INDENTAccording to Sir Roy Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth (1963) cameo portraits of Queen Elizabeth emerge circa 1580 and in true Renaissance tradition were a favourite means by which the Queen rewarded her favourites or those who had rendered her service before the miniature portrait took over in popularity with the advent of Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1616). Many of these cameos still exist but unlike the present example, the great majority show the Queen in profile to the left. They also vary in size but are mostly executed in hardstone for mounting in rings, pendants or lockets, brooches and seals. Cameo portraits of Queen Elizabeth on precious materials are rare, Strong op. cit. p.29 (footnote) mentions ruby and garnet examples and a three-quarter facing example dated to the 17th Century was sold from the Hever Castle Collection, Sotheby's, 6 May, 1983, lot 290. The Earl of Ilchester 'Cameo Portraits of Queen Elizabeth and their Reproduction in Contemporary Portraits', Connoisseur (1922) p.65-72 makes the point that 16th Century sitters are more often depicted wearing the Lesser George from the Order of the Garter than portrait cameos of their sovereign. The exceptions occur when the individual was not a Garter knight but ranked among those favourites to receive the Queen's likeness, or when the scene depicted a ceremony in the Queen's presence when her likeness would have been appropriately worn with their Garter insignia. A painting by Robert Peake at
Sherborne Castle shows the Queen carried in a litter by her courtiers, many of whom wear her likeness in cameo on chains around their necks.
Y.O. Kagan, 'Portrait Cameos in the Age of the Tudors: Problems of
Interpretation, Dating and Attribution' Museum 1 (1980) further
explains how glyptics in 16th Century England was an expensive art
which needed rich patronage and was therefore dominated by the
Royal Family. She goes on to relate how often cameos of Queen Elizabeth are mentioned in early documents, being variously referred to as
' phisnamy', ' image', 'picture', 'head', 'profile head of Queen Elizabeth', thus underlining their usefulness for
propaganda purposes, and that 'All of them cut on three or two-layered sardonyxs, reproduce, almost without exception, the left profile of the Queen'. Apart from their obvious use for political purposes, the author suggests these portraits could also have served as badges of rank or in recognition of personal merit or long service, or tokens of friendship or even diplomatic gifts (many examples exist in important collections abroad) and that being 'cut in rare, expensive and "everlasting" stone (they expressed) the quintessence of the universal cult of the Queen'. The above locket would appear to have been adapted in the 17th Century to carry these three portraits and could have belonged to a staunchly Royalist family during the 16th and 17th Centuries. Also cf: J. Kagan, Western European Cameos in the Hermitage Collection (1973) no.84 for a sapphire cameo of Louis XV; Christie's, 1 May 1985, lot 112 for an 18th Century sapphire portrait of Liselotte, sister-in-law of Louis XIV and Christie's, 2 October 1985, lot 157 for a sapphire-coloured quartz cameo of Henry IV