A New Image of Anne Boleyn? Re-Creations of the Mysterious Image Under Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

hello everyone and welcome back to royalty now where we bring you face to face with figures from the past today we have something a little different for you this x-ray image of a woman found hidden underneath the 1580s portrait of Queen Elizabeth the has fascinated researchers and the public it's led many to believe that this is a secret image of Elizabeth's disgraced mother and Bin and that Elizabeth had purposely painted over this image to preserve her mother's memory but is this really an image of Anne Bolin and if it's not who could it be I'll reveal a recreation of this hidden woman and then we'll do a little detective work so let's go ahead and get started 15 years ago the National Portrait Gallery undertook some research for their making art and tutor Britain project the project revealed some unexpected characters underneath 16th century portraits using infrared reflectography and x-rays the project revealed a Virgin Mary and child underneath the portrait of Sir Francis wallingham Elizabeth the first spym ironic given that his spies heavily operated against Catholics it also revealed a devotional scene of Christ underneath a portrait of Statesman Thomas Sackville but the image that most interested the researchers was this portrait of Queen Elizabeth the because it revealed what appeared to be a dark-haired dark-eyed woman staring out from beneath the layers of paint this video is brought to you by mandley it's been a goal of mine to learn Spanish for years but it's tough to find an easy way to do it today's sponsor mandley is an amazing way to get started launched in 2014 monley has quickly become the go-to language learning app and what makes it unique is that you can have realtime conversations with a chatbot which gives you valuable pronunciation information that you don't get from other apps it also focuses on practice practical content real conversational language skills that you can use to brush up before a big trip for example these daily lessons are also recorded with fluent speakers so you can be sure your accent is on point and the monthly quiz will help you review all you've learned if you don't like feeling like you're wasting time on your phone the hands-free feature is great if you like to cook or take a walk while learning a new language visit mlea royalty now for up to 96% off a lifetime membership to mandley now in 1536 when Elizabeth was just 2 years old her mother and Bolin was arrested by her father King Henry VII of England after nearly 10 years together and one daughter Anne was abruptly accused of adultery and sentenced to death rumors circulated that she was a witch who had seduced Henry of course it's commonly believed by historians that Anne was innocent of these accusations and crimes and that Henry just wanted her out of the way so he could have a male Heir with someone else after her death most portraits of Anne were immediately destroyed it's the reason we hardly have any left for us today the tutor Court tried to move on from her death as quickly and as quietly as possible there was hardly a mention of the name an bin for years after it's hard to tell just how much of an impact this had on her daughter Elizabeth during her life Eliz eleth rarely spoke of Anne but we see physical evidence everywhere that Anne had a special place in her daughter's heart Elizabeth acquired the very bed that Anne had given birth to her in she decorated her home with the city of ladies tapestries the very same ones that Anne would have grown up around she also wore the Checker's ring a double portrait ring showing both Anne and herself side by side ullin's Falcon symbol was featured in Elizabeth's Palace and also added to her very tomb in Westminster Abbey painting panels were commonly reused in tutor times they were valuable Commodities so was there a hidden or personal meaning behind the ReUse of this specific panel could Elizabeth have purposely been trying to preserve an image of her mother since so many were destroyed let's first take a look at the image we see today this portrait of Queen Elizabeth was painted in the 1580s and we can tell it's been Al Ed in multiple layers infrared revealed that the bunch of Flowers in her hand were painted over what she was originally holding which was a snake snakes can be emblems of wisdom but in the religious environment the tutors lived in it seems like the artists thought it would be confused for a sign of the devil so as a result it was painted over in the later stages of the portrait this was another curious detail that connects the portrait to Anne bin who was famously accused of witchcraft when looking under the layers of Elizabeth's painting the researchers could immediately see that this hidden portrait was painted by someone highly skilled but it appeared to be unfinished only the head and some of the shoulders have been painted they could make out a French Hood in the image which is a style that Anin was famous for wearing I'm going to reveal my Recreation of this mystery woman's face and then we'll see if it looks like the paintings we have of Ulin so let's take a look at the face of this Mystery Woman [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Music] this Recreation was challenging because this hidden face is somewhat incomplete we can really only see the right side of her face so I had to somewhat invent the jawline and the ear while her eyes and hair look dark it was technically impossible to tell the hair eye color because of the nature of radiography like this it will always be in black and white there is certainly some resemblance to Anne bin I see it especially in this heer Castle version of her portrait however there are quite a few good reasons why this is not a portrait of an upon closer inspection the style of her clothing is a little too late to be the fashion of an's time this type of French Hood was worn in the 1570s and 80s another piece that's barely visible is what appears to be a rough another fashion from about 40 years after an's death the best evidence to get would be to date the panel using dendr chronology so that's what the researchers did next they ultimately found that the wood came from a tree that was cut down between 1572 and 1582 which means that the panel was reused by Elizabeth only a few years after it was made another reason is more emotional as I said Elizabeth already celebrated Anne with her possessions she had a portrait of her mother on her own finger in the Checker's ring so did she really need to hide an image of her mother or keep it a secret by this point in England so unless this is a portrait commissioned later of Anne bin wearing 1580s attire which would be really rare it's not her but then who could it be it's reasonable to assume she's someone of high nobility wealthy enough to have a portrait painted by a skilled painter and important enough for Queen Elizabeth the first to use the panel so I thought what better use of my time than looking through every wife of every peer of England in the 1570s who would have appeared at court or been one of the Queen's ladies between 1572 and 1582 unfortunately many women's portraits have been lost to time or simply exist as poor quality images for us to view today so it's very possible this is one of the dozens of noble women at the time whose portrait no longer exists but I did quite a bit of comparing to women whose portraits we do have I couldn't find an immediate match among the most well-known of the Queen's ladies Bess of Hardwick cat Ashley Katherine KY and Francis wallingham they were all eliminated based on being too young or too old to to be the portrait sitter cat Ashley had actually already passed away by the time this portrait was painted I considered Leti nolles which would have been an extremely spicy match since she was a rival of Elizabeth the wife of Elizabeth's favorite Robert Dudley she would be the correct age to sit for this portrait and was around Court during these years but to me her face doesn't quite match here are some other comparisons these women were all in Elizabeth's service and the right age to pose for this portrait we have Margaret Russell Mary Radcliffe Elizabeth brck Morton Francis Sydney and Helena snakenberg but to me none of these ring true the only person I could think of who actually looked like this was Catherine Howard and I'm shocked at the resemblance but this doesn't make sense because she died 30 years earlier it could possibly be a previous draft of a portrait of Elizabeth that was scrapped although to me the features don't quite match there either the best match I did find during my research was with Francis Newton the baroness cabam she would have been in her 30s during the time this portrait was painted and she was a lady of the bed chamber and close friend of Elizabeth the while not a perfect match I do believe this is at least a contender so do you have any theories about who this mystery woman might be how do you feel about the resemblance to Anin please let me know if I've missed any contenders in the comments below and if we find any more I'll make a community post with a comparison image thank you so much for tuning [Music] in

Channel: Royalty Now Studios

Views: 222,027

Keywords: real face of, what historical figures would look like, true face of, true faces of, real faces of historical figures, true faces of historical figures, what historical figures would look like today, royalty now, roylaty now, history documentary, history, biography, facts, anne boleyn, anne boleyn real face, six wives of henry viii, six wives, real face of anne boleyn, six wives real faces, tudor portraits, tudor portrait mystery, tudor mystery, art history, anne boleyn art

Id: FZAj4kzdrHE

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023