Anne Boleyn, Queen of England c. 1618
Engraving | 18.0 x 11.6 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 680483
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An engraving of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England. Bust length with hair under a gable hood, with pearl necklace, low gown and jewelled bodice. Within an oval border bearing Latin inscription with further English inscriptions below. This print is lettered around the portrait: "ANNA BOLŒNIA HENRICI VIII ANGLIÆ FRANCIÆ ET HIBERNIÆ REGIS CONIUX &c"; along the bottom: "The Most Excellent Princesse Anne Boleyn wife to King Henry … / departed this lyffe in the yeare of our Lord God. 1535."; at the lower left: "R. Elstrack sculpsit"; at the lower right: "Are to be sold by sould by Thomas Geele at the dagger in lumbrd / street". During the late 1610s and 1620s, publisher Compton Holland oversaw the production of a series of portraits for publication in what came to be known as the Baziliologia. The first frontispiece dated 1618 presents the full title as : Baziliologia, a Booke of Kings, beeing the true and lively effigies of all our English kings from the Conquest untill this present with their severall coats of armes, impreses and devises and a brief chronologie of their lives and deaths. No copy of the 1618 edition is known, and after Holland's death in 1628 a second edition was published with text by William Martyn, the plates were later acquired by Thomas Geele, who published a third edition in 1630. Holland's octavo portraits were engraved by the pre-eminent engravers working in England, and their work came to epitomise and dominate portrait print publication for decades. Throughout successive editions, more portraits were added to the series. The Royal Collection holds a series of 238 prints linked to the Baziliologia, see RCINs 680452-680690. The print formed part of an album of British royal portrait prints assembled by Cassiano and his younger brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo in Rome. Described in an early nineteenth-century inventory of prints in George III’s library as Kings of England and their Families from Henry VII to James II, the album was arranged chronologically, with kings and their consorts together. It was dismantled later in the nineteenth century and its prints incorporated into the series of Engraved Royal Portraits (organised dynastically). For more information see Mark McDonald, The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. I: Ceremonies, Costumes, Portraits and Genre, 3 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017, part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, cat. no. 1348.
Provenance
From the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-22 October 1657); inherited by his brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606-1689); sold by Carlo Antonio's grandson to Clement XI, 1703; acquired by Cardinal Alessandro Albani by 1714, from whom purchased by George III in 1762
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Creator(s)
(print seller)(collector)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Engraving
Measurements
18.0 x 11.6 cm (sheet of paper)
Category
Object type(s)