Hidden details found in Anne Boleyn’s portrait served as ‘disproven magic’, historians say | Ownership

Anne Boleyn’s “Rose” Heifer portrait is one of the most recognizable faces in history, with her “B” pendant, her French headdress, her dark eyes, and a red rose in her right hand. Now a secret that has been hidden for nearly 500 years under layers of paint has been discovered.

Scientific analysis of a painting at Hever Castle, her childhood home in Kent, has uncovered evidence that an Elizabethan artist sought to create a “visual refutation” of claims that Henry VIII’s ill-fated wife was a witch with a sixth finger on her right hand.

While age dating or tree ring analysis has dated the oak panel to around 1583 – during the reign of Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I – infrared technology has revealed an interesting underdrawing.

The neglected triangular shape below Anne’s right arm is thought to record the precise moment when the artist moved away from the inherited design, deciding instead to show Anne holding a red rose, with her hands and fingers clearly visible.

In the 16th century, artists used “types” drawn from life in short sessions, so that they could consistently reproduce royal images. They were circulated among workshops as approved examples.

The underdrawing of Hever’s “Rose” shows that the artist initially used the so-called “B” style, which focused generally on Anne’s head and shoulders, before modifying it “to expose the slanders of the day” as a lie.

Dr Owen Emerson, assistant curator at the Hever Museum, said: “By clearly displaying five figures on each hand, the image serves as a visual refutation of hostile rumours, and as a defense of Anne Boleyn – and, by extension, of the legitimacy of her daughter, Elizabeth.”

Anne was imprisoned for adultery in the Tower of London in 1536. Although she denied the charges, she was found guilty of treason and beheaded. Her only crime was her failure to give birth to a son for Henry VIII.

The king had divorced the first of his six wives, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Anne – a marriage that prompted his break with the Catholic Church and led to the English Reformation. Henry VIII removed all traces of Anne from the royal palaces, and no portrait painted during her lifetime is believed to have survived.

Heffer’s team concludes from recent analysis that their portrait is the first currently known scientifically dated portrait of Anne, created when her portrait was consciously re-examined during the reign of Elizabeth I, at a time of intense political and religious anxiety.

In her 2025 book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn, Helen Harrison suggested that Anne’s hands were prominently displayed in the portrait of the Hever Rose to counter the claims of Nicholas Sanders, a 16th-century writer and activist, who campaigned for the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England. He sought to undermine the legitimacy of Elizabeth I, writing that Anne “had six fingers on her right hand.” When told about the new evidence, Harrison said she was surprised to find that the analysis supported her theory.

Kate McCaffrey, who is also assistant curator at the Hever Museum, said: “It’s really exciting. This is very strong evidence of a visual refutation of a very specific myth of magic and the six fingers, which is really extraordinary. It extends the scientific analysis to a very specific political moment in time.”

“It is Elizabeth’s way of regaining not only her own legitimacy and lineage, but also of her mother’s legitimacy. It is impossible to say that it was Elizabeth herself who commissioned this painting, but it certainly seems too coincidental to be a response to the rumors that were circulating at this time.”

The dendrite chronology study was conducted by Ian Tyers, an independent specialist, while infrared reflectance imaging and material analysis were carried out at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.

The image will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Hever entitled Capturing a Queen: The Portrait of Anne Boleyn. It will explore how Anne’s image was “created, deliberately altered and politically disseminated”.

For her contemporaries, beauty was in the eye of the beholder. While the Venetian ambassador, Francesco Sanuto, described her as “not one of the most beautiful women in the world,” the German humanist Simon Grenius saw her as “good-looking.”

“Her appeal is her intelligence, her confidence and her charm. That’s what captured Henry’s attention and his heart,” McCaffrey said.

Capture of a Queen: Portrait of Anne Boleyn opens February 11, and continues until January 2, 2027.