A brief Facebook exchange about the coronation portrait of Elizabeth I put me in mind of the importance of brand identification- hardly a new phenomenon and something that was used effectively by the woman who was happy to be lauded as Gloriana. That she was also known as the virgin queen was certainly reinforced, along with its attended benefits, by rigorously controlled visual imagery.
It’s been assumed with the absence of realism in Tudor portraiture that Renaissance painting techniques were late in arriving in England. Frankly, as pictures of Elizabeth had nothing to do with the real, but everything to do with the image, realism could at best only function to diminish a personage whose attributes were required to be superhuman. Not just her court, but Parliament itself drafted a resolution that only authorized images of the queen could be allowed- and, of course, all of them portraying virtuously favorable, if not photo realistic, aspects of the monarch. One portrait from the 1570’s includes as a major iconographic feature a sieve held by the queen- it was proof of the chastity of the vestal virgins who tended the sacred flame in Rome, to carry water in a sieve from the Tiber. And so it was, in this sieve portrait so-called, with the sanctity of the British state directly linked with the virginity of the monarch, just as the sanctity of the vestals was integral to the stability of the Roman Empire.
Not that images of Elizabeth are all politically inward looking, with the ‘Armada’ portrait clearly international and imperial. With the victory over the Spanish fleet grimly depicted in the background, an Elizabeth reduced almost to caricature has her hand placed on a globe. That it covers Spanish dominions in the Americas, of course, is no accident. Moreover, she is festooned with elaborate ropes of pearls- the jewel of the sea- indicating that her sovereignty has displaced that of Spain in the oceans as well as on land. Also, pearls were a symbol of purity- yet again, a reference to Elizabeth’s chastity, clearly linking her own virginity with not only a successful reign, but success in the defense of the realm from an aggressor- and portending an imperial future for England.
From caricature to the fantastic, the Ditchley portrait was commissioned by Sir Henry Lee in anticipation of Elizabeth’s visit to his Oxfordshire seat of Ditchley. This portrait of the 1590’s- late in the queen’s reign- places her image on a map of England, with her foot, coincidentally, roughly atop Oxfordshire. She is linked thereby as the human embodiment of the nation, with the sun over her right shoulder signifying her glory, and the thunderstorm over her left signifying her power. Here, again, the ropes of pearls around her neck- never is she without a symbol of the virtue in her virginity. It has often been noted that the queen was vain of her appearance, and sought, witness her continual succession of often substantially younger favorites, to seem sexually desirable. Though doubtless Henry Lee sought to curry favor with his sovereign, the Ditchley portrait nevertheless depicts a woman whose face at least is somewhat withered and lined with age.