Engraving of Lady Jane Grey
done by Willem and Magdalena van de Passe, probably from a portrait by Hans Holbein which has since been lost.
National Portrait Gallery, London

Black and white portrait identified as Lady Jane Grey
painted by an unknown artist
Collection of Lord Hastings

Oil on panel - formerly called Lady Jane Grey
attributed to Master John, c. 1545
National Portrait Gallery, London

Now identified as Catherine Parr because of the crown-shaped brooch worn in the portrait. A similar jewel was included in an inventory of Queen Catherine's belongings.

Portrait  said to be of Lady Jane Grey
by an unknown artist
formerly in the collection of the Earl of Jersey, now destroyed

Detail from the above painting:
Jane's head

Oil painting of Lady Jane Grey
by a contemporary artist

Portrait sometimes identified as Lady Jane Grey
oil on panel by an unknown artist
National Portrait Gallery, London

Portrait said to be of Lady Jane Grey
by an unknown artist

Painting sometimes called Lady Jane Grey
by a 16th-century artist

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
painted by Paul Delaroche
National Gallery of Art, London

Watercolour of Lady Jane Grey
by Herbert Norris
from his book "Costume and Fashion", Volume III, book 2

Battista Spinola, a Genoeses merchant, has left a contemporary report of Jane's appearance:
'This Jana Groia...is very short and thin, but prettily shaped and  graceful. She has small features and a well made nose, the mouth  flexible and the lips red. The eyebrows are arched and darker than  her hair, which is nearly red. Her eyes are sparkling...her colour  good but freckled...In all, a charming...person...very small and  short."

De Noailles, the French ambassador, who conversed with Jane, found her :
'...well made', and was impressed by her 'esprit cultivé, dont la modestie rehaussait
extrèmement le mérite.'

Bishop Godwin was not at first much taken with her appearance. He thought her features 'not
admirable', i. e. not striking, but considered her 'handsome, incredibly learned, very
quick-witted and wise both beyond her sex and above her age.'

In the years succeeding Jane's death the legend of her beauty grew up and so held the public
imagination that it was accepted as true. An Italian, writing of her in Queen Elizabeth's reign,
describes her as pretty, polite and attractive.

An eighteenth-century historian says:
'All the graces in nature conspired to improve the exquisite beauty of her face...
She was generally called the Queen of Hearts.'

This picture eventually developed into the vision popularized by Harrison Ainsworth in his novel
The Tower of London, where he describes Lady Jane as tall, slender and "gracefully bending"
when in talk with an inferior.

Thus the real likeness was gradually obliterated from the public mind. The only sixteenth-century
picture of Lady Jane which exists (and even that is not absolutely authenticated), shows her as
full-faced and sandy-haired - "nearly red", as Spinola called it - with large, rather prominent
brown eyes. The contemporary reports of her appearance and conversation give the impression
that a lively, natural manner, combined with youthful freshness to make her appear better looking
than she really was.