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Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

19 of 264 portraits matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Miniatures'

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Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

by Isaac Oliver
watercolour on vellum, after 1596
2 in. x 1 5/8 in. (51 mm x 41 mm) oval
Purchased, 1973
Primary Collection
NPG 4966

Images

The beard has been built up with an ordered p…
Detail of the sitter's hair.
A thick-bodied white paint has been used to d…

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Isaac Oliver (circa 1565-1617), Miniature painter. Artist associated with 72 portraits, Sitter in 5 portraits.

This portraitback to top

A Venetian observer described how, after taking Cadiz, Essex had 'on this last voyage...began to grow a beard, which he used not to wear'. This portrait was painted soon afterwards and shows him with a blue ribbon around his neck from which the 'Lesser George', or informal insignia of the Order of the Garter, would have been suspended.

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Events of 1596back to top

Current affairs

Fears of Spanish invasion of England and Ireland.
An expedition under Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Charles Howard, Baron Howard of Effingham sacks Cádiz, Spain.
Robert Cecil (later Earl of Salisbury) is made Secretary of State.
Sir Francis Drake dies from fever during an expedition to attack Spanish territories in the New World.

Art and science

The poet and administrator Edmund Spenser publishes the last three books of The Faerie Queene, an epic allegorical poem in praise of Queen Elizabeth I.
The unusual narrative portrait of the soldier and diplomat Henry Unton is commissioned by his widow.
The actor and theatre manager James Burbage builds Blackfriars Theatre, London.

International

Spanish forces capture Calais, France.
The Battle of Keresztes - Mehmed III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire defeats the combined forces of Sigmund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania and Maximilian, Archduke of Austria.
Sigismund III of Poland transfers the capital of Poland from Kraków to Warsaw.

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