Hilliard, Nicholas
The miniaturist and goldsmith Nicholas Hilliard is the first English painter of whose career we possess a certain amount of knowledge. He was born in Exeter, the son of a goldsmith, and by the age of 13 had taken up miniature painting. At an early date he became goldsmith and limner to Queen Elizabeth I, and by the 1580s was well established in Court circles. In 1583/4 he was granted the right to make portraits of the Queen, and in 1584 designed and executed her second Great Seal. He may have visited France about 1577, and was certainly familiar with the work of French painters such as the Clouets, although he stated that he modeled himself on Holbein.
A Biographical Dictionary of Artists, © Andromeda 1995
