The Face of King Edward VI

Re-creation of the face of Jane Seymour from her 1536/37 portrait by Hans Holbein.

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Henry VIII and Jane Seymour’s son, Edward, became the King of England at just 9 years old. Despite being quite young when he died, we have a lot of portraits of the young Edward.

We can sense his importance from a young age, as the only male heir of the king. Even though Edward is young in these famous portraits - just 10 and 13 in these versions - great effort has been made to make him look mature. His expensive outfit with really wide shoulders is part of this effort. 

We know Edward has the gold-red hair famous in the Tudor dynasty, and the same dark blue eyes as his mother Jane.

I’m using this famous portrait by William Scrots (above) to bring Edward to life - he would have only been about 12 or 13 in this image. 

In my re-creation, I see a huge similarity to his half-sister, Elizabeth I.

I also wanted to make an aged up version of Edward, so we could see what he would have looked like had he lived longer as the King of England. As he ages we can see more resemblance to his Seymour side - his uncles Thomas and Edward, and of course resemblance to Henry VIII. 

A modern interpretation:

Video (with smiles and motion):