Elizabethan portraiture & a contemporary sitter

Unknown girl, 1569

                                                                            Master of the Countess of Warwick,  oil on panel, The Tate Gallery, London.

I chose this portrait as the colours stuck out to me when first flicking through images in this book, I love the rich burgundy and golds. You can tell straight away the girl in the portrait comes from a rich background because of her clothing, the colours she is wearing, the jewellery around her chest and on her fingers and also the fact that no poor person would have had their portrait painted during these times. Her outfit is embroidered with flowers and she has feathers on her hat. She also has a flower behind her left ear. Everything about this portrait suggests she is important, including the way she is posing in the image.  Although she has her hair in an up-do in this portrait, her face looks quite young, fresh and innocent. She looks like a typical Elizabethan wealthy woman because of her very pale complexion, pink rosy cheeks and lips and fire red hair like Queen Elizabeth I.

Image sourced from A Visual History of Costume - The Sixteenth Century by Jane Ashelford
http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/vonsnakenborg,helena%28resized%29.jpg

I would love to use Lily Cole as a model for a New Elizabethan inspired fashion hair and make-up look as I think her stunning red hair, naturally pale skin, round face shape and blue eyes would look amazing for this theme. I found the below painting while looking for photographs of Lily on the internet and came across it by chance, the way the hair and make-up looks reminds me a lot of the Elizabethan era.

                            Mock Tudor 5 (Lily Cole after Arthur Elgort for British Vogue), 2011, oil on canvas, 20x20cm

http://www.cathylomax.co.uk/pages/year/2011/mock_tudor/mocktudor5.html

Again this picture of Lily in 'Pictorial' by Richard Burbridge in Vogue Italia 2005 has a Elizabethan/Queen-like feel to it to me. The make-up reminds me of a contemporary fashion make-up look inspired somewhat by Queen Elizabeth I.

 'Pictorial' by Richard Burbridge, Vogue Italia 2005

Images sourced from Google images and Pinterest.