Figure 1.--This portrait shows Edward VI I think after he was crowned, probably about 1548. I'm not sure who the artist was.

As portrait of Edward by an unknown artist represents Edward at about the age of 12 years. In the portrait young King Edward is dressed in a child's scaled-down version of adult male aristocratic costume of the mid-16th century. He wears an embroidered white doublet with belt, white trunk hose, and long white silk stockings and shoes with open-work that resemble sandals in some respects. Over the doublet he wears a rich surcoat of scarlet velvet with borders of elaborately worked gold thread and edged with ermine. He carries a ceremonial dagger and wears a gold collar of office around his neck. His cap is a sort of embroidered tam decorated with a white feather. The stance of the boy is conventional. Holbein painted his father Henry VIII in the same defiant attitude. Such portraits are called "swagger portraits".

Created: March 27, 2004
Last updated: March 27, 2004