This drawing is masterly, and is a splendid example of how easily Holbein seized upon the leading characteristics of a face and with a few swift strokes fixed them for our admiration for ever. In his youth More had been handsome, and, according to Erasmus, was of a fair complexion, with dark-brown hair and gray eyes. His firmly-compressed lips and his penetrating glance give to his face a sternness which he seldom displayed, except in his detestation of heretics; but fine judgment and nobility of feeling, and that mental harmony which springs from inward peace, are the leading characteristics in his face as the artist has drawn it for us here. One can see at a glance that here was a man who would always be just in his dealings with others, and unchangeable in carrying out what he knew to be his duty--a student and a man of deep learning, and yet a man of affairs and of the world, trusted by his King and admired by his equals, and losing his head on the block through his invincible honesty. Erasmus well said of him: “He possesses 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.”
LIST OF THE ARTIST’S CHIEF WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES
SIR HENRY GUILDFORD, MASTER OF THE HORSE, 1527.
HANS OF ANTWERP AND OF THE STEELYARD, 1532.
THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK, ABOUT 1540.
CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN, 1538.
A small panel, showing head and hands only, possibly an earlier study than the full-length belonging to the Duke of Norfolk.
Small bust, partly repainted. There is a replica in Prague.
JEAN DE DINTEVILLE AND GEORGE DE SELVE (“THE AMBASSADORS”), 1533.
CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN, 1538
HENRY VIII. GRANTING A CHARTER TO THE NEW CORPORATION OF BARBER SURGEONS.
Replica of the picture in the Louvre, and formerly in the Magniac Collection.
GERYCK (OR DERICH) TYBIS OF DUISBURG AND THE STEELYARD, 1533.
A small half-length; there is a copy of it at Woburn Abbey.
A very fine portrait, probably of an Englishman.
A small half-length of a very old man. Chamber’s portrait in the Barber Surgeons’ picture is one of the few heads in that work in which the hand of Holbein can now be traced.