Save Anne Boleyn Portrait

London National Portrait Gallery needs your help!

As an avid Anne Boleyn fan and fan of the Tudor dynasty since childhood, I have been very blessed to have met many wonderful writers of historical fiction. One of whom runs On the Tudor Trail
She has created a Facebook page to help raise awareness of the desperate plight of this famous portrait of Anne Boleyn. So I thought I would help spread the word.

 The Facebook page can be found here: Save Anne Boleyn's Portrait

This page has been officially endorsed by historian and author Alison Weir who wrote:

  “I am delighted to endorse this page, and to lend my support to the fundraising for the restoration of this important – indeed, the definitive – portrait of Anne Boleyn. It has entranced and intrigued me since I was a young teenager and first became aware of Anne’s story. Even though it is only a copy of a lost original, it is the portrait by which most people identify Anne, and it captures the charm and wit of which contemporaries spoke. It also bears testimony to the famous ‘little neck’ and the eyes that were ‘black and beautiful’ and ‘invited to conversation’, as well as to Anne’s famed elegance in dress. In short, the portrait captures the essence of Anne Boleyn, despite rogue theories that it was painted to make her look like her daughter, Elizabeth I, from whose reign it probably dates. The proliferation of other versions, as well as an image on a medal struck in Anne’s lifetime, proves that this portrait type is an accurate representation of what she actually looked like. We must save this important and iconic portrait so that future generations will not know it only from photographs.”


For more information and to donate, please go directly to National Portrait Gallery  information can be found below:

Help support the conservation work on the portrait of Anne Boleyn

This important portrait of Anne Boleyn is in urgent need of conservation treatment.  It is in a particularly vulnerable and unstable condition as a result of structural problems with the wooden panel.  Vertical 
cracking has occurred across the picture causing minor paint loss where the wood has split (see the photograph taken in raking light alongside).  We need to act now as the damage is being caused by the 
long term effects of an unsuitable cradle (an applied wooden panel support) which must be removed. 
Therefore this important and much loved painting needs urgent conservation treatment to ensure it can 
be put back on public display.

The Gallery hopes to raise £4,000 for conservation work on this picture, and with your help we very much
 hope to be able to undertake this work in early 2011.

Help us with this work

Anne Boleyn by Unknown artist late 16th century How the portrait should look Thank you for stopping by. Please feel free to ask any questions or comments!

Raking light reveals the perilous state of this panel painting