Multi-million pound campaign keeps royal portrait in Britain
A VERSION of one of the most famous portraits of Queen Elizabeth I will be owned by the public for the first time after a £10m fundraising campaign to keep it in the country.
The life-sized oil painting, one of three surviving renditions, depicts the failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588 and is considered to be a masterpiece.
The Armada Portrait features the Queen in a gold embroidered and jewelled dress with her hand resting on a globe, while the English fleet enjoys calm waters and the approaching Spanish fleet is wrecked in a storm.
Historian David Starkey called on the public to donate generously in order to prevent this work from being lost from public view while historian Sir Roy Strong said: “Such an icon of England should not leave the country and for it to find its final resting place on the walls of the museum that celebrates our maritime heritage would seem only right and proper.”
A major public appeal by the Art Fund and Royal Museums Greenwich attracted 8,000 donations, totalling £1.5m, and a £7.4m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Art Fund had already pledged £1m, while Royal Museums Greenwich committed £400,000.
The portrait, believed to have been painted in 1590 by an unrecorded artist, was sold by descendants of Sir Francis Drake and will now enter public ownership for the first time in its 425year history.
The other two are on display at Woburn Abbey and the National Portrait Galilery in London.
They commemorate the most famous conflict of Queen Elizabeth’s 45-year reign and one of the best-known images in British history.
Sir Peter Luff, chair of the HLF, said: “The Armada portrait is a compelling historic icon, illustrating as it does a decisive conflict, inspiring female leadership, maritime power and the emergence of the Elizabethan ‘Golden Age’.”