Art historian and author Roland Hui discusses about the portraits of the Tudor Queens and the stories behind them for Tudor Summit 2017.
Hui has written for ‘Renaissance Magazine’ and for Tudor Life Magazine, and is the author of “The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens” (2017).
He blogs about 16th-century English art and personalities at Tudor Faces.
Check out his book below:
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Transcript: Roland Hui on Tudor Portraits
Welcome back, everybody. The final speaker is Roland Hui who isn’t going to actually be doing video because he was having a dodgy webcam issue. So we’re just going to do audio for him. I’m going to introduce you to Roland and he’s the final speaker.
Before I do that, I just want to thank you so much for watching and listening and for being a part of this event. It’s been so great. Please go to the Facebook group and give us feedback. Let us know what you thought about it. How we can improve next time. All of it.
Now we’re going to get into Roland talking about portraits of the Tudor Queens.
Roland Hui received his degree in art history from Concordia University in Canada. After completing his studies, he went on to work in interpretive media for California State Parks, the US Forest Service, and the National Park Service.
Roland has written for Renaissance Magazine and Tudor Life Magazine. He’s also the author of The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens published in 2017. Recently, he has drawn attention for his discovery belief that an image in the Black Book of the Garter is based on Anne Boleyn, providing a previously unknown portrait of her.
So Roland, you know so much about art history, about the art world, and I’m just wondering if you can kind of walk us through some of these portraits individually. Starting with the first one we have – Katherine of Aragon. That very famous one with her as a young girl. What can you tell us about that?
Roland:
That’s an interesting portrait in that it’s the one picture that we have one of the six wives as a child, because she was a famous person being the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Therefore, the princesses, she had sisters, they were painted, probably meant as family mementos and as pictures for the marriage market because they were meant to be married internationally.
So you would send the portrait to a prospective bridegroom saying, “This is my daughter,”, and you would do an exchange of portraits. This picture might have been sent to the court of Henry VII for her to be married to Prince Arthur, his son.
Heather:
What kind of image would she be showing?
Roland:
Well, she’s showing which is very interesting, she’s showing her Tudor allegiances already because on her necklace around her neck, you see small white and red roses on her collar necklace. This has been interpreted to represent the Houses of York and Lancaster – the white rose in the red rose. Katherine being married to the royal family is showing her allegiance to her new husband already.
On that same necklace, she has a bunch of K’s standing for Katherine. Interestingly enough, this is K as in Katherine the way it’s spelled in English because her Spanish name was Catalina with a C. So she’s already displaying her love and her loyalty to tell us a Tudor already even though the pitch was probably painted before she was married. There’s a small little C at her breast as well. That might refer to the Spanish version of her name Catalina.
This picture has also been theorized as not being Katherine but rather as Henry VII’s daughter, Princess Mary Tudor for a variety of reasons. But generally, it has been accepted as being of Katherine of Aragon.
Following that we have other portraits, they’re more or less of the same type, which is wearing a gable pointed headdress, very formal, very iconic. Those were the types of pictures that were painted of Katherine when she was Queen, and stuck to a certain type, of certain template almost.
Heather:
How did portraits of her change throughout her queenship?
Roland:
There wasn’t much change when she was Queen. There was a standard portrait type where she’s sitting, half-length facing to one side, wearing a gable headdress. This was used as a pattern throughout her time is Queen. That was replicated. She might be wearing a different costume, might be different accessories. One of them has her with a monkey, interestingly enough.
But generally, there was a type. That type was stuck to until she was not Queen anymore. Then there were no more portraits of her that were being done. The only portrait that was a kind of a deviant from this pattern was a small miniature where she’s not wearing a gable headdress but she’s wearing a cap and you see her brownish-red hair. That’s a portrait miniature by Lucas Horenbout.
Heather:
Why were those painted?
Roland:
They were I guess more informal. I mean you see Katherine, it’s a different type so it was a one-of-a-kind picture. It was probably meant for her only, that wasn’t meant to be distributed or show to the public. It was a small memento. It was a small miniature, so it was more informal. She is dressed differently and it deviates from the standard type of her wearing the gable headdress as I mentioned.
Heather:
Anything else on Katherine’s portraits?
Roland:
Not really. Because once she became queen, as I said they stuck to a type. If you want to move on to Anne Boleyn, we could do that.
Heather:
Sure. Well, let’s talk about that really famous portrait of her to start with where she has the B necklace. What can you tell us about that?
Roland:
Yeah, that portrait is everywhere. I think it’s the iconic image of Anne, but the unfortunate thing is, all the paintings of this type were painted during the reign of Elizabeth, or as some of them were early Jacobean, meaning that reign of King James I. None of them, as we know, were painted during her own lifetime.
That has created doubt about whether is it a good likeness? Is it really her at all? Because there has been doubts. Somebody has theorized that no, it’s not Anne Boleyn rather again, Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister. And the B stood for Brandon and not Boleyn, but I don’t subscribe to that theory.
It’s unfortunate that Anne being the most famous of Henry VIII’s wives has the most problems with her portraiture because none of them have survived in our own lifetime. Except for a lead portrait metal, which really doesn’t say very much about her features, except she had apparently had a long face, high cheekbones, and an image in the Black Book of the Garter, which I believe is that picture of her if you read more about it on my blog.
Heather:
Yeah, we talked about that when you were on the podcast.
Roland:
With Anne, there are two Holbein drawings. One which has been replicated again and again was which was engraved since 1700’s of a lady with a gable headdress. But there is doubt that that is her because it wasn’t done until the 1640’s I believe. So there is doubt whether it’s her at all and is also another picture of a lady with a double chin with a very unroyal type dressing where she’s wearing a night robe and some kind of cap on her head.
I don’t believe that’s Anne even though there’s a lot of thinking that it is her. Because if you look at the color version of the drawing, which I think very few people have, the lady has blonde hair. And Anne is famously a brunette. That casts a lot of doubt that that particular drawing is Anne.
Also the fact about her thick neck. The sitter has a goiter apparently, has been said to give proof that that is Anne because it was on a source about her coronation, where she has a fat neck and so on and so forth. But you have to understand that that’s a very hostile description of a coronation and in the same description, she has this dress with nails on, with tons pierced with nails and things like that. So because it’s coming from the same source I have great doubt that the lady with a thick neck is Anne.
Heather:
Are there any other portraits of Anne that we should know about?
Roland:
There is an oddball picture if you look up. It’s very easy to find. It’s called the Nidd Hall Portrait where Anne is wearing a gable headdress looking kind of old and haggard. It is supposedly Anne Boleyn because it has an AB brooch in front of her.
But I suspect it might be Jane Seymour. It might be a rework picture where for some reason, a picture of Jane Seymour was thought to be Anne, and the AB added, who knows? But it’s such an unusual oddball type that there are doubts about that. I have doubts about that.
So I think the best bet is a famous portrait with her wearing the B necklace because it has survived. There were so many copies of it. There’s just not only the National Portrait version, which we see all the time, but there are dozens and dozens of copies of it.
That makes me think that because these portraits were done in a time of Elizabeth, it has some credence as her because they were replicated again and again. People at the Queen’s court would have remembered Anne way back and vouch for that portrait. So there is some kind of authenticity to it, I believe.
Heather:
So then what about Jane Seymour? Of course one of the most famous portraits of Henry she’s in, the portrait with his parents in Whitehall, but she was already dead at that point. So what about portraits of her from her life?
Roland:
When she was alive, there is a portrait miniature by Lucas Horenbout, but it looks very much like a standard image of Jane wearing the gable headdress, looking to the side, looking very, very demure, the perfect wife. That is the image type of Jane that has come down to us and has not deviated. Her portraits are always like that.
We have that in the Whitehall Mural Portrait where she’s a perfect wife standing next to the other perfect wife, Queen Elizabeth of York who gave birth to Prince Arthur and then Prince Henry and the two princesses and continued the Tudor dynasty. Jane did that as well with Prince Edward in 1537.
Heather:
That was quite a big piece of propaganda for Henry, wasn’t it?
Roland:
Oh, yeah, ‘cause it was large. It was life-sized. The portrait we believe was hung perhaps above his throne or if not in his private chambers. It was meant to impress somebody who described it as it was meant to bash and annihilate the viewer. So it was something very impressive.
Jane being the mother of Edward VI was the one who happened to be in the portrait because she was the mother of the heir and was continuing the Tutor dynasty. None of the other wives were able to do that, with a son that is.
Heather:
What was the history of why he wanted to have that painted? Can you tell me anything about that?
Roland:
I think because he had an artist who was a great painter – Hans Holbein, who did these larger-than-life pictures. He had to skill, the talent to do it. So Henry employed him to do that. I think it was about propaganda.
Henry VIII on one side, very powerful, very, very threatening-looking, and the rest of his family around him. So it was a propaganda piece about the Tudor dynasty and a continuation of it. That Henry and Jane were then the next people after Henry VI and Elizabeth of York to continue on the dynasty.
Heather:
Is there anything else on Jane Seymour then?
Roland:
Not particular because like Katherine of Aragon, when she became Queen portraits were of a type. Jane, she’s a very standard image of queenship. She’s a very demure very proper, nothing really particularly special about Jane.
After Jane of course, we have Anne of Cleves, which has an interesting story to it. Because that portrait was meant as a part of the marriage negotiations between Henry VIII and her German house, the house of Cleves.
Heather:
Then of course, there’s all the mystery about whether this was actually a good likeness of her or not.
Roland:
The story behind that was that Henry sent Hans Holbein to the German court to have Anne her sister Amelia painted. Portraits of Anne and Amelia were done previously by a German artist named Lucas Cranach.
But when the English ambassadors saw them, they were not impressed. He said, “Oh, we can see their faces and it really doesn’t tell us much.” So Henry decided to send the best artist he had, which was Hans Holbein to go to court and take Anne’s likeness.
So there’s a whole story about whether the likeness is accurate or was she flattered because she was so unattractive because her face was like a Flanders Mare. She had a horse face. No, that’s not true because the contemporary reports about that picture by the English ambassador was that it was a very lively image. Meaning it was very lifelike, very realistic.
There were no question about any flattering or any sort of that going on with Holbein. He painted what he saw before him and that portrait was taken to the English court along with an accompanying miniature. Henry was apparently pleased enough with it that the marriage negotiations continued on.
Unfortunately, when they met person-to-person it was a different story. Who knows if he just was not impressed with her in the flesh, even though the portrait is a good portrait. So, who knows? I think his problem was that the verbal descriptions about Anne were exaggerated because people are saying “Oh, she’s very beautiful!” “She’s the most beautiful princess.” “She is more beautiful than the sun and moon,” or something like that.
That was not really the case. I mean, she’s not unattractive in her picture, but she’s not exactly a beauty. I think she was just plain and that really contributed to Henry’s dislike of her because he was expecting some Venus and she wasn’t exactly that.
There are other portraits of Anne by a German artist that show Anne wearing usually black and yellow, looking through the side, and she does look a bit different. Her face thinner. She’s less attractive, you might say.
Perhaps that’s a another interpretation of Anne that’s just as valid as Holbein but taken from a different angle by a different artist, different interpretation. But just as valid but that’s another look at Anne with that portrait type.
Heather:
Were there ever any paintings of her painted after she wasn’t Queen any longer?
Roland:
After she was divorced and she lived as a divorcee, probably not. Because there was no reason to have her painted in a diplomatic sense. But the interesting point we have to consider is that after Anne arrived in England, she no longer dressed in German costume – the famous of big bonnet and the big puffy sleeves that we see in the famous Holbein picture.
She adapted English clothing, which is basically French styles. So what we have to look for are pictures of a woman, an unknown sitter wearing English/French costume-looking like Anne, if we want to look for a picture of Anne of Cleves. There probably are not have pictures like that.
We have to look for what is the unexpected, because after she came to England, she took up English customs and English clothing. It probably was no reason for her to be painted, unless she herself commissioned a painting. But we have no evidence of that, and nothing has come up.
Heather:
So then what can you tell us about Katherine Howard‘s portraits?
Roland:
Her portraits are problematic too, because none of them are documented as saying that is Katherine. It is wishful thinking on our part, unfortunately. So we have one picture that was supposed to be of Katherine by Hans Holbein of a lady with a high collar, black velvet dress, a French hood, with her hands clasped in front of her and she’s aged 21.
That has been suggested as being of Katherine Howard, but perhaps not because other people have thought well, maybe it’s one of Jane Seymour’s sisters or a member of the Thomas Cromwell’s family. We don’t know.
The other more famous picture that is generally accepted now is a miniature by Holbein. There are two versions of that, of a young lady with very richly dressed, with a French hood, and brown-furred sleeves, looking at the viewer. That’s generally set as Katherine, but we don’t really know.
It probably is because her jewelry apparently matches items in her jewelry inventory. There were a few items like her brooch which has a Ruby and an emerald I believe, and a pearl hanging down from it, can be found in the jewelry inventory that has survived. That has made us believe that that is probably Katherine.
But because her reign was brief and she was a disgraced queen, she was beheaded for adultery in 1542, has led to her portraits that have probably being put away destroyed, who knows, after she was gone. So if she was painted a picture that is her is probably the Holbein miniature.
Heather:
So then what about Catherine Parr? What can you tell us about hers?
Roland:
Catherine along with Katherine of Aragon and Jane Seymour, is one of Henry VIII’s most painted Queens. A lot of pictures that survive of her. One of the most popular types is a red dress wearing with a black bonnet with a feather, and it says Catherine Parr in the background. That is an authentic picture of her we know that.
But now there is another picture which in the last 20 or 15, I think 15 years has come down to was re-identified as Catherine it’s a well it’s a full length of a lady wearing a very, very ornate dress with a gable with a with a French hood. It used to be thought that that was Jane Grey, the Lady Jane Grey.
The interesting thing about that portrait was that for the longest time, it was accepted as Catherine Parr, but in the 1960’s Roy Strong the Director of the National Portrait Gallery thought that it was actually Jane Grey based on an engraving where the lady has a crown brooch at her breast.
But later on in the 1990’s historian named Susan James re-identified her again as “No, it actually is Catherine Parr”. Because if you look at Catherine Parr’s jewelry inventory, there are a specific mention of a crown brooch which matches exactly like the one that the sitter in the full-length portrait has at her breast. So we went from Catherine Parr to Jane Grey back to Catherine Parr with that picture.
Heather:
Can you tell me a little bit about how art historians, what kind of tools they use to figure out who these people are? Like, is it mostly provenance or how exactly do they do that?
Roland:
Provenance helps. It does help. So with let’s say for example, the Catherine Parr/Lady Jane Grey picture, that picture even though is not identified as anybody, there is no “This is a picture of so and so” written in the back, it did belong to people associated with Catherine Parr. So that is helpful. We know that because these people were associated with Catherine. It was probably given to them because they were friends of Queen Catherine.
So we look for provenance, which is very helpful. What the sitter has with him or her, some pieces, some items of clothing may be identified with items and inventories. Like I said with Catherine Parr, we know that Catherine owns a crown brooch and there it is. She’s wearing a crown brooch in her portrait that’s been very helpful.
With Katherine Howard’s necklace, and probably her cap can be found in the inventory as well. It’s dicey because a lot of Tudor jewelry, the description is generic and pieces look like each other sometimes. Again, with Katherine, we’re not sure but it might be a match. So we believe that picture based on inventory is Katherine Howard.
Heather:
I guess we can move on here to the portraits of his children, these kinds of later portraits. There’s the famous one of Edward receiving kind of the throne with Henry on his deathbed. What can you tell us about some of these portraits of his children?
Roland:
Princess Mary has a miniature of her as a child. So we could start there. Because she was disgraced with the marriage of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII that she was out of the picture, she was not painted again until she was 28 years old I believe it was. By an artist named Master John. It’s a very famous picture, a half-length of Mary, ornately dress, looking to the side, saying “The Princess Mary the virtuous daughter of Henry VIII,” or something like that.
She was not only painted because one had to have access to the King to get permission to paint her, and because for a while, because she was in disgrace with him, she was not painted. There were problems approaching her to have her painted. Other than that, afterwards, there are her pictures are of her as Queen of England. So there are many of those too which are very famous.
Princess Elizabeth, the earliest picture is a picture of her with the family with Princess Mary as well. I forgot to mention that. So Princess Mary is in that family portrait as well, where she is shown with the King in the center with Prince Edward and Jane Seymour, even though she has passed away, sitting next to them.
On the sides are the two princesses. So they appear in that portrait. Elizabeth was painted on her own in a very famous picture wearing a red dress, holding a book, probably paint in her bedroom. After that, there were no known portraits of her as a princess, but there are really portrait types of her as Queen.
They’re of a type were not particularly very interesting, wearing a black gown with a furred color with a little cap on, not particularly majestic. It wasn’t until later in her reign, where she has, the elaborate, billowing gowns with the big, big everything that we’re more familiar with.
Then we come to Prince Edward. There are let me think, there are some portraits of him as a child, of course, the picture of him with the family. The very famous one by Holbein where he’s holding a rattle and underneath it says, “You will be a great thing, one day you will surpass your father,” I believe.
So Edward, because he was so special, was painted as a child and the pictures were replicated. He appears in a cameo as well in the little Holbein kind of cartoon as well.
Heather:
What do we get from those kinds of pictures? What are they trying to say?
Roland:
They are family pictures. They weren’t particularly meant to be passed to be widely circulated. I don’t believe any of the pictures of Mary or Elizabeth were meant for the marriage market. So they were meant for the King’s enjoyment. “No, this is my family. Believe it or not, I am proud of my daughters too, and my son.” They were family pictures, family snapshots, so to speak in the Tudor sense.
Heather:
What kind of resources do you recommend for people who want to enjoy these portraits but can’t make it to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square? What do you recommend for people?
Roland:
These pictures are replicated in many, many books on Tudors, many, many books, the internet of course, which has been a wonderful resource. Because with the internet, we are seeing so many features that we have never come across before.
Unfortunately, some of them, some will post a picture and it is wonderful picture, let’s say Anne Boleyn or someone like that, and unfortunately, there’s no problem on seeing where this picture comes from. So that’s unfortunate with the internet, but a great source there.
I mean, I’ve come personally come across many pictures I’ve never seen before. Because for a long while with Tudor pictures in books, you tend to get the same portraits all the time, the standard picture of Anne Boleyn, the standard picture of Catherine Parr, and picture of Katherine of Aragon, for instance. You don’t see anything beyond that.
But with the internet opening up, I have to say, well, this is a whole, wonderful source of pictures that have not been shown to the public and with the internet, you could find, let’s say the lady of the garden picture, which I believe is Anne Boleyn. Other than that, if it wasn’t digitized, it would not have been widely circulated and known to us and identified.
Heather:
Then can you tell me a little bit about what projects you’re working on right now? This is your chance to kind of plug yourself a little bit as it were.
Roland:
Well, to plug myself, I am working on a paper actually on Anne Boleyn of course, my favorite Tudor Queen. Anne and Witchcraft. So just to give you a preview about that, there’s been a long, long history of Anne Boleyn being a witch. “She seduced Henry VIII. She’s witchy. She’s even witchy-looking because she has oh, six fingers. She was tall. She had this snaggletooth and she had black hair.” How horrible, black hair.
I want to not debunk these myths, but look at why Anne Boleyn has survived as a witch. Why do people still hang on to that? Even though in my research, Anne apparently was never called a witch in her own lifetime, or in the centuries after her death, believe it or not until the 20th century.
So that’s a paper I’m working on and it’s very, very interesting. That I hope will be in scholarly academic journals and hopefully which will be finished in a couple of weeks and be out there for people who read and share. Because I know there’s a big fascination of course with Anne, and also the witch angle. So that’s been very fun to explore.
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