The four paintings that reveal Elizabeth I’s propaganda genius The Telegraph | By Tracy Borman
May 6, 2026
"Elizabeth’s portraits did not function in isolation. Through pose, costume and symbolism, the queen’s iconography shaped how her courtiers fashioned their own identities.
This is very much a theme of Philip Mould & Company’s new exhibition Elizabeth I: Queen and Court. It brings together some truly outstanding Tudor works, including the earliest surviving life-size, full-length portraits painted during Elizabeth I’s lifetime, alongside some of the key figures of her reign and close circle of courtiers and confidantes. Drawn from private collections, many of the pieces have never been displayed in public before.
“I don’t know any other post-Tudor monarch with so many distinctly differing personae,” says Mould. “Over the past 30 years of dealing we’ve had the great good fortune to encounter them, and it was irresistible not to collect them all under one roof. We are very fortunate 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 stars of the show are four portraits of Elizabeth, which trace her transformation from eligible young Tudor princess to the ethereal Virgin Queen of her later years. Seen together, they reveal the sustained and strategic management of her image across a reign shaped by religious tension and political uncertainty."
