Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King

by Christopher Lloyd, Simon Thurley

Image making was a conscious task of the Tudor Monarchs, and Henry VIII, more than any other English king, succeeded in creating a powerful and enduring image of himself and his role as king. Hans Holbein the Younger, the King's painter, was the artist behind the creation of the image.

The 500th anniversary of the birth of Henry VIII falls in 1991. This timely survey examines the contemporary images of Henry and his reign and assesses the successful portrayal of the king as the larger-than-life, ebullient character that every British schoolchild still recognises today. It also offers fresh insights into the depictions of Henry's reign in a variety of media over succeeding centuries - in plays, prints and more recently, movie and television productions.

'Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King' is published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name at Hampton Court Palace. The book is illustrated by a host of wonderfully rich paintings and artefacts - many of them in the Royal Collection - which complement the text to offer a splendid varied and unique view of the person and reign of Henry VIII.

Christopher Lloyd is Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures. Simon Thurley is Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and has recently completed a doctorate on 'English Royal Palaces 1450-1550'.

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 1990

About the author

Christopher Lloyd CVO is a British art historian and was Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures (1988–2005). Lloyd worked in the Department of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for twenty years. In 1972, he was appointed to a fellowship at Harvard University's Center for Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, in Florence, Italy. During 1980–81, he was a visiting research curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, concentrating on the art of early Italy.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hans Holbein the Younger has a lot to answer for because it is his portrait of the warrior-like King Henry VIII, standing legs akimbo that subsequently influenced others to follow suit. Even Henry's c1540 suit of armour is set up in similar fashion, although the authors do suggest that, comparing the leg armour with the leg length in Holbein's portrait that the artist used a certain amount of artistic licence in portraying Henry so upstanding!

But there is no doubt that few English monarchs have been so concerned about their image as Henry VIII and also, few have been as successful in imposing it on posterity. No doubt such artists as George Vertue, who portrayed Henry on a number of occasions, and others knew very well how they should be portraying the king and that particular Holbein pose was used elsewhere such as in Sir Joshua Reynolds' 1776 portrait of the three-year old John Crewe as Henry VIII. Horace Walpole even praised the way Reynolds had reduced the ‘swaggering and colossal haughtiness’ of the Holbein image to the ‘boyish jollity of Master Crewe’. And, of course, even as late as 1933 Charles Laughton adopted the pose when publicising the film 'The Private Life of Henry VIII'.

As well as the many portraits of Henry, there are also some superb historical events captured on canvas such as 'The Battle of the Spurs', 'The Meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I' and the superb, and very busy, 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold'. The latter is by an unknown artist from around 1545 but it was so popular that Edward Edwards produced a copy , not quite as colourful, in 1771.

In addition there are family groups such as Lucas de Heere's 'Allegory of the Tudor Dynasty' that captures a number of Tudor monarchs assembled around Henry, who is seated portentously on his throne in the centre, and views of various palaces with Henry connections, my favourites being the lithographs by John Nash of 'The Great Hall, Hampton Court' and 'Hever Castle, Kent' both of which appeared in a volume entitled 'The mansions of England in the Olden Times'. And another favourite is 'Henry reading in his bedchamber' taken from the Psalter of Henry VIII.

Throughout the volume there is a thread that traces many of Henry's activities throughout his reign such as his battles with the church and his role as a soldier diplomat. One rather horrific painting seems to bring those two subjects into focus; Girolamo da Treviso the Younger's 'The Four Evangelists Stoning the Pope' of around 1540 resides in The Royal Collection, fortunately away from the eyes of most of the public!

There is no doubt that Henry VIII's reign did much to transform the English court and both the text and the illustrations in this volume go along way to supporting this view.