ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is a rarely studied miniature portrait of Robert Sidney, the first Earl of Leicester, painted by limner Nicholas Hilliard. In comparison to his own full-length portrait and especially to Hilliard’s miniature portraits of Robert Devereux and Robert Dudley, Sidney’s miniature lacks the ornamentation viewers are accustomed to seeing in Hilliard’s work. Considering the miniature’s notorious history as a form of courtly currency or as a love token, it has been long assumed that these images displayed their subjects in gilded and romantic visual language. This chapter proposes that Sidney’s stern and lacklustre image stems from his desire to emulate the masculine image popular not in England, but in the Netherlands (where he would have been Governor of Flushing during the time of the portrait’s commission). The differences in representation of manhood across the two countries are explored and how Sidney’s miniature sets itself apart from other English artworks. The chapter also investigates the circumstances of the miniature’s viewing, its place with Sidney’s household and the broader social context of both England and the Netherlands when it comes to the visual narrative of this specific piece.
