The Story
Sir Thomas More and His Family is a lost painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, created circa 1527 during Holbein’s first visit to England. The work depicted the noted statesman and scholar Sir Thomas More, his immediate family, and other members of his household. While the original painting was destroyed in a fire in 1752, at Schloss Kremsier (Kroměříž Castle), the Moravian residence of Carl von Liechtenstein, Archbishop of Olmutz, its composition is known through a number of surviving copies and studies.
The painting is known for demonstrating the interplay of Sir Thomas More's private and public life.
Executed in woodcut, measuring Sheet: 7.1 x 4.8 cm (2 13/16 x 1 7/8 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Hans Holbein the Younger builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
