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| The Hever Portrait |
The subject to Anne Boleyn’s
true physical appearance has been discussed time and time again in books, blogs
and journals, yet it is a subject that remains endlessly fascinating, the
varied opinions and theories almost as intriguing as the woman herself.
Almost instantly recognisable,
Anne Boleyn’s portrait graces thousands of book covers, mugs, tea towels, key
rings…her face is everywhere. But is it really her face that we are seeing? Do
the portraits show us what was Anne really like?
I don’t intend to hold a full
debate on the portraits here but none we have are contemporary and the
closest are copies made of likenesses
painted in her life time.
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| National Portrait Gallery |
After her execution it wasn’t
wise to have representations of a fallen queen gracing one’s walls so during
the remainder of Henry’s reign and the years of Edward and Mary’s rule, her
face and many artefacts belonging to her, slipped away. It wasn’t until her
daughter, Elizabeth, ascended the throne that Anne became acceptable again and
the demand for her image increased. As a consequence most extant images were
worked long after her death – some as late as the 17th century.
The likenesses attributed to be
her range from softly pretty to plum ugly as do the textual descriptions.
Opinions of Anne Boleyn depended enormously upon the political stance and
agenda of the author and as a consequence the documentary evidence is as varied
and unreliable as the pictorial.
Due to her efforts for
religious reform and the displacement of Catherine of Aragon, Anne was never a
favourite of Spain or the Catholic faction and this is clear from some of the
descriptions of her. Roman Catholic Nicholas Sander saw her as: ‘…rather tall
of stature, with black hair and an oval face of sallow complexion, as if
troubled with jaundice. She had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on
her right hand, six fingers. There was a large wen under her chin, and
therefore to hide its ugliness, she wore a high dress covering her throat. In
this she was followed by the ladies of the court, who also wore high dresses,
having before been in the habit of leaving their necks and the upper portion of
their persons uncovered. She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth.’
Very nice of him to go to the
trouble of saying so. And the Venetian ambassador was scarcely more flattering
in his account.
‘Madame Anne is not one of the
handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature, swarthy complexion,
long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the
King's great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful - and take great
effect on those who served the Queen when she was on the throne. She lives like
a queen, and the King accompanies her to Mass - and everywhere.’
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| The Nidd Hall Portrait |
It is quite clear that she was
not a ravishing beauty although of course, what is considered beautiful today
is vastly different to that favoured in the 16th century. If you look at the
line-up of Henry’s wives, the ‘Flanders Mare’ of Henry’s stable, Anne of
Cleves, was by today’s standards, rather pretty.
In a society that favoured
delicately complexioned blondes, Anne’s dark hair and olive skin were far from
fashionable and neither did her slim, small breasted (‘not much raised’) figure
fit the current vogue for voluptuous women.
But most descriptions, even the
most unfavourable, agree that Anne possessed expressive eyes and a vivacious
wit and it must have been those attributes that captivated the king. Which, for
once I think, speaks rather well of
Henry in that he was able to see past contemporary ideals to what lay beneath.
Shame it didn’t last.
The only truly contemporary
image we have of Anne is a badly damaged portrait medal that nevertheless bears
some resemblance to the Anne we see depicted in later portraits. From this we can deduce that we can come
quite close to discovering a likeness to the real woman.
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| Princess Elizabeth (later Queen) |
The medal was struck in 1534
with Anne’s motto, ‘The Most Happi’ and the initials ‘A.R’ – Anna Regina, so we
can be quite sure that it is her. These medals were usually struck to
commemorate a great event, often a coronation but since the date does not tie
in with this, Eric Ives believes that it was more likely to have been intended
to mark birth of Anne’s second child in the autumn of 1534 that she miscarried.
This theory also explains why few copies survive.
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| The Anne Boleyn Medal |
Other portraits include the
familiar Hever portrait and the one at the National Portrait Gallery as well as
some sketches by Holbein which receive varying degrees of certainty from the
experts. The Nidd Hall portrait shows an aging Anne which is closer to some of
the less favourable documented descriptions discussed previously. Another
rather touching artefact is the Chequers Ring, a jewel removed from the finger
of Elizabeth I on her death bed and found to contain the image of herself and
her mother, Anne.
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| The Drew Portrait of Elizabeth I |
Of course, we can never know the
extent of Elizabeth’s attachment to her mother but some documented incidents
point to a curiosity about her. Although Elizabeth was just two years old when
Anne was executed and is not likely to have had strong memories of her, there
were those around her who had known Anne and would have been able to keep her
memory alive. If Elizabeth was satisfied that the image bore a likeness to her
mother then I think we can be fairly confident too.
The recent (and not so recent)
discussions of Anne’s appearance have led to the assumption that she and her
daughter bore a close resemblance. Apart from Elizabeth’s colouring which was
auburn and Tudor in origin, there are likenesses to Anne, especially in the
earlier portraits before Royal iconography began to overshadow Elizabeth’s
personality. The dark eyes are particularly similar.
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| NPG Margaret Beaufort - Grandmother to Elizabeth I |
I spend a lot of time looking
at paintings of historical figures and it has always struck me that in later
life Elizabeth closely resembled her great grandmother. I suppose it should
come as no surprise that there is also a look of Henry VII, Elizabeth’s
grandfather. Perhaps there is more Tudor
in Elizabeth than we thought.
The Kiss of the Concubine: a story
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Such an interesting post, Judith. Paintings were a form of propaganda, depending on what side you were on. Take Richard III portrait for example.
ReplyDeleteYes, rather like the facebook or instagram of their day. I spend a long time looking at portraits when I am researching, the one thing you have to keep asking yourself is who painted it? who did they paint it for? Why did they paint it?
ReplyDelete