Making Myself Into a Tudor Portrait & Notes on Tudor Beauty Standards

“Why were all their lips so tiny?!” Is the question I get most often when posting Tudor content, and I’ve been curious about this as well. So let’s talk about teeny tiny Tudor lips 💋 I haven’t found too much hard research on the topic, but I do know tiny lips and thinner brows were the common standards of beauty at the time, and I believe the painters stylized the lips in these portraits to be even more “desirable”, much like we filter our images today. I also think these women had naturally small mouths and I’ve seen people that look just like that today (look at the entire cast of Downton Abbey 👀👀). But I’ve also wondered - would the person they were painting recognize themselves if there was that level of stylization involved? So I figured why not try it on myself. I made myself into a Tudor portrait (check out my Tik Tok video on the transformation @royaltynow). I purposely stylized my features to get closer to Tudor standards, and I think it still looks like me! It does look stylized but I would definitely recognize it as myself. Thought it was an interesting little experiment!

Base for Tudor portrait: Anne Boleyn in the National Portrait Gallery

Creation Video