Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Elizabeth I Steven Van Der Meulen.jpg

Elizabeth I by Steven van der Meulen

Original - The "Hampden" portrait of Elizabeth I of England was painted by the Netherlandish artist Steven van der Meulen around 1563. Art historian Sir Roy Strong has suggested that this is "one of a group produced in response to a crisis over the production of the royal image" as a number of old-fashioned and unflattering portraits of the queen were then in circulation. This is the earliest full-length portrait of the young queen, and depicts her in red satin trimmed with pearls and jewels. The painting made headlines in November 2007 when it was auctioned by Sotheby's for ₤2.6 million, more than twice the maximum predicted.

Reason

Hidden from the public for almost 50 years, this life-size full-length image of Elizabeth I of England by Steven van der Meulen is historically significant as the earliest full-length image of the Queen, painted in the 1560s in the brief period before the emergence of symbolic portraits representing the iconography of the "Virgin Queen". The painting is newsworthy as it was auctioned for ₤2.6 million in November 2007, more than twice the maximum expected. (See DYK for 27 March 2008).

Articles this image appears in

Steven van der Meulen

Creator

Scan by PKM. Artist: Steven van der Meulen

• Support as nominator PKM (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support picks up the complicated backgrounds well, and excellent caption. Johnbod (talk) 18:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Excellent reproduction, high enc value -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support - a really decent portrait of a very influential woman --Hadseys Chat_Contribs 11:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support Pose and anatomy are a bit weird, but that's not unusual for art of that time - naturalism would only really become the de facto standard much later. Some of the other images in the Elizabeth I article are more aesthetically pleasing, but I don't think we need to limit ourelves to one Elizabeth I FP. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Do we have another FP of Elizabeth I? A rather poor scan of the Rainbow portrait was nominated last year but didn't make the grade. Just curious. (And I agree we can certainly have more than one FP of Elizabeth I.) - PKM (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I was looking through the images - I don't think we have any others, nor, at the moment, could we: all the other images of her have major problems like half-toning or size (Though there might be some on Google Images that would work). In any case, the artist is notable [even if he did (IMO) better works than this]; the subject is notable; and, due to its use in a propoganda campaign to replace other, less flattering images and so on, this piece seems reasonably notable in itself. Even if we got other images, I'd still be happy with this one as an FP, even if I don't much like it as art. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Nice quality and illustrative of topic. Spinach Dip 20:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Support —αἰτίας •discussion• 23:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Support High quality and encyclopedic. Spencer^T♦C 14:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
• Support Highly encyclopedic, important subject, large high quality file. Durova^Charge! 02:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Elizabeth I Steven Van Der Meulen.jpg MER-C 09:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)