Image: Illuminated initial membrane, with portrait of Elizabeth, 1589

Description: Illuminated initial membrane, with portrait of Elizabeth I, Court of King's Bench: Coram Rege Roll (Easter Term, 1589). The King's Bench was the senior common law court until 1875, dealing with crimninal offences. The decorative initial P was the "Placita" (plea) put before the queen. The portraits were commissioned by court officials from artists and are unique, though they came to follow a precise standard pattern. Art historian Erna Auerbach showed that from 1585, a standard portrait type was used for the queen's image on the Court Rolls and the Great Seal; this image of 1589 is a typical example. In describing the very similar portrait on the Easter Roll of 1586, Auerbach listed the formal elements of the design: "Throne, canopy, attitude and arrangement of the robes have become strongly formalized ... The costume on the illumination is formalized in the same manner as on the Seal; it consists of the triangular pointed stomacher, the wide coat, the merely indicated knees, the wheel-shaped ruff. The illumination and the Seal show the square cushion under the feet and the volutes decorating throne and canopy ... The royal likeness on the Plea Rolls in fact remained during this period almost as unchanged as the likeness which, during the same period, was reproduced many times in wax by the impression of the Great Seal". (Reference: Erna Auerbach, Tudor Artists: A Study of Painters in the Royal Service and of Portraiture on Illuminated Documents from the Accession of Henry VIII to the Death of Elizabeth I, London: Athlone Press, 1954, pp. 130–31.)
Title: Illuminated initial membrane, with portrait of Elizabeth, 1589
Credit: David Loades, Elizabeth I: The Golden Reign of Gloriana, London: National Archives, 2003, ISBN 1903365430.
Author: Uploaded by qp10qp.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No