Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
If I asked you to picture Henry VIII, you'd almost certainly picture this: legs planted wide, fists on hips, utterly immovable. That image comes from a painting that no longer exists — a lost mural by Hans Holbein, painted onto the wall of the Privy Chamber at the Palace of Whitehall in 1537, and destroyed in the great fire of 1698. In this video I trace how a working drawing, a small 17th-century copy, and a tourist's notebook let us reconstruct not just what the painting looked like, but what it was actually for.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
1:13 Who Was Hans Holbein?
4:05 The Palace of Whitehall
5:34 The Privy Chamber
8:10 The Commission in 1537
9:12 How We Know What It Looked Like
11:19 The Content of the Mural
14:42 The Making of an Icon
17:08 The Fire of 1698
17:37 Conclusion
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#henryviii #Holbein #TudorHistory #WhitehallPalace #ArtHistory #TheAntiquary
If I asked you to picture Henry VIII, you'd almost certainly picture this: legs planted wide, fists on hips, utterly immovable. That image comes from a painting that no longer exists — a lost mural by Hans Holbein, painted onto the wall of the Privy Chamber at the Palace of Whitehall in 1537, and destroyed in the great fire of 1698. In this video I trace how a working drawing, a small 17th-century copy, and a tourist's notebook let us reconstruct not just what the painting looked like, but what it was actually for.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
1:13 Who Was Hans Holbein?
4:05 The Palace of Whitehall
5:34 The Privy Chamber
8:10 The Commission in 1537
9:12 How We Know What It Looked Like
11:19 The Content of the Mural
14:42 The Making of an Icon
17:08 The Fire of 1698
17:37 Conclusion
🏰 Subscribe to The Antiquary Magazine:
📖 UK: https://theantiquary.online/product/the-antiquary-history-magazine-subscription/
🌍 International: https://theantiquary.online/product/monthly-history-magazine-subscription-international-shipping/
💻 Digital: https://theantiquary.online/product/monthly-history-magazine-subscription-digital/
#henryviii #Holbein #TudorHistory #WhitehallPalace #ArtHistory #TheAntiquary
