First UK Guinea Pig?

In preparation for its autumn exhibition Elizabeth I and Her People, the National Portrait Gallery in London borrowed this painting of Three unknown Elizabethan children (c. 1580) from a private collection. The girl in the centre is holding what could be the earliest depiction of a South American guinea pig in Europe (CLICK). An emergent middle class embraced portraiture and exotic pets during the forty years of Queen Elizabth I's reign. The exhibition with over 100 objects - accessories, artefacts, costumes, coins, jewellery and crafts as well as portraits - opens in the Wolfson Gallery on 10 October (CLICK).