Hilliard, Nicholas

English miniaturist and goldsmith. Court artist to Elizabeth I and James I, he painted many leading figures of Tudor and Stuart society, including Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Mary Queen of Scots, as well as several portraits of Elizabeth I herself. Some of his minatures, in particular An Unknown Young Man Amid Roses (c. 1590; Victoria and Albert Museum, London), place the sitter in a closely observed natural setting.

Hilliard wrote, but never published, a book on his practise, The Arte of Limninge, in 1593. In this, he says he based his style on that of Hans Holbein the Younger, but he also probably learned from contemporary French artists (he visited France in the 1570s); he seems not, on the other hand, to have imitated Levina Teelinc. After 1600 he was gradually superseded by his pupil Isaac Oliver. His son Lawrence Hilliard (1582–after 1640) was also a miniaturist.