The splendid Tudor and early Stuart portraits that we see in great museums and country houses are the chief survivors of a much richer visual culture. Prints, tapestries, painted clothes, wall paintings, funeral monuments and coinage were all used at this time for the expression of powerful imagery, both state and individual. This book explores changes in the style and sophistication of images as the means by which men and women defined both public and private ideas about themselves.

As their self image changed, so did the techniques employed by artists to realise the ambitions of their patrons.