The true face of King Henry VII has been brought to life in an astonishingly realistic digital reconstruction.
Matt Loughrey, a graphic artist who runs My Colorful Past, has produced a reconstruction based on Henry VII’s death mask - a wax mask cast in 1509.
Speaking to Live Science, Mr Loughrey said: “It's the angle of his gaze — you can almost feel what he's thinking. We all want to look at faces and put a story behind them.”
To create the digital reconstruction, Mr Loughrey first took a high-resolution image of the death mask, using a technique called photogrammetry.
He explained: “In photogrammetry, we can get a really good idea of positioning for the simpler things, like cheekbones, [eye] orbits, upper jaw. The tonality of the skin is basically painting, it's all done by hand in layers.”
The death mask contained several flaws, including a poorly-painted right eyebrow and a wandering right eye, according to Mr Loughrey.
While he considered fixing these flaws, in the end he preserved them, as they ‘gave the face more character.’
The mask also depicts Henry VII as clean-shaven, but Mr Loughrey decided to add a beard.
He said: “We'll never truly know if he was bearded or not. But considering the trends of the era, I did him with a beard, too.”
Mr Loughrey has previously created facial reconstructions from several other death masks, including Oliver Cromwell and George Washington.
He added: “Death masks are like a conduit to another time — they're like a wormhole.
“Photography’s been around for a very short time, but there's technology in place here that can take us back thousands of years, to see faces we've only imagined."
