Holbein's Sir Thomas More: 1 (Frick Diptych, 1) - Hardcover

Tasty Twosomes. The Frick Collection in association with the publishing house D Giles Ltd will be launching a series of books in April 2018 called Frick Diptychs. Each book will be a 56-page paperback that presents a single work from the collection accompanied by an essay by its curator and a reflection by a well-known contemporary writer. The first volume will present Hans Holbein's portrait of Sir Thomas More (1527), with an essay by Xavier Salomon, the Frick's chief curator, and an article by Hilary Mantel, the novelist whose books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, won the Booker Prize in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Future titles will include Johannes Vermeer's Mistress and Maid (1666-67) by the Frick's associate research curator Peggy Iacono in conjunction with James Ivory, the film director, writer and producer. Another will be a pair of porcelain and gilt-bronze candlesticks (1782) by Pierre de Gouthiere discussed by Charlotte Vignon, the museum's decorative arts curator, and Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and The White Road. Donald Lee, The Art Newspaper

Hans Holbein's famous portrayal of Sir Thomas More is one of the artist's greatest and most popular portraits. In the opening piece of this appealing new volume, "A Letter to Thomas More, Knight", award-winning author Hilary Mantel vividly imagines the background to the creation of this extraordinary portrait, giving it both historical perspective and immediacy. An insightful, concise, scholarly essay by Xavier Salomon grounds it in the art-historical world. Hans Holbein (1497/98-1543) painted Sir Thomas More in 1527, having been a guest in More's house when he first arrived in England. He brilliantly renders his sitter's rich fabrics and unshaven face with sympathy and perception. Frick Diptychs, a new series of small books to be co-published by GILES with The Frick Collection, New York, pairs masterworks from the Frick with critical and literary essays. The novelist Hilary Mantel will be followed by the filmmaker James Ivory on Vermeer's "Mistress and Maid" and the artist and author Edmund de Waal on a pair of porcelain and bronze candlesticks by the 18th-century French metalworker Pierre Gouthiere.