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Elizabeth I, The Rainbow Portrait

The Rainbow Portrait, c. 1600–02, attrib. Isaac Oliver

Attributed to Isaac Oliver, perhaps the most heavily symbolic portrait of the queen is the Rainbow Portrait. It was painted around 1600–1602, when the queen was in her sixties. In this painting an ageless Elizabeth appears dressed as if for a masque, in a linen bodice embroidered with spring flowers and a mantle draped over one shoulder, her hair loose beneath a fantastical headdress. She wears symbols out of the popular emblem books: the cloak with eyes and ears, the serpent of wisdom, the celestial armillary sphere, and carries a rainbow with the motto non sine sol iris (“no rainbow without the sun”). Strong suggests that the complex “programme” for this image may be the work of the poet John Davies, whose Hymns to Astraea honouring the queen use much of the same imagery, and suggests it was commissioned by Robert Cecil as part of the decor for Elizabeth’s visit in 1602, when a “shrine to Astraea” featured in the entertainments of what would prove to be the “last great festival of the reign”.

(Source: stojadinovic, via whoreofbabalon)