Sold for Just £5,588, This Amber Pendant Turned Out to Be a Rare Tudor-Era Portrait of Elizabeth I. Now, It's Going on Auction for £100,000
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Last November, an Edinburgh auction house sold a petite portrait of Elizabeth I for a relatively modest sum: £5,588, or roughly $7,350.
The listing for the “Elizabethan-style amber and enamel pendant” suggested that the accessory was crafted in the late 19th century, nearly 300 years after the Tudor queen’s death in 1603. On July 1, the pendant is slated to go under the hammer once again. This time around, it carries an estimate of £100,000 to £150,000—up to 27 times more than its sale price just seven months ago.
As Christopher Mason, Sotheby’s European head of sculpture and works of art, tells Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine, “The value increase is because, through significant research and scientific analysis, we established that the object was a rare, rediscovered Renaissance jewel” created toward the end of Elizabeth’s reign. Dated to around 1600, the pendant features a cameo portrait of the queen carved into a gemstone, likely white amber. (Commonly called “Baltic gold,” amber is a form of fossilized tree resin that was prized by European royals for its transparent appearance.) The cameo is set in a heart-shaped piece of yellow amber that was expertly cut to magnify Elizabeth’s likeness.
A parrot symbolizing the queen’s virginity is engraved on the pendant’s reverse. “This gold-mounted amber pendant is an extraordinarily rare emblem of Queen Elizabeth’s sovereignty and is likely a gift from her own hand,” jewelry specialist and historian Geoffrey Munn says in a statement. “Its heart-shaped profile echoes her insistence that she was married only to the Kingdom of England.” The daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Elizabeth was England’s last Tudor monarch.
Declared illegitimate after her mother’s execution on trumped-up treason charges in 1536, Elizabeth only ascended to the throne in 1558, after both of her half-siblings died childless. Despite entertaining an array of suitors over the course of her 44-year reign, Elizabeth famously refused to marry. Per the Sotheby’s listing, the cameo portrait is based on a famous print by Crispijn de Passe the Elder, which is in turn styled after a painted miniature of the queen by Isaac Oliver.
Based on a comparison with similar surviving objects, experts believe that the pendant is the work of either Hans Klingenberg or Georg Schreiber, renowned craftsmen of the Prussian court. “The extraordinary level of detail, the crispness of the carved surface and the delicacy of its framing border point to a virtuoso technique,” the auction house notes in the statement. Exactly who commissioned the pendant is unknown, although the queen herself is one possibility.
The object eventually ended up in the possession of John Malcolm, a 19th-century collector specializing in old master drawings. In 1879, Malcolm loaned the pendant to the Burlington Fine Arts Club, which exhibited it in London that same year. The amber accessory was passed down by Malcolm’s descendants before landing on the auction block last November.
As Mason tells Artnet, the auction house that sold the artifact “did not have the 1879 exhibition history,” instead simply identifying the item as “part of the former contents” of Malcolm’s historic home in Scotland. Imbued with symbolism, the pendant testifies to Elizabeth’s commitment to remaining unwed. “She was well aware from the marriages around her that marriage isn’t necessarily positive for women in the period,” historian Elizabeth Norton told Smithsonian magazine in 2022.
Of her four stepmothers, one was beheaded, and another died of complications stemming from childbirth. The third was cast aside after just six months, and the fourth narrowly escaped execution on heresy charges. Elizabeth’s older half-sister, Mary I, offered another example of the perils of marriage, particularly for queens who reigned in their own right rather than as consorts to kings.
When Mary wed a Spanish prince, she drew criticism for yielding her royal authority to a foreign power. Taking heed of Mary’s example, Elizabeth opted to remain single, despite pressure to marry and bear an heir to the throne. Upon the queen’s death, the English crown passed to James VI of Scotland, the son of Elizabeth’s cousin and longtime rival, Mary, Queen of Scots.
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