LONDON.-The earliest known full-length image of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) sold this morning at Sotheby’s in London for an unprecedented £2,596,500. The work, which had for most of its life remained hidden from the public eye, attracted interest today from six determined bidders who together drove the price well beyond the pre-sale estimate of £700,000-£1,000,000. In a room tense with anticipation, the hammer finally fell to a bid from Philip Mould Fine Paintings Ltd, London.

Prior to today’s sale and the preceding exhibition, the work had hung – largely forgotten - for some 50 years on the wall of a private meeting room at Aylesbury Crown Court in Buckinghamshire. Loaned to the Buckinghamshire council by the same family who had owned the work since the time of its execution, this little-known work excited widespread interest from across the globe when it recently emerged to the public eye.

Given directly by Queen Elizabeth I to 17th-century Parliamentarian John Hampden, this rare and important work has remained in the same family ever since. Aside from its importance as the earliest known full-length depiction of England’s queen, the painting is also of special importance in that it is thought to have been created expressly to help the queen in her quest to find a royal suitor – a kind of advertisement both of her beauty and of her fertility. Showing the queen against a background of luscious fruits and flowers, and holding a carnation – a symbol of betrothal – the painting would have signaled all the right messages (of wealth, fidelity, beauty, and fertility) to potential suitors, of whom – it seems – there were many.

Emmeline Hallmark, Head of Sotheby’s British Paintings department, said: “We were thrilled to see this magnificent portrait attract all the interest and competition today that it so justly deserved.”

The painting will be put on display in Philip Mould’s London gallery, Historical Portraits, in 2008.