Imagery In Elizabeth I And Mary I

Edward VI and Mary I’s brief reigns combined with their lack of understanding on the impact of powerful visual imagery created a void in distinctive royal portraiture beginning from the time of their father’s passing. Henry VIII was portrayed as a fearless Warrior King and to much of the public was seen as such. This level of engrained iconography would not be present again until the reign of Henry VIII’s second wife’s daughter, Elizabeth I. When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne, she was succeeding an unsuccessful regime led by her half-sister Mary I. Flattery was a key purpose of royal portraiture at the time and considering how Mary I was thought of as a failure, the two sisters were not compatible, and that Elizabeth represented contrast, …show more content…
Portraiture, being for the purpose of flattery, plays a perfect role in examining this idea. ‘The Ditchley Potrait’ produced by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger in 1592 (Figure 1) will be used here to compare against Mary Tudor portraits and analyzed for specific elements that show how Elizabeth wished to be portrayed. In ‘The Ditchley Potrait,’ Elizabeth I is pictured as a divine, powerful, and symbolic Queen, in comparison, Mary I is generally depicted as a mortal, subservient, and realistic monarch. It was not unprecedented to show distinction between characters in portraiture. Lucas de Heere’s highly allegorical ‘Family of Henry VIII’ of 1572 (Figure 2) has Elizabeth ushered into her father’s presence by goddesses of peace and plenty, while mars, the god of war, ushers Mary and Philip into the opposite side of the scene. Placing Elizabeth among the gods or giving her a divine nature also had precedents. This can be seen specifically in Hans Eworth’s ‘Elizabeth and the three Goddesses’ of 1569 (Figure 3). There was more to placing Elizabeth among the gods than merely expressing power, the relation provided a counter towards Catholicism’s Virgin Mary whose representation was adopted by Mary