Paintings in the Collection of Henry Clay Frick, 1915 [page 103]

Current Page Transcription

« previous page | next page » |

This transcription is now locked.

HANS HOLBEIN The Younger (1497 - 1543) PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE Panel. 23 1/4 inches by 29 1/4 inches

We see More before us in a half-length figure, life-size, in a dark green upper coat, with fur collar and purple-coloured undersleeves; the hands resting in each other, the right hand holding a paper, while the arm is slightly leaning on a wooden table, on which the date is inscribed. He wears a heavy golden SS-chain, so-called because all the links have the form of a Latin S; while a double rose in remembrance of the union of the Two Roses of York and Lancaster, is fastened to it —an ornament which only knights might wear. . . .His face shows that calm repose which indicates the utmost harmony of nature and inward peace; but the expression is one of the deepest seriousness, though gentleness is linked with it. The finely-cut lips are firmly closed; there is something almost visionary in the bright and penetrating glance, though otherwise the features betoken clear judgment, combined with noble moral strictness and nobility of feeling. In looking at the picture, the words occur to us with which Erasmus in another passage concisely sums up More's characteristics: 'He possessed that beautiful ease of mind, or, still better, that piety and prudence with which he joyfully adapts himself to everything that comes, as though it were the best that could come.' . . . This repose, purity and gentleness he retained to the last moment when he mounted the scaffold." —Quoted from Dr. Alfred Woltmann. There is a tradition that this portrait was thrown out of a window by Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry VIII. was opposed by More, the Lord Chancellor. It was this opposition that was the indirect cause of his trial and execution. Many references to the portrait are made in the literature of are and it has been extensively reproduced.

103

HN

You don't have permission to discuss this page.

Current Page Discussion