Nicholas Hilliard : Life of an Artist

'Goldring's engaging account of his life, character and artistic methods, supported by gorgeous illustrations and illuminating new archival discoveries, makes for a wonderful book, at once authoritative and full of pleasures' - Literary Review

An illustrated biography of the artist Nicholas Hilliard

This biography follows Hilliard;s long and remarkable life (c. 1547-1619) from the West Country to the heart of the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts. It showcases new archival research and stunning images, many reproduced in color for the first time.

Hilliard's portraits-some no larger than a watch-face-have decisively shaped perceptions of the appearances and personalities of many key figures in one of the most exciting, if volatile, periods in British history. His sitters included Elizabeth I, James I, and Mary, Queen of Scots; explorers Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh; and members of the emerging middle class from which he himself hailed. Hilliard counted the Medici, the Valois, the Habsburgs, and the Bourbons among his Continental European patrons and admirers.

Winner of the 2019 Apollo Book of the Year Award

Details

• Author: Elizabeth Goldring
• Hardcover: 352 pages | 250 colour illustrations
• Date published:  February 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0300241426
• Product Dimensions: 29.1 x 20.8cm

Reviews

'Elizabeth Goldring's illustrated biography Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist, published to coincide with a major centenary exhibition, tells his story with all the flair of her last book, an examination of the flamboyant and (for his day) selfie-loving Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester' - Financial Times

'Goldring's engaging account of his life, character and artistic methods, supported by gorgeous illustrations and illuminating new archival discoveries, makes for a wonderful book, at once authoritative and full of pleasures' - Literary Review

'This is a scholarly book ... but full of insight and courtly intrigue. [. . .] Goldring gives the bones of Hilliard's biography [. . .] and his turbulent times [. . .] but more than that she encourages you to really look. [. . .]The close-up photographs of jewels and lace are a revelation' - The Times

'Elizabeth Goldring's engrossing, thickly illustrated biography shows that it was a rags-to-riches-and-back-again story. [. . .] This superb book vividly conjures a costly dresser and spendthrift, terrible with money, litigious, and sometimes slippery with creditors [. . .] Patrons bailed him out more than once, and his penultimate year was spent in Ludgate jail for debt. What humiliation for one who painted everyone who counted' - Evening Standard