'Last ever' painting of Henry VIII uncovered in Wiltshire after experts study TREE RINGS to prove it is from final year of his reign

Painting hung in obscurity in Longleat House, Wiltshire, for over 300 years

Modern scientific techniques revealed it is worth more than £1 million

The painting may be the last posed painting of the King before his death



The last portrait that Henry VIII posed for is thought to have been identified in a stately home where it has been hanging for more than 300 years.



The oil painting, which was created on an oak panel, has been hanging in a stately home in Wiltshire for more than 300 years with little clue as to its origins.



However, the value of the portrait jumped from a mere £10,000 to more than £1 million after experts examining tree rings in the panel discovered they could be dated to before the king died in 1547.



The painting is on a wooden panel, which has now been scientifically dated to within Henry VIII's lifetime, possibly making it the last painting he ever posed for

Ian Tyers carrying out a painstaking tree-ring dating study of the oak panels the discover the age of the portrait

The painting was previously thought to be a portrait of the king painted after his death. Now, after thorough scientific examination of the oak, experts believe Henry VIII may have posed for an unknown artist in 1544, three years before his death. The wood is believed to date back to 1529.



The painting has an inscription on it stating that it was painted when the Monarch was aged 54, in the 36th year of his reign, but it was common for information to be placed on later copies.

But a closer look at the inscription showed it had been added at the same time the portrait was created.



It will now be moved to a glass case in a different area of Longleat House in Wiltshire where it had been display to visitors for much of the year.



The procedure to date the wood involves incredibly precise measurements and can reveal the date that a tree was felled

The thick wooden panel had to be closely examined with microscopes and other expert devices to determine its age, without damaging it

Part of the scientific study that helped to date the portrait to within the King's lifetime

Dr Kate Harris, the collections curator at Longleat, said: 'We recently had to revise our collections for our insurance and the valuers alerted us to the implications if the Henry VIII portrait was an earlier piece than thought.

'The feeling has always been that our portrait was painted after his lifetime and was a very good copy. It was common to have the year of his age on later copies.

'An expert came in and he carefully took the painting out of the frame and studied three of the four oak panels.

'He counted the distance in the gap between the annual growth rings to a 100th of a millimetre and found the three boards were all from the same oak tree in the eastern Baltic, probably Poland.

“The tree was felled sometime in or shortly after 1529. It wouldn’t have been transported to England immediately. It would have been left lying around for a period.

THE 'LARGER THAN LIFE' KING

The king was known for his six marriages, all of which ended in some sort of tragedy, divorce, or death, but Henry VIII was also known for other, stranger things: He was known to self-medicate, even going as far as making his own medicines. A record on a prescription for ulcer treatment in the British Museum reads: 'An Oyntment devised by the kinges Majesty made at Westminster, and devised at Grenwich to take away inflammations and to cease payne and heale ulcers called gray plaster'

He was a musician and composer, owning 78 flutes, 78 recorders, five bagpipes, and has since had his songs covered by Jethro Tull

He died while heavily in debt, after having such a lavish lifestyle that he spent far, far more than taxes would earn him,

He possessed the largest tapestry collection ever documented, and 6,500 pistols

While most portraits show him as a slight man, he was actually very large, with one observer calling him 'an absolute monster'



'The study represents a date after which the portrait was painted but it does allow for the key conclusion that it remains possible that the work is of the same date in the inscription.

Elizabeth Norton, an author and historian of the Tudor monarchy, said: 'He died in January 1547 and suffered from ill-health for much of 1546. There aren’t any paintings of him depicted as as old man.

'It may well be the last painting that he posed for.'



The work was previously owned by Henry VIII's brother-in-law Sir William Herbert, husband of Ann Parr, who was the sister of his sixth and last wife Catherine.

After Henry’s death in 1547, Sir William was made the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton in Wiltshire.

Archives show an incumbent at Longleat House purchased the painting from the Earl in 1680 where it has remained in obscurity until now.

Lawrence Hendra, a leading art dealer and specialist on Antiques Roadshow said only 10 portraits of Henry VIII were painted in his lifetime.

He said: 'Portraits of him from life are very rare. The majority of Henry VIII’s iconography was produced posthumously and in considerable quantity for dynastic reasons.

' If it can be proven for definite that Henry VIII sat for the Longleat portrait then it would be very significant.

'A late 16th century copy could be worth anything between 1,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds whereas a work painted from life would be more than one million pounds depending on quality and condition.'

