Édouard VI enfant

Holbein painted this around 1538, when the child in it was barely a year old and the most important baby in England. Edward was Henry VIII's only legitimate son, born in 1537 to Jane Seymour, who died days after the birth, and his arrival gave the king the male heir he had torn the country apart to secure. Holbein poses the infant like a miniature monarch, upright, one hand raised as if already blessing a court, gripping a gold rattle that stands in for a sceptre. The panel was handed to Henry as a New Year's gift in 1539, and a Latin verse along the base urges the boy to equal, even outdo, his father. Edward did become king at nine, but reigned only six years and died at fifteen, and the crown passed to his half-sisters.