In 1897 John Lloyd Warden Page described why Queen Bess Rock is so called: “It is called Queen Elizabeth and the resemblance to the Virgin Queen is certainly very striking. Her ample skirts from the base of the crag, then come the figure and face, aquiline nose, and all on the top of the head, eighty feet above the water, a tiny crown.”

Unfortunately, since Park painted the remarkable rock formation, the elemental forces of Cornwall’s north coast have taken their toll and the queen’s head and crown have been toppled.

But with John Anthony Park’s painting we have an enduring record of this ancient rock stack. Park’s brushwork is typically fluid yet deliberate, as we are more accustomed to seeing in his paintings of St Ives harbour, contributing to the sense of motion and depth that animates Cornwall's north coast.