Author: Melanie V Taylor

Freelance lecturer on art history and all aspects of history. Currently researching the creators of illuminated manuscripts of the latter part of the 15th century. Principal of Ashtead Art Lovers - founded in 2007.
Uncategorized

Food Fit for Kings

Melanie V Taylor

When you sit down to your Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners you may not realise it but you are about to enjoy dishes once presented and eaten at the court of Henry VIII and his queen, Katharine of Aragon. In America, according to popular belief, the Thanksgiving Dinner celebrates the survival of the first year the… Continue reading Food Fit for Kings

Books

The Man in the Iron Mask by Dr Josephine Wilkinson

Melanie V Taylor

Thank you to Amberley for sending me a copy of Jo Wilkinson’s latest book, The Man in the Iron Mask.   If you are interested in history and the back stories of who did what to whom, then The Man in the Iron Mask will have you enthralled.  Dr Wilkinson’s knowledge of the court of Louis XIV of France and… Continue reading The Man in the Iron Mask by Dr Josephine Wilkinson

Illuminated manuscripts, portrait miniature, Portraiture, Renaissance, Subjects for discussion, Tudor portraiture

Monkey business at 16th century royal courts

Melanie V Taylor

In 1492 Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506) sailed under the Spanish flag and discovered a whole new land. Six years later the Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama (1460 – 1524) reached India’s Malabar coast, which had been a centre of trade between Arab and far eastern merchants for at least fifteen hundred years.  Columbus’s voyage west… Continue reading Monkey business at 16th century royal courts

Artists of Northern Europe, Original Documents, portrait miniature, Portraiture, Renaissance, Royal Portraits, Tudor portraiture

How we know the Tudor Royals from 1485 – 1558; and who painted them.

Melanie V Taylor

Articles in various publications have looked at Franny Moyle’s suggestion that Holbein left clues regarding the identification of one of his sitters of his miniatures being of Henry VIII’s fourth wife, Anna, Duchess of Cleves and not Katherine Howard as suggested by George Vertue writing in the 18th century. The recent article about Moyle’s theory… Continue reading How we know the Tudor Royals from 1485 – 1558; and who painted them.

Artists of Northern Europe, portrait miniature, Portraiture, Royal Portraits, Tudor portraiture

A Portrait of Anna, Duchess of Cleves : The King’s Beloved Sister

Melanie V Taylor

Anna, Duchess of Cleves (?) Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 - 1543) (?). Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia, USA. Accession Number 1954.1923. When Heather Darsie’s consideration of Anna’s life and marriage was published in April 2019, the cover portrait (above) presented us with a completely different aspect of the duchess from the Holbein portrait that now hangs… Continue reading A Portrait of Anna, Duchess of Cleves : The King’s Beloved Sister