Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour (1508 or 1509-1537), Third Queen of Henry VIII.

This unfinished portrait appears to be a contemporary version of the key image of Jane Seymour, which was painted by Holbein in 1536 after a sitting from the life (Royal Collection and Kunsthistorisches Museum). She is depicted at half length, wearing a red velvet gown with cloth of gold sleeves and an English style gable headdress. The dimensions are very similar to Holbein's painting and the wooden panel boards are constructed from a tree felled in the 1530s (unlike the Gallery's other portraits after Holbein, which date to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century). The flesh tones have been fully worked up but the rest of the portrait is unfinished, with underdrawing clearly showing through in the jewels and only a tonal base layer applied in the headdress and sleeves. The painting may have been left unfinished following Jane's sudden death.