Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England

Claudius Jacquand's Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England (1828) depicts Thomas More — the humanist scholar, author of Utopia, and Lord Chancellor who was executed by Henry VIII for refusing to acknowledge royal supremacy over the Church — in a moment of contemplation before his arrest or in prison. More's combination of learning, principle, and martyrdom made him a powerful Romantic figure, especially in Catholic France where his beatification was anticipated. Jacquand was drawn to such figures of conscience destroyed by power, and the subject gave him an opportunity to explore the dignity of conviction. The work is now at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon.

Jacquand places More in a period interior with the props of learning — books, papers — around him, the figure self-possessed and reflective rather than dramatic. The palette is sober and the setting appropriately grave; the handling is smooth and careful, with the face modelled with particular attention to character and interior resolve.