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The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I of England is the name of any of three surviving versions of an Allegory panel painting depicting the Tudor dynasty queen surrounded by of royal majesty against a backdrop representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
English art in this period was isolated from trends in Catholic Church Italy, and owed more to Flanders manuscript illumination and Heraldry representation than to Renaissance ideas of unity in time and space in art. The 'Armada Portrait' is no exception: the chair to the right is viewed from two different angles, as are the tables on the left, and the background shows two different stages in the defeat of the Armada. In the background view on the left, English drift towards the Spanish fleet, and on the right the Spanish ships are driven onto a rocky coast amid stormy seas by the "Protestant Wind". On a secondary level, these images show Elizabeth turning her back on storm and darkness while sunlight shines where she gazes, iconography that would be repeated in Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger's 1592 "Ditchley" portrait of the queen.
The queen's hand rests on a globe below a crown (probably not the Tudor Crown), "her fingers covering the Americas, indicating England's command and dreams in the New World".Hearn, Dynasties, p. 88Andrew Belsey and Catherine Belsey, "Icons of Divinity: Portraits of Elizabeth I" in Gent and Llewellyen, Renaissance Bodies, p. 11–35 The queen is flanked by two columns behind, probably a reference to the famous Personal device of Charles V, Philip II's father, which represented the Pillars of Hercules.Roy Strong; Art and Power; Renaissance Festivals 1450–1650, p 51, 1984, The Boydell Press; The composition was painted following the greatest threats to Elizabeth's power, therefore this portrait aimed to reinforce her position as a capable female monarch.
Art history Andrew Belsey and Catherine Belsey have pointed out the striking geometry of the painting, with the repeating patterns of circles and arches described by the crown, the globe, and the sleeves, ruff, and gown worn by the queen. Cultural historian, Isabel Davis, has noted that the portrait is composed using the structure provided by a Portolan chart or sea chart: a ring of Wind rose or Compass linked by a rhumbline network. Belsey and Belsey also contrast the figure of the Virgin Queen wearing the large pearl symbolizing chastity suspended from her bodice in front of her groin, it is also representative of Cynthia (Artemis), Greek Goddess of the moon and Virgin. They are further contrasted to the mermaid carved on the chair of state, which they claim either represent female wiles luring sailors to their doom, or that the mermaid symbolises the executed Queen Mary. Davis, in contrast, argues that the mermaid contributes to the cartographic design of the portrait. Elizabeth is facing away from the mermaid, possibly indicating that their conspiracies and Mary's execution have been put behind by Elizabeth. The crown also symbolises the English monarchy.
The chains of pearls in the portrait may represent the pearls which Elizabeth had bought from the collection of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1568, or further a reference to her mother Anne Boleyn.Lisa Hopkins, Writing Renaissance Queens: Texts by and about Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots (Delaware, 2002), p. 21.
The first two portraits were formerly attributed to Elizabeth's Serjeant Painter George Gower, but curators at the National Portrait Gallery now believe that all three versions were created in separate workshops, and assign the attributions to "an unknown English artist".
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