This extraordinary pair of busts of princely children, shown in contrasting states of laughing and crying, is among the most remarkable recent discoveries in Renaissance art. They are directly related to a bust, believed to depict Henry VIII as a child, in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (RCIN 73197). The present busts likely depict Henry VIII and his elder sister Margaret Tudor, who went on to become Queen of Scotland, which makes them the earliest known portraits of both monarchs. All three works are convincingly attributed to Guido Mazzoni, a sculptor who enjoyed fame across Europe for the realism and emotional intensity of his sculptures – features that emerge strongly in these three works.

The two busts, which have emerged together from a Belgian collection, have been left in an untouched state. Conservation treatment undertaken on the Royal Collection bust in 1988 revealed the original colour scheme, including a green glaze over an incised layer of tin foil, intending to imitate cloth of gold. Conservation of the present busts would likely reveal the layers of original polychromy.

Mazzoni, also known by the name Paganino, was one of the most celebrated Italian artists north of the Alps. Born around 1450 in Modena, he was documented as a stage designer, mask-maker, sculptor, painter, and goldsmith. His artistry earned him fame and admiration, and when Duke Ercole I d’Este conceded him privileges, he stated it was ‘for the many and marvellously made works […] I saw with my very own eyes’ (quoted in Anisio, op. cit., p. 178). His career took him to the court of Naples, where he became a favourite of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, and he later travelled to Paris with Charles VIII of France. Around 1500 he is documented as working on the tomb of the English king Henry VII and, although there has been some debate about whether or not he actually travelled to England, recent scholarship has suggested that he did, in fact, make the journey (Larson, op. cit.)

Any understanding of the present sculptures should begin with an examination of the bust of a laughing boy in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle mentioned above, widely idenitifed as Henry VIII when a Young Boy. That bust corresponds closely to the newly discovered busts discussed here in subject, size, stylistic features, and facture. The astonishingly expressive sculpture in the Royal Collection was first documented during the reign of James II (r. 1685-1688), when it was kept at Whitehall Palace (Balthoe, op. cit., p. 102), and was painted by a follower of Van Dyck in circa 1640. The present busts were put side-by-side with the Royal Collection bust in the laboratory at Windsor Castle on 27 October 2021. The size, facial features, rendering of clothing and headgear, polychromy, and facture of the three terracotta busts are so close as to leave no doubt about their shared authorship. The two busts underwent thermoluminescence analysis in June 2021 by Oxford Authentication which confirmed that the busts were last fired 400 to 600 years ago.

The Surveyor of the King’s Pictures Lionel Cust first proposed the attribution of the Windsor bust to Guido Mazzoni in 1925 (op. cit). This attribution has not been seriously disputed since that time, and the discovery of the new pair of busts lends it even more strength. In particular, the crying child possesses features that are found only in Mazzoni’s most accomplished works. The tension of the child’s cheek muscles and pudgy lips are strikingly close to those of the adolescent John the Evangelist from Mazzoni’s Lamentation in Busseto. Her furrowed brow, pointed chin, and thick curls are very close to those of the Suor Pappina in Modena, and the painted tears are thick, three-dimensional dabs of white paint like those of the Virgin in Busseto.

The Windsor bust has regularly been identified as a portrait of Henry VIII as a child. This proposal was first advanced by Helen Dow (loc. cit.) and tentatively accepted by many scholars. The discovery of the new busts lends support to this hypothesis and the identity of the crying child can also be strongly suggested. The sumptuous clothing present in the three portrait busts, such as the gilded hairnets and the extensive use of gold thread and collar of astrakhan in the Crying Child, is extremely unusual in Renaissance portraiture, and is almost without exception a sign of princely status.

Mazzoni worked for two royal families in Northern Europe: the Valois and the Tudors. The children depicted in the busts are clearly of approximately the same age; of all the children born into these families while Mazzoni was in their employ, only two were close enough in age to be the children depicted here: Margaret Tudor (1489-1541) and the future Henry VIII (1491-1547). Painted portraits of both sovereigns (Margaret would become Queen of Scotland) in adulthood seem to confirm these identifications.

The possessions of Henry VIII, including his collection of paintings and sculpture, are listed in inventories compiled in 1542 and 1547, each recording tens of thousands of objects (Starkey et al, op. cit.). In 1542, among the terracotta sculptures were ‘oone Picture of a Morian boye made of erth with a Garment of white and blewe sett in a box; […] oone Picture made of Erthe of a Morian boye with a grene Garment; oone Picture made of Erthe of a Morian boye with a white Garment’ (Hayward, op. cit., 2004, vol. II, pp. 97, 167). The 1547 inventory mentions ‘a picture of a Morian boye made of earthe with a garment of white and blewe; […] a picture of a Morian boye in a garment of blewe and white; a picture of a nother morian boye in a garment of yellow and blewe with a redde cappe’. The identification of the busts with the objects mentioned in these sources is uncertain, considering certain incongruencies, yet it is striking that three busts are mentioned in the inventories and three busts with similarly coloured clothing survive today. The term ‘Morian’ may be a reference to Moorish, which can today be interpreted to be a reference to either ‘eastern’ ethnicity, or a state of heightened emotion.

The appearance of these characterful portraits represents an important art historical discovery, both because they are early examples of child portraiture, and because they almost certainly represent two youthful members of the Tudor dynasty. Their undoubted connection to a documented bust in the Royal Collection, further enhances their status.