Are there portraits of Elizabeth wearing jewelry that belonged to Anne Boleyn? I read somewhere on this site that she's wearing the A necklace in the Whitehall portrait but I looked and Elizabeth isn't even in that one. It's Henry VII, his parents, and Jane Seymour. In the portrait of Henry VIII's family, Elizabeth appears like she could be wearing a necklace similar to one of Anne's but I can't find a version of it that I can enlarge on my computer and see. Did Elizabeth receive anything that belonged to her mother?
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Eric Ives in his book "The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn" addresses the possibility of Elizabeth receiving some of her mother's jewelry. He notes that the famous portrait if Elizabeth as a teenager, in the light red dress and matching French hood, that the pearl necklace she is wearing is startlingly similar to the one Anne Boleyn wears in the most famous portrait of her. He notes the pearls are very similar, and that maybe the "B" pendant of Anne's necklace has been replaced by another pendant for Elizabeth's necklace.
I wonder if the three pearls at the bottom of the "B" in the NPG portrait: http://tudorhistory.org/boleyn/anneboleyn1.jpg and three of the pearls on the bottom of the two pendants Elizabeth is wearing here: http://tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/youngeliza.jpg are possibly the same? Sorry I don't have larger versions of the images up right now (someday I'll get the new ones posted!).
Also, as to the confusion over the Whitehall murals, there were two.
There was the portrait of Henry, Jane Seymour, and Henry's parents, and then there was a portrait of Henry and his heirs.
THAT is the portrait referred to...often called the "Family Portrait" of Henry VIII. Present are two unknown servants (Most likely "Mother Jak" and Wil Somers - Henry's famous fool), Mary, Henry, Jane Seymour, Edward, and Elizabeth.
That picture can be found on this site, on the first gallery page under Elizabeth.
I am reading Alison Weir's Lady Elizabeth and it mentions too that she wore an 'A' necklace from her mother in the Whitehall portrait.
Again I cannot find a picture that will enlarge enough to view on pc.
I thought the the origional portrait no longer existed, or only existed in part, but having looked at the version on this site and it is on display at Hampton Court so I'll be going to have a look, maybe it is the one with his mother and father that no longer exists?
It is definitely the one at Hampton Court where it looks like Elizabeth is wearing a pendant in an "A" shape. Unfortunately when the painting is reproduced, it usually ends up small on details because they try to fit the whole thing in a book and the original is quite wide. The 'zoom' feature on the painting at the Royal Collection website doesn't get in far enough either, but you can just sort of make out it looks like an "A". I should also mention that it is an "A" with a bar across the top.
I could swear that I just recently saw a closer version of Elizabeth from this painting somewhere relatively recently, but now I can't recall where it was. But I'll keep an eye out because I'd love to have a better view of the pendant she's wearing.
I have been to Hampton Court today and spent ages looking at the picture, she has a necklace but it does not look like an 'A' at all?! I did take a photo but it is in a dark room and just beaks up on enlargement.
There are two photos, one with Henry's parents which is a reproduction of the Whitehall portrait that was destroyed by fire and another which shows him with Jane and his children with the fools in the background. Well worth a visit to HC to see them both but does not solve the mystery of the pendant :o(
I was recently at Hampton Court and took some photos of the Family Portrait with close ups of Elizabeth and Mary. You will see the A necklace quite clearly. I uploaded them on the Tudors wiki here :
http://tudorswiki.sho.com/page/Paintings+at+Hampton+Court
How can you say that the pearl necklace is the same because "the pearls are very similar"? All pearls are similar. They all look like pearls! How can you judge by a picture someone painted hundreds of years ago?!
A queen, I imagine, would have a ton of different jewels. And pearls have always been loved by royalty. There is absolutely no surprise that Elizabeth had them, too, and I would love to believe that she was somehow able to get them from her mother, but the pearl similarity is not going to cut this. If that was a one-of-a-kind pendant molded into an intricate shape its history would be much easier to trace, but pearls are all similar. This is nonsense.
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