More Family and Descendents

Detail of The More Family, Household, and Descendents 1593-4, miniature painted by Rowland Lockey. Vellum stuck on card 24.6 x 29.4 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum.

This image is one of a few surviving family group portraits from the Tudor time period. It is a copy of the original Holbein painting of Sir Thomas More and his family, painted around 1527. That original was destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century. Only a prepatory sketch by Holbein remains of the original.

This miniature was probably painted by Sir Thomas' grandson Rowland Lockey about 1590-95. Lockey has added family heraldry, and a group of late sixteenth century descendants of More situated to the right of the image.

Image from the book The Tudor Image by Maurice Howard (1995). Page #48. Tate Publishing, Millbank, London. Printed in Great Britain by Penshurst Press. ISBN 1-85437-159-2