Nov 26, 2009, 11:01 GMT
Miniature portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and the first Earl of Leicester sold at auction for £72,000 yesterday (25.11.09).
The tiny portraits - which are both the size of a fingernail and were painted around 1575 -show Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, who was a childhood friend and then a suspected lover in later years.
The portraits by Nicholas Hilliard were made when Elizabeth had been on the throne for 17 years.
Camilla Lombardi, head of the portrait department at Bonham's, the auction house which conducted the sale, said they were "immensely" important because they document the most serious personal relationship with a man that the "Virgin Queen" ever had.
She told the Times newspaper: "They might well have been set into a ring or a jewelled locket hanging from the clothing. Both men and women wore miniatures like that at the time.
"It was widely known that they were close but we don't know exactly how close. The whole question of Elizabeth's relationships with men and why she never married is a very big subject and he was the man she got closest to."
The paintings were sold as part of a collection put together by Eleanor Hamilton which spanned the history of miniature painting.
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