Queen Elizabeth I, Rainbow Portrait
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The clues are convincing enough to have led Historic Royal Palaces to study it, restore it, and, in 2019, display it at Hampton Court alongside the famous Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I. This was no coincidence: the embroidery on the cloth resembles that of the dress worn by the queen in the painting, and some even speculate that they might have been part of the same garment. The name chosen for the exhibition, after all, left little to the imagination: The Lost Dress of Elizabeth I.
The Bacton Altar Cloth on display at Hampton Court alongside the Rainbow Portrait.
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This leaves another question: how is it possible that so little of Elizabeth’s wardrobe has survived? In the 16th century, a dress was also a small fortune made up of fabrics, embroidery, and precious metals. Once it went out of style, it could be given away, altered, taken apart, and reused, with practically everything of value salvaged. This is also why, over the centuries, the physical traces of Elizabeth’s wardrobe have almost completely disappeared.
And so, if this dress truly belonged to Elizabeth, what may have saved it was precisely the very thing that seemed to have erased its identity: being cut up, reassembled, and transformed into a completely different object. In short, of all the spectacular gowns worn by Elizabeth I, the only one to have survived to the present day might be the one that, in order to survive, had to cease being a gown.
The Mystery of the Missing Romanov Jewels
The fate of the hidden jewels, which were carefully sewn into the grand duchesses’ garments during imprisonment, haunts heirs and historians to this day.
Originally published in Vanity Fair Italy
