This ‘rainbow portrait' of Elizabeth is riddled with symbols: This is the golden age of Elizabethan England, the "good times" so far removed from the broken country she inherited four decades before. Elizabeth has remained married only to her people and the Church of England grows stronger. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has declared her power to agree or disagree to anything Parliament does, and the Irish Rebellion is soon to be quashed. To put this portrait into the context of the time, the Queen's forces had successfully defeated King Phillip II's Armada 12 years earlier, an astounding victory for the English. This painter was either working from a basic model of the queen's face or looking at an older portrait to project only her beauty and majesty, like a Tudor version of magazines air-brushing pictures of celebrities! Yet the queen's face is ageless, beautiful and perfect. More seriously, this portrait was painted in or around 1600 and Elizabeth would only live for three more years, putting her in her late sixties. There is no way that an artist painted a posing Elizabeth clutching a rainbow. The majesty and symbolism in this portrait is designed to dazzle, inspire and intimidate various audiences. This portrait was clearly commissioned by either Elizabeth herself or an advisor. See an image of the Rainbow portrait (on display at Hatfield House) (Wikimedia Commons).
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