ABSTRACT
Henry VIII was recognized as an enthusiastic builder during his own lifetime and the architecture of his royal estate has been studied by generations of antiquaries and historians.1 In recent scholarship, Henry VIII has also come to personify the concept of ‘the royal image’; of ‘art’ as a consciously employed tool of cultural and political communication.2 A small hone-stone plaque that depicts Henry VIII standing in a pseudo-Holbein pose on an Ionic capital, probably of mid-sixteenth-century German manufacture, evokes both perceived facets of this monarch: the builder king and the manufacturer of royal images (Plate 1).3 Images of Henry VIII and of architecture are likewise associated or juxtaposed in many contemporary portraits or depictions of the king. However, despite the extensive study of early Tudor royal portraiture, the architectural settings or details that commonly occur in such images have prompted little analysis, certainly in comparison with physiognomy, posture or dress. This is remarkable since, as shall be argued here, architectural imagery was often intrinsic to the composition of many familiar images of Henry VIII. Indeed, the intent of this study is to demonstrate that a closer examination of the role of architectural settings and imagery in early Tudor royal portraiture can aid a fuller understanding both of purpose of these portraits
themselves and, in turn, of the intellectual role or status of architecture at the Henrician court.
