page_title: Portraiture of Elizabeth I
section_title: Visions of empire
hierarchical_section_title: Portraiture of Elizabeth I / The Virgin Empress of the Seas / Visions of empire
caption_attribution_description: Elizabeth I of England between two imperial columns surmounted by her badges of a Pelican in her Piety and a Phoenix.
context_page_description: The portraiture of Elizabeth I illustrates the evolution of English royal portraits in the Early Modern period from the representations of simple likenesses to the later complex imagery used to convey the power and aspirations of the state, as well as of the monarch at its head.
  Even the earliest portraits of Elizabeth I contain symbolic objects such as roses and prayer books that would have carried meaning to viewers of her day. Later portraits of Elizabeth layer the iconography of empire—globes, crowns, swords and columns—and representations of virginity and purity—such as moons and pearls—with classical allusions to present a complex "story" that conveyed to Elizabethan era viewers the majesty and significance of their Virgin Queen.
context_section_description: The Armada Portrait is an allegorical panel painting depicting the queen surrounded by symbols of empire against a backdrop representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
  There are three surviving versions of the portrait, in addition to several derivative paintings.  The version at Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Dukes of Bedford, was long accepted as the work of George Gower, who had been appointed Serjeant Painter in 1581.  A version in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which has been cut down at both sides leaving just a portrait of the queen, was also formerly attributed to Gower.  A third version, owned by the Tyrwhitt-Drake family, may have been commissioned by Sir Francis Drake. Scholars agree that this version is by a different hand, noting distinctive techniques and approaches to the modelling of the queen's features. Curators now believe that the three extant versions are all the output of different workshops under the direction of unknown English artists.
  The combination of a life-sized portrait of the queen with a horizontal format is "quite unprecedented in her portraiture", although allegorical portraits in a horizontal format, such as Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses and the Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession pre-date the Armada Portrait.
  The queen's hand rests on a globe below the crown of England, "her fingers covering the Americas, indicating England's dominion of the seas and plans for imperialist expansion in the New World".  The Queen is flanked by two columns behind, probably a reference to the famous impresa of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Philip II of Spain's father, which represented the pillars of Hercules, gateway to the Atlantic Ocean and the New World.
  In the background view on the left, English fireships threaten the Spanish fleet, and on the right the ships are driven onto a rocky coast amid stormy seas by the "Protestant Wind". On a secondary level, these images show Elizabeth turning her back on storm and darkness while sunlight shines where she gazes.
  An engraving by Crispijn van de Passe (Crispin van de Passe), published in 1596 but showing costume of the 1580s, carries similar iconography.  Elizabeth stands between two columns bearing her arms and the Tudor heraldic badge of a portcullis.  The columns are surmounted by her emblems of a pelican in her piety and a phoenix, and ships fill the sea behind her.
caption: Engraving by Crispijn van de Passe, printed 1596
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