The Pregnancy Portrait of Elizabeth 1. Taking a close look at the painting. By David Shakespeare.

I first presented this slideshow to the Devere Society in April of 2018 I became interested in the portrait when I came across a book by this man dr. Paul alt Rocchi a retired American physician in 2010 he wrote a book entitled killing of a unique genius a chapter was devoted to the strange portrait hanging in Hampton Court Palace his analysis was full of conspiracy theory and I decided to see if I could make any sense of the painting and here it is it's over 2 meters tall and hangs in the Haunted gallery between the great watching chamber and the Chapel Royal it's labeled as unknown woman in a Persian dress what I'm going to talk about is the painting itself in detail using various types of image enhancement my interpretation of the meaning of the painting who commissioned it and why and when the alterations were made to it what I'm not going to do is address the issue of other candidates for the subject of the painting the basic principle is that we can assume that everything in the portrait is there for a reason the subject as you can see is an unsmiling young woman standing in front of a single tree with shrubs in the background she is wearing a heavily patterned garment covered with the transparent wrap she has a head dress and veil which appear to be middle-eastern around her neck is a cord to which are attached to rings beside the lady is a weeping stack which is crowning with Panzers on the left of the picture in front of the trunk of the tree of three Latin inscriptions there are two brightly colored male challenges within the tree itself and on the right of the picture is a salt within a cartouche the objective which is sorrow and loss behind this is a pond with trees and behind these a receding landscape in terms of the provenance it's widely agreed that the painting was carried out by Marcus gearheart the younger around 1600 this is based on his allegorical style the use of a Latin text its composition and the poem within the cartouche from 1613 it was described as a beautiful Turkish lady and hung in Somerset house the London residence of Queen Anne it was lost to the royal family during the 1600s almost certainly because of the Civil War and then it was recovered as Queen Elizabeth in a strange fantastic habit in a more fields flea market during the early 1700s from 1702 to 1714 hung ensign James's Palace labeled as Queen Elizabeth in a fancy robe in 1725 George virtue noted the royal cypher of Charles the first on the bat which has since disappeared in the reign of King George ii it hung in the Queen's gallery of full-length portraits of English sovereigns in Kensington Palace and was there for a hundred years in 1838 Queen Victoria moved it to Hampton Court Palace this was the year that it opened to the public and a cynic might think that Queen Victoria wanted it out of the way so having entitled the talk the pregnancy portrayed the first task is to establish that the subject is indeed pregnant there's no mention of pregnancy in any of the early descriptions of the painting and twentieth-century commentators seem to have assumed that the subject is pregnant solely by her appearance in 2015 Alison saw be wrote an article in the British art journal she argued that the style of depicting a pregnant woman at the end of the sixteenth century was to emphasize the swollen abdomen sometimes with the hand resting on the top she observes that a large diagonal fold in the robe parallel to the lapel does not conform to this style and she therefore dismisses the pregnancy here is the relevant part of the anatomy and what I've done is marked it up to make it easier to understand the yellow vertical line marks the central line of the figure the white dotted mark lines mark the outline of the robe and the folds in the fabric where there is a clear discontinuity of the pattern the blue dotted lines show the folds in the overlying wrap where the pattern of the underlying robe is unbroken the front of the robe clearly causes under the right breast and disappears below the right exilic bazoom ibly tied at the side the outline on the left is then convex indented slightly by the tension in the overlying wrap before falling vertically the four folds in the fabric fall in exactly the same manner the fold described by Alison saw B is in fact one of two in the overlying wrap which is being hitched up by the subject but two points the folds cross one another if we look at the two rings which hang around her neck the cords do not hang down vertically they describe a gentle convexity to the subjects right consistent with hanging over a swelling so let's take a look inside what I've done here is I've overlaid a scaled part of another painting and the outline of the torso shows the shape of a natural albeit corseted figure I believe that these two examples demonstrate convincingly that the subject of our painting is pregnant there is no other explanation for the row to be hanging in this way now let's think about the origin of the you hear we need to consult this book from 1581 the title is translated as the clothes of the gentry of the world and it was by this man Yanis visage in the english icon who choose a book written by Sir Roy strong in 1969 he thought that the costume was derived from Virgo persica after a figure in WA sods costume book some have commented that the figure looked pregnant as well so the appearance in the pregnancy portrait is just due to the style of the clothing so let's try a conjuring trick and sawed her in half if you look at the bottom part of the picture you'll see that the subjects feet are around 45 degrees rotated clockwise the left knee is bent this effectively shortens the leg and the pelvis tilts down on this side this makes her right hip stick out on which she has placed her right hand if you put her back together again and demonstrates and horizontal slices through the body if we work our way down what's the head his side view on the shoulders are heavily rotated and the pelvis and feet less so so the figure is standing in an awkward way she's not pregnant here's another illustration from Wyatt's book an important turkish woman that person is definitely pregnant the veil and the wrap now there's something not quite right about the veil it should hang down more vertically but it seems to defy gravity angled out to the left shoulder where it ends abruptly the surface appears flat and featureless with just a hint of dark shadows there is a row of beads along the lower edge only below the elbow there is a faint edge in line with the fennel and there is an abrupt change in the painting star of the bushes both of which I borrowed obviously the veil did at one stage hang below the elbow but has been over painted the mystery of this veil has been addressed several times in the past but never convincingly solved in 1898 Ernest law described all of the paintings hanging at Hampton Court Palace for the first time he printed a photograph of the painting dr. alt-rock she noted that in this photograph there were in the middle of the veil dark shadows which he interpreted as the letter R for Regina the other interesting feature is that the veil arises from above the top of the visible headdress by 1914 a new improved veil had appeared with a neat attachment at the top and an extension below the elbow and the shadows within the other fail were obliterated dr. alt-rock she took this to be an attempt to disguise the identity of the lady and called into question the integrity of lionel cust who was creator of the royal pictures at the time in 1969 the picture appearing in the english icon shows the veil to be unchanged in 1992 sir Roy reported that the picture had been cleaned and it does appear that it was at this point that the lower veil was removed on the upper left veil left as it was I believe that they fail originally looked something like this it was partially transparent allowing the leaves to show through it was an attached to an extension about the headdress as you can see it now hangs more vertically more importantly there is no R for Regina now this is Hurrem Sultan commonly known as rocks Alana the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent the painting is by Titian from around 15 she went on to be the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire heralding in the reign of women which lasted for a hundred and thirty years the upright style of the headdress and simple veil is similar to that in the pregnancy portrait and in some respects a head dress in the style of Ottoman royalty would seem in keeping for a portrait of a queen of England this portrait was in the possession of Titian when he died in 1576 which is of interest as Edward de Vere was in Venice at that time and this is Safi sultan she was the granddaughter of Suleiman she was the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire during the 1590s and gifts and letters were exchanged between herself and Queen Elizabeth over many years culminating in a coach which somehow found its way from London to Istanbul at this stage the Sonny based Ottomans were at war with the sheer based Persians until 1519 so this all leads me to think that the appearance is Turkish rather than Persian indeed this was how it was initially described in 1613 in order to understand the lower part of the veil we need to address the form of the beautiful transparent wrap studded with beads and this invert envelops the whole figure let's start with a view of how the area beside the robe looks today the picture has not been manipulated in any way the background is muddy and unclear and the rat appears to overhang on both sides of the robe here is an enhance close-up we can see that there are dark lines running almost vertically there are two rows of highlights and there are radiating highlights in the bottom part of the picture if we look if we look at the arm we can see the translucent fold of the wrap the upper arm and then there's the translucent fold over the forearm and the subject is hitching up the wrap which is partly covering her hand if we extract the highlights from the wrap as shown on the left and I've displayed them here as a negative to make them easier to see we can see it going under the right arm we can see the hitching by the hand and we can see two distinct patterns of tassels the bottom part on the hem they are short and then further up there's a row of longer ones on the right the outline has been placed back on the original portrait note that we can still see a confusing area of highlights under the left arm I've attempted here to show exactly what was happening to the veil I believe it was long and it's been swept up to hang over the forearm from front to back as shown on the left this explains complex highlights under the arm where the veil is folded the two vertical rows of highlights which we saw earlier represent the row of beads in the lower edge of the veil folding back on itself overall how this from an aesthetic point of view the veil appears much more balanced now let's look at the shoes the shoes are adorned with blue pearls the rarest of all and the fact that they're all of exactly the same shade of blue must have made them even more valuable there are three pinkish pearls on the front of each shoe set in gold as roses rather surprisingly pearls can occur in many colors and in the 16th century they were all natural and found almost exclusively in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea the history of pearls ran back 7,000 years with a well-established network of distribution from the center in Bahrain the jewelry if you look closely at the subjects left ear there's something rather odd she has pearls hanging from the earlobe and then a very large and very disproportionate brand pendant hanging in the hair there is also a faint bluish shadow just below the pearls you can see it there arrows note how the outline at the neck around the pendant has been heavily emphasized now dr. Adachi has suggested that the unusual large brown pendant may have been an armillary sphere this was a type of celestial globe invented by Greek astronomers around 200 BC to assist observation of the movement of the stars it was further developed by Islamic astrologers and introduced into Islamic Spain around a thousand AD by the Renaissance they had become the ultimate symbol of wisdom and knowledge the equivalent of the iPhone X it was adopted as an emblem by Queen Elizabeth early in the rain it appeared embroidered into the clothing of the Queen and her courtiers but later it was shown as a physical pendant in portraits of the Queen herself by implication it's use in this form was solely for her and it appears in only two other paintings by the same artist Gerhardt's the younger if we enlarge the pendant it's not as it first appears droplet shaped we can see that it's made of two elements an upper section linked to the ring above and a lower section which is virtually spherical if the area is lightened there appears to be a band running across it very typical of that of an armillary sphere so what is the blue shadow about well when I started looking into this I went down and the line of reasoning here is the Ditchley portrait by the same artist wearing an armillary sphere I have marked the eye centers the mouth and chin levels and the long axis of the pendant to produce a grid you can see that the armillary sphere has a droplet purl below it I then scaled the image of our painting so that the grid fitted perfectly and superimposed the armillary sphere the shadow is now completely covered by the pearl so which of these two ideas is correct well I'll come back and explain that later the thumb has a gold ring with what appear to be black stones set in a cross shaped pattern it's also interesting that among the Panzers being used to crown the stag there is a small red rose tucked under the subjects right thumb you can see it there I can find no such ring on portraits of the Queen however black stones are very common and here in the Pelican portrayed by Hilliard the Queen is wearing a thumb ring on her left hand these are close-ups of the two rings shown which hang around the neck one is made rubies alternating with black stones the other is gold with black stones these rings are obviously of great significance and I'm hopeful that these image may allow someone working in this field to take things further next let's look at the hair now the hair is seen to be loose and free-flowing off the left shoulder almost down to the elbow this is a somewhat odd appearance given that the headdress is close fitting around the front and sides the hair would therefore have to be swept backwards and then out to the sides on closer inspection with image enhancement there are reddish winglets on the left side of the face then there is asymmetrical hair length which I've arrowed and is similar to that in the painting of rocks Alana below this on the subjects left is a luxuriant spread of hair which seems to spring from nowhere in addition there's darker hair emerging abruptly from behind the ring that's on the left side of this subject merging into the leaves in the background I'm not quite sure what happened here but one possible explanation is that the hair was added to cover up an identifiable emblem or motif on the front of the robe now let's look at the robe itself is perhaps the most neglected area in studies of this painting it is after all right in the center of the picture its design is quite unlike anything I've been able to find in Elizabethan or ottoman clothing whether or not it actually existed or was purely an invention of the artist and the Commissioner of the painting is not known although the overall appearance has been described as Persian or Turkish the motifs are typically of Elizabethan embroidery and scrollwork I've extracted the pattern from the robe the central panel is flat with clear-cut vertical folds one on each side as if to provide a flat surface for this important part of the robe the motifs are entwined by greenery the most striking feature of the overall design is the row of birds right down the center of the row each one framed by in twining greenery reminiscent of the lovers knot there are three Phoenix is complete with fires and droplets of blood and two purged Birds this bird and flower pattern extends up both arms it's been suggested to me that the alternating birds in the central panel is simply a part part of a pattern repeat in the fabric in order to investigate this I've allocated coloured ellipses to mark similar flowers and birds and you can see that the only consistent pattern is that of the alternating birds on the front panel and along the garment of the sleeves in my opinion this is a quite deliberate display in an overall random arrangement of motifs as such it is one of the main features of the robe and must hold significance the flowers are represented by a red rose there is also a white and gold five petal flower which has curious long curled petals we're really not sure at this stage of the identity of this particular flower some suggests Jonas that it might be a white borage but perhaps someone may be able to help us there are also pansy light flowers with an odd coloration of the petals there is honeysuckle and there are bunches of grapes in this case perhaps representative of fruits of the entwining vine the scroll design is similar throughout just a green stem with small projections which do not look like thorns it arises from the base of the gown and branches upwards different types of leaves fruit and flowers arise directly from the stem in addition there is another curious element which occurs at least seven times it's striped with gold and green and always with the red section at the top I'm convinced that this represents a fig which is splitting to expose the center here you can make a comparison with natural figs which again have the striped appearance and a dense red color within interestingly in greco-roman culture the fig is associated with female genitalia and for Atilla t the word for fig is the same as the word for vulva I've extracted the designs from the robe in the region of the two met rings the scroll frames the elements and links the Rings with tongue like leaves does this perhaps indicator spoken oath of commitment between two people does the presence of the two figs represent offspring of that relationship the configuration is certainly by design rather than chance and central to the composition line as it does over the subjects heart some of the flowers in the robe are typical of those used in Elizabethan embroidery and their presence broadly conveys the virtuous nature of the wearer it's well established that both the red rose and the Phoenix are symbolic of Queen Elizabeth there was only one mythological Phoenix in every 500 years it was consumed in fire to be reborn again why then do we have three Phoenix's a lot of the two other birds let's look at these birds first both types have prominent red shoulders red bill and red and black wing and tail feathers the faces are bluish my view therefore this is the same bird in other words they are both Phoenix's the problem with this interpretation is fitting it into the overall context of the painting the subject is of a very unhappy woman a prominent display of immortality might there not be the most important message to get across there is however a way in which this makes sense which I'll come to shortly but in order to explain it we need to look again more closely at the painting the de prickly tree depicted in the painting is a walnut which originated in the Middle East and in the times of Elizabeth was known as a royal tree the fact that the subject is wearing an East and style headdress would seem to emphasize the connection the upper part of the tree is in deep shadow in fact if the blue colored channel is enhanced extensive coloration appears across the top of the picture this does not mean that it has been dogged with blue paint but may indicate that over painting has occurred now if you look carefully at the point of the arrow you may be able to see something which has actually been included in the area of dark paint with further enhancement emerges the feature of a songbird not to swallow which has short legs and a long tail but it appears to be a lack of some sort George virtue and he saw the painting in 1725 recorded in his notebook birds flying there were certainly none now and I thought initially that this may have been an error on his part however close inspection of the two lowest nuts hanging from the tree reveals that they are gravity-defying and one of them is a distinctly odd shape this is not due to obliquity of the image as it's oval shape is present in all pictures and indeed the original the lowest nut hangs from a filament stem which has a kink in the middle and appears to emerge from the leaf contrast this with the well-defined stems of the nuts at the top of the picture the second lowest nut again has an even finer stem and is oval in shape why would this be the solution I suggest is that each one covers up a flying bird the position of the bird's dictated the position and shape of the nuts connecting the nuts to the tree presented a problem hence the crooked stem the artist was hoping that no one had noticed indeed they haven't until now if the nuts are lightened there is also the suggestion a darker shadows within them why paint out the birds well it seems to me that a good answer would be that they were flying towards the songbird surely if we look at this we have a songbird a solo Arabian tree and birds flying towards it this must be a reference to Shakespeare's poem the Phoenix and the turtle could it be then that the column of birds represents a sequence from the bottom of which the subject of the painting is the third living embodiment of the Phoenix and she is contemplating her immolation and death this would fit well with Elizabeth being near the end of her life at the time that the painting was executed let's turn now to the inscriptions there are three Latin inscriptions arranged at Bleakley along the line of the trunk of the tree the positioning of these is important here's the first in your state you're stuck quelala sir Roy Strong's translation of this motto is a just complaint of injustice the close-up image suggests that the four last letters may have been repainted as we shall see the translation is consistent with the first verse of the poem in the cartouche here's the second one they are sick me dr. alt repeat translates this as thus what his mind should be mine the lettering of this motto is very clear and there is no sign of alteration here's the third one this has caused the most translational problems because it's present state it is damaged and illegible George virtually in 1725 recorded the motto as dollar s medicina de la ley which translates rather awkwardly is as pain is pain meds here we are using the ablative case of the noun for pain the close-up image clearly shows that the gold lettering is flaking badly in the first and third letters of Donnell almost certainly this is what happened to the last word making it illegible the word has been badly restored to what the restorer thought might have been the original word now the yellow arrow shows what I believe is to be the remnant of an original dot over an eye what I've done here is taken original letters from elsewhere in the sentence and pasted them into place and it can clearly be seen that the word is Delores the dot on the eye fits perfectly so the word is Delores not the lorry this is the genitive case of the noun for pain usually implying possession this translates as pain as pains medicine this is a quotation from Cato in a book called words of wisdom for the behavior of a son the advice was given in couplet form and the full quotation is when you are wrong then change your mind when you are dressing a wound pain is pains medicine and still not quite clear what this means but it may indicate that the only thing that can help you is a more pain which brings us of course onto the stag now the stag is being crowned with Panzers which our Queen Elizabeth favorite flower and a small red rose the inscription pain is pains medicine is aligned as though being whispered into its ear a tear is running down the face of the stag from the right eye most scholars agree that the weeping stag refers to a translation of a Greek myth by the Roman author of it the central element of the myth is that act Ian was a famous Theban hero who was transformed into a stag and torn apart by his fifty hands the theme being that hunter becomes the hunted authors were free to suggest it for motives for his death the standard setting was that act ian had seen artemis goddess of among other things wild animals and virginity bathing naked and she had punished him in Ovid's latin version the roman goddess diana takes up the leading role the second theme is then one of revenge for the assault on her dignity the crown of pansies is not part of the myth and as an aside the stag makes an appearance in as you like it the Cartesian I will read it out to you the Restless swallow fits my Restless mind in still reviving still renewing wrongs her just complaints of cruelty unkind are all the music that my life prolongs with pensive thoughts my weeping stag I crown whose melancholy tears my cares express his tears in silence and my sighs unknown are all the physic that my harms redress my only hope was in this goodly tree which I did plant in love bring up in care but all in vain for now too late I see the shales be mine the kernels others are my music may be planes my physic tears if this be all the fruit my love tree bears the first quatrain refers to a restless swallow at the top of the tree we've already seen the song burn but when you move further down you can see there is indeed a swallow if we look more closely at it we can see that it's positioned such that the words a just complaint of injustice spring from its mouth exactly as recorded in the third line of the poem it's also sitting on the stump of a branch of a tree which has been sawn off clearly does this perhaps signify a branch of the family which has been amputated what about the face I've left this purposely until this stage the problem here is that the painting was carried out around 1600 when the Queen was elderly the painting is not only retrospective but also symbolic so the representation of her face cannot be relied upon to be accurate for her aged 42 the stage when she could have been pregnant fortunately there is one paid portrait by the same artist executed around the same time and this is the rainbow portrait so Roy strong makes the point that the rainbow portrait faced is based on the youthful mask used by nicholas hilliard in his late miniatures this gave an ageless Beauty to the Queen and had the advantage that she did not have to sit for any paintings on the left is an early Hillyard from 1575 when the Queen was 42 she appears to be quite natural although her right eye is slightly misaligned the opposite is the youthful mask of the later miniatures painted by Hilliard between 1590 and 1600 I want to talk a little bit about facial comparison in portraits you could say that facial analysis in elderly portraits is a waste of time well it's not if they're painted by the same artist in the same style and painted around the same time also if they're thought to be the same person if the attitude of the head is comparable so the geometry of the face is not altered but it's still is only a guide and other features such as hair and eye color and complexion need to be taken into account what I've created here is an image map so one of the images for comparison is viewed in Photoshop and an image map created in a separate layer facial features including eye centers are marked using dots and the eye centers are used to line up the portrait horizontally this is an image grid and on it is marked horizontal and vertical features such as the levels of the mouth chin and the corners of the mouth the face to be compared is then scaled with the first one and the two sets of data can be overlaid what this technique does is to allow your eyes to focus on the facial features objectively but not quantitatively and it is interesting to apply the data from our portrait and the 1575 in yard the geometry of the features if you look at them carefully it's very similar indeed however it will not escape your notice that the Queen looks much older than in the pregnancy portrait this is merely illustrating the concept of an ageless face now let's turn to looking at the landscape the foreground in the bottom left of the picture is a well-defined lighter area but it's still in shadow is this a path or is it a stream the lack of any coloration might suggest the former however three of the Stags lengths are perched on the edge of it exactly as in act 2 scene 1 of as you like it if it were a path then surely the field would be on it in addition there appear to be leaves floating in it they all point the same way with the edges upturned as floating leaves do so for the purposes of this analysis I'll work on the principle of there being a stream the receding background this is the most frustrating part of the painting if you look up words from the cartouche the landscape of hills appears to recede into the distance if you look down from the tree there are bushes on the horizon and both views collide in a confusing array of dark lines the first thing to decide is whether the bushes or the receding landscape is original after all they can't both be right this is a close-up of the bushes note the detail in the top of the foliage which blends with the sky on the right side there is great detail with in the bushes including flowers some of which looked like honeysuckle my view is that the bushes are original and reflect the delicacy of the style and detail which Gerhardt's used to depict undergrowth a similar style was used in his painting of the Earl of Essex as you can see there if we enhance the area further details start to emerge we can see the outline of medium-sized flowers immediately in front of the bushes we can see overhanging branches with small white flowers we can see a blue area and a large flower now the flowers will bring the background very much closer by simply lightining this area both the shape of the flowers and the heavy outlining used to produce the contours can be seen it appears as though over painting the flowers was part of this same process the central blue area noted above still remains but you can see that it's a in color from the over painting this is a photograph from the original Canton Corps catalog in the Sackler library in Oxford and what I want me to see is the very clear highlights within the area surrounded by the yellow circle and here I've compared the 1898 image on the left to a modern one showing the exact location of the bright highlights now these can be one of two things either a stream or a carpet of white flowers given the stream in the foreground the fauna seems more likely here I've overlaid a partially transparent scaled image the 1898 photograph it clearly shows that the highlights are in the valley that we can see of the current image and those highlights stop abruptly at the dark foreground here i've selectively lightened the image and there appears in addition to be a profusion of light-colored flowers behind the veil to the right of this is what looks like a pond which is blue but exactly how this forms of stream is hard to make out and I'm hopeful that someone with more artistic vision than I have maybe were able to render the view in more detail now let's look at the problem of the pond and the trees because we've created a problem for ourselves as we somehow have to explain the pond and the trees in the foreground and the area above the cartouche as it stands our stream runs down behind the Queen and then miraculously pops up beside her having scaled the bank on which she stands first let's look at the pond in the foreground the trees have been described as reflecting the water and there is the remains of a building behind them this is a close-up of the area and first glance the description appears reasonable however take a close look at the largest tree in this reflection perhaps it's just a little too round if we alter the image tones some strange things start to happen the large tree now looks decidedly like a rose there are two other roses below and to the right of it in the ponds and the tree to the right of the picture also now appears Rose like the distant building now looks much more like the petals of a flower the more you look at this area the more it looks like a group of flowers so that's now look at the most difficult area which is the area above the cartouche it's difficult because it appears to have been over painted heavily taken in isolation there appears to be a hillside in the middle distance which is sloping towards us and to the left it's dense outline pushes the rest of the view into the distance the Queen is standing on a patch of ground in front of this there is a curious leaning tree which sits on a brown line demarcating a brown area below and a greenish brown area above the rather crude brushstrokes above the line can be seen if the image is lightened why has the tree being painted at such a peculiar angle and if the position of the tree dictated by what it's covering up what is it that's so bright behind it if it were an emblem such as a crown then this would surely lie in line with the center of the cartouche yes of course the emblem stretched right across or is balanced by another further to the right I've manipulated the image in a series of ways to try and identify anything which might give a clue to the original picture I had no definite answer but here is one of the suggestions and that is that the area contained a group large flower heads continuing down from the ones which work we've already identified once perhaps that would have been favourites of the Queen and therefore readily identify her for example roses lilies and eglantine this would have reflected the floral elements of the whole picture faint darker shadows are still visible as you could see against this suggestion is the fact that it was a lot of trouble to go to just to eliminate a few flowers this area of the painting needs to be studied in detail with x-ray and infrared now I want to introduce a rather intriguing idea to you the story of two paintings consider that at roughly the same time around 1600 painted by the same artist appeared two highly allegorical portraits of the same woman dressed in elaborate costumes both with elements of Turkish design the one shows Elizabeth as Austria the Virgin goddess of innocence and purity as described by a bird she was the last celestial to leave the earth during the degenerate fourth age of man in this abhart represented her return to earth in a new golden age of divine power the other shows her as the goddess Diana who turned action into a stag after he saw her bathing naked the myth is extended with Diana forgiving the transgression against her dignity Elizabeth is represented as merciful and forgiving or is she let's place the image map of the pregnancy portrait onto the rainbow first of all they do look like the same person except that the right side of the face on the rainbow is slightly wider this appearance is borne out by the very high correlation on both the map and the this does not prove that it's the same person but it is consistent with being so in this case we're talking about the ageless face Elizabeth both of these have an elaborate Turkish headdress the rainbow is based on another image from Mossad this time sponsor thessaloniki Ensis Thessalonica was part of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and this headdress can be considered as Turkish both wore an armillary sphere in the rainbow portrait it's on the sleeve rather than close to the ear as in the original composition of the pregnancy portrait are the two paintings are pair well actually there is some evidence for this rather surprisingly the way we display the two paintings does not take into account their relative sizes so Roy strong has expressed an opinion that the rainbow portrait was originally full-length this is the rainbow portrait from the Hatfield house both the rainbow on the left and the rap on the right are truncated so Roy records the dimensions of both the rainbow and the pregnancy portraits in the English icon if you overlay the rainbow onto the pregnancy portrait with accurate scaling according to his dimensions then we can see that the face is fit perfectly I've reconstructed the Ark of the rainbow now making the rainbow portrait partially transparent in enhances the effect particularly in terms of the arm positions and the pose this does not of course prove that the two paintings were a pair but it does reveal a remarkable similarity in composition and style which is consistent with the two being originally the same size if the paintings were a pair perhaps the lower part of the rainbow portrait contained a sonnet as well if presented to the Queen together courtiers may not have thought too deeply about the underlying meaning of the pregnancy portrait seeing only the reference to Diana the queen forgiving actin one of her courtiers for past indiscretions what about my in effect preface this by saying that it is very much a personal opinion based on my findings not only is the painting a beautiful work of art it is an extremely clever example of symbolism and allegory which weave together several themes it is made all the more complicated to understand by the alterations that have been made to it over 400 years although the poem within the cartouche tells us of past wrongs the painting had to be relevant to the late 16th century otherwise why go to the bother of creating it this was a major statement which given its size would have been hard to ignore rather like the sonnets I feel it was meant to carry forward a message for later generations I believe that the original painting clearly depicted a pregnant Queen Elizabeth wearing an armillary sphere possibly with some form of emblem above the cartouche there was a stream running forward from a pond in front of the bushes in the background were rose bushes with larger rose roses in the area above the cartouche the elements of a stream the goddess Diana and the stag reflect the myth of Actium but take it one stage further with the goddess shown compassion to the stag but not reversing the transmutation the composition of the painting transcends time the face of Elizabeth I flattered the rainbow portrait is timeless she is portrayed young in age but old in retrospect she is both pregnant and the mother of an adult the alternating pattern of Phoenix's August her demise in the cycle of and rebirth she is the third live Phoenix on the dress contemplating her own death but there will be no rebirth the Turkish attire may be a reference to the reign of women in the Ottoman Empire Elizabeth was in frequent contact with the Sultan's mother that the leader Sultan exchanging gifts what better demonstration of worldly power them to Don similar clothes the Ottoman theme is taken up with the walnut tree signifying royalty and providing a framework for the tree of life and the loss of a family line the swallow sitting on the sawn off branch is telling us of a cruel injustice I believe that the stag is Edward de Vere who has been rendered mute by the Queen and her advisors he is known to had a stormy relationship with Elizabeth and both with William and Robert Cecil who were the architects of his financial ruin and loss of recognition for his work he is depicted as having a crown of pansies this may signify that Elizabeth placed it out of sorrow or forgiveness for what has happened it may just as well be the equivalent of a crown of thorns there is no happy ending here he is doomed just as Actium was torn apart by his hands the words paying his pains medicine are being whispered into his ears as de vere is unable to speak for himself he puts the words by wear a sonnet into the mind of the queen making her think what she should have been feeling for betraying him a bitter rebuke from a broken man Shakespeare's sonnets are full of oblique references to the identity of the author would it not therefore be surprising that de Vere would have moved into the realm of the Illustrated sonnet to make his argument working alongside the most respected court artists the walnut tree also has clear references to the poem the Phoenix and the turtle by way of the songbird and the flying birds it was published in 1601 and I believe that the references in the painting amount to the signature by Devere that it was he who commissioned it the two rings hanging around the Queen's neck are clearly woven into the design of the upper part of the central panel of the row close to her heart the use of the tongue like leaves would seem to signify a spoken contract of love and the two figs offspring of that relationship the portrayal of the two brightly colored male chaffinches might indicate two colorful young men or maybe related to the reference to the Phoenix and the turtle the sonnet described sorrow over wrongs and clearly describes the bringing up of a child and ultimate loss to her the second inscription sits squarely on the trunk as though carved on the Tree of Life proclaiming what his mind should be mine ie the tree in its fruits intriguingly the sonnet uses plural z' in the last line of the second quatrain the shales be mine the kernels others are possibly another hint to more than one child of course the next question is to the identity of the child all I can say that it is consistent with it being this man Henry Risley it's not my intention to become involved in the argument surrounded this so who was behind any alterations that had taken place with this painting there were several phases to this phase one the removal of an armillary sphere two painting of the foreground Bank altering the roses into trees and a pond three reworking the hair the quality of this work was good this is a painting of Queen Anne of Denmark by Markus pier hearts from 1610 and we know that our painting was hanging in her private apartment in 1613 the painting had been referred to as a beautiful Turkish lady had the armillary sphere been there then it would have been labeled as Queen Elizabeth King James would not have been slow to interpret the painting and its implications for the legitimacy of his succession but why then you Mike might ask bother to make alterations why not just destroy the painting a possible reason may be that Marcus Gere hurts the younger was the favorite portrait painter of Queen Anne of Denmark it was surely obvious to the royal family that irrespective of the identity of the subject the work was one of great beauty and artistic skill making a few alterations to it allowed them to keep the work and indeed give it pride of place in Somerset house while concealing its true meaning perhaps cutting down in size the rainbow portrait was part of the plan to break the link between the two paintings who made the alterations I suspect it may have been Marcus gerhard's himself he was alive until 1636 and who else would have been entrusted with such a sensitive project there is I believe another dimension to this we should remember that the artist must have worked closely with Edward de Vere during the planning and execution of the work and he may have been somewhat have grieved at having to alter it would it not have been possible for him to deliberately leave clues for someone to follow in the future what's the obvious disparity between the foreground and the distance part of this take another look at the blue shadow by the left ear this is just a transparent ghostly shape through which some of the pearls can be seen it could be interpreted as part of the ear adornment yet it has no highlights which have been so carefully added to all the pearls including those behind it this looked like deliberate subtle over could it be a clue left by Gerhardt's pointing back to the armillary sphere as one of in one of his previous portraits in which case then dr. al chachi was right and the brown pendant conceals an armillary sphere Phase two of the work that took place between 1725 and 1898 we know that were flying birds visible in 1725 this work consisted of painting over the lower veil and the mid ground to try to reconcile the foreground and background turning the birds into walnuts and darkening the background of the tree to conceal the songbird further work was carried out above the cartouche so this work removed reference to the Phoenix and the turtle phase 3 was but that was over painting and extending the veil and the stream and in 1992 the lower part of the veil was removed I'd like to just talk a little bit about unknown sometime during the 20th century exactly when is unclear the subject of our painting was labeled as unknown woman this might be interpreted as sensible as the risks no definite proof of the identity of the subject a cynic might say that it's just a convenient way of shutting down all debate on the subject making it anonymous neatly sidesteps any argument about it anyone can have an opinion we just don't know who it is so we will not discuss it the identity of the sitter is actually a matter of opinion and few people have actually looked carefully at the painting as always it's worthwhile returning to the original documentation which brings me to this man sir Roy strong esteemed art expert in 1992 he wrote without doubt we're looking at the most complicated of all allah-allah Gorica portraits such a pig cannot have been conceived as anything other than a major statement he wrote in his diary the same year I think I've solved the Persian virgin crowning a weakling stag it is so obvious the picture has just been cleaned ravishing and I stood in front of it and in a flash Essex crossed my mind the stag is Essex as the transmuted Act e'en and then everything I touched fell into place the Regal Panzers that walnut a royal tree here we are looking at the weeping Essex still protesting his love and loyalty to the Queen in 1993 in the art of the emblem sir Roy had changed his opinion it was Francis Walsingham that story isn't true and the explanation for it is for another time so by watching this slideshow you're among the very few people in history who can say that you've had a very close look at the portrait and you may feel better equipped to form your own opinion on it it is however definitely not the end in terms of this story thank you very much for listening I hope you enjoyed it

Channel: David Shakespeare

Views: 334,154

Keywords: Elizabeth 1, Pregnancy, Portrait, Marcus Gheeraerts, Edward de Vere, Shakespeare

Id: n2wiooH5v40

Length: 62min 46sec (3766 seconds)

Published: Tue May 08 2018