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

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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.  

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

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.

________________________________________________________________
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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