Nicholas Hilliard: Biography from Answers.com Mobile

Nicholas Hilliard

(born 1547, Exeter, Eng. — died Jan. 7, 1619, London) British painter. The son of a goldsmith, he trained as a jeweler and began painting miniatures in his youth. In 1570 he was appointed miniature painter to Elizabeth I. He produced many portraits of her and of such members of her court as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. He retained his appointment on the accession of James I (1603), while also practicing as a goldsmith and jeweler. The first great native-born English painter of the Renaissance, he raised the art of miniature painting to its highest point of development and influenced English portraiture through the early 17th century.

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