Wednesday 15 September 2010

Elizabeth Portraits



The Year 12s who visited the National Portrait Gallery yesterday will have seen two famous portraits of Elizabeth I which are rarely seen together. The Pelican (top picture) and Phoenix (bottom) portraits, painted in the 1570s when Elizabeth was in her 40s, have recently been proven to have been painted on wooden panels taken from the same trees, and so are most likely to have been painted by the same artist, Nicholas Hilliard. You can read more about how the paintings were researched here, but you only have till the end of the week if you want to see them together!

PS: Here are further details from the National Portrait Gallery and comments from Channel 4 News.

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