ABSTRACT
Four Tudor history paintings survive recording two notable moments of Henry VIII’s foreign progresses: his first military foray into Europe (1513) culminating in the ‘Battle of the Spurs’ and the 1520 meeting with Francis I at the ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’. They are presumed to be celebratory pictorial reconstructions commemorating both events and intended to ensure the king’s triumphant legacy. Yet little is known about their creation, authorship and purpose or of Tudor history painting generally. This chapter summarises evidence and assumptions about their use at the Tudor court and presents fresh conclusions about attribution and context. Drawing on documentary records and art historical evidence (including new infra-red reflectography of the ‘The Field of Cloth of Gold’), it reveals how this and its assumed companion, ‘The Embarkation at Dover’, are not just attempts at creating a visual record of 1520, but surviving fragments of a wider decorative and political programme of permanent and ephemeral art for royal palaces, special events and progresses. It explains how history painting was employed in an evolving Tudor language of pageant, symbolism, ceremony, dramatic performance, printed polemic, oratory and displayed magnificence, choreographed to create a persuasive spectacle of Henrician power and authority.
