The Virgin Queen, the serpent and the doctored portrait
Mar 6th, 2010
From The Independent: The Virgin Queen, the serpent and the doctored portrait.
When this painting of Queen Elizabeth I was last displayed to the country in 1921, curators at the National Portrait Gallery noticed spots of discolouration which cast a spiralling shadow across the Tudor posy the monarch held in her right hand. The gallery put the discrepancy down to wear and tear, and removed the work – created by an unknown artist in the 1580s or early 1590s – from permanent display.
Ironically, it is that very deterioration which has now led specialists to make a startling discovery: the anonymous artist who painted the Virgin Queen had originally depicted her clasping a snake, coiled suggestively around her right hand.
However, the artist appeared to have panicked at the last minute about depicting the Queen holding a serpent – associated with evil and original sin in Christian iconography – and hastily replaced it with an anodyne image of Tudor roses. [continue]