Laura Gascoigne

Small wonders | 21 February 2019

Hilliard’s exquisite, original miniatures led to a recovery of indigenous art in Tudor England after the desecration of Edward VI

  • Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard & Oliver

    National Portrait Gallery, until 19 May

When Henry VIII died in 1547, he left a religiously divided country to a young iconoclast who erased a large part of its visual culture. In a brief six years the government of Edward VI effectively whitewashed over England’s native heritage of sacred art, leaving a country already reliant on foreign painters for its royal portraits bereft of an artistic identity.

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