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Historical person

Susannah Hornebolt

1503–1545

Susannah Hornebolt was a Flemish-born artist who worked at the Tudor court and is often identified as the first woman known to have been employed as an artist by the English crown. She came from an accomplished family of manuscript illuminators and entered royal service with her husband John Parker.

Records place her in the households and ceremonial life surrounding Henry VIII and his queens, although few surviving works can be securely attributed to her. Susannah Hornebolt was born in Flanders and died in England.

In Alison Weir’s The King’s Painter, Susanna Hornebolt grows up in a family of artists and enters Tudor court service at a time when women’s professional work is rarely recorded.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Susannah Hornebolt (1 series)

Six Tudor Queens in Order

by Alison Weir 21 books 4.2(79,643)

The Six Tudor Queens sequence retells the lives of Henry VIII’s wives through six full-length novels. Twelve companion stories shift attention to relatives, servants, artists and courtiers affected by the same events, while Six Tudor Queens: Writing a New Story explains the project’s historical method. In the Shadow…

All books in this series