The Anne Boleyn Files

Claire | February 22, 2012

As today is the anniversary of the death of miniaturist John Hoskins in 1665, I thought it was only right to share with you his beautiful miniature of Anne Boleyn. This miniature, although painted in the 17th century, is said to have been based on “an ancient original” and Anne Boleyn’s biographer, historian Eric Ives,
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Category: appearance, art, Representations of Anne Boleyn | 8 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, Anne Boleyn miniature, Anne Boleyn painting, Hans Holbein, John Hoskins, miniature, portrait, portraiture

Claire | December 15, 2011

Bendor Grosvenor, historian and art dealer, has just published an interesting article on his Art History News blog entitled Anne Boleyn regains her head in which he discusses research he and David Starkey carried out a few years ago on the Holbein drawing inscribed “Anna Bollein Queen”. He has actually reproduced the article he wrote
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Category: appearance, art, News | 29 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, Anne Boleyn drawing, Hans Holbein, Hans Holbein the Younger, portraits

Claire | August 28, 2011

Phew, what a whirlwind of a weekend so far! As well as being knee deep in records of monumental brasses – see yesterday’s post on “The Lost Boleyns”, I’ve also made a YouTube video on Anne Boleyn’s appearance and portraiture! I’d really welcome your feedback on this video as it’s my first video with me
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Category: appearance, art, News, Representations of Anne Boleyn | 20 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's appearance, portraits, videos

Claire | September 28, 2010

I’ve just written a post over at The Elizabeth Files entitled “Is Anne Boleyn’s Portrait Actually Elizabeth I” regarding the similarities between the National Portrait Gallery portrait of Anne Boleyn and the Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger portrait of Elizabeth I in her old age. Obviously, we know that Elizabeth I had many of her mother’s
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Category: appearance, art, Elizabeth I | 22 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, appearance, Elizabeth I

Claire | August 25, 2010

sexualize, sexualise vb 1. to make or become sexual or sexually aware 2. to give or acquire sexual associations sexualization , sexualisation n1 This post has been inspired by my good friends at the History Police Facebook Group2 (thanks, Lauren!) and a discussion thread on that page regarding the sexualization of historical characters, characters such
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Category: Anne Boleyn Myths, appearance, Representations of Anne Boleyn | 60 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, Philippa Gregory, sexuality, The Other Boleyn Girl

Claire | August 19, 2010

Part of what fascinates me about Anne Boleyn is the mystery that surrounds her. We do not even know, definitively, what she looked like and can only go on contemporary descriptions and portraiture. The problem with portraits of Anne Boleyn is that they are all so different and none are thought to be contemporary, but,
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Category: Anne Boleyn General, appearance, art, Representations of Anne Boleyn | 84 Comments »
Tags: appearance, Hans Holbein, Hever portrait, Horenbolte, NPG portrait, portraits

Claire | March 4, 2009

Last week, I talked about the lies surrounding Anne Boleyn and her appearance and how historical evidence was now questioning the picture of Anne as a woman with six fingers on one hand, goitre and a wart. So, what was Anne really like? Anne Boleyn – A Beauty? As I said last week, Anne’s enemies
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Category: Anne Boleyn Myths, appearance | 4 Comments »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, Anne Boleyn picture, appearance, Eric Ives

Claire | February 26, 2009

“What did Anne Boleyn look like?” is a question that has been debated for centuries. There is a shortage of portraits or likenesses of Anne, probably because they were destroyed by her enemies, so we have to rely on what’s left and on historical descriptions of her appearance, but what do we believe? Some quotations
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Category: Anne Boleyn Myths, appearance | 1 Comment »
Tags: Anne Boleyn, appearance, beauty, deformity, six fingers