Nicholas Hilliard. Nicholas Hilliard was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England.
He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, up to about ten inches tall, and at least two famous half-length panel portraits of Elizabeth. He enjoyed continuing success as an artist, and continuing financial troubles, for forty-five years.
His paintings still exemplify the visual image of Elizabethan England, very different from that of most of Europe in the late sixteenth century. Technically he was very conservative by European standards, but his paintings are superbly executed and have a freshness and charm that has ensured his continuing reputation as the central artistic figure of the Elizabethan age, the only English painter whose work reflects, in its delicate microcosm, the world of Shakespeare's earlier plays.
Hilliard was born in Exeter in 1547. He was the son of Richard Hilliard of Exeter, Devon, also spelt Hellyer, a goldsmith who became a staunch Protestant and was Sheriff of Exeter in 1568, by his marriage to Laurence, daughter of John Wall, a City of London goldsmith.
He was one of four boys: two others became goldsmiths, and one a clergyman. Hilliard may have been a close relative of Grace Hiller, first wife of Theophilus Eaton, the co-founder of New Haven Colony in Amer
He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, up to about ten inches tall, and at least two famous half-length panel portraits of Elizabeth. He enjoyed continuing success as an artist, and continuing financial troubles, for forty-five years.
His paintings still exemplify the visual image of Elizabethan England, very different from that of most of Europe in the late sixteenth century. Technically he was very conservative by European standards, but his paintings are superbly executed and have a freshness and charm that has ensured his continuing reputation as the central artistic figure of the Elizabethan age, the only English painter whose work reflects, in its delicate microcosm, the world of Shakespeare's earlier plays.
Hilliard was born in Exeter in 1547. He was the son of Richard Hilliard of Exeter, Devon, also spelt Hellyer, a goldsmith who became a staunch Protestant and was Sheriff of Exeter in 1568, by his marriage to Laurence, daughter of John Wall, a City of London goldsmith.
He was one of four boys: two others became goldsmiths, and one a clergyman. Hilliard may have been a close relative of Grace Hiller, first wife of Theophilus Eaton, the co-founder of New Haven Colony in Amer
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