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| John Fisher and Thomas More Possibly Italian, c. 1550-1600 London, Royal Collections Trust |
“Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly.
If you are insulted for the name
of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”
1 Peter 4:12-14. Excerpt from the First Reading of the Optional Memorial of Saint John Fisher, bishop and martyr, and Saint Thomas More, martyr for Masses celebrated on June 22.
New Yorkers have an amazing privilege in that they can see
the actual faces of the trio of men who had a fateful encounter almost 500
years ago, all within a walk of less than a quarter mile. The three men are Thomas More and John
Fisher, staunch defenders of Catholic doctrine and discipline at a time when it
was under severe attack, and Thomas Cromwell, leader of the forces seeking to
undo both. At the time Cromwell was
successful and both men died at the hands of the executioner. In the long run, Cromwell’s personal victory
was brief as he himself fell to the ax.
Further, he has been seen as the villain of the story ever since
(barring Hilary Mantel’s recent trilogy of novels which cast him as a rather
twisted hero). His single minded drive
to eradicate Catholicism in England, although never entirely successful, has,
however, had a longer term effect.
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| Usual arrangement of the two Holbein portraits in the Living Hall of the Frick Collection (Photo Credit -- Michelle Young for Untapped Cities) |
Most New Yorkers interested in the Tudor period undoubtedly
know that the portraits of More and Cromwell, both masterpieces of portrait art
by the incomparable Hans Holbein the Younger, are owned by the Frick
Collection. My earlier piece on the
clash of portraits across Mr. Frick’s fireplace is my most popular.
Most people are not aware, however, of a slightly earlier portrait of the other figure of the trio, Saint John Fisher, which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has been in storage for many years, finally reappearing just before the onset of the pandemic closures as the first object one encounters in the newly reinstalled British Art galleries.
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| Pietro Torrigiano, Bishop John Fisher Italian, c. 1510-1515 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Saint John Fisher was, at the time of his execution, Bishop
of Rochester. His story is a fascinating
one, for in his life he had moved among the very highest level of English
society. He was chaplain to Lady
Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII. He was also very involved in the
establishment of new colleges at the University of Cambridge, where he also
served as a teacher and as Vice-Chancellor, in addition to his other duties. There is contemporary
testimony about his piety and austere lifestyle in spite of his exalted
company. There is even the possibility that, due to the influence of Lady Margaret, he may have been, for a time, the tutor to the young Prince Henry who would become Henry VIII.
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| Philipp Galle, John Fisher Dutch, 1572 London, National Portrait Gallery |
When Henry VIII began his assault on his marriage to Catherine of
Aragon, Bishop Fisher was one of those who defended the Queen and the
marriage. Indeed, it was he who
represented her at the Legatine Court that assembled to try the case. She herself ended this phase of his career by
famously insisting that the case be referred to Rome.
As the situation became more highly pressured, Bishop Fisher remained a staunch advocate for the validity of the marriage and for its indissolubility. Needless to say, this angered the King greatly. As the pressure increased with Parliament’s actions in denying the right to appeal to Rome, in declaring Henry to be head of the Church in England and then requiring an oath in support of the divorce of Queen Catherine and the remarriage to Anne Boleyn, Fisher found himself in prison in 1534. He was condemned as a traitor and beheaded in June 1535, a few weeks before Sir Thomas More also lost his life. Both men saw the ultimate stupidity of the king’s moves in the light of eternity and truth and resisted to the end the efforts to convince them to “go along with the pack”.
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| Anonymous, The Pope Suppressed by King Henry VII English, c. 1570 London, National Portrait Gallery In this woodcut print you can see Henry VIII pressing down Pope Clement VII with the support of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. Bishop Fisher is the kneeling figure on the left who is trying to support the Pope. Various clerics, monks and ordinary people express shock and dismay. |
I have examined the portraits of More and Cromwell in detail in the
article called “The Tale of Two Portraits”.
The two remain together in their new setting at the Marcel Breuer
building on Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum. The Frick’s treasures have been moved there
to allow for them to be seen by the public during the extensive renovation and
enlargement taking place at the Frick building on Fifth Avenue. In the temporary installation the sumptuous
trappings of the enormous parlor room in the Frick building have been removed
and the two portraits face each other across empty space. I’m not positive about whether this has been
an enhancement or not, possibly since I have literally grown up with the opulent
setting. *
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| Current installation of the Holbein portraits at the Frick Madison temporary location. (Photo -- Art and Object) |
The portrait of Bishop Fisher is in the form of a portrait
bust by the Italian sculptor Pietro Torrigiano.
Torrigiano is probably most famous for an outburst of anger rather than
for his work as a sculptor. He and
Michelangelo were fellow students and rivals in the “academy” set up for young
Florentine artists by Lorenzo the Magnificent.
One day, when Michelangelo poked fun at the drawings of Torrigiano, the
latter boy punched him in the face. The
blow broke Michelangelo’s nose, a disfigurement he carried for the rest of his
life. This put Torrigiano in great
disfavor with the Medici and he soon looked for alternative places to perfect
his art.
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| Pietro Torrigiano, Bishop John Fisher Italian, c. 1510-1515 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
In about 1509 he arrived in England to produce a terracotta
bust of the recently deceased King Henry VII.
Such busts already had a long history among Florentine sculptors. It was well received by the new young king
Henry VIII. Young Henry commissioned
Torrigiano for the tombs of his father and mother and grandmother, all of which
are still extant in Westminster Abbey in the beautiful chapel the older Henry
had built for himself. While in England
Torrigiano also made portrait busts of several important churchmen, including
Bishop Fisher and John Colet.
It is presumably toward the beginning of his stay in England that he made the bust of Bishop Fisher. The Metropolitan Museum is somewhat cagey about the attribution. Some of the Met’s sources say that it is John Fisher, others say that it is simply “An Unknown Man”.1 So, I’ve done a little research in various English source websites and from the material available there I think that it is extremely reasonable to support the identification as Fisher.
The objections seem to be based on a perception that the sculpture does not match the portrait sketches of Fisher done by Holbein during his stays in England in the late 1520s or early 1530s. However, if one remembers that the bust is between ten and twenty years old at the time of the sketches, some of the difficulty vanishes.
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| Hans Holbein the Younger, John Fisher German, c. 1526-1534 London, Royal Collection Trust |
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| Pietro Torrigiano, Bishop John Fisher Italian, c. 1510-1515 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Comparison between the known portrait of Fisher by Holbein and the Torrigiano bust reveal the same narrow chin, long narrow nose, thin lips and hazel eyes as are found in the portrait drawing and a “pattern” made from it.
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| Face Pattern After Hans Holbein the Younger, Bishop John Fisher German, 16th Century London, National Portrait Gallery |
The pattern is
a survivor of one of the professional “tricks of the trade” used by painters in
earlier centuries. A tracing would be
made from an original drawing and the copy would serve as the model or “pattern” from
which painters and engravers would be able to work in creating multiple copies
without harming the original. The age
difference between a man of 41 of the bust and the same man at around 60 in the drawing can easily account
for any differences. In this
consideration it is useful to compare the portrait drawing of Thomas More with
the finished portrait to see how the immediacy of the drawing can look quite
different in the finished work.
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| Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Thomas More German, 1526-1527 London , Royal Collections Trust |
j
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| Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Thomas More German, 1527 New York, Frick Collection |
The feast day shared by the two men is June 22. This is a compromise between the actual dates of their deaths. Bishop Fisher was the first to die, on June 22, 1535. Sir Thomas More followed a couple of weeks later, on July 6.
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| Mistruzzi, Reverse of Medal Commemorating the Canonization of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher Italian, 1935 London, Royal Collection Trust, Royal Library |
Today, when there is continuing and increasing pressure being put on people of faith to “go along with the pack” on a host of serious issues, these determined and brave men stand as beacons of light and courage.
* UPDATE: 2024 -- The temporary displacement of the More and Cromwell portraits has come to an end. The exhibition space in the former Whitney building has been vacated. However, the Frick Collection building is not yet open to the public. As of this date (June 21, 2024) the collection is being reinstalled in its permanent home, which is scheduled to reopen in the autumn of 2024.
Iain Wardropper, European Sculpture, 1400-1900, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2011, pp. 47-49 calls it Portrait of an Unknown Man and gives
some of the background for disputing the title.
Wolf Burchard, Nation of Shopkeepers: A Very Brief History
of British Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New York, Spring
2020, pp. 6-7 calls it Bishop John Fisher
without referencing any ambiguity.
The exhibition primer for the new British galleries on the Metropolitan Museum website calls
it Bishop John Fisher and includes a
brief audio clip that includes some of Fisher’s own words in opposition to the
divorce.
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