Henry Bone made a notable success during his career of producing historical sequences of portrait enamels for exhibition and sale. This enamel is from the series of English Sovereigns and Queens from Edward III to Queen Victoria which was completed by Henry Pierce Bone after his father's death in 1834, building on a group of 11 historical copies by Henry Bone dating from as far apart as 1815 and 1831. To this were added 22 of his own enamels, all but one being completed in 1835 – 7. These were then united and presented for sale as a group of 33 with a 'Catalogue of a Series of Portraits of the Sovereigns of England from the Earliest Period … to the Present Time; together with several of the Queens Consort Painted in Enamel by the late Henry Bone R.A. … and Henry Pierce Bone Enamel Painter to Her Majesty The Queen Dowager & H.R.H. The Duchess of Kent' (City of Westminster Archives, D86/fol. 16). Prince Albert purchased the series in 1843, paying two instalments each of £200 in July and October for Henry Bone's 'Enamels of the Kings & Queens'.

Henry Bone's source, a portrait formerly at Ditchley, Oxfordshire, is one of the many paintings based on Hans Holbein's frontal image of Henry VIII executed in 1537 for the Whitehall Palace Privy Chamber mural. Bone's undated squared drawing is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (Bone, Drawings, I/47a). A full-length drawing after the same source dated 10 August 1822 (Bone, Drawings, II/85) relates to a large (350mm) full-length enamel version of this image by Henry Bone, signed and dated 1823.

Signed in black paint along the left-hand edge: HBone, signed, dated and inscribed on the counter-enamel in red paint: Henry VIII / London / June 1826 / Painted by Henry Bone R.A. / Enamel painter to His Majesty & Enl. Painter to his R. H. s / the Duke of York &c. &c. after / The Original by Holbien [sic] / in the possession of Lord Dillon / Ditchley, Oxfordshire and inscribed in ink on a label on the reverse: Henry 8 th / From the Original by Holbein / in the possession of Viscount Dillon, Ditchley, Oxfordshire. / Enamel H. Bone R.A.