Icons of supremacy and the birth of an empire: two portraits of Elizabeth I

Relvas, Maria de Jesus

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/6024

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Authors

Relvas, Maria de Jesus

Abstract(s)

When Portugal and Spain ruled the oceans and took possession of the known world, having divided it into two halves, England occupied a modest insular position, excluded from the big events related to the Discoveries. However, in a short period of time, the nation was to secure a leading place, due to the strategic maritime policy undertaken by Elizabeth I, the monarch who had once been considered the least eligible of the Tudor descendants. In a peculiar context and founded on diverse propaganda policies, namely a munificent emblematic iconography interwoven with literature, the consolidation both of the Tudor Myth and of the Queen’s sovereignty is closely related to the birth of the British Empire. Bearing such matters in mind, I will analyse The Armada Portrait (ca. 1588) and The Ditchley Portrait (ca. 1592), after briefly approaching The Coronation Portrait (ca. 1600), for they constitute the embodiment and materialisation of two powerful icons of supremacy: Elizabeth Tudor and Britannia.