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11:33 pm
June 2, 2012
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Hi there – newbie here! I’m so glad to be here and hoping to learn loads.
I was really excited to see the Moost Happi coin as it is said to be the only confirmed contemporary image of Anne. Although the features are a bit mangled, the general shape of Anne’s face remains clear. She seems to have had a very distinctive shaped face; longish, with very high cheekbones sloping down to a gently rounded chin. I’ve looked at all the other portraits of Anne I could find online and going by the face shape, I am convinced that the coin, the Hever castle portrait and the Holbein sketch ( the one that nobody seems to like) are the same lady. The lady in the sketch looks to me like “real life” version of the smoothed out and stylised lady in the Hever portrait and the simple, slightly crude version on the coin.
Maybe I’m swayed by the fact that I like the sketch! I understand that most Anne fans don’t reckon it is her and don’t like the informal pose, double chin etc. However, neither the coin Anne nor the Hever Anne have especially thin faces. Tudor headgear seemed to require a tight string or ribbon under the chin that could be anything but flattering to all but the thinnest faces, and added to that a slight double chin might be exaggerated due to the fact that she is looking down. Also, I’ve read somewhere (I can’t remember where) that Anne may have been pregnant when the sketch was made, so maybe she was carrying a little extra weight than usual.
The reason I like the sketch so much and reckon it could be Anne, is the eyes. Cover up the lower part of the face and look at the eyes… you can almost see the crackle of fire and intelligence in them, despite the fact that the lady’s face is in repose. There is almost a look of subtle amusement in her gaze. I really like it! Perhaps I’m the only person who sees it that way though.
But anyway, there’s something else intriguing me about the Holbein sketch. What is it that the lady – whoever she is – is wearing on her head? Is it a nightcap, or is it something that would be worn underneath a headress, maybe to pin it to? Can any experts on Tudor clothing help me out?
Thanks so much.
5:50 pm
February 24, 2010
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Hi Gable,
I am one who has never been crazy about this Holbein sketch. However, there are definitely similarities between this sketch and the coin. There is also another sketch that Holbein did of Anne. She looks younger, but the features appear similar. I like this other sketch; but I’m willing to sort of change my mind and say that the sketch (with the cap) may also be Anne. You may be right. She could very well have been pregnant at the time.
I’m not sure whether the cap she is wearing on her head is a nightcap or a cap worn under the gable hood. I’m hoping there is someone here who might know that?
Site shows both sketches:
http://tudorhistory.org/boleyn…..llery.html
4:36 am
January 9, 2010
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I’m not mad about the ‘nightdress’ sketch either, I always thought the other Holbein sketch had more of a chance of being Anne but apparently David Starkey is pretty convinced that the ‘nightdress’ sketch is actually Anne. I just can’t see her as willing to sit for her portrait in such a state of undress and not in her full regal and queenly glory 
As for the type of cap, I always figured it was what was worn under a gable hood, as the sides are pointed and the hair bound and out of sight. It would also provide padding against what I imagine would be a heavy and uncomfortable headdress.
5:44 pm
May 16, 2011
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They really do look similar, except it’s not in any way how I picture Anne, but maybe i’m being biased.
I’ve always felt that the NPG is the closest real look at Anne for some reason but then you look at all of them and the coin, Holbein sketch, and Hever portrait all look a like from the nose to the rounded chin to the smallish mouth, and finally those eyes. In my head I see Anne as having big doe eyes but in the portraits it kinda looks as if she has squinty eyes. Maybe these portraits are the same person and in fact the real Anne Boleyn but as i’ve said before in other posts I don’t think we’ll ever know the exact way she looked unless someone invents a time machine or finds a long lost portrait of Anne that Henry kept….?
It sucks.
• Grumble all you like, this is how it’s going to be.
5:44 pm
May 16, 2011
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They really do look similar, except it’s not in any way how I picture Anne, but maybe i’m being biased.
I’ve always felt that the NPG is the closest real look at Anne for some reason but then you look at all of them and the coin, Holbein sketch, and Hever portrait all look a like from the nose to the rounded chin to the smallish mouth, and finally those eyes. In my head I see Anne as having big doe eyes but in the portraits it kinda looks as if she has squinty eyes. Maybe these portraits are the same person and in fact the real Anne Boleyn but as i’ve said before in other posts I don’t think we’ll ever know the exact way she looked unless someone invents a time machine or finds a long lost portrait of Anne that Henry kept….?
It sucks.
• Grumble all you like, this is how it’s going to be.
8:07 pm
June 2, 2012
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It would be wonderful indeed to have a time machine, and to be able to wander around history discovering what people really looked like. (I wonder if poor old Jane Seymour was really as unattractive as she looks in her Holbein portrait!)
I didn’t imagine Anne as having doe eyes, Mya Elise; I pictured her has having almond-shaped eyes that could be fiery and expressive or cool and inscrutable… whatever she wished at the time.
When I look at the NPG portrait, all I can see is Elizabeth I as she would have looked had she been born with darker hair, eyes and skin tone. Who knows? It is a shame there is no indisputable portrait of Anne. Could there possibly be one out there, perhaps somewhere in a private collection, but with no record of the sitter so nobody knows it is Anne?
2:24 pm
June 7, 2010
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Gable after reading your original post, and seeking out a picture of the coin and Holbein sketch, I think you are on to something. Side by side, there are similarites between the faces. I’ve never hated the Holbein sketch, but did not think it could be Anne until I read Starkey’s argument. He does present some plausable theories about the sitter. Now, after considering your points, I you’ve persuaded me.
There is something about the eyes in the sketch. They are dark and captivating, even though downturned. It looks like the sitter is in deep thought.
Yet, there is a mystique to why is the sitter in her lounging clothes, and not outfitted in a gown and finery. If Starkey’s correct, and this is Anne and she’s pregnant, perhaps she did not want to sit for the sketch in her gown and finery. Perhaps this sketch was to be turned into something more formal, like a portrait, and Holbein would add a more Queenly dress then? Just a thought, which probably makes no sense.
As an aside, I wonder how accurate is the representation of Anne is in the Chequer’s Ring? Elizabeth had it commissoned, and there were people still alive in at that time who knew Anne. I often wondered is this the true face of Anne, or a highly stylised version of her?
"By daily proof you shall find me to be to you both loving and kind" Anne Boleyn
5:29 pm
January 3, 2012
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I have trouble with excepting the Holbien portraits as being Anne. In fact I would say that both portraits look similar to J.S.
The portrait above the 2 Holbien sketches that hangs in Hever is very similar to the excepted portrait of Mary Boleyn.
Perhaps the closest portrait to what I believe Anne to look like is John Hoskins portrait. Looking at it I can see a resemblance of K.H in it.
It could be that there was a ring that Elizabeth had with a picture of her and her mother in but I don’t think that this is the original ring that Elizabeth had. A lot of the royal regalia was broken up and sold off when Oliver Cromwell was in power. This ring I think is a copy of the original sketch found in some forgotten vault, that managed to escape Cromwell’s destruction. Who knows the real ring may still be somewhere. It would be worth a small fortune along with Anne’s B necklace if it was found today.
Semper Fidelis, quod sum quod
7:19 pm
May 16, 2011
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UGHH! Why can’t we have one definite portrait?! One that is 100% Anne Boleyn and one that we won’t agrue over whether it actually being her or not. It gets so exhasuting trying to decided which Anne is Anne and which one may be someone else’s face or if a portrait was made 100’s of years after Anne died. It just really sucks. I’ve always stuck close to the fact that the NPG portrait IS closest to Anne’s actual likeness but then again people say that it was made after her death and then there’s that portrait of Mary Tudor & Charles Brandon and Mary looks just like the NPG Anne. Then alot of people on this site say the Hever Rose portrait is Anne. It’s soooooo confusing.
• Grumble all you like, this is how it’s going to be.
5:33 pm
January 3, 2012
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The trouble is Mya is the fact that every artist percieved a different view of the person they are going to or have painted.
If you were to have you portrait painted by let’s say Leonardo De Vinci and Salvador Dali what you would get is 2 very different pictures.
It was really only with the invention of the camera that we can get a true likeness of what a person looks like, but even they can be altered now in photoshop.
It is very annoying that we have no definate portrait of Anne or Henry etc for that fact. Just those that have been generally excepted as them.
If we were all given a paper and pencil and asked to draw how we think Anne etc (taking out all those that are excepted as them) had looked I bet our pictures would all be very dfferent too.
Semper Fidelis, quod sum quod
6:22 pm
April 2, 2012
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Mya and Boleyn, I’m confused by your use of the word “excepted”. You mean to leave out? or are you using instead of acceped?
ex·cept2 /ɪkˈsɛpt/ Show Spelled[ik-sept] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1. to exclude; leave out: present company excepted
or
ac·cept·ed /ækˈsɛptɪd/ Show Spelled[ak-sep-tid] Show IPA
adjective
generally approved; usually regarded as normal, right, etc.: an accepted pronunciation of a word; an accepted theory.
So sorry to be such a pain, but as English is my 2nd language I am having trouble translating the last two posts.
there is enough to confuse me already!
11:03 pm
January 3, 2012
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Sorry Nan My spelling is a complete nightmare I know but I’m glad you got what both Mya and I were trying to say we did in fact mean accepted, as you guessed. Sorry we confused you.
Semper Fidelis, quod sum quod
