Lost Henry VIII tapestry turns up in Spain

A TAPESTRY commissioned by Henry VIII has been discovered in Spain, long after it was thought to have been lost.

Woven with gold and silver thread, it once adorned the walls of Hampton Court and was commissioned around the time of the Act of Supremacy. In exquisite detail, it depicts a spectacular bonfire with Saint Paul directing the burning of sacrilegious books – a stark message from a king who was asserting his religious authority during the destructive phase of the Reformation and a religious antecedent for his own destruction of the monasteries.

Experts describe it as “the Holy Grail of Tudor tapestry” and “one of the most sumptuous and important Renaissance tapestries”. Almost 20ft wide, it was part of an otherwise lost set of nine tapestries delivered to the king around 1530. In the 1670s, Charles II moved them to Windsor Castle, where they were last recorded in 1770.

Simon Franses and Thomas Campbell, tapestry experts, confirmed the find after learning the tapestry had been taken to Spain about 50 years ago.

In 2013, its Spanish owner suspected a possible link to Hampton Court and now research has firmly established the link. Mr Franses hopes Spain will grant an export licence and that the UK could buy it back. However, it could fetch more than £5m if it came on the open market. It has been loaned to Britain in the meantime and can be seen at an exhibition, Henry VIII: The Unseen Tapestries, at the S Franses gallery in London from Oct 1 to 19.

Henry VIII’s St Paul tapestry was sold to a Barcelona collector in the Sixties and thought lost. But it was sold to an anonymous buyer in Madrid, who has now sent it on loan to Britain