A centuries-old mystery over who exactly is staring out from a chalk sketch labeled "Anna Bollein Queen" may have a new answer—and it's probably not Henry VIII's doomed second wife. Using facial-recognition technology more familiar from airports than archives, researchers say the 16th-century drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, part of a Windsor Castle collection, is more likely to show Anne Boleyn's mother, Elizabeth Howard.
The team ran more than 80 Holbein portraits, including some of relatives, through an algorithm trained on millions of faces to find similarities in facial structure. They then compared the disputed sketch with portraits of Anne's first cousins and daughter, Elizabeth I, per the BBC. The software found a resemblance that fit a grandmother–granddaughter pairing better than mother–daughter, the New York Times reports. That dovetails with other red flags: the "queen" inscription was added two centuries after the sketch was made; the sitter is fair-haired with a full face, which doesn't match descriptions of Anne; and she's dressed in domestic, not royal, clothing.
Elizabeth Howard was also documented as ill around 1536, when Holbein likely drew the woman—matching theories that the sitter may have been unwell, says historian Karen L. Davies, author of a study published in npj Heritage Science. That said, a separate Holbein sketch of an unknown woman might actually be of Anne Boleyn, the Guardian reports. The face was linked to the Boleyn-Howard cluster, Davies tells the outlet, adding that she hopes AI's suggestion opens up new debate.
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