Anne Boleyn: From Queen to History

Recently Claire Ridgway wrote a really interesting article over at The Elizabeth Files wrote a really interesting article entitled Is Anne Boleyn’s Famous Portrait Really Elizabeth I?  In which she talks about the similarities between Elizabeth Tudor and her mother Anne Boleyn. She outlined a portrait of Elizabeth painted by Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger. She compared this portrait with the one of Anne Boleyn that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

Claire then went on to superpose the portrait of Elizabeth over the one of Anne Boleyn (with some super computer skills!) Oh. My. Gosh. The similarities are absolutely mind blowing. If one did not know who these two women were I am sure they would think they were one and the same, the one portrait being painted in the woman’s younger years and the other in her later years. To know that these two portraits are in fact mother and daughter is incredible!




What made me smile about this article is that a few months ago I wrote my own little piece about this very same portrait of Elizabeth entitled Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Tudor.  I spoke about how I thought the National Portrait Gallery portrait of Anne Boleyn looked very similar to that of Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger’s portrait of Elizabeth I. I have to admit that it made me smile to think that I have the same thoughts and questions as one of my favourite writers!

My theory is a little different to that of Claire Ridgway’s, I believe that the National Portrait Gallery Portrait of Anne Boleyn is a very close likeness to what Anne looked like. I think that as she aged Elizabeth looked more and more like her mother.

If you are interested in what Anne Boleyn could have possibly looked like, I have written an article previously in my LJ. You can find it here:  The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn.