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#Portrait painter crossword pro
“here’s a good reason why, in early 1540 she-or, … who was very pro the marriage-might suggest Holbein paint her again so that, in the little miniature that Henry had in his pocket, he could see a version of Anne that was more appealing,” Moyle tells the Observer.Ī Hans Holbein portrait previously identified as a likeness of Catherine Howard but now thought to depict a member of the Cromwell family This time, the scholar suggests, the new queen posed in a fashionable French hood rather than her more conservative German attire.
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Moyle posits that Anne, or perhaps Cromwell, commissioned Holbein to paint her in a different light. Speaking with Natalie Grueninger of the “ Talking Tudors” podcast last year, art historian Emma Rutherford explained that portrait miniatures evolved “from these very powerful, relatively formal portraits to something much more secretive.” Perfectly sized for concealment in a noblewoman’s bodice, brooch or locket, the pint-sized paintings played a key role in marriage negotiations and love affairs, which were, according to Rutherford, “all happening at the same time” in Tudor England. “Holbein didn’t do anything without meaning something,” Moyle tells the Observer. Per the London Times’ Laura Freeman, Holbein, a German-born painter renowned for his portraits’ realism, had a “passion for symbols and visual puns.” He mounted a 1532 miniature of Cromwell on an ace of spades in recognition of the adviser’s frank demeanor and a 1538 miniature of the newly married Elizabeth, Lady Audley, on an ace of hearts. Outside of these parallels, Moyle, who is set to detail her findings in The King’s Painter: The Life of Hans Holbein (out in the United States on October 5), points out that the artist mounted the 1540 miniature on a four of diamonds playing card-a possible reference to Anne’s status as Henry’s fourth queen. Henry VIII accused Hans Holbein of overly flattering Anne of Cleves in this 1539 portrait. “She has this soporific expression in both paintings.” Instead, the scholar adds, the sitter’s heavy eyelids and thick eyebrows bear distinct similarities to Holbein’s 1539 portrait of Anne. (Catherine’s exact age is unknown, but she may have been as young as 16 when she wed the king.) “This portrait doesn’t look like a child bride,” Moyle tells the Observer. Now, reports Dalya Alberge for the Observer, new research conducted by art historian Franny Moyle suggests that a Holbein miniature long thought to portray Anne’s successor, Catherine Howard, may actually depict the ruler’s fourth wife. Convinced that he’d been misled by Holbein and Thomas Cromwell, the adviser who’d suggested the marriage, Henry declared, “I like her not! I like her not!” Around six months after the couple’s January 1540 wedding, the king had the union annulled and Cromwell sent to the execution block. As Tracy Borman writes for History Extra, Henry was taken aback by his “tall, big-boned and strong-featured” bride-to-be, whose appearance represented a significant departure from his previous three queens. When Anne actually arrived in England, however, the king had a decidedly different reaction. The resulting likeness-featuring Anne of Cleves smiling demurely while clad in resplendent red velvet-so entranced Henry that he agreed to wed the Protestant noblewoman without ever meeting her in person.
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In 1539, Henry VIII sent his favorite court painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, to the German Duchy of Cleves, where the artist was tasked with creating a portrait of the Tudor king’s potential fourth wife.
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