Anne, Queen of Great Britain
Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702-14, was the second daughter of James, Duke of York (later James II), and Anne Hyde. The history of this miniature begins in 1704, when Colonel Daniel Parke II, of Virginia, (who served as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough) delivered to Queen Anne the news of the English victory over the French at the Battle of Blenheim. Bearers of good news traditionally received 500 guineas, but when asked what he wished as a reward for this important dispatch, Parke strategically requested the Queen’s own portrait. She awarded him not only her image in miniature encased in diamonds, but 1,000 guineas, some fine silver plate, and eventually the chief governorship of the Leeward Islands. Exceedingly unpopular in this role, Parke was dragged from his residence in Antigua in 1710, stripped of his clothing and murdered by an angry mob. The importance of the Queen Anne miniature to Parke is demonstrated by its prominent role in portraits by Godfrey Kneller, John Closterman, and Michael Dahl. The miniature created for him, like those by the court enamellist of the period Charles Boit, was likely based on a portrait of the monarch by Godfrey Kneller.
An accompanying note (given with the miniature), signed EPC and presumably from Elizabeth Parke Custis Law reads: “Miniature of Queen Anne given to me by my lamented + beloved mother.”
Published ReferencesCarolyn Weekley, Painters and Paintings in the Early American South (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in association with Yale University Press, 2013), 82.
Robin Jaffee Frank, Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures (New Haven: Yale, 2000), 10.
Helen Hill Miller, Colonel Parke of Virginia: The Greatest Hector in Town (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1989), 146,198, 216
Bourne, Ruth May, “A Rare Miniature: Queen Anne's Gift to Colonel Daniel Parke II of Virginia,” Virginia cavalcade, Richmond, VA. v.28, no.1 (1978), 20- 28
Charles Moore, The Family Life of George Washington (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926), xii, 61-69.
Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition Under the Auspices of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America,” The Octagon, Washington, D.C., April 17 – April 21, 1906. (Number 450.)
Portraits, Relics, and Silverware Exhibited at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, April 17th to May 8th, 1889 (New York: Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Company, 1889), (It is possible this work was shown as Catalogue 140, p. 38.)
