400-year-old painting could prove Anne Boleyn's '6th finger' was MYTH

"A 400-year-old painting could finally prove that Anne Boleyn's 'sixth finger' was nothing more than a vicious rumour. During and after her lifetime, Henry VIII's second wife was hounded by accusations that she was a witch with an 'unnatural' extra finger. Now, an infrared scan of the famous 'Rose' portrait has revealed that the painting was deliberately altered to dispel these rumours. Curators say they have pinpointed the moment the artist 'went rogue' to clearly show the queen's hands - without any additional fingers."

"During the Tudor period, portraits weren't based on the real subject, but rather on pre-approved likenesses called patterns. The Rose portrait held at Hever Castle, Boleyn's childhood home, is unique in that the artist veered away from the standard pattern halfway through the work. Hever Castle's assistant curator, Dr Owen Emmerson, told the Daily Mail that this choice was a 'clear visual rebuttal to that slander'."

"However, Boleyn was the target of persistent slander intended to both justify the accusations of treason and to discredit Elizabeth I's claim to the throne. Chief amongst these claims was the idea that she practised witchcraft, evidenced by the fact that she was 'physically unnatural' and had six fingers. There are no surviving portraits of Boleyn from her lifetime, with all the existing likenesses having been copied from earlier works."

An infrared scan of the 400-year-old 'Rose' portrait at Hever Castle revealed deliberate alterations clarifying Anne Boleyn's hands and removing any suggestion of an extra finger. The artist deviated from standard Tudor workshop 'pattern' likenesses halfway through the work to add the queen's hands and present normal anatomy. The reworking functions as a visual rebuttal to slanders that portrayed Boleyn as 'physically unnatural' and accused her of witchcraft. Boleyn reigned 1533–1536 before execution; her daughter Elizabeth I later became monarch. No authenticated lifetime portraits of Boleyn survive; later likenesses derive from earlier standard patterns.

Read at Mail Online