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Information regarding Holbein's "Sir Thomas More," circa 10 January 1912 [page 5 of 9]

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TELEPHONE. 4801 GERRARD. 26, GOLDEN SQUARE, REGENT STREET, W. 5 ture of Sir Thomas More done by Holbein was in Whitehall when the news was brought to Henry VIII. that Sir Thomas More was beheaded. And the king fell into a passion at the news, and running to the picture threw it down (?) it out of the window. And the picture in the fall broke in three pieces; but Pomerantius then coming by, took it up, carried it home, and so put it together and mended the colours that it is not to be discerned that it was every broke". I am acquainted with but one portrait of Sir Thomas More by Holbein that could be spoken of in this way, and it is hardly conceiv-ble that Roger North can be referring to any other picture that the supremely magnificent picture exhibited in the Winter Exhibition of 1881, and which, if it be not altogether the most superb portrait ever painted in England, is certainly the most superb one my weak eyes have ever rested on. But is that picture cracked? Is there a flaw any-where? It is possible that is was ever thrown out of a window of White hall by the king, and then picked up and mended and "restored" by Pomerantius? If all this is true, it must be easily possible to test the truth of thes story. However deftly the fractures may have been mended in 1535, it is impossible but that in the lapse of three centu-ries the book, at least, of the picture should not show the marks of the repairs. But who was this magician whose name I seem to have met with, and yet cannot recall clearly enough to identify him? So

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