Symbols of royal power in European portraits: crown, orb, sceptre, ermine and more

A European royal portrait is full of objects that tell you who the sitter is and what power they hold. A crown, an orb and a sceptre say "monarch". A white fur with black spots says "royal or high noble". A gold chain with a small badge says the wearer belongs to an order of knights. This page explains the most common of these signs, where they came from, and how to find them in real paintings. The companion pages cover the poses in royal portraits and the clothes that showed rank, and the main guide to European royal portraits puts all three together.

Reading objects in a painting

Art historians have a word for an object that identifies a person in a picture: an attribute. Tate in London gives the example of the ancient gods. Doves go with Venus, the goddess of love, and a lyre, a small ancient harp, goes with Apollo. So a figure with a lyre can be named as Apollo.

Royal portraits work the same way. A painter placed objects near the ruler so that any viewer, even one who had never seen the ruler's face, would understand the picture. Some objects belong to every monarch, such as the crown. Others belong to one person or family. Raphael's portrait of Pope Julius II has two golden acorns on the chair, and the National Gallery in London explains that they refer to his family name, della Rovere, since rovere is Italian for oak.

The regalia: crown, orb and sceptre

The objects given to a new monarch at a coronation are called the regalia. Westminster Abbey in London, where English coronations have taken place since 1066, lists them as two crowns, swords, an orb, sceptres, spurs, armills (bracelets) and a ring. The Abbey says crowns have appeared in coronations for over 1,000 years and are shown in manuscripts from the 10th century onwards.

The English set in use today is younger than it looks. Westminster Abbey says almost all the medieval regalia was destroyed or lost after the execution of King Charles I, and had to be made again for the coronation of Charles II in 1661. The Royal Family's own description of the regalia says St Edward's Crown was made for Charles II in 1661 to replace the medieval crown, which had been melted down in 1649, and that the Crown Jeweller Robert Vyner made the Sceptre with Dove the same year.

The crown

The crown is the plainest sign of a monarch. Royal Museums Greenwich says the imperial crown painted beside Elizabeth I in the Armada portrait is often read as a sign of empire, and that it also stood for the Tudor claim to descend from the legendary first king of Britain. It reasserted her right to rule.

A crown does not have to be on the head. In Hyacinthe Rigaud's 1701 portrait of Louis XIV, the Louvre says the crown rests on a cushion beside the king. It is a lighter crown of gilded silver, made for royal funerals, and he holds a short sceptre, which once belonged to Henri IV, upside down.

The orb

The orb is a ball held in the ruler's hand. The Royal Family's account of the regalia says the Sovereign's Orb represents the sovereign's power and symbolises the Christian world. Royal Museums Greenwich sums up the group simply: crowns, orbs and sceptres all signified monarchy.

Orbs appear in the earliest English royal portrait. Westminster Abbey describes a wooden panel of Richard II from the 1390s, which it calls the earliest known portrait of an English monarch. The king sits in the Coronation Chair holding the orb and sceptre. The National Gallery's Wilton Diptych, a small folding altarpiece made for the same king, has a tiny orb on top of a banner. The gallery says it shows an island with green trees and a white tower in a silver sea, and that it stands for England.

The sceptre and the hand of justice

A sceptre is a decorated rod held by the ruler. The Royal Family's account says the British Sceptre with Cross represents the sovereign's power on earth and good government, and the Sceptre with Dove, called the Rod of Equity and Mercy, represents the sovereign's spiritual role. Westminster Abbey says the dove stands for the Holy Spirit.

French kings had a second rod, the main de justice, or hand of justice, topped with a small carved hand. The Wallace Collection in London holds a reduced copy of Louis-Michel van Loo's portrait of Louis XV, a design first shown at the 1761 Salon, the official art exhibition in Paris. The museum says the hand of justice lies beside the crown on a stool, and explains that it is the sceptre for the king as the highest judge. The Louvre says Rigaud's Louis XIV shows it too.

Swords, spurs and batons

Swords appear in the regalia and in portraits. Westminster Abbey says the Sword of Mercy has a blunt tip, after a legend in which an angel stopped a knight from using his sword. The Wallace Collection says Louis XV wears the royal sword called Joyeuse, which was believed to have belonged to the emperor Charlemagne. The Louvre says the same sword hangs at the side of Louis XIV in Rigaud's portrait.

A baton is a short rod of command carried by a military leader. In Van Dyck's Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, the National Gallery says the baton in the king's hand signals his senior military rank. In this picture, the gallery says, the gold chain and the baton show his status, and a Latin inscription on a tablet hanging from a tree names him King of Great Britain. The page on military portraits looks at batons, medals and uniforms in more detail.

Ermine

Ermine is the white fur of a small animal of the weasel family. Each tail has a black tip, so a robe made of many skins sewn together looks white with small black spots.

Royal Museums Greenwich says ermine featured in many portraits of Elizabeth I. According to legend, the animal would rather die than dirty its white coat, so it stood for purity. The museum adds that it was also a status symbol, because wearing ermine was restricted to royalty and the high nobility. In the Westminster Abbey portrait of Richard II, the Abbey says the king wears a crimson robe lined with ermine and an ermine cape. The page on royal portrait costume explains the laws that decided who could wear which fur.

Chains and badges of knighthood

An order of knighthood was a society of knights with its own chain, ribbon and badge, and painters took care to show them. The National Gallery calls the Order of the Garter an elite society and the highest order of chivalry.

The National Gallery says the gold chain in Van Dyck's picture of Charles I is commonly called the "Little George" and marks the king as a member of the Order of the Garter. In Rubens's portrait of the Earl of Arundel, painted in 1629 or 1630, the gallery identifies the medallion on a blue ribbon as the Lesser George, a Garter badge, and calls the Garter the highest order of chivalry. Royal Museums Greenwich says a late portrait of Queen Victoria after Heinrich von Angeli shows her wearing the blue sash of the same order.

For Spain, the National Gallery says Velázquez's late portrait of Philip IV shows the Golden Fleece, a chivalric order whose pendant took the form of a hanging sheepskin, and that viewers of the 1600s would have recognised it at once.

Personal badges worked in a similar way. The National Gallery says Richard II used a white hart, a white stag, as his emblem, probably taken from his mother's white hind and perhaps a pun on Richart, the French form of his name, and that in the Wilton Diptych the angels wear white hart badges to show they are his supporters. Westminster Abbey says he adopted it officially in 1390.

Columns, curtains and papers

The setting also carried a message. Royal Museums Greenwich says the classical columns in two versions of the Armada portrait of Elizabeth I are thought to refer to the pillars of Hercules, the westernmost point of the ancient world. The Louvre says the column in Rigaud's Louis XIV is a symbol of strength, and that its base carries a relief of Justice, so the king appears as royal power resting on strength and justice. The National Gallery says Rigaud gave his portrait of the royal treasurer Antoine Pâris "the base of an immense column" and a sweep of blue velvet drapery. Pompeo Batoni used classical columns and a bust of a Roman emperor, the gallery says, to show that his sitter Richard Milles was a learned gentleman.

A heavy curtain in rich cloth was a common partner to the column. In Velázquez's Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver, the National Gallery describes a table covered in red velvet matching the draped curtain behind the king. The king also holds a petition, a written request, signed by the painter as "Painter to Your Majesty".

These props spread far beyond the courts. The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra says photographers of the 1860s gave ordinary customers imitation classical columns, balustrades and heavy drapes, so that anyone could look dignified in a small photographic portrait.

Using the symbols in a pet portrait

The same signs make a dog or cat look royal at a glance. The cover of this page, from the Purrealism gallery, shows a long-haired cat in the Renaissance Royal style wearing a crown and an ermine cape, and holding a gold orb on a red throne. The portrait studio offers six European styles, and the costume and setting come with the style you choose. For the history of animals in portraits more broadly, read what pet portraits are. For the earliest crowns and thrones, continue to medieval royal portraits, or to Renaissance and Tudor portraits for Elizabeth I's many symbols.