This exceptionally vibrant miniature is in extraordinarily
good condition. Its colours – most notably, its brilliant
oranges, which ‘pop’ against Oliver’s solid blue
background and against the black elements of the sitter’s
dress – are virtually unfaded and undimmed with the
passage of time.

 The identity of the sitter, who has chosen to be portrayed
in an androgynous fashion, is unknown.[1] But her attire
and general self-presentation are suggestive of a spirited,
perhaps slightly rebellious nature. Flowing tresses worn
down rather than up were a sign that a lady was unmarried
(or in masquing costume).[2] Yet the ‘love lock’, in which
one section of hair was left to grow longer than the rest
so that it could be brought forward – as depicted in this
miniature – was predominantly a male fashion.[3] In
short, Oliver’s sitter seems to be the sort of young lady
the anonymous author of the 1620 pamphlet Hic Mulier
(‘The Man-Woman’) had in mind when railing against
the ‘insolencie of our women, and theyre wearing of
brode brimd hats [and] pointed dublets’.[4]

 Certainly, the broad-brimmed hat and pointed
doublet worn by this sitter are masculine in style.
As is clear from both written and visual evidence,
ladies at the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean
courts often donned such attire for hunting,
as may be seen in Paul van Somer’s life-sized oil painting
of Anne of Denmark with her horse and hounds (1617),
now in the Royal Collection.[5] Sometimes, too, ladies
wore such garb when ‘in character’ for a court masque
or other entertainment. For example, the text of Ben
Jonson’s Masque of Queens – performed at Whitehall
Palace in 1609 by Queen Anne and eleven noblewomen
– indicates that Hypsicratea, Queen of Pontus made
her entrance wearing ‘a masculine habit’.[6]


Large jewelled aigrettes like the one affixed to this sitter’s
hat were usually a male accessory and often a martial
one at that. That said, one of Nicholas Hilliard’s ‘mask
of youth’ miniatures of Elizabeth I, probably dating
from the mid-1590s, depicts a similar aigrette in the
hair of the Queen, herself no stranger to androgynous
self-presentation (fig. 24, p. 40). In 1588, when rallying
the English troops at Tilbury in anticipation of the
expected invasion by the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth
famously had declared that, though she had ‘the body
of a weak and feeble woman’, she possessed ‘the heart
and stomach of a king’.[7]


Note, in Oliver’s rendering, the way in which the pearl
suspended from the sitter’s aigrette tilts to one side, the
angle of the tilt paralleled by that of the pearl suspended
from her proper left ear. It is a lovely detail – typical of
Oliver at the height of his powers – which ‘humanises’
the miniature, whilst reinforcing the viewer’s sense of
the character of the individual portrayed: in this case,
that we are looking at a lady of action, who has paused
only briefly from her daily whirligig of hunting and/
or masquing to enable Oliver to take her likeness. In
all probability, the sitting took many hours – perhaps
spread over multiple days – and no doubt the sitter’s
pose and attire were carefully planned. But Oliver here
creates the illusion of immediacy, still palpable some
400 years later, of having captured the sitter in medias
res, her pendant pearls still in motion, as if she has only
just this moment rushed into his studio and taken a seat
in front of him.


Like jewelled aigrettes, sashes were a traditional signifier
of male military rank (particularly if worn over armour). It is
not immediately clear why this sitter should have chosen
to be portrayed with a sash, much less such a bright
orange one – though its inclusion is likely to have had
a highly specific meaning both for the sitter and the
miniature’s intended recipient. Perhaps one, or both,
had familial links to the ongoing revolt of the Protestant
United Provinces of the Netherlands against Catholic
Spain.
The colour orange was, for many English Protestants,
closely associated with the United Provinces, whose first
leader had been William the Silent (1533–1584), also
known as William of Orange.[8]

The sitter’s decision
to be portrayed bare-handed rather than wearing gloves
(then, as now, an integral component of riding attire,
as can be seen in van Somer’s 1617 portrait of Anne of
Denmark) enables the long, elegant fingers of her proper
right hand to be showcased. Her pose – caressing her
lovelock and cradling it to her proper left breast or heart –
was doubtless intended as an erotic gesture. Presumably,
the sitter commissioned this miniature for presentation of a love token. If the miniature was encased in a locket,
as was often the case in this period, it is tempting to
speculate that she may have placed an actual lock of her
own hair inside, alongside the miniature.