Young Man among Roses
by HILLIARD, Nicholas, Watercolour on vellum stuck onto card, 135 x 73 mm
This portrait is perhaps the most famous of English miniatures. It epitomises the romantic Elizabethan age and is a masterpiece of miniature paintings by its greatest exponent, Nicholas Hilliard. It shows a young man, full length, oval, leaning against a tree among roses. Inscribed above the head is a Latin motto taken from Lucan’s De Bello Civili: ‘Dat / poenas laudata fides’ (‘a praised faith’). The young man is possibly Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.