Elizabethan treasures : miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver / Catharine MacLeod with Rab MacGibbon, Victoria Button, Katherine Coombs and Alan Derbyshire.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

MacLeod, Catharine, author.

MacGibbon, Rab, author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hilliard, Nicholas, 1547?-1619--Exhibitions.

Hilliard, Nicholas.

Oliver, Isaac, 1556?-1617--Exhibitions.

Oliver, Isaac.

Hilliard, Nicholas, 1547-1619.

Oliver, Isaac, 1565?-1617.

Hilliard, Nicholas, 1547?-1619.

Oliver, Isaac, 1556?-1617.

Portrait miniatures, British--Exhibitions.

Portrait miniatures, British.

Portrait painting, British--16th century--Exhibitions.

Portrait painting, British.

Portrait painting, British--17th century--Exhibitions.

Local Subjects:

Hilliard, Nicholas, 1547-1619.

Oliver, Isaac, 1565?-1617.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

231 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), portraits (chiefly color) ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

London : National Portrait Gallery, 2019.

Summary:

Four centuries ago, England was famous primarily for its literary culture - the drama of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and the works of the great lyrical and metaphysical poets. When it came to the production of visual art, the country was seen as something of a backwater. However, there was one art form for which English artists of this period were renowned : portrait miniature painting, or as it was known at the time, limning. G owing from roots in manuscript illumination, it was brought to astonishing heights of skill by two artists in particular: Nicholas Hilliard (1547? - 1619) and Isaac Oliver (c. 1565 - 1617). In addition to exhibiting the exquisite technique of the artists, portrait miniatures express in a unique way many of the most distinctive and fascinating aspects of court life in this period: ostentatious secrecy, games of courtly love, arcane symbolism, a love of intricacy and decoration. Bedecked in elaborate lace, encrusted in jewellery and sprinkled with flowers, court ladies smile enigmatically at the viewer; their male counterparts rest on grassy banks or lean against trees, sighing over thwarted love, or more modestly express their hopes in Latin epigrams inscribed around their heads. Often set in richly enamelled and jewelled gold lockets, or beautifully turned ivory or ebony boxes, such miniatures could be concealed or revealed, exchanged or kept, as part of elaborate processes of friendship, love, patronage and diplomacy at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I /VI . This richly illustrated book, like the exhibition it accompanies, explores what the portrait miniature reveals about identity, society and visual culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Four centuries ago, England was famous primarily for its literary culture - the drama of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and the works of the lyrical and metaphysical poets. When it came to the production of visual art, the country was seen as something of a backwater. However, there was one art form for which English artists of this period were renowned : portrait miniature painting, or as it was known at the time, limning. Growing from roots in manuscript illumination, it was brought to heights of skill by two artists in particular: Nicholas Hilliard (1547? - 1619) and Isaac Oliver (c. 1565 - 1617). In addition to exhibiting the technique of the artists, portrait miniatures express in a unique way many of the most distinctive and fascinating aspects of court life in this period: ostentatious secrecy, games of courtly love, arcane symbolism, a love of intricacy and decoration. Bedecked in lace, encrusted in jewellery and sprinkled with flowers, court ladies smile enigmatically at the viewer; their male counterparts rest on grassy banks or lean against trees, sighing over thwarted love, or more modestly express their hopes in Latin epigrams inscribed around their heads. Often set in enamelled and jewelled gold lockets, or turned ivory or ebony boxes, such miniatures could be concealed or revealed, exchanged or kept, as part of elaborate processes of friendship, love, patronage and diplomacy at the courts of Elizabeth I and James I /VI . This illustrated book, like the exhibition it accompanies, explores what the portrait miniature reveals about identity, society and visual culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Contents:

Director's foreword / Nicholas Cullinan

A thing apart : Elizabethan and Jacobean portrait miniatures / Catharine MacLeod

Limning, the perfection of painting : the art of portrait miniatures / Victoria Button, Katherine Coombs, Alan Derbyshire

The most ingenious master and his well-profiting scholar : brief lives of Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver / Rab MacGibbon

Hilliard's early patronage

Hilliard in France

Hilliard at court

Symbols and secrets

Royal portraiture : Elizabeth I

Beyond the court

Oliver at court

Love, landscape and melancholy

Royal portraiture : the Stuarts

Masques

Oliver : beyond the portrait miniature

Select bibliography

Acknowledgements

List of lenders

Index.

Notes:

Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at National Portrait Gallery, London, February 21-May 19. 2019.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 220-224) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Contains:

Hilliard, Nicholas, 1547?-1619. Works.$k Selections.

Oliver, Isaac, 1556?-1617. Works.$k Selections.

ISBN:

9781855147027

1855147025

OCLC:

1048934990

Publisher Number:

99985069456