This week’s #PortraitTuesday treat is a 19th century oil painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze.
It’s called “The Courtship of Anne Boleyn”, or “The Cardinal’s Ball”, and dates back to 1846. It’s part of the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Leutze was born in 1816 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, but moved to the United States in childhood. His most famous painting is “Washington Crossing the Delaware”, which he painted in 1851.
Here’s what the Smithsonian American Art Museum says of this painting:
“This painting shows King Henry VIII of England and his mistress, Anne Boleyn. Henry fell in love with Anne, Queen Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, and divorced his Spanish wife so that he could marry her. To the left of Henry and Anne, the ambassador from Spain expresses his disgust as he watches the king carry out his affair in public. Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze was a supporter of the American and German revolutions and may have painted King Henry’s infamous betrayal to show his distaste for royalty.”
Notes and Sources
- The Smithsonian American Art Museum – https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/courtship-anne-boleyn-14565
This painting is exquisite, with beautiful rich colours and the expressions on the faces of the watching courtiers and Catherine’s ladies are very lifelike, I agree the watching Spanish ambassador has fury on his face, there is Will Somers i imagine crouched on a stool nearby and his expression is one of mirth, Cardinal Wolsey is opposite and standing next to a fellow churchman, the queen is shown looking downcast and two children carry her train and Gottlieb has captured perfectly the atmosphere of the English court in the turbulent reign of Henry V111, interesting he was against the monarchy and therefore this beautiful work of art was painted to show his distaste of this much married monarch and his support for the American and German revolutionaries, but I find it odd he chose the subject of Henry V111 and his ‘great matter’, why not Queen Victoria who was ruler of three quarters of the globe head of the British Empire? She represented Britains imperial power and was everything America stood against, that said it is a lovely picture I however have one criticism of it, the background is too dark, the colouring would have been golden in Tudor times using as they did oak panelling, we know oak darkens with age but in Henry’s day it would have looked much lighter, however we can forgive the artists transgression in admiration of his beautiful work of art.