This is a 3D reconstruction of Anne Boleyn's face, based on National Portrait Gallery

I’ve always wanted someone to do a 3D reconstruction of Anne Boleyn’s face, based on her famous NPG portrait. it never happened so I decided to become this ‘someone’. I learned how to use a program for 3D face reconstruction. This program gives a chance to make a 3D face reconstruction based on photographs. Well, obviously we do not have Anne Boleyn’s photographs so I used her portrait. It was quite hard to do such reconstruction. At my first reconstruction, many of you commented that Anne looked like Cher. I admit – I got too creative with first work. But my second reconstruction is successful – I worked on it for few days, and here it is!

I based Anne Boleyn’s 3D face reconstruction entirely on NPG portrait. It came out very realistic and reconstructed Anne looks a lot like on her portrait. What is even more interesting – I noticed that after reconstruction, Anne looks similar also to John Hoskins’ miniature, and this miniature is the most authentic likeness of Anne Boleyn.

For this montage I used Milara’s photograph based on NPG portrait of Anne Boleyn (I had to paste the reconstructed face). It wasn’t easy to find a real-life photograph based on Anne’s portrait, and I didn’t wanted to use any actresses pictures.

I think that Venetian ambassador’s comment about Anne Boleyn is entirely accurate ;

“Madame Anne is not the handsomest women in the world (…) her eyes, (…) are black and beautiful” /Francesco Sanuto, 1532/

]]> http://www.anne-boleyn.com/eng/3d-reconstruction-of-anne-boleyns-face/feed/ 2 http://www.anne-boleyn.com/eng/affair-of-the-necklace/ http://www.anne-boleyn.com/eng/affair-of-the-necklace/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:15:35 +0000 Sylwia http://www.anne-boleyn.com/eng/?p=62

Miniature of Anne Boleyn by John Hoskins

Thanks to my friend, Maria who runs her own blog about Anne Boleyn, she shared with me an article that states that the ‘B’ necklace on Anne’s portraits stands for ‘Brandon’ and not ‘Boleyn’. Quite an interesting theory, isn’t it? I’ve decided to research this theory and I found few informations.

In her book ”The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485-1603”  Susan James states that famous portrait of Anne Boleyn showing her with ‘B’ pendant is Mary Tudor Brandon.  Susan James writes ,;

“Although there were no firmly authenticated portraits of Jane Grey or Anne Boleyn known to copyists, a pool of portraits of unidentified women dating from the reign of Henry VIII still existed. As was common, these original paintings were not labelled and … the identities of the sitters were generally problematic. Yet for copyists in need of an image, clues within and without seem to have encouraged them to arrive at speculative identifications. The face pattern generally chosen for Jane Grey was Kateryn Parr and the face pattern chosen for Anne Boleyn was Mary Rose Tudor…”

What do we know about Mary Tudor Brandon’s appearance? Is there a chance she could be confused with Anne Boleyn? Well – if we will take only contemporary descriptions of both Anne and Mary, there is no chance that they were similar to each other. Mary Tudor Brandon was :

”Petite, poised and beautiful, with red-gold hair and the pale translucent complexion that usually accompanies it. She was the ideal picture of womanhood, certainly and the quintessence of Tudor beauty”. / Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII’s Favourite Mistress /

According to contemporary sources, Anne Boleyn was quite the opposite ;

‘Madame Anne is not the handsomest women in the world , she is of middling statue, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and (…) her eyes, which are black and beautiful’ /Venetian ambassador, 1532/

Sketch of Mary Tudor when she was Queen of France

She was also reffered by poet Sir Thomas Wyatt as a ‘Brunette’.

Susan James states that well known miniature by John Hoskins depicting Anne Boleyn is in fact, Mary Tudor Brandon and  ”jewelled “B” stood not for Boleyn but for Brandon and tha the portrait was not Henry VIII’s wife but his sister”. Susan James points out that ” It is the only picture in Charles I’s collection with Anne Boleyn’s name attached to it.”

In his book ‘The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn’ Eric Ives writes about Hoskins’ miniature ;

”Fortunately, the sequence also has the effect of corroborating a seventeenth-century miniature in thecollection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. Charles I had this copied as ‘Anne Boleyn’ by John Hoskins the elder (c.1590–1664/5), and it is endorsed ‘from an ancient original’ . How ‘ancient’ it is impossible to say. Although the relationship to examples in the NPG pattern is evident, these were only thirty years old or perhaps less. It is more likely that Hoskins had access to an earlier image of the kind from which the NPG image originated. A full-length portrait of Anne was owned by Lord Lumley in 1590 and existed as late as 1773. Could it even be that Hoskins’ source was or was derived from a Holbein paintingnow lost?” /Eric Ives , ‘The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn’ /

Mary Tudor Brandon (left) and Anne Boleyn (right)

Hoskins’ miniature of Anne Boleyn depicts a woman with pointed chin, dark eyes, oval face, reddish hair and typical ‘B’ pendant on double strand of pearls. She may bear a certain resemblance to wedding portrait of Mary Tudor Brandon and Charles Brandon.

I think that there is no chance that ‘B’ on Anne’s portraits stands for ‘Brandon’ and not ‘Boleyn’. Here are the arguments :

-          Hoskins’ miniature was said to be  ‘don by Hoskins after an oweld pictur’ which means that this miniature was labelled as ‘Anne Boleyn’ from the very beggining ;

-          As professor Eric Ives pointed out, the miniature was endorsed ‘from an ancient original’ which means that it was probably copied from exisiting orginal portrait of Anne Boleyn, or copy of such portrait ;

-          There is plenty of portraits of Anne Boleyn, painted during Elizabeth Tudor’s reign, depicting Anne wearing a famous ‘B’ necklace ; and they are all labelled as ‘Anne Boleyn’  and not ‘Mary Tudor Brandon’

-          Mary Tudor Brandon had no reason to wear a ‘B’ pendant because in Tudor period noble men and women were known widely not by their surnames but titles ; so Charles Brandon was famous as Charles Suffolk, Duke of Suffolk, so it makes no sense why Mary Tudor Brandon would want to be portrayed with ‘B’ pendant ;

-          The similarity between portraits of Anne Boleyn and her daughter Elizabeth are astounding so it is hard to believe that the sitters is not Anne Boleyn ;

Sources :

”The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485-1603”, Susan James

“The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn”, Eric Ives

 ”Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII’s Favourite Mistress “, Josephine Wilkinson

Copy of 'Mary Boleyn' portrait c. 1630-1670

You probably remember my article about portrait allegedly depicting Mary Boleyn. Historian and author Alison Weir claims that there are 6 versions of this portrait and that it probably depicts a royal sitter because of the ermine fur;

“The fact that there are at least six versions of the ‘Mary’ portrait indicates that there was demand for a portrait of the sitter, and she is wearing ermine, a fur restricted to the upper nobility and royalty.”[1]

I did a research about this and in this article I am going to write more about this portrait. I was looking for information about provenance of the portrait of ‘Mary Boleyn’ and confirmation of Alison Weir’s claim that there were ‘at least 6 versions of this portrait’.

I contacted Anna L. Splender who is a Deputy Head Steward at the Hever Castle. She kindly replied that;

“I am afraid that I am unfamiliar with the claim that there are 6 versions of Mary Boleyn’s portrait.  We only have one portrait at Hever Castle – Warwick Castle is its provenance (purchased by William Waldorf Astor in the early twentieth century).”

As for now, I did not find any information that would confirm Alison Weir’s claim that there are indeed 6 versions of ‘Mary Boleyn’ portrait. I came across a copy of this portrait dated c. 1630-1670, but it is later copy and it was a common practice to copy already existing paintings.

And what about ermine fur?  I contacted Paul Cox, who is Assistant Curator in National Portrait Gallery and he kindly told me that;

“Maria Hayward, in her 2007 Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII cites a document in the College of Arms (‘Memorandum that all manner of Estates shall ware there Apparell Powdred as ys Abouesaide’ – MS 16 bis. Ff. 14r-15r).  This describes the varying use of ermine on the robes appropriate to different classes of peers, so the furs use was not restricted to the royal family.”

According to those two pieces of information, the sitter from ‘Mary Boleyn’ portrait may not be royal at all.

After few informations that I collect, I think it will be wise enough to say that the sitter from ‘Mary Boleyn’ portrait could be any woman who came from upper class. She could be royal, but considering her costume and appearance – who might it be?

 ‘Mary Boleyn’ bears no resemblance to Henry VIII’s daughter Lady Mary Tudor (who in 1530’s was rather out of royal favor due to her obstinacy), king’s niece Margaret Douglas (who was high in king’s favor until 1535 when she fell in love and secretly engaged Lord Thomas Howard, son of 2d Duke of Norfolk), or king’s sister Mary Tudor-Brandon (who died of consumption in 1533).  What about Henry VIII’s wives?

We can definitely exclude Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon who died in 1536 and spent her final years at banishment. We may think about Anne Boleyn – the sitter’s skin is not typically pale, her eyes are big and dark, and she has an oval face. The only thing that is not similar to Anne – a rather plump face and light eyebrows. It is definitely not Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves nor Catherine Howard.

This lady, in my opinion, could be any lady from upper class. Perhaps it was Frances Brandon, as suggested by Alison Weir. It could be as well Mary Howard, daughter of 3^rd Duke of Norfolk and wife of Henry Fitzroy, Henry’s illegitimate son (they married in 1534, Mary was 15 at that time).

Mary Howard

I still agree with Alison Weir that the sitter is not Mary Boleyn. I gave few reasons in my previous article but I will repeat them here;

- In her book ‘Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII’s Favourite Mistress’ Josephine Wilkinson points out that between 1528-1532 Mary was an ‘an unwanted and unloved daughter, the discarded mistress’ (p. 123) . Also Professor Eric Ives writes that; ‘Mary should have been under no illusions. As early as November 1530 the king had given Anne £20 to redeem a jewel Mary possessed, presumably one he had given her. Anne, the wife, wanted no one to remember Mary, the mistress.’ It seems highly unlikely, considering the circumstances, that Mary would be honoured by having such a portrait in 1530s.

- She was banished from court in 1534, after she disgraced her family by marrying a man beneath her station.

Certainly no one wanted to celebrate king’s former mistress, because it would draw attention to the question of validity of Henry VIII’s and Anne Boleyn’s marriage (Mary was Anne sister and king’s mistress, so it was similar affinity like in case of Henry VIII & Catherine of Aragon).

For now the identity of this lady remains a mystery. Until some new evidence will come to light we can only speculate about her. And what do you think about this matter?