysis has
provided us with more detailed information about how it would originally have
looked, allowing us to re-create the original appearance of the work.
This
past display highlights just some of the findings of Making Art in Tudor Britain. More research
results and information about the project can be found on the Gallery’s website here.
Catherine Daunt
Assistant Curator
Taken from Face to Face Issue 33. Receiving this newsletter is one of the many benefits of becoming a Member
of the National Portrait Gallery.
