Portrait of King Henry VIII (oil on panel)

Henry VIII (1491–1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. This painting is a contemporary replica of Hans Holbein’s celebrated portrait of Henry VIII. It derives from Holbein’s 1537 Whitehall mural, in which Henry VIII was grouped together with his father Henry VIII, his mother Elizabeth of York, and his third wife, Jane Seymour. The mural was destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century, but the image of Henry it presented had quickly become the standard image of the King by the late 1530s.