A portrayal of Anne Boleyn held by the National Portrait Gallery may have been painted to show major similarities between Henry VIII’s controversial second wife and their daughter, who became Elizabeth I.
Researchers have suggested that the painting, done in 1584, almost five decades after Boleyn’s execution, was specifically painted with a resemblance to Elizabeth I as a key feature, to help give additional legitimacy to Elizabeth as monarch as she faced various threats.
“This is definitely a portrait of Anne Boleyn, and that is what the artist intended it to be. But it’s more important than a likeness of her, because it carries political weight,” said Dr Owen Emmerson, the co-curator of a new exhibition at Hever Castle – the Boleyn family’s ancestral home. “This is a very deliberate act and not done retrospectively. It’s been commissioned like this – there’s intention here. It’s serving a purpose.”
“If you look at the context of when it was created, this is a really pivotal moment in Elizabeth’s reign. That’s chiefly due to the fact she’s under increasing pressure because of the many Catholic plots that are threatening her rule,” he told The Independent.
“She’s been excommunicated, so the pope’s given licence to her subjects to challenge and overthrow her, and it’s compounded by the fact that she’s no longer of child-bearing age, she’s unmarried… so she cannot look to the future to promote her legitimacy.”
He said that at this time, a pattern emerged in several portraits of Anne Boleyn in which she appears to particularly resemble her daughter, which Dr Emmerson suggested was a canny move to “promote her legitimacy by looking to the past to try and solidify her claim to the throne.”“This is a clever way of doing that,” he said. The reason she needs to look like her ancestors is because her mother was executed for treason and adultery – there are widespread rumours she (Elizabeth) is not Henry VIII’s daughter, so retrospectively she’s made to look like a tudor.”
Despite the decades since her mother’s death, Elizabeth I was keen to use imagery as a kind of propaganda as she faced mounting concerns about her grip on the throne.
“This wasn’t a carefully orchestrated effort,” Dr Emmerson said. “Anne Bolyen shouldn’t look like a Tudor – she married one – but that’s beside the point. It’s a very visual way of showing Elizabeth’s legitimacy.”
He said the painting would most likely have been commissioned by one of her courtiers for public display to show allegiance to Elizabeth. “This is a very bold way of proclaiming her legitimacy,” he said.
In the 16th century, literacy rates were low, so society was particularly driven by a visual language so “a lot of imagery was conveyed through portraiture”.
“These weren’t cheap things to produce, they were quite expensive.”
The individual artist who painted the 1584 painting has been recognised through their specific way of painting pearls.
The art historian Laurence Hendra, who works for gallerist and TV presenter Philip Mould, identified several paintings done by the same artist, largely due to their paint handling when it came to depicting pearls, and in lieu of a name, they have come to be known as “the pearl painter”.
Mr Hendra drew Dr Emmerson’s attention to the paintings by this artist, of Anne Boleyn and another of Catherine of Aragon, also held at Hever Castle. This was when Dr Emmerson first spotted the mother-daughter resemblance in the paintings.
Dr Emmerson’s new book Capturing the Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn, is co-authored with Kate McCaffrey, the assistant curator at Hever Castle.
An exhibition of the same name at Hever Castle opens on 11 February 2026, and presents the largest collection of artwork and artefacts associated with Anne Boleyn ever shown in one place.
