ADAM EAKER:
If visitors think back to that very modest image of Henry VII, a relatively realistic depiction of him as a middle-aged suitor, they’ll see what a dramatic transformation royal portraiture has undergone to now being a grandiose, life-sized depiction of the monarch as a supernatural figure of immense power.

NARRATOR:
Curator Adam Eaker.

ADAM EAKER:
So, we see Elizabeth here at the height of her glory, standing on a map of Southern England; and the sky behind her is bisected into sun and storm. She’s shown as a figure who literally causes the sun to shine. She’s the embodiment of all power. And even her body is really transformed by this strange silhouette that would forever be associated with her, with the incredibly tapered waist, the padded sleeves and then this wide farthingale skirt.

NARRATOR:
The portrait is by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. It seems to have been planned as a surprise gift to the Queen from one of her courtiers, Sir Henry Lee. The face, showing sunken cheeks and signs of aging, didn’t please Elizabeth. When later copies were made of the portrait, she appears much younger.

Elizabeth was determined to control her public image. This proclamation gives us an insight into her anxiety:

FEMALE VOICE:
Through the natural desire that all sorts of subjects, both noble and mean, have to procure the picture of the Queen’s Majesty, great number of Painters do daily attempt to make portraitures of her Majesty wherein is evidently shewn that hitherto none hath sufficiently expressed the natural representation of her Majesty’s person, favor, or grace…

NARRATOR:
It was all part of the tightrope Elizabeth had to walk as only the second reigning Queen of England.

ADAM EAKER:
And she did so very successfully through the cultivation of this mystique in portraiture that really departs from any conventions of realism.

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