Lampedo (from the Amberley Castle 'Heroines of Antiquity') (Amberley Queens)

Lampedo, one of the legendary queens of the Amazons, appears in Lambert Barnard's Amberley heroines series at the Novium Museum. The Amazons — a mythological race of warrior women — were among the most discussed of classical subjects in humanist writing, combining fascination with female military power with anxieties about gender order. Lampedo and her sister Marpesia were said to have divided the Amazon kingdom, ruling simultaneously; their inclusion in the Amberley series reflects the Tudor period's sophisticated engagement with classical mythology as a source of exemplary female figures.

Oil on panel. Within the Amberley series, Amazon figures like Lampedo would have been distinguished by martial attributes — spear, shield, or armour — marking them as warrior figures distinct from the more evidently regal or intellectual heroines in the same programme. Barnard's technique combines Tudor decorativeness with simplified figure modelling.