Elizabeth of Bohemia

Physical description

Portrait, head and shoulders, turned slightly to left and looking to front. Features in softly blended stipples of brown and sanguine with some dark grey and white highlights in the eyes, red for the lips, on a pale yellowish carnation ground; hair in short dark brown hatches over a pale brown wash, stippled at the hair-line; ruff in impasted white over pale brown, shaded with grey; ear-ring in metallic gold and silver; lace at the breast in very fine lines of white over the carnation ground; dress in black wash, modelled with greys, the jewelled decoration in brown and gold with embossed silver for the pearls; a gold marginal strip; background in red lake wash floated wet-in-wet; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Frame: Seventeenth-century oval gold locket, convex back, enamelled in translucent green champlevé enamel over punched gold; opaque white enamel flowers partly in relief, growing from gold stalks in an asymmetrical scrolling cosse de pois style; the sides enamelled in opaque black champlevé cosse de pois ornament in translucent green and opaque white on gold stalks; the hanger, a solid gold loop set transversely and enamelled on each side of a thread of gold in opaque black, flanked by two loops enamelled in opaque white surmounted by two smaller loops enamelled in opaque pale blue (mostly missing); on the reverse of the hanger a quatrefoil in translucent dark blue enamel, set centrally on the front loop with a table-cut diamond. The original lid of the locket is missing, its hinge filed off, and a modern push-fit glass provided.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (probably, painted)

Date

1623-1626 (painted)

Artist/maker

Oliver, Peter, born 1589 - died 1647 (artist)

Materials and Techniques

Watercolour on vellum put down onto pasteboard

Marks and inscriptions

'PO'

Dimensions

Height: 54 mm, Width: 40 mm

Object history note

Provenance: Revd Alexander Dyce, by whom bequeathed to the Museum, 1869.

Descriptive line

Portrait miniature of Elizabeth of Bohemia, Daughter of James I, ca. 1623-1626, watercolour on vellum, painted by Peter Oliver (1594?-1647).

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Rutherford, Emma and Bendor Grosvenor, Secret Faces. London: Philip Mould Ltd, 2008.
Murdoch, John. Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: The Stationery Office, 1997.
Cat 10, pp.25-26. Full Citation:
"Elizabeth of Bohemia
1623-6
D88
Oval 54 x 40 mm
Features in softly blended stipples of brown and sanguine with some dark grey and white highlights in the eyes, red for the lips, on a pale yellowish carnation ground; hair in short dark brown hatches over a pale brown wash, stippled at the hair-line; ruff in impasted white over pale brown, shaded with grey; ear-ring in metallic gold and silver; lace at the breast in very fine lines of white over the carnation ground; dress in black wash, modelled with greys, the jewelled decoration in brown and gold with embossed silver for the pearls; a gold marginal strip; background in red lake wash floated wet-in-wet; on vellum put down on pasteboard.
Condition: Some fading; the silver blackened; a nick for the locket hinge at the apex of the oval; otherwise good.
Signed: Lower centre right, in gold: PO (interlaced; see Appendix 2).
Frame: Seventeenth-century oval gold locket, convex back, enamelled in translucent green champlevé enamel over punched gold; opaque white enamel flowers partly in relief, growing from gold stalks in an asymmetrical scrolling cosse de pois style; the sides enamelled in opaque black champlevé cosse de pois ornament in translucent green and opaque white on gold stalks; the hanger, a solid gold loop set transversely and enamelled on each side of a thread of gold in opaque black, flanked by two loops enamelled in opaque white surmounted by two smaller loops enamelled in opaque pale blue (mostly missing); on the reverse of the hanger a quatrefoil in translucent dark blue enamel, set centrally on the front loop with a table-cut diamond. The original lid of the locket is missing, its hinge filed off, and a modern push-fit glass provided.
Provenance: Revd Alexander Dyce, by whom bequeathed to the Museum, 1869.
Literature: Redgrave 1874, p. 8 (Unknown Lady); Williamson 1904, vol. I, p. 34, no. 4, pl. XV (Unknown Lady); Catalogue of Miniatures, 1908, p. 27, fig. 6 (Unknown Lady); Long 1929, p. 321 (Elizabeth of Bohemia); Long 1930, p. 52; Joan Evans, Pattern in Western Europe 1180-1900 (Oxford, 1931), p. 172, repro. no. 238, facing p. 165; Summary Catalogue, 1981, p. 42
Identification of the sitter as Elizabeth of Bohemia was by Long in undated notes on the file. Long also began listing other versions of this portrait type, including that at Windsor, (1) Cat. No. 11, and what has subsequently become Cat. No. 12. Of these, the V&A trio seem to belong together, and to them may be added the example illustrated in Foskett 1979, (2) paired with a Frederick. They seem to be slightly later in date than the Windsor version, which is dated 1621. The V&A group therefore seems to be from an independent sitting of perhaps 1623-6, analogous to and contemporary with the numerous versions of the full-scale portrait type attributed to Mierevelt, for example at Welbeck Abbey, in which Elizabeth wears the same rosette jewel with table-cut stone in the centre, low-cut dress and fichu, and has a similar hairstyle. Facially there is also an impressive similarity with a type attributed to Mytens in the Royal Collection (3) in which she looks the other way and wears a high-cut dress. The later is dated by Millar to c. 1626/7 and by Kerslake up to c. 1625: (4) dates which help to fix the V&A group similarly in the mid- rather than the early 1620s.
Neither Piper (5) nor Davies (6) discusses the Peter Oliver portraiture of the Bohemians, but Piper makes the important point that Elizabeth seems to have 'broadcast' images of herself in support of her husband's claim to the crown of Bohemia. From their frequency the miniatures were evidently part of this process, which was clearly well in train by 1621, the first year of exile after Frederick's and Elizabeth's expulsion from Prague in November 1620. The beautiful locket, in which this miniature is enclosed, was linked by Joan Evans to a design published by Pierre Firens of c.1625. Michael Snodin (7) also cites sheets of engraved ornament by Balthasar Lemersier of 1626 and by Jacques Caillart of 1629. (8) The locket thus reveals Elizabeth commissioning the most up-to-date goldsmiths' work for these 'diplomatic' gifts of her image to her political friends.
1 Murdoch 1981, fig. 99; Sir Oliver Millar in a personal communication suggests that this may be 'PO Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia in a golden Ovall frame enamelled with black (2 inches); Royal Inventory, Charles II, no. 413.
2 Foskett 1979, pl. 11F.
3 Repro. NPG, Winter Queen, 1963/4, no. 69.
4 MS notes in NPG archives.
5 Piper 1963.
6 Davies 1979.
7 Personal communication.
8 V&A Print Room.''

Exhibition History

Secret faces: an exhibition of Unseen Portrait Miniatures from Public and Private Collections (Philip Mould Ltd. 28/05/2008-14/06/2008)

Subjects depicted

Queen; Ruff; Elizabeth (Queen of Bohemia)

Categories

Portraits; Royalty; Paintings

Collection code

PDP