Cameo of Elizabeth I

c.1575

Probably in the collection of Queen Caroline; first documented in the Royal Collection in 1763

Cameo of a bust of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) in profile to the left. She wears an elaborate gown with a square neckline and a small, high ruff. Chains and a pendant hang around her neck and she appears to wear a beaded net over the back of her tightly curled hair. The small close-fitting ruff was fashionable in the 1570s.

The mount is a fragment and the cameo may originally have formed part of a locket or have been surrounded by a jewelled border, like many of the surviving portrait cameos of Elizabeth I.