DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0270
244
OLD WORLD MASTERS
SIR THOMAS MORE.
Hans Holbein Collection of the late
(1497-1543). Mr. Henry Clay Frick.
This was one of the first portraits that Holbein painted in England
and was done in 1526-1527, while Holbein was a guest in Sir Thomas’s
delightful home at Chelsea. It is a life-size, half-length portrait on
panel (23% x 29% inches), representing Sir Thomas in a dark-green
coat with purple velvet sleeves, fur collar, and large hat. The con-
spicuous and heavy double S-chain of gold with a double rose pendant,
significant of the union of the Red and White Roses of Lancaster and
York, was only permitted to Knights. His right hand holds a paper
and the arm rests on a table, on which the date is inscribed.
This portrait was painted before Sir Thomas More became Lord
Chancellor in 1529.
“His face,” says Dr. Alfred Woltman, “shows that calm repose
which indicated the utmost harmony of nature and inward peace;
but the expression is one of the deepest seriousness, though gentle-
ness 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
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.’”
Sir Thomas More was born in 1478 in Cheapside, London, the son
of Sir John More, and was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to support
the Act of Supremacy. More was one of the most intellectual and
highly cultured men of his time. He wrote one of the most famous
of books, Utopia. Sir Thomas was also a fine critic of painting. He
was knighted in 1521.
Erasmus gives a picture of Sir Thomas and his home in a letter to
Ulrich von Hutten, written from Chelsea. He says:
OLD WORLD MASTERS
SIR THOMAS MORE.
Hans Holbein Collection of the late
(1497-1543). Mr. Henry Clay Frick.
This was one of the first portraits that Holbein painted in England
and was done in 1526-1527, while Holbein was a guest in Sir Thomas’s
delightful home at Chelsea. It is a life-size, half-length portrait on
panel (23% x 29% inches), representing Sir Thomas in a dark-green
coat with purple velvet sleeves, fur collar, and large hat. The con-
spicuous and heavy double S-chain of gold with a double rose pendant,
significant of the union of the Red and White Roses of Lancaster and
York, was only permitted to Knights. His right hand holds a paper
and the arm rests on a table, on which the date is inscribed.
This portrait was painted before Sir Thomas More became Lord
Chancellor in 1529.
“His face,” says Dr. Alfred Woltman, “shows that calm repose
which indicated the utmost harmony of nature and inward peace;
but the expression is one of the deepest seriousness, though gentle-
ness 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
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.’”
Sir Thomas More was born in 1478 in Cheapside, London, the son
of Sir John More, and was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to support
the Act of Supremacy. More was one of the most intellectual and
highly cultured men of his time. He wrote one of the most famous
of books, Utopia. Sir Thomas was also a fine critic of painting. He
was knighted in 1521.
Erasmus gives a picture of Sir Thomas and his home in a letter to
Ulrich von Hutten, written from Chelsea. He says: