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In this portrait, Anne Boleyn (King Henry VIII's 2nd wife) is lying despairingly on the steps of the Tower of London. She has just been told that she is to be imprisoned in rooms that she had occupied on the day of her coronation. She was sent to the Tower on 2nd May 1536, accused of treason, and was later executed. Henry VIII wished to marry again to get a male heir, and so accused her falsely. The composition of the picture is based on 16th-century Venetian paintings of court scenes. Edward Ward was a popular London painter of historical subjects.
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