King Henry VIII

Ink and watercolour. 257.8 x 137.2 cm

Henry VIII commissioned from Holbein a wall-painting for Whitehall Palace (destroyed by fire in 1698) to commemorate the strength and triumphs of the Tudor dynasty, completed in 1537 and perhaps inspired by the birth or the expectation of the birth of Henry’s son Edward, later Edward VI, in October 1537. This preparatory drawing for its left-hand section shows Henry with his father Henry VII, the founder of the dynasty.