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Known as the 'Ditchley Portrait', this painting was produced for Sir Henry Lee who had been the Queen's Champion from 1559–1590. It probably commemorates an elaborate symbolic entertainment which Lee organised for the Queen in September 1592, and which may have been held in the grounds of Lee's house at Ditchley, near Oxford, or at the nearby palace at Woodstock. After his retirement in 1590, Lee lived at Ditchley with his mistress Anne Vavasour. The entertainment marked the Queen's forgiveness of Lee for becoming a 'stranger lady's thrall'.

National Portrait Gallery, London

London

Title

Queen Elizabeth I ('The Ditchley portrait')

Date

c.1592

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 241.3 x W 152.4 cm

Accession number

2561

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by Harold Lee-Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon, 1932

Work type

Painting

National Portrait Gallery, London

St Martin’s Place, London, Greater London WC2H 0HE England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.

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Artist or maker

Marcus Gheeraerts the younger

1561/1562–1635/1636

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William Camden (1551–1623) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Richard Tomlins (1564?–1650) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Sir William ffaryngton of Worden Hall (1537–1610), Leyland, Lancashire Museum of Lancashire
Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armouries (1580–1610) Royal Armouries Museum
Portrait of a Man in Classical Dress, possibly Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke Tate
Sir Francis Drake (1540–1596) National Maritime Museum
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