The Royal Portrait
Image and Impact
BRITISH SCHOOL, 16TH CENTURY
Henry V (1387-1422)
1504-1520Oil on panel | 56.5 x 36.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 403443
This is one of the five earliest paintings surviving in the Royal Collection. The others are Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Elizabeth Woodville. Recent dendrochronological (tree-ring) analysis indicates that this panel was painted between 1504-1520. It would have been part of a set of heads of kings and queens either commissioned by Henry VII or Henry VIII.
The portrait shows the king in side profile, possibly indicating that it derives from a medal, the portrait effigy of the king from Westminster Abbey (stolen in 1546) or from a donor portrait of Henry V perhaps as part of a religious altarpiece. This image, with the profile head set against a patterned background, became the standard format for later sixteenth-century versions.
The artist is unidentified but would probably have been either British or Flemish, working for the royal court. Originally the painting would have been in a gilded, engaged frame which has been dismantled at some point in the painting’s history. It is now displayed in a Twentieth-century reproduction Tudor frame.
The portrait shows the king in side profile, possibly indicating that it derives from a medal, the portrait effigy of the king from Westminster Abbey (stolen in 1546) or from a donor portrait of Henry V perhaps as part of a religious altarpiece. This image, with the profile head set against a patterned background, became the standard format for later sixteenth-century versions.
The artist is unidentified but would probably have been either British or Flemish, working for the royal court. Originally the painting would have been in a gilded, engaged frame which has been dismantled at some point in the painting’s history. It is now displayed in a Twentieth-century reproduction Tudor frame.
