This is one of the earliest known depictions of Henry VIII, made when the King was thirty-five years old. Lucas Horenbout was born in Flanders but moved to England in the 1520s. In 1534 he was appointed King’s Painter and in 1544 Henry VIII praised Horenbout’s work, which he said he knew personally. Horenbout appears to have been the earliest miniature painter in England, and may have taught the art of miniature painting to Hans Holbein.