In the April issue of The Burlington Magazine, an important miniature by Nicholas Hilliard is published for the first time in an article by Elizabeth Goldring and Emma Rutherford, having just emerged from a private collection. It adds significantly to our understanding of his practice and patronage and constitutes Hilliard’s only known completed cabinet miniature of a female subject. What’s more, the sitter can be identified as Lady Arbella (or Arabella) Stuart (1575–1615), and the commission connected with a fascinating episode of spycraft in late Elizabethan England.
Elizabeth and Emma have been researching this portrait for over a year, and it’s with enormous excitement that it is finally published.
