Portrait of Sir Thomas More is an oak panel painting created in 1527 by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Frick Collection in New York.
| Portrait of Sir Thomas More | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Hans Holbein the Younger |
| Year | 1527 |
| Type | Oil on oak |
| Dimensions | 74.2 cm × 59 cm (29.2 in × 23 in) |
| Location | Frick Collection, New York |
The portrait shows the English statesman and humanist Thomas More in three-quarter right half-profile, holding a book, in a fur-lined coat of rich fabrics, black satin, and red velvet.[1] He wearing his Tudor Collar of Esses livery chain with Tudor rose, a sign of fealty and high office. A cord in the upper right is tied in a loose Franciscan knot, a sign of More's spiritual convictions.[2] He is wearing a wedding ring inset with a stone.
The work was created during the period from 1526 when Holbein lived in London. He gained the friendship of the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, who recommended that he befriend More, then a powerful, knighted speaker at the English Parliament.[3]
A closely related, though probably not directly preparatory, drawing with bodycolour is in the Royal Collection,[4] and there is a copy in the National Portrait Gallery, probably "painted in Italy or Austria in the early seventeenth century".[5] Possibly this is the version catalogued in the Leuchtenberg Gallery in 1852.
Another Holbein portrait of More, part of a large group portrait of his family, is now lost, but several drawings (also mostly in the Royal Collection) and copies survive.[6]
See also
editNotes
edit| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Hans Holbein, the Younger, Sir Thomas More, Frick Collection[7] |
- ^ Vitullo-Martin, Julia (24 March 2022). "At the Frick Madison, a Daring New Program Juxtaposes Old Masters and Queer Art". Untapped New York.
- ^ "The Franciscan Saints: Thomas More". www.franciscanmedia.org. Franciscan Media. 22 June 2023.
- ^ Batschmann & Griener, 158
- ^ Hans Holbein the Younger. "Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)". Royal Collection Trust. Inventory no. 912268.
- ^ National Portrait Gallery
- ^ Thomas More & Family – the painting Archived 27 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine by Rowland Lockey in Nostell Priory
- ^ "Hans Holbein, the Younger, Sir Thomas More". Frick Collection. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
Sources
edit- Bätschmann, Oskar & Griener, Pascal. Hans Holbein. Reaktion Books, 1999. ISBN 1-86189-040-0
- Frick Collection, The Frick Collection: an Illustrated Catalogue, vol. 1 (Paintings), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1968, 228–233.
Further reading
edit
- Mantel, Hilary and Salomon, Xavier F., Holbein's Sir Thomas More. The Frick Collection, 2018. ISBN 978-1-907804-91-5