Secrets of the Whitehall Mural explained: Lost painting of the Tudors by Hans Holbein

The Whitehall mural was created by famed Tudor court painter Hans Holbein the Younger in 1537 and depicted Henry VIII with his parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York and his third wife Jane Seymour. It was painted directly onto the wall of Henry VIII’s Privy Chamber in the Palace of Whitehall, which is where it got its name from, meaning that it couldn’t be moved, not even in the case of a fire. This was unfortunate as the palace caught fire on the 4th of January 1698, and most of the building and its contents, including this remarkable portrait, were destroyed. The picture today is known only from one part of the preparatory drawing which Holbein made for it showing the two Henrys now held in the National Portrait Gallery in London and a copy painted by Flemish artist Remigius Van Leemput for Charles II in 1667. Interestingly we can see some differences between the two, but more on those later. The portrait, or rather the later copy we have of it, shows all four of its subjects standing on a luxurious patterned Turkey carpet, which is mostly red in color, with the two Henrys on our left, Henry VII standing in front, and Elizabeth and Jane to the right, with Jane to the front. They are grouped around a gray or brown sarcophagus around which the carpet wraps rather than lying beneath it. It is draped in a red velvet mantle, topped with two cushions, and covered in Latin text, which I’ll give you the translation for a little later. The royals are indoors in a room with a balcony in the center background and possibly a window beyond. A little bit of me actually wonders if this is based on a real room in Whitehall Palace.

There are two recessed archways behind Henry VII and Elizabeth, and a third in between them behind the sarcophagus. They also stand on a step slightly above their son and daughter-in-law. On the walls are mythological images, including two sets of two mermaids, one next to Henry VII’s head, one next to his wives, who hold up banners with the abbreviation for Anno Domini 1537 on them. This is how we know the date of the original portrait. Though the fact that Jane, who was married in May 1536, is in it, and her son Edward, born in October 1537, is not, also helped to pinpoint the date. We can also see two side profiles of classical figures looking towards each other from either side of the center recess, and what looks like the head of a third in the middle of that recess. It’s tough to make out some of the other images in the Van Leemput copy, but I think there is an animal in the top left of the image holding a royal coat of arms, possibly in its mouth, and a red dragon representing the Tudors’ Welsh roots on the top right, also next to or holding a heraldic shield. All the subjects are dressed according to the fashions of the time period in which they lived. Jane wears a red and gold English-style gable hood with lappets terminating at about lip level and with its black veil pinned up on her right side. Her square neck dress comprises a patterned gold overlay on top of a crimson underskirt with crimson undersleeves slashed to reveal her white chemise underneath and topped by huge fur sleeves which drape down to knee level. We can also see the same speckled fur lining which I suspect is marten on her golden overskirt. Her dress has a long train with the same fur on the underside and a little white dog perched on top of it near her feet. Her hands are clasped in front of her, left on top of right. And for jewelry, she wears two rings that we can see, one of which is presumably her wedding ring. Around her neck are two threads of pearls. One is a choker from which is suspended a golden capital T-shaped jewel set with black stones and a pearl at the bottom. The other pearl necklace is much looser and disappears into the top of her dress, which has pearls around the neckline and six strands of pearls which are attached to her shoulders then drape across the entire front of her dress just below the bust line. There is another group of pearls around her waist and two long threads of what seem to be pearls and golden buttons falling down the center of her skirt. In the middle of her bust line, she wears a square-shaped golden brooch set with precious stones and with three pearls hanging from the bottom of it. She stares demurely off to her right towards Henry VII. Her mother-in-law wears an outfit which would have been in fashion at the time of Elizabeth’s death in 1503.

On her head is an English gable hood with much longer lappets than Jane’s for they extend down to below her bust level. It is golden black decorated with precious stones on the biliment and lappets. And if you’d like to learn more about Tudor ladies’ hoods and how they can be used to date portraits, I’ll leave my video on that topic linked in the info cards and the description box below for you. The dress is mainly gold cloth with a band of speckled white fur, again likely marten, in a capital T-shape across the top of her square neckline and extending down to her waist. Her sleeves are fitted and fold back at the wrists to reveal more fur. Her hands are clasped in front of her too, though we can see both of them in her case with a ring on her right ring finger and other rings on her left index, ring, and pinky fingers. With her right hand, she holds up her long skirt, which also has a band of black speckled fur at the bottom. Like Jane, her gaze does not connect with the viewer, and instead she looks off to her right towards her husband or son. As Elizabeth was obviously not available to pose for this portrait, we can assume Holbein based her likeness on other images then in existence of her, such as one of the earlier portraits we still have of her today, her funeral effigy, the effigy of her on her tomb in Westminster Abbey, or a portrait now lost to us. Henry VII stands with his arm resting on one of the cushions on top of the sarcophagus. No feminine hand clasping for him. He wears a black rounded hat with an oval-shaped golden jewel on it with a pearl hanging below it. And his gray and brown hair sits at chin level. He has on long flowing robes which again match the fashions of the early 1500s. He died in 1509. Like all the figures in this portrait, his outfit is in gold and red with white and black accents. And it’s surely no coincidence that Holbein has had all four figures match each other’s outfits so well, for it gives the whole painting a sense of cohesion despite the different fashion styles. Even the carpet and furnishings seen elsewhere in the painting follow this color palette. The first Tudor king seems to be wearing an under layer of red with a golden floor-length coat over the top open to show off his other clothes and with huge slashes in the sleeves from shoulder to elbow to show the red fabric possibly velvet beneath and the expensive fur lining of this coat. The sleeves are turned back at the wrists to show the seam lining. And around his neck, he wears a darker fur stole which extends down to the top of his legs and which he grasps in his right hand.

Poking out from beneath his coat is the toe of one black shoe. He has a golden collar around his neck and gold rings set with dark stones on his right and left index fingers and left pinky finger. He holds something, possibly a glove, in his left hand and stares out at us with a wily-looking side eye, but he has turned ever so slightly to his left. Make sure you stay with me to hear about how his facial expression was altered from the original look Holbein intended to give him. Like his wife, he was dead long before this portrait was commissioned, and so his image must have been copied from something like a pre-existing portrait, a bust, or his effigy. It is Henry VIII who has the strongest pose in the group. Not only does he look straight at us like his father, he is also facing out to the viewer, legs apart with one hand angled so that it is just in front of his hip and the other held next to his codpiece and hovering over a dagger in a rather threatening I’m ready to kill you if I don’t get my way kind of stance. It’s a pose meant to indicate masculinity, authority, and a readiness for action, even violence. And it along with his positioning within the painting are meant to show that he is the most important figure in it. He wasn’t originally supposed to be standing like this though. But just like his father’s expression, you’ll have to stick around to learn more about that. Before we get to Henry’s incredible outfit, please like, hype, and comment on the video as this really helps it to do better. And subscribe to the channel with the notification bell on to stay up to date with my uploads. It’s all totally free, but if you’re already subscribed, maybe check your notification status, as I get people telling me sometimes that YouTube isn’t notifying them, even though it should be. You might also like to join as a channel member for badges next to your name in the comments and members-only posts. Or you can find me on patreon.com/historycalling where I release bonus material like early access to ad-free videos and patron-only podcasts every week. For those of you with Irish ancestry, there’s my book, Find Your Irish Ancestors Online, designed to help you track down those elusive Irish relations from the comfort of your own home, and updated by me a couple of times a year to keep the hyperlinks in it fresh. Last but not least, for free bonus material, sign up to my newsletter on my website, historycallingofficial.com, and you’ll also receive two complimentary downloads right away. Make sure to check though that the newsletter isn’t going to your junk email.

And now back to Henry VIII. The king wears a black hat set at an angle on his head and decorated with plumes of feathers all around its edge and golden jewels on the black band. His outfit is magnificent and has so much going on in it that it’s hard to describe it all, but I’ll do my best. He wears a golden tunic which extends to just above his knees with tiny slashes all down the chest area to reveal his white shirt beneath. There are also ten slightly rectangular rubies set in gold gripped in pairs down the middle of his chest. Perhaps they are functioning as buttons, perhaps as decorations only. His tunic goes up to his chin and we can see the collar of his shirt poking out at the top. The front of the tunic opens to reveal a ridiculously large golden codpiece over the top of his boy bits. And you can hear all about the history of codpieces in my video on the topic. He wears white stockings which disappear up beneath his tunic. And we see garter belts just below his knees holding these in place. A white one on his right leg and a blue one trimmed in gold on his left with letters picked out in gold. Though I can only see what looks like rens, so I’m not sure what the letters are meant to represent. His are the only feet we can see in detail in the whole image and they are wearing flat golden slippers. The embroidered sleeves of the tunic are also gold and also slashed to reveal his undershirt which peeps out at his wrists too. The slashes are interspersed with rubies set in gold. It is his overcoat which really steals the show. However, made of what seems to be red velvet with a wide brown fur trim over the shoulders and down the front. It is open, terminates at his knees, and has huge puffed sleeves, which even the fashionistas of the 1980s would have balked at, and which mean that Henry, already not a small guy, either in height or breadth, takes up much more space in the composition than he would otherwise. Topping off this incredible outfit are a selection of costly jewels. There is a golden collar studded with huge rubies and black gemstones draped from one shoulder to the other. A long golden chain ending just above his navel in a golden pomander with black stone in the middle.

This would have been used to hold sweet-smelling spices and four rings, one on each of his index and pinky fingers. He holds a glove or pair of gloves in his right hand. The text on the sarcophagus reads as follows once translated into English. If it pleases you to see the illustrious images of heroes, look on these. No picture ever bore greater. The great debate, competition, and great question is whether father or son is the victor, for both indeed were supreme. This one, meaning Henry VII, often removed his enemies and the fires of his country, and granted peace continuously to his citizens. The son indeed born for greater things from the sacred altars drives out the unworthy and sets worthy men in their place. Before his virtue the boldness of the popes yielded with Henry VIII bearing the scepter in his hand. Religion was restored. Under his reign the doctrines of God began to be held in their proper honor. This would seem to be the original text from the Whitehall mural. However, in the Van Leemput copy, some additional words have been added into the bottom which translate to the original of this size is attested by the work itself. Holbein made it at the command of Henry VIII. A copy was made by Remigius Van Leemput on a smaller tablet at the desire of Charles II, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland in the year of our Lord 1667. It is this extra text which reveals to us the artist, commissioner, and date of this copy, as well as confirming the artist behind the original picture. Though the existence of the cartoon, to which we’ll return shortly, also does that. Still, let’s be grateful for Van Leemput’s extra information, as Holbein didn’t tend to sign his works. The Tudor era text shows us Henry VIII’s great ego and his high opinion of the Tudor family. We can assume that the heroes are meant to be the men in the portrait rather than the women. But while Henry VII won his throne by conquest and ended the Wars of the Roses, having first spent many years on the run from his future father-in-law and uncle-in-law, Edward IV and Richard III, Henry VIII was no great conqueror. He very occasionally went on campaigns to France, but there is no famous victory to his name in the way that Henry VII is credited as the winner of Bosworth, nor did he have to go and personally put down rebellions in his kingdom in the way that his father did. The idea that he was a victor and military hero on a par with his father is frankly a fiction. The text references Henry VIII’s split from the church in Rome and the establishment of the Church of England with him at its helm.

But this was not something for which he had to risk his life or shed his own blood and it caused great dissension in his kingdom. The idea that he did it to restore religion is also a rewriting of what was at that time very recent history. Henry VIII lived and died a Catholic. He split from the Catholic Church under the Pope’s control because he wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. It wasn’t because of great religious scruples. This is the guy who a decade or so earlier had been declared the Defender of the Faith and that faith was Catholicism. The extra text of 1667 makes reference to the size of the original image. Thanks to the remarkable survival of one part of the preparatory cartoon or drawing that Holbein made prior to painting the final product, I can tell you that the original mural was 101 and a half inches high for that’s how tall the drawing is and a version of it will have been used to transfer the picture to the wall. So, its dimensions must match the final painting. It is also 54 inches wide, but as it represents only a portion of the final portrait, we can’t use that to establish the Whitehall mural’s exact width. To get a better idea of just how huge this cartoon is, take a look at a photograph I took actually of another portrait of Edward VI, about which I also have a video. And you can see the cartoon in the background with two guys standing in front of it taking pictures of it. Look how tall it is compared to them. I can’t emphasize enough how huge this cartoon is. It really shows what a master artist Holbein was that he was able to create something like this, never mind the painting to match up to it. Even with so much of it missing, we can see several changes made between the cartoon and the final painting, assuming the copy is an accurate depiction of what the final portrait looked like. And I’d like to acknowledge here that it is possible that changes were made, but we’ll never know for sure. Henry VII’s pose has been slightly altered so that he now looks the viewer full in the face and his body is not turned slightly to his left or right. This makes him all the more imposing and sets him apart from the rest of his family. The letters above his father’s head held up by the mermaids have also changed. In the drawing we can see a capital H and an I surely meant to represent Henry and Jane which would begin with an I in Latin.

So I wonder if the original painting said this too and if Van Leemput added in the Anno Domini 1537. He wouldn’t be much of a copyist if he did this though. So I tend to think that Holbein decided to make this change especially as the internal evidence in the picture which I’ve already mentioned Jane is there and her son is not also suggests that this date is correct. Henry VIII’s facial expression has also gone from a sad, almost tragic look, perhaps to indicate that he was already dead by this point, though Elizabeth of York doesn’t look so depressed, to something a lot craftier and more in line with what we know about his personality. In the drawing, he is also not looking out at the viewer, which if we assume the women weren’t either, would have left Henry VII the only one staring out at us. I wonder though why Holbein decided to strengthen Henry VII’s look. Was it so that father and son would mirror each other better, leaving just the women with the distant stare? Did Henry VIII not want his father to look too weak or emasculated, as it would undermine his own stature to be seen to be coming from such a man? Or was he just protective enough of his father’s image to want him to look his best in this posthumous painting? Or did Holbein make the decision to change the drawing without reference to the king? We’ll never know. One other change from the cartoon to the copy of the portrait is that I can’t see the lettering around Henry VII’s garter in the drawing. Now, let’s think about the purpose of this portrait. Some would say that it’s Tudor propaganda designed to solidify Henry VIII’s claim on the throne and his third marriage, especially after the upheavals of the previous few years, during which he dumped two wives, executed one of them, delegitimized both his daughters, split from the church in Rome, and married again. Think about where it was placed, though, on the wall of his privy chamber at Whitehall, somewhere where only a few people would have been exposed to it. Being painted directly on the wall also meant that it couldn’t be moved around to other locations, let alone other palaces. Compare this to the later Family of Henry VIII portrait, which shows him with the long dead Jane and his three surviving children, and which could and still can be moved. I’ve seen it in both Hampton Court Palace and in the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, for instance. I’ll leave my video all about that portrait linked on screen and below for you. If the Whitehall mural was purely propaganda, it wasn’t terribly well thought out.

Another theory is that it was to mark the birth or anticipated birth of the future Edward VI, which occurred in October 1537. There was some precedent for this and Boleyn appears on a medal known as the Most Happy Medal because that was her motto and it appeared on the item which was struck in 1534 seemingly in anticipation of the birth of a son to her when she lost the baby. So the theory goes the rollout of the medal was abandoned and that’s why only one copy of it survives. Perhaps this painting was also inspired by impending parenthood. Though in that case, why not wait until the heir had arrived? Especially as Henry had been burnt so many times before by his wives’ miscarriages, the birth of daughters, or short-lived boys. The truth is, there’s no explanation which perfectly fits. And perhaps Henry was motivated by a combination of factors. By the way, I’ll leave my video on the medal linked on screen and below for you. As I’ve already alluded to, the original portrait was lost to fire in January 1698. And we must be grateful to Charles II for having had a much smaller oil on canvas portable copy of it made in 1667, or we’d have nothing left but half a preparatory drawing. The copy measures only 88.9 cm by 99.2 cm and has moved around over the years in a way that the original portrait never could. It too was at Whitehall in 1688, for instance. But as we’ll see in a moment, by about 1743, it was on the wall at Kensington Palace, and it was still there in the Queen’s Closet in 1819, as it can be seen in a picture of that room published in that year in William Pyne’s book, Royal Residences. It was also used as the basis for a black and white engraving by George Vertue dated to around 1743. There are multiple surviving copies of this and in it we see some further changes to the original image. The more prudish Hanoverians have removed Henry VII’s codpiece for instance. I wonder what he would have made of that and added in labels above the four subjects identifying them. Vertue has also written his own signature at the base of the sarcophagus. And as an engraving, some of the fine detailing in the painting, like Jane’s ropes of pearls across the front of her dress, have been slightly simplified. A Latin text label underneath the engraving reads as follows. To the most high, Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Marquess and Earl of Hertford, and Viscount of Beauchamp.

Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, of Cockermouth and Petworth, the steward of the city of Chichester, to the chancellor of the most celebrated University of Cambridge, to a knight of the Order of the Garter, to a privy councillor, to the king of Great Britain. This panel, with due reverence and respect, is a copy of the original from which it was taken, painted from the archetype that was depicted in an inner chamber of the palace of Whitehall before its fatal fire in the year 1697. And the original is preserved in the royal residence at Kensington. There are a few things to note here. First, this image is being dedicated to a member of the Seymour family. In other words, a member of Queen Jane’s family. It is her presence which is of particular importance, not one of the Henrys, even though they would have been viewed as the most significant people in the painting when it was originally created. Second, the fire at Whitehall was in January 1698, but prior to 1752, the new year in England was taken to start in the last week of March. So that is why George Vertue assigns that fire to 1697 on this engraving. Finally, the reference to Kensington Palace is how we know that the Van Leemput copy upon which this engraving is based was there by the early 1740s at the latest. As well as the Seymour family connection, the fact that the image was made also shows the enduring popularity of the Whitehall mural, the desire of the great and the good to have a version of it for themselves, and the commercial value placed on it. For while engravings could be made far faster and more cheaply than oil paintings, it would still have taken quite some time and effort to make such a copy, and George Vertue must have been confident that selling such engravings would make him enough money to make the effort worthwhile. The surviving cartoon that all of these images are ultimately based on is black ink and watercolor dated to either 1536 or 1537 and made up of several sheets of paper joined together. Hardly surprising when you consider its size. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single sheet of this size even today. As I’ve told you, it is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London where it has been since 1957 after being accepted by the government in lieu of inheritance tax, though I don’t know from whom, which is annoying. The NPG’s website tells us that it was used to transfer Holbein’s design to its intended position on the palace wall. The copy would then have been pricked along the main outlines of the composition and then fixed in the intended position on the wall. Chalk or charcoal dust was then brushed into the holes made by pricking, thus transferring the outline to the wall on which the mural would be painted. The technique is referred to as pouncing.

Now, based on my understanding of this cartoon’s history and appearance, I actually don’t think the website clearly explains what happened here. So, let me just expand on this a little bit. The cartoon we have shows no signs of being pricked with holes for transfer. And this suggests that it was made and kept as a record that could perhaps have been used to create copies of Henry VIII’s picture going forwards. And indeed, there are other paintings of him which are clearly based on the same pattern as the Whitehall mural. What the gallery is getting at here is that this is a copy made from an even earlier cartoon which had holes pricked in it to allow the image to be transferred using pouncing. And that other cartoon was used to transfer the image to the wall at Whitehall Palace. Had this one been used, there would have to be little pinpricks in it. The two cartoons will still have been the same size though and still ultimately created by Holbein. It also makes sense that there was another cartoon with the alterations to Henry VII’s and Henry VIII’s stances and facial expressions and the text above their heads and on Henry Junior’s garter which we’ve already examined. So that’s the story of the Whitehall mural and its immediate descendants. I hope you found it interesting. Let me know in the comments what you think the most likely explanation is for Henry commissioning this work of art. And for more from me, try one of these videos next. Whatever you choose, please enjoy.