Hans Holbein & The Tudors

04/05/2026

I’d really encourage people to take a moment to read this article. It sets out the discussion clearly and gives a good sense of what this research is, and what it isn’t.

A 200-year-old art historical assumption is overturned as AI facial recognition suggests that 81 sketches by Hans Holbein the Younger have been misidentified

02/05/2026

📜 What if we’ve been looking at the wrong Anne Boleyn?

After years of research, a paper I led has now been peer reviewed and published in npj Heritage Science.

The study suggests that the drawing long believed to show Anne Boleyn may instead depict her mother, Elizabeth Howard, while another, long labelled “Unidentified Woman”, could represent Anne Boleyn’s true lifetime likeness.

The paper also proposes that another Royal Collection drawing, traditionally identified as “Lady Vaux”, may instead depict Mary Boleyn.

The research combines Tudor records, art history, and computational facial analysis developed in collaboration with Professor Hassan Ugail of the University of Bradford and David G. Stork of Stanford University.

This research asks what happens when long-standing labels are tested rather than simply repeated.

Today, the story is being featured across BBC platforms by award-winning journalist Harriet Bradshaw, including BBC Tech Now, BBC Breakfast, Radio 4, BBC Sounds, and online.

🎥 BBC coverage:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002w3sl/tech-now-02052026?seriesId=unsliced&fbclid=IwRlRTSARiN7dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe3Be8Qf1LnjKZAQq6B3OLwJWnezFBGObttNAiNYvlQDDdgrOGvPoq9ch2C3c_aem_zbLtiIKu2iFjXRCuhmxXjw

📄 Read the paper and decide for yourself whether the evidence now requires a reassessment of these traditional attributions:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-026-02456-0

🎙️ The Tudor Chest Podcast with Adam Pennington airs on 7 May.

🖋️ I will also be sharing the personal story behind this research in the coming days.

490 years today since Anne Boleyn’s arrest at Greenwich, we may, for the first time, be looking at one of the most influential families of the English Renaissance, mother and daughters reunited through the drawings of Hans Holbein the Younger.


of Bradford

Harriet Bradshaw finds out how AI is being used to help solve an art history mystery. Andrew Rogers explores how new technology is transforming filmmaking at Pinewood Studios.

30/04/2026

Art doesn’t just capture a moment.
It can preserve facial structure.

Across generations, that structure holds — and resemblance follows.

The resemblance between Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and her great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Princess Beatrice of York. In my opinion, Literally identicall, she's got the hanoverian eyes and all, just like Victoria.

17/02/2026

Anne Boleyn and the Windsor Sketch - Part I: The Contemporary Record

Over the years, several explanations have been advanced to defend the identification of RCIN 912189 as Anne Boleyn. Before accepting them, it is worth examining the documentary record they seek to reconcile.

We do not lack contemporary descriptions of Anne Boleyn. What is striking is how consistent they are.

Francesco Sanuto, observing Anne at the 1532 Anglo-French summit, recorded her as dark in complexion, with a long neck and an elegant figure. The Venetian account preserved in Marino Sanuto’s diaries described her as swarthy, with a long neck, a wide mouth, and eyes that were black and beautiful. Eustace Chapuys, who saw Anne repeatedly between 1532 and 1536, described her consistently as dark. Pier Desiderio Michieli likewise called her rather dark and swarthy. Lancelot de Carles noted her black and beautiful eyes. Thomas Wyatt, who knew her personally at court, called her “the Brunet that set our country in a roar.”

Across hostile, neutral, and sympathetic observers alike, the emphasis is stable: dark colouring. A slender build. A long, elegant neck - the feature Anne herself referenced in the Tower when she remarked that she had “a little neck.”

No contemporary observer described Anne as fair.

Yet the Windsor sketch, RCIN 912189, shows a sitter whose hair has consistently been catalogued as yellow or fair.

That discrepancy is not minor.

It is structural.

More on this soon.

03/02/2026

01/02/2026

Queen Caroline’s decision to employ George Vertue to investigate and catalogue the drawings is itself evidence that the identities were not secure. If the labels were authoritative, there would have been nothing to investigate - only to copy.

16/01/2026

Welcome.

This page looks at Hans Holbein through evidence, not assumption.
How images were made, handled, altered, and why that matters.

Process over myth.
Wording over wishful thinking.
Evidence first.