'Clopton Type' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

English School
'Clopton Type' Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
c.1559
oil on panel
26cm x 21.5-22.2cm

Provenance
With Windles, Old Masters & Period Portraits, West Yorkshire;
Dr Adam Busiakiewicz, Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s, 2024;
Through whom acquired by the present owner.

Note
Portraits of Elizabeth I from early in her reign are rare, and pique public and academic interest when they emerge. This portrait presents an exceptional variation on the well-known ‘Clopton’ type, dated to the first year of the Virgin Queen's reign, and offers a unique example of early Elizabethan portraiture.

Elizabeth I is depicted here dressed in a black gown, with a fur collar, gilt ruff, and black hood or coif, with a large, jewelled necklace on her breast. She wears the striking double-chained jewel at her breast, found in all other Clopton types, and identified by Sir Roy Strong as the ‘Mirror of France’, one of the most famous and recognisable in the Tudor collection.[1] The gilt lettering in the upper left and right-hand corners reads: ‘AN[NO] 1559’ (left) and ‘AETAT[E] I’ (right). ‘Aetate’ translates as ‘age’, though since the sitter is clearly not an infant, it seems plausible to interpret this as an idiosyncratic reference to the first year of Elizabeth’s reign, 1559. UV analysis of the painting shows no sign of overpainting in the upper corners of the panel, indicating that the inscriptions were at least roughly contemporaneous with the portrait itself. Like other Clopton types and the slightly later Barrington type, Elizabeth’s gaze directly meets the viewer. The viewer is confronted not with a gentle and sensitive queen, but England’s Supreme Governor, every bit as confident and uncompromising as her father.

Elizabeth had many reasons to emphasise her solidity and authority in 1559, and this depiction of her ought to be considered against its political and confessional context. Between 25th March (celebrated as New Year’s Day in the ‘old style’ English calendar until 1752) 1559 and 1560, taken as the likely date range for the composition of this portrait, Elizabeth had early on signed herself in the national psyche and achieved a legislative revolution in English politics and religion, and successfully confronted successive assaults on her royal prerogative. Elizabeth’s first Parliament saw the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity passed (albeit by a margin of a single vote), which respectively restored the monarch’s ecclesiastical headship, and implemented a version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal liturgy in England.[2]

In addition to ecclesiastical matters, Elizabeth’s Privy Councillors, MPs, and Lords, were particularly energised by the matter of the Queen’s marriage, and the question of hereditary succession. The matter was particularly exacerbated by the strong claim on the English throne exercised by Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, who was recognised as queen of England by Henri II of France until 2 April 1559. With the threat of invasion from Catholic powers looming, and the risk of losing gains in a hard-fought Protestant reformation to another Catholic ‘restoration’, a Parliamentary commission was formed on 8 February 1558 (o. s.), which instructed Elizabeth to make her plans for marriage clear. Two days later, the Queen responded, and after asserting that her choice of husband would be hers alone, she instructed her MPs that although she would consider the appointment of a suitable heir, she thought it ‘sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned for such a time, lived and died a virgin’.[3] This was far from the response that councillors and MPs hoped for, and though a joint conference of Lords and Commons discussed suitable candidates for marriage, no concrete plans were made.[4] This portrait, like other Clopton types, does not conform with traditional compositions thought to advertise Elizabeth as a marriage prospect. The sitter’s body is obscured by a heavy fur collar and black gown, emphasising the more androgynous character identified in the Clopton type. Such a depiction might be seen to have simultaneously played on traditional themes of virginity and Elizabeth’s control of the marriage question characteristic of the Queen: an ambiguous demurral, in which the answer lay only in Elizabeth’s personal will and authority.

The present portrait is an exceptional example of early-Elizabethan image making, and it presents a rare insight into the developing nature of the royal image in post-Reformation England. It is one of the more interesting variations on the well-known Clopton ‘type’ to come into public knowledge and potentially offers a direct and intimate perspective into the forceful will and political anxieties of England’s young Protestant Queen. This is not the Elizabeth that viewers might find more familiar, with her slim face and glittering costume, but a monarch who appears simultaneously ready to confront the wills of her council, Parliament, and fellow European monarchs, and one anxious to control her public image, majesty, and authority.

[1] Discussion of the Clopton portrait and other variations can be found in Roy Strong, Gloriana: the portraits of Elizabeth I (Thames & Hudson, 1987), pp. 25, 56-57, pl. 8-11.The ‘Clopton’ portrait after which the type was named by Strong, so called due to its provenance from Clopton House, Warwickshire, was held by Philip Mould, the London art dealer. It depicts the Queen holding a slim prayer book downwards, with a pair of gloves. English School (16th Century) Portrait of Elizabeth I ‘The Clopton Portrait’’, c. 1558, oil on oak panel, 26.5 x. 19.125 in., Phillip Mould Ltd.

A similar portrait, which depicts Elizabeth holding a thicker prayer book upwards, is currently owned by Mr Peter James Hall, and is on loan to the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, Washington D.C. Several accounts, including the National Portrait Gallery’s description for NPG 4449, another variation on the Clopton type, have described this portrait as the ‘Clopton’ portrait. English School, ‘Portrait of Elizabeth I’, oil on panel, 67.3 x 47 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (RL/PG.43.2006).

For the significance of the Mirror in the royal collection, and precedent for famous jewels worn in late-Tudor and early-Stuart royal portraiture, see Roy Strong, ‘Three Royal Jewels: The Three Brothers, the Mirror of Great Britain and the Feather’, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 760 (1966), pp. 350-353.

[2] The fullest account of this Parliament is presented in Norman L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559, (Royal Historical Society, 1982).

[3] Sir Simonds D’Ewes, The journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons (London, 1682), p. 46

[4] For further discussion of Elizabeth’s possible consorts, see Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: the courtships of Elizabeth I (Routledge, 2002).