A Look into The Armada Portrait: The Power and the Femininity of Queen Elizabeth I
Perhaps the most famous portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, the Armada Portrait was painted in commemoration of the English defeat of the Spanish Armada. There are three versions of this portrait, the one seen here is housed at the Royal Museums Greenwich. The three portraits vary slightly in details like the numbers of bows on the queen dress but otherwise are the same.
This portrait has many symbols relating to both the queen’s power and her femininity. Her hand sits on a globe, showing her dominance over the world. Her figures even point towards Virginia, a piece of the New World recently claimed (Symbolism in Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I). Behind her, the English navy sails on clear seas in one window while in the other, the Spanish Armada is caught in a terrible storm. On her dress, there are images of golden suns, a symbol for power and knowledge (Soušková). In the middle of each sun, there is a large pearl. Pearls also line much of the dress and are also draped around her neck. They dot her hair and even appear on the crown in the background. This favorite accessory of the queen is a symbol of her virginity, a reminder of her femininity and status as an unmarried woman. The bows are another symbol of her virginity (Soušková).
What is most interesting about the Armada Portrait is how it combines her femininity with masculinity. Red, a masculine color, is on the ribbons, something that is feminine (Melikoğlu). The large size of the dress could represent the idea of the King’s two
Bodies, which is the idea that a monarch has both a physical body and spiritual one (Soušková). The dress also gives the queen a distinctly feminine silhouette with wide shoulders, a long, narrow waist, and full hips with a narrow, white face (Melikoğlu). She appears young and beautiful despite being in her late fifties (Soušková).
The queen is thus both masculine and feminine, powerful and virginal, a mighty queen and a demure woman. That she never married and wears her virgin status proudly shows that she does not need any man that she is indeed above them. The Armada Portrait shows this beautifully. She uses masculine symbols to show her power while using feminine ones to remind everyone that her true power comes from her womanhood and her virginity.
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