The Tale of the Third Portrait

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 about half a 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.

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.

    

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.

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”.

 

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. *

 

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. 

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.  

Hans Holbein the Younger, John Fisher
German, c. 1526-1534
London, Royal Collection Trust

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.  

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.

Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Thomas More
German, 1526-1527
London , Royal Collections Trust

j

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.  

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. 

 © M. Duffy, 2021

* UPDATE: 2025 -- The temporary displacement of the More and Cromwell portraits has come to an end.  They have been returned to their home in the renovated Frick Collection, which reopened in April 2025.

 1.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art Catalog of the Renaissance in Italy and Spain, Introduction by Frederick Hartt, New York, 1987, p. 117 calls it Bust of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.

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.  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/197752?&exhibitionId=%7bb2bd281b-58c0-42e2-af3a-54dfb36fdd79%7d&oid=197752&pkgids=632&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=1&ft=*&offset=20

Did the Reformation Really Lead to the Rise of Portrait and Landscape Painting?

Joachim Patinir, St. John the Baptist Preaching
Flemish, ca. 1520
Brussels, Musées royaux des beaux-arts
Patinir has been called the "father of landscape painting"

It has become virtually an axiom of the history of western art, and of European history as well, that the Reformation, which began in 1517, encouraged the rise of two distinct genres of painting: the portrait and the landscape. The reasoning behind this adage is that the Reformation’s iconoclastic attitude to religious images turned the attention of artists and patrons toward secular subjects, such as portraits and landscape. This logic suggests that patrons were unwilling (or in some locations unable) to commission religious works from painters, and/or that painters were no longer willing to paint them. Therefore, presumably both artists and patrons turned their attention to other, less controversial kinds of painting, specifically to portraits and landscapes.

In my opinion, there is a very small grain of truth in this analysis in so far as it applies to landscape (and its offshoot, the seascape), but it is untrue for portraiture. It is also not correct that Biblical religious painting disappeared from the Protestant world. What did disappear were devotional works of art1.

Rembrandt, Supper at Emmaus
Dutch, c.1648
Paris, Musée du Louvre

In his landmark book on the beginnings of the English Reformation, The Stripping of the Altars, Professor Eamon Duffy of Cambridge University (no relation), reviewed the English government’s suppression of the material and emotional world of what he calls “traditional religion” or, in other words, late medieval English Catholicism2. Between 1530 and 1580 (with a brief period of respite under Queen Mary I between 1553 and 1558), the government ordered the defacing and/or destruction of altars, rood screens, statues, wall paintings, liturgical objects and altar furnishings, vestments, indeed anything related to the traditional, image-filled world of Catholic Christianity.

"Apostles" Monstrance
Swiss, Basel, 1340-1340 with 15th-century alterations,
Basel, Historisches Museum

Similar events occurred in all the areas of Europe where Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist form, became the dominant religion. Ten years ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of objects from the medieval Treasury of Basel Cathedral 3. The splendid liturgical objects on display survived destruction by an iconoclastic mob during the Calvinist takeover of Basel Cathedral by being bundled into a large box that was suspended in one of the towers. Overlooked by the iconoclasts, they did not reappear until the early 19th century, at which time most were sold off as objects d’art. Currently, the website for an exhibition of medieval religious artifacts from all over Europe, called “Treasures of Heaven”, which is at the British Museum until October, acknowledges the absence of similar objects in Britain4.


These anecdotes, from England and Switzerland, provide a glimpse into the sometimes violent change of religion that occurred in northern Europe, the Europe of the Germanic/Nordic language group, during the 16th century5. For a number of reasons the Reformation never gained much ground in the European countries that form the Romance linguistic group: Italy, Spain and France. Eventually, after several bloody conflicts, the lines between these two linguistic regions became (with the exceptions of Austria, Bavaria and Belgium) the lines between the traditional (Catholic) and new (Protestant) versions of Christianity.6



In the case of portraiture I see no difference between these two areas. Both regions have a healthy portrait tradition that existed well before 1517.  


Leonardo da Vinci, Cecilia Gallerani
Italian, 1483-1490
Krakow, Czartoryski Museum

Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Young Woman
Netherlandish, c. 1470
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

This tradition bridges the Reformation period and extends long after it. While there are great examples of portraiture in the Protestant north, with Holbein the Younger, Rembrandt and Hals, for example, there is an equally great portrait tradition in the Catholic south, with Leonardo, Raphael, Titian and Velazquez as examples. Indeed, the portrait tradition remained strong in both regions as time wore on.

Hans Holbein the Younger, Nikolaus Kratzer

German, 1528

Paris, Musée du Louvre

Raphael, Baldassare Castiglione

Italian, 1514-1515

Paris, Musée du Louvre



Frans Hals, Paulus Verschuur
Dutch, 1643,
New  York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Diego Velazquez, King Phillip IV
Spanish, 1644,
New York, Frick Collection

However, there do seem to be some very small differences between the regions when it comes to landscape.

In the pre-Reformation period landscape appeared in both the north and the south in two forms.

First, it appeared as background for the principal subject of the work of art, be it a Biblical, devotional, classical or secular scene.

Jan van Eyck, Madonna of Chancellor Rollin
Flemish, 1435,
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Bellini, Transfiguration
Italian (Venetian), c. 1487
Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte

In the second form the landscape existed as an independent subject in its own right. This second form was found in the calendar pages of Books of Hours painted during the 15th and early 16th centuries, in the glorious sunset of the art of illumination before the printing press made the hand illuminated book a thing of the past.  The calendar pages included the list of feast days for that particular month and the illustration frequently depicted an activity associated with that month.


Limbourg Brothers, June calendar page,
From Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry
Flemish, 1412-1416
Chantilly, Musée Condé

The city in the background is Paris and you can see the Sainte Chapelle of St. Louis (see 

August 25th posting) rising high above the surrounding buildings.

Simon Bening, July calendar page
From the Da Costa Hours
Flemish, c. 1510-1520
New York, Morgan Library, MS M 399, fol. 8v


From these two foundations the landscape began to emerge as an independent subject for painters.

The “background” tradition continued strongly in the south, the realm of Catholic culture. Where landscape is present, it is usually present as background only.

Giorgione, Judgment of Solomon
Italian (Venetian), c. 1505,
Florence, Uffizi Gallery

Domenichino, Landscape with Flight Into Egypt
Italian, 1620-1623,
Paris, Musée du Louvre

This tradition continued well into the 17th century. Great landscapes were painted by southern painters, such as Giorgione, El Greco, Domenichino, Nicolas Poussin or Claude Lorraine, but a glimpse at the titles of these pictures makes it clear that, in all but a few, the landscape, though visually dominant, is secondary to the sometimes miniscule human figures in the foreground.

 

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Diana and Orion
French, 1660-1664
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Lorraine, Noli Me Tangere
French, 1681
Frankfurt, Stadtelsches Kunstinstitut

In the north, however, Reformation culture prohibited devotional images and frowned on scenes drawn from classical mythology as well. Nevertheless, “far from being hostile towards images, a great many Protestant patrons continued to desire and commission religious art to decorate their houses” provided that “the imagery was modified where necessary to remove objectionable elements and used to express and support specifically Protestant habits of thought and behavior”7. This attitude restricted Protestant artists to portraying either purely Biblical or entirely secular scenes. The two paintings illustrated below by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, are typical of so-called "Lutheran art". 

Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Law and the Gospel
German, 1525
Gotha, Schlossmuseum

  

Lucas Cranach the Younger, Crucifixion
German, 1555
Weimar, Stadtkirche

The development of landscape in the north initially proceeds exactly as in the south. Landscape is first perceived as background for a Biblical scene and then begins to dominate it. 

 

Johann Konig, River Landscape with St. John the Baptist
German, Oil on copper, c. 1610
Private Collection

However, artists in the north also turned to the “calendar page” tradition for inspiration and began to produce pictures that were truly “landscapes”, where the subject was the landscape scene.

Some of the earliest such landscape paintings show quite clearly their origin in the calendar pages of medieval Books of Hours.

Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Harvesters
Flemish, 1565
New York, Metropolitan Museum

Gradually, this was transmuted into what we would regard as true landscape painting. By about 1600 this development was complete in the north. During the 17th century it developed into a full blown genre, in both the northern and southern countries. 

 

Cornelis Hendrichsz Vroom, Pastoral Landscape
Dutch, c.1650
Private Collection

Canaletto, London: View of Old Horse Guards Parade and
the Banqueting House from Richmond House
Italian, 1749
 Private Collection

Jean Honore Fragonard, Mountain Landscape at Sunset
French, c. 1765
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art

John Constable, Dedham Vale
English, 1802
London, Victoria and Albert Museum

James Arthur O'Connor, The Mill, Ballinrobe
Irish, c. 1818
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland

Fredrich Edwin Church, Heart of the Andes
American, 1859
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Merritt Chase, Terrace at the Mall, Central Park
American, 1890
Private Collection

And the answer to the question posed in the title of this article "Did the Reformation Really Lead to the Rise of Portrait and Landscape Painting"?  In my opinion, the answer is "Not really".  Both genres were already developing well before the Reformation and continued their development afterwards in both the Protestant north and the Catholic south.  Some slight impetus may have occurred for landscape in the countries that accepted the Reformation, as artists sought new ways to make a living and patrons sought acceptable art to place in their homes, but this was probably not substantial enough to make a really significant difference in development.

____________________________________________________________

1. A devotional scene is distinct from a Biblical scene in that a Biblical scene depicts an incident taken directly from the Biblical narrative, for instance the Annunciation or the Crucifixion, whereas a devotional scene portrays a scene involving a Biblical person, post-Biblical saint or sacred image not directly depicted in the Bible and presented for devotional meditation, as for instance the Man of Sorrows or an enthroned Madonna and Child.

2. Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1992, Part II, pp. 376-593.

3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Treasury of Basel Cathedral, February 28, 2001–June 3, 2001. Information and images may be found at http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={7ACE74C9-428D-11D4-937C-00902786BF44}

4. British Museum, Treasures of Heaven, Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, 23 June – 9 October 2011. Information and images may be found at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/treasures_of_heaven.aspx

5. Christensen, Carl C. Art and the Reformation in Germany, Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 1979. Among other things, Dr. Christensen’s book reviews the economic and psychological dislocation felt by many artists in Germany, beginning in the 1520s, as patronage for Catholic religious subjects ceased on account of the Reformation and the changed forms of religious painting permitted in Lutheran Germany, pp. 165-176. See also, Koerner, Joseph Leo, The Reformation of the Image, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2004 for the development of Lutheran art.

6. I am not considering work from the Slavic and Hungarian language region in this essay, as I am not entirely familiar with it. In terms of the religious affiliation of this region, some inroads were made by the Reformers during the early stages of the Reformation. However, these were largely reversed during the Catholic Counter-Reformation and this area remained predominantly Catholic and/or Orthodox. In addition, during this period this region was subject to ongoing Turkish attack, following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It would take until 1683 for the Turkish threat to end.

7. Hamling, Tara. Decorating the ‘Godly’ Household, Religious Art in Post-Reformation Britain, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 284.

© M. Duffy, 2011

The Tale of Two Portraits – Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell

New York, Frick Collection, The Living Hall
(photo from 1927)

At the Frick Collection in New York, formerly the home of Henry Clay Frick and now a very intimate museum, visitors can walk through rooms that have been left much as they were when Mr. Frick died in 1919. However, one room has been left entirely unchanged, exactly as Mr. Frick left it, having supervised the hanging of the paintings himself. This is the Living Hall.

One of the walls is hung with three portraits by two Old Masters. The central painting is by El Greco, an imagined portrait of St. Jerome, dressed anachronistically as a cardinal. The other two are portraits painted by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Hans Holbein the Younger was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in 1497 (give or take a year, possibly). He was the son of Hans Holbein the Elder, a well-respected painter in the Gothic tradition, under whom (and other painters) he trained. In his early years he worked primarily as a painter of portraits in Basel, Switzerland. It was in Basel that he made several portraits of the great humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, which Erasmus used as gifts for his far-flung humanist friends. In his mid-30s (1526-1528) Holbein visited England, armed with introductions from Erasmus to his English friends. There, he painted several portraits and portrait sketches of the English humanist circle. Several years later, in 1532, he returned to England and remained there for most of the rest of his life, dying in London in 1543. He became the leading painter in England during this time and painted members of the court of Henry VIII, including the King himself. Indeed, most of the images that come to mind of Henry, his wives, his son and his courtiers come from the brush of Hans Holbein the Younger. And that brush painted with an almost photographic realism that has made Holbein one of the most respected of portraitists ever since.

Hans Holbein the Younger, Thomas More
German, 1527
New York,  Frick Collection

Here, in New York, two of Holbein’s English portraits sit facing each other across the fireplace – and what a pair they are! For here are



Thomas More, the humanist scholar, family man, author of Utopia, early proponent of equal education for women, lawyer, Lord Chancellor of England and martyr saint for refusing to accept Henry’s break with the Catholic Church;

Hans Holbein the Younger, Thomas Cromwell

German,1536

New York, Frick Collection

and,

facing him,








Thomas Cromwell, one of the architects of England’s break with Rome, engineer of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and, eventually of More’s death.

Henry Clay Frick purchased the painting of Thomas More first, in 1912, and then, three years later, that of Thomas Cromwell. Therefore, it was he who decided to bring these two paintings together. He may have enjoyed the idea that he was bringing these two adversaries in life into opposition once again in his own living room. Since anyone seated on the sofa in the center of the room faces the fireplace, these are presumably the paintings that Frick himself chose to look at when seated, rather than at the many other masterpieces in the room (paintings by Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Gerard David; bronzes by Alessandro Algardi and Vecchietta and others; beautiful furniture by Boulle, etc.). You can see a current 360o view of the room on the portion of The Art Project (1) website that is devoted to the Frick (here).

Through the vehicle of Holbein’s paintings we can make a comparison between these two men, so fatally intertwined in life.

In the portrait of More,(2) painted during Holbein’s first visit to England in 1526-1528, the sitter is posed, seated before a backdrop of a green curtain, in full light. He is looking slightly to his left, not directly at the painter. He is dressed in an overcoat of what looks like black velvet, lined in brown fur (sable perhaps?) which also forms the broad coat collar, over an underjacket of deep red velvet, below which the edges of his white shirt can be seen. On his head he wears a black “Tudor bonnet” type of hat, with earpieces, which may be made either of velvet or sueded leather. Around his shoulders is a gold chain of office, formed of S-links, and from which hangs a golden Tudor rose.

On his left index finger he wears a gold ring with decorative engravings on the shoulders and a dark, bezel-set stone which may be black or a deep red, such as garnet. In his right hand is a piece of paper that appears to be a folded scroll. At this point in his life, More was about 48 years old, already a successful lawyer and judge, Utopia had been published, he had a high reputation among the learned of Europe and he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a friend and confidant of the King. Within two years he would become Lord Chancellor of England, chief lawyer of the realm.

His face shows some of the effects of his hard work and probably late nights by candlelight (he is said to have written at night so as not to take time away from his family responsibilities). His hazel eyes are surrounded by dark circles and slightly red-rimmed. And the creases in the corners of his eyes, across the bridge of his nose and on his forehead suggest someone who may have had to squint a bit to see to read and write in dim light. Grey strands appear in his dark hair, some of which peeks out from under his hat, and there is at least an entire days stubble on his cheeks, chin and upper lip (something I find rather endearing). He appears to be a straightforward man, not entirely concerned with his appearance, perhaps a bit preoccupied with his thoughts and ready to speak his mind.

Now, compare him to Thomas Cromwell in the opposite painting, dating from Holbein’s later residence in England (1536-1543). At first look they seem very similar, although there are some obvious differences. Unlike More, Cromwell sits at a table which is covered with a green cloth, on which rests a book, some papers bearing red seals, a quill pen, and two other objects I can’t identify. Thus, he is somewhat farther back in the visual plane than was More. The background is busier as well, being sharply divided into horizontal areas of light and dark which themselves have distinctive patterns. Cromwell is silhouetted against the back of a paneled bench, which stands in front of a wall covered in what appears to be dark blue damask. Note that the material appears to be tacked to the wall midway up the wooden object we can see at the far left of the picture, possibly a paneled window embrasure, as the light appears to come from that direction. There is some sort of surface, covered by a reddish fabric with black figuring that is probably a carpet, on which rests a partially seen scroll.

In dress Cromwell seems very similar to More. Again there is the black furred overcoat and black hat; although in Cromwell’s case the underjacket is also black. Unlike More he does not wear a chain of office, but like More he wears a patterned gold ring on his left hand. The ring bears a prong-set creamy blue cabochon stone, possibly an opal, agate or aquamarine. In his left hand he also holds a small folded note or scroll. His right hand is held unseen beneath the table.

At this point in his life, 1532-1536, Cromwell was also 48 years old and was well on in his rise to power. He had managed the Parliamentary actions which had begun the separation of the English church from unity with Rome, made it treason to resist and had gained control over church properties throughout England. He was made Master of the Jewels and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1532. In 1534 he became Henry’s chief minister and was instrumental in gaining passage of the Treasons Act and the Act of Supremacy, acts that made it a crime punishable by death to deny that the King was sole head of the church in England and in 1535 he was appointed “Vicar for Spirituals” which gave him authority over all of England’s churches and monasteries, which he began to plunder for the Crown and convert for Protestant-style services.

When we look at Cromwell’s face we get a very different impression of a man than we did from More’s portrait. Cromwell is turned farther to the left than More was turned to the right, and, thus, gazes out of the picture to a greater degree than More did, so we see less of his eye area. But that is not the only difference. Whereas More seemed outwardly directed, Cromwell seems more closed, more indrawn, less ready to engage the outside world. His mouth and chin seem clamped closed and slightly truculent. His up drawn eyebrows and forehead crease suggest not so much concentration as a reflection of a skeptical attitude to the world. The overall impression is of a cold, grim, determined and somewhat pitiless man, not surprising, perhaps, for someone who had orchestrated the destruction of, not only several individuals, but of the religious culture of an entire nation to satisfy the vanity and fears of a single individual. (3)*

It was during the period in which Holbein would have worked on this portrait of Cromwell that More suffered his fall from the King’s “good grace”, his imprisonment for refusing to accept the Supremacy, his trial for treason and his eventual execution by decapitation. He died on July 6, 1535. In 1886 he was beatified and in 1935 he was canonized. He is the patron of statesmen and politicians. His feast day, which he shares with Bishop John Fisher, another victim of Henry and Cromwell, is June 22nd.*

Within five years of More’s execution Cromwell too would “fall from grace” over Henry's dissatisfaction with the Cromwell-arranged marriage to Anne of Cleves and Cromwell's increasing inclination toward more extreme Protestant reform.  Cromwell would pay with his life. He was beheaded on July 28, 1540.

* Update 2021:

For a discussion of the portrait bust of Saint John Fisher, which is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see The Tale of the Third Portrait. 

UPDATE 2025:  Please note that this article was written in 2011, several years before the Frick Museum announced plans for a major expansion.  That work was ongoing over the last five years and, for much of that time, these portraits, along with the rest of the Frick collection was on display in different circumstances at a temporary museum set up in the former Whitney Museum building.  That exhibition closed in the autumn of 2024 while the collection is being reinstalled in the renovated Frick building.  The renovated building reopened in April 2025.  These two paintings have been returned to their original places in the renovated building.

© M. Duffy, 2011 with updates 2017, 2021 and 2025.

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1. The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and 17 major art museums, 12 European and five American, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art and the Frick Collection. (The other American participants are Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art and the Freer Gallery.) Its purpose is to make high resolution, detailed pictures of selected works of art available for viewing online.

2. One of the high resolution images chosen by the Frick Collection for the Art Project is the Holbein portrait of St. Thomas More. You can see all the details I mention for yourself by referring to the picture at http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/frick/sir-thomas-more-10

3. Some additional reading on Cromwell’s character may be found in a book review (of a fictional account of Cromwell’s life, by another novelist who writes about the period) from the  Daily Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219158/Prince-Darkness-The-truth-Thomas-Cromwell.html

* Addendum:  Following the production and airing of the PBS adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall one is tempted to observe that it is More whom Mark Rylance resembles, rather than Cromwell. Indeed, if one were to look for a contemporary person who resembles Cromwell, Vladimir Putin comes to mind.

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