Elizabeth I:
Queen & Court
14th May - 10th July 2026
Open Mondays to Fridays from 9.30am to 6pm.
Admission is free and booking is not required.
This spring, the gallery presents Elizabeth I: Queen and Court, an exhibition exploring how portraiture shaped one of Britain’s most iconic reigns. Featuring outstanding Tudor works drawn from private collections, the exhibition includes the earliest surviving life-size, full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, alongside portraits of some of the key figures from her close circle of courtiers and confidantes. These rarely seen paintings reveal how portraiture functioned as a tool of power and was used to project authority, secure allegiance, and, in rare cases, register dissent.
Crucially, the exhibition does not purely focus on members of the elite. In fact, it presents an exceptionally rare act of visual resistance: a concealed portrait of John Stubbs (c.1544-1589) the Buxton-born Puritan and seditionary, shown alongside his severed right hand, commemorating the punishment he suffered in 1579 for publishing a pamphlet criticising Queen Elizabeth I’s proposed marriage to the Roman Catholic Francis, Duke of Anjou (1555-1584). In a culture of meticulously managed loyalty to the Crown, the portrait of Stubbs stands apart, demonstrating that portraiture could, on occasion, quietly rebel.
Philip says, “We are very fortunate, through the generosity of our private lenders, to be able to assemble a cast of the key figures of the first Elizabethan age. Above all is the compelling presence of Elizabeth herself, who, working with the most resourceful artists of her time, continually reshaped her image to meet the monarchical ambitions of a single woman on a stage of extraordinary challenge.”
The exhibition will be accompanied by an online publication featuring essays by Tudor historians Dr Elizabeth Goldring and Dr Christina Faraday.
