Symbolism in Portraits of Elizabethan Era

 The Phoenix Portrait. 1575. Nicholas Hilliard

This phoenix in this image symbolises sacrifice and rebirth and is called the phoenix portrait painted in 1575 by Nicholas Hilliard. The other symbols are the roses on the dress, which is the tudor rose, which they showed a lot in that era, I like how the phoenix is in it and shows the rebirth of her and how she changed alot. I also think it is a amazing portrait becuase of the detail on the dress of all the jewels showing how wealth and how much authority as she has a black coloured dress on. Their alot of tudor roses on it where the phoenix is, and i like how it shows that. This one up close you cant see how old she is, but her face looks good in the painting considering what she done to it.






Ditchley Portrait, 1592. Marcus Gheeraerts the younger.


This symbolises that the queen has one foot on the map resting near ditchley and this means that it celebrates the queens divine powers and then next is the sphere on her ear which is celetial, which means that it is the command she has over nature itself, The background has two different images split on one side it is sunny sky and the other is a dark stormy sky and shows again how royalty has authority over nature. I like the background of showing these to split sides and shows the how much authority they had other things, i think the clothing is so amazing, shows how much she liked colour and shows what happened to her skin as she got older with all the white makeup she had applied for a long time.



Peace Portrait. 1580-85. Marcus Gheeraerts the elder

In this the symbolism is that the Queen is the harbinger of peace, which is because she holds a olive branch in one hand and a sheathed sword lies at her feet to show that she has authority and would do anything to protect her land, i like this as the colours are slightly autumn tones of browns and whites, especially her dress, which was polish. I really like the background as it shows a another portrait other things that surround her and i focus on them as want to see what they are. But i like the dress she is wearing really shows her wealth and how handsome she was.











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