About me

I am a London-based art historian and consultant, with particular expertise in Tudor painting. I write and lecture on art and I appear, from time to time, on television and radio. I also advise museums, galleries, and private collectors. In the past few years, I have been involved in the discovery of several hitherto unknown portrait miniatures by Nicholas Hilliard, court painter to Elizabeth I.

My most recent book, Holbein: Renaissance Master (2025), is about Hans Holbein the Younger, court painter to Henry VIII and the artist who, more than any other, has shaped our image of the Tudor court. It was selected by BBC Radio 4’s Front Row as a ‘Cultural Pick of the Week’ and by Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Times, among others, as a ‘Book of the Year’ for 2025. Other books include Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist (2019), which won the Apollo Prize and was short-listed for three other major awards: the Berger Prize for British Art, the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize, and the Richard Schlagman Prize for Best Contribution to Art History.

I have been delighted, in recent months, to have had the opportunity to talk about Holbein on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, in interviews with Artnet News, Country Life, andVanity Fairand in public lectures at the National Gallery, London; the Frick Collection, New York; and the National Portrait Gallery, London, among other places.

More Holbein-related events are planned in the coming months, including appearances at the Chelsea History Festival (4th October), Warwick Words History Festival (8th October), Sheffield 'Off the Shelf' Festival of Words (15th October), and Wells Festival of Literature (20th October). I am also involved in some exciting new projects, which I can’t wait to share with you. 

Watch this space for details and follow me on Instagram @elizabeth.goldring.