Nicholas Blair Project: December 2010

18 different portraits of Elizabeth I

direct link: http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=3748

Evolution of Elizabeth's portrait (by decade)

1550, Levina Teerlinc

1565, Levina Teerlinc

1560 (?)- Unknown Artist

1570 (?), Unknown Artist

1580s (?), Geroge Gower

1590, Nicholas Hilliard

1599, Nicholas Hilliard

George Gower born 1540 and died in 1596 in London was an English painter who because of the Serjeant Painter to Elizabeth I in 1581. This allowed him to paint most of England’s aristocracy. The post also made him responsible for painted decoration at the royal residences, and on coaches and furniture. Among his works were a fountain and the astronomical clock at the Hampton Court Palace.

Elizabeth I 1588

1588 (notice background)

Non Elizabeth works:

Mary Conrwallis 1575

Grace Talbot

Sir Thomas Conings

Nicholas Hilliard

self portorit 1577

Nicholas Hilliard was born in 1547 and died in 1619, he was English. His work was conservative in style but very sensitive to the character of the sitter. The colors her used are opaque, and gold is used to heighten the effect, while the paintings are on card. They are often signed, and have frequently also a Latin motto upon them.

He had a reputation because of his work as "the central artistic figure of the Elizabethan age, the only English painter whose work reflects, in its delicate microcosm, the world of Shakespeare's earlier plays."