Portrait Miniature of Margaret Roper is a painting by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

 created between 1535–36, and today held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York. Margaret Roper

Margaret Roper

Margaret Roper was an English writer and translator. She was the daughter of Thomas More and wife of William Roper. During More's imprisonment in the Tower of London, she was a frequent visitor to his cell, along with her husband.Roper married William Roper in 1521 in Eltham, Kent...

 (1505–44) was the eldest child of Sir Thomas More

Thomas More

Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 and wife of the English biographer William Roper. It is the second and less well known of two portraits of Roper painted by Holbein. The first, Portrait of an English Woman, is generally believed to show Roper but may depict another unknown lady of the English court. The New York work was painted during the artist's second visit to London, likely in the mid-1530s.

It is believed that the work was created shortly after her father's beheading at the hands of King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 in 1535. With a diameter of just 1¾ inches (4.5 cm), the work was one of over a hundred miniature

Portrait miniature

A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century...

s and portraits painted by Holbein while in England. This work is one of a pair of pendant

Pendant

A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French "pendant" is the gerund form of “hanging”...

s; the second depicts the sitter's husband.

Roper is depicted in three-quarters view with a narrow face and wearing extravagant clothes that reflect her social position. She has a long veil crowned by a red/orange headdress. Her black gown is lined with a broad band of fur. She holds a green book in her hands which are decorated by gold rings. A horizontal gold inscription reads "Ao ÆTATIS XXX". The work was donated to the Metropolitan Museum by the Rogers Fund in 1950.

Sources

• Batschmann, Oskar & Griener, Pascal. Hans Holbein. Reaktion Books, 1999. ISBN 1-8618-9040-0
• Goldberg Jonathan. Desiring Women Writing: English Renaissance Examples. Stanford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8047-2983-2