John Fisher and Thomas More c.1550-00 (engraving)

An engraving of John Fisher (c.1469–1535) and Thomas More (1478–1535). Hans Holbein II's portraits of Fisher and More established models that were copied by many other artists. In this print, the figure of More is similar to Holbein's painting of 1527 (Frick Collection, New York) and that of Fisher to his drawing from around 1535 (RCIN 912205). This print is lettered above the portraits: "IOANNES ROFFENSIS // THOMAS MORIS"; along the bottom: "IOANNES FISCHERE, prior, Roffensis, imago, … // … Iunxit et effigies una tabella duas!". The print formed part of an album of portrait prints assembled by Cassiano and his younger brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo in Rome. Described in an early nineteenth-century inventory of prints in George III's library as Heads of English illustrious Personages, the album was dismantled later in the nineteenth century and incorporated into the sequences of British portrait prints in the collection.