Cast and chased gold medal of
Elizabeth I, by Nicholas Hilliard
London, England, about AD
1580-90
A golden effigy of the Virgin
Queen
The portrait miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard
(1547-1619) appears to have been the first English artist to make
medals in any numbers. Not surprisingly, the first English medals
closely resemble painted miniature portraits, both in appearance
and function.
The medal was
probably originally a costly gift from Elizabeth, Queen of England
and Ireland (1558-1603), herself to a favoured courtier or a
political ally. Presents of this kind were often made of
miniatures. The laurel tree on the reverse is labelled with the
royal monogram ER (for 'Elizabeth Regina'). The
legend translates as 'Not even danger affects it',
a reference to the legend that laurel was immune from lightning.
This is likely to be emblematic of Elizabeth's resistance
to the dual threat of Catholicism at home and, in the years leading
up to the Spanish Armada, Philip II of Spain abroad. The piece was
hung with drop pearls.
The
attribution
of the medal can not be doubted. Hilliard was apprenticed in 1562
to Robert Brandon, a goldsmith like Hilliard's father. His
first surviving miniature of Queen Elizabeth I is dated 1572. In
1584 Hilliard, and the Sergeant Painter, George Gower, tried to
gain the monopoly of production of the Queen's portraits.
Although they failed, Hilliard and his workshop painted her
miniature many times using the so-called 'Mask of
Youth' pattern, very close to the portrait on this medal.
That Hilliard was capable of modelling as well as painting is
suggested by records of his collaboration on the Second and Third
Great Seals of England: in 1601 Thomas Harrison, who had worked at
the Mint some time previously, was interrogated about his
possession of 'Her Majesty's picture in
metal' a work by Hilliard which was gradually and
treasonably dissolved in 'a kind of sublimate which had
eaten into the metal', a portrait 'made about the
time that Mr Hilliard did make models for the great
seal...'.
L. Syson, The currency of fame: portra-4, exh. cat. (New York, 1994)
E. Hawkins, Medallic illustrations of the (London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1885)