Metsys Elizabeth I The Sieve Portrait c1583

Quentin Metsys the Younger (Quinten or Massys; c. 1543 – 1589) was a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

painter, one of several of his countrymen active as artists of the Tudor court in the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

of England. He was the son of

painter Jan Massys, Matsys, or Metsys and the grandson and namesake of Quentin Massys or Metsys. The younger Quentin was born in Antwerp, where he joined the Guild of St. Luke in 1574; by c. 1581 he was living in London, likely having fled religious persecution in Antwerp as his father and uncle had done. He left England for Frankfurt in 1588 and died there the next year. He is best known for the ''Sieve Portrait'' of Elizabeth I, commissioned by

Christopher Hatton Sir Christopher Hatton KG (1540 – 20 November 1591) was an English politician, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England. He was one of the judges who found Mary, Queen of Scots guilty of treason. Early years Sir ...

in 1583, in which she is depicted as

Tuccia Tuccia (3rd-century BC ), was an ancient Roman Vestal Virgin. She is known for an incident in which her chastity was questioned by a spurious accusation. In Tuccia's case, she utilized a flat perforated basket to carry water, without the water fal ...

, a

Vestal Virgin In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals ( la, Vestālēs, singular ) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame. The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty ...

who proved her chastity by carrying water from the

Tiber River The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the Ri ...

to the

Temple of Vesta The Temple of Vesta, or the aedes (Latin ''Aedes Vestae''; Italian: ''Tempio di Vesta''), is an ancient edifice in Rome, Italy. The temple is located in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the House of the Vestal Virgins. The Temple of Vesta hou ...

without spilling a drop. Elizabeth is surrounded by symbols of empire, including a column and a

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...

, iconography that would appear again and again in her portraiture of the 1580s and 1590s, most notably in the '' Armada Portrait'' of 1588.Hearn, p. 85; Strong 1987 p. 101

Notes

References

*Hearn, Karen, ed. ''Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630''. New York: Rizzoli, 1995. * Strong, Roy,''The English Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture'', 1969, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London (Strong 1969) *Strong, Roy: ''The Cult of Elizabeth'', 1977, Thames and Hudson, London, (Strong 1977) *Strong, Roy: ''Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I'', Thames and Hudson, 1987, (Strong 1987)

External links

* 1543 births 1589 deaths Flemish Renaissance painters Painters from Antwerp {{Netherlandish-painter-stub