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Books abound in Holbein’s painting of Sir Thomas More and his family. In the upper end of the drawing-room scene three books are placed on the cupboard, only one of whose title, Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, is visible. More’s daughter Elizabeth [Dancy] holds a copy of Epistolicae Seneca, bound in red leather and gilt. Standing behind Sir Thomas, his only son John is reading a book. Sitting to his left and a little lower than Sir Thomas his two daughters, Celia and Margaret, both hold books. Celia’s book is clasped shut while Margaret’s is open and some Latin words are legible – ‘L. An. Seneca—Oedipus—Fata si liceat mihi fingere arbitrio meo, temperem zepbyro levi. Beside Margaret, More’s second wife, Alice, sits in a chair with a book open in her hands. Through the doorway a man can be seen reading intently in a book with black letter writing, although the words are illegible. (details from The Old Masters and their Paintings, by Sarah Tyler; repr. BookBazaar, 2007) Although not by any means in support of equality, More educated his children equally and was proud of their accomplishments. He was keen to show off his daughters’ learning in the painting. For More and sixteenth-century society, the only reason to educate women was to aid their moral improvement. When Margaret thought about publishing a book he informed her tutor (and also her) -
'Though I prefer learning joined with virtue to all the treasures of kings, 'yet renown for learning, if you take away moral probity, brings nothing else but notorious and noteworthy infamy, especially in a woman.' Margaret corresponded with Erasmus and did publish, anonymously, a translation of his meditations on the Lord’s Prayer. However, as Patricia Demers points out, ‘Margaret Roper is preeminently her father's creature’: Visual and figurative images of Margaret Roper associate her with learning. The woodcut prefacing the earliest surviving edition in 1525, a multi-purpose printer's block, does not purport to represent Margaret Roper, yet the ways it attempts to define and encase the female subject are worth noting. Within the interlocking, enfoliated tracery of the border, suggestive of a cloister, this veiled woman, shrouded in metres of cloth and almost surrounded by volumes, looks away from the open folio. This crude woodblock might prompt today's reader to reflect on the perspectival shifts and linguistic freedom with which Roper coloured her vernacular rendering of Latin.
Holbein's finely detailed sketch of Margaret Roper, part of the commissioned family portrait at More's home at Chelsea, stresses the resemblance to her father and also - as much to capture the full though sideward glance as anything else - represents the subject looking away or up from the book in her hand. Books are a signature emblem for Roper. For a seventeenth-century Jesuit eulogist, Pierre Le Moyne, she was an exemplary woman of strength, a modern Maccabee (cf. 2 Maccabees 7). With her knowledge of Greek and Latin, prose and verse, philosophy and history, Le Moyne observes, Margaret was More's best work, his finest book: "cette Fille a esté le plus docte Livre & le plus poly, qui soit sorty de l'Esprit de Morus" (Maber 37).
A Daughter’s Love: Thomas and Margaret More, by John Guy (Fourth Estate), 378pp, ISBN 9780007192311 offers a sympathetic treatment of Margaret.
Books abound in Holbein’s painting of Sir Thomas More and his family. In the upper end of the drawing-room scene three books are placed on the cupboard, only one of whose title, Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, is visible. More’s daughter Elizabeth [Dancy] holds a copy of Epistolicae Seneca, bound in red leather and gilt. Standing behind Sir Thomas, his only son John is reading a book. Sitting to his left and a little lower than Sir Thomas his two daughters, Celia and Margaret, both hold books. Celia’s book is clasped shut while Margaret’s is open and some Latin words are legible – ‘L. An. Seneca—Oedipus—Fata si liceat mihi fingere arbitrio meo, temperem zepbyro levi. Beside Margaret, More’s second wife, Alice, sits in a chair with a book open in her hands. Through the doorway a man can be seen reading intently in a book with black letter writing, although the words are illegible. (details from The Old Masters and their Paintings, by Sarah Tyler; repr. BookBazaar, 2007) Although not by any means in support of equality, More educated his children equally and was proud of their accomplishments. He was keen to show off his daughters’ learning in the painting. For More and sixteenth-century society, the only reason to educate women was to aid their moral improvement. When Margaret thought about publishing a book he informed her tutor (and also her) -
'Though I prefer learning joined with virtue to all the treasures of kings, 'yet renown for learning, if you take away moral probity, brings nothing else but notorious and noteworthy infamy, especially in a woman.' Margaret corresponded with Erasmus and did publish, anonymously, a translation of his meditations on the Lord’s Prayer. However, as Patricia Demers points out, ‘Margaret Roper is preeminently her father's creature’: Visual and figurative images of Margaret Roper associate her with learning. The woodcut prefacing the earliest surviving edition in 1525, a multi-purpose printer's block, does not purport to represent Margaret Roper, yet the ways it attempts to define and encase the female subject are worth noting. Within the interlocking, enfoliated tracery of the border, suggestive of a cloister, this veiled woman, shrouded in metres of cloth and almost surrounded by volumes, looks away from the open folio. This crude woodblock might prompt today's reader to reflect on the perspectival shifts and linguistic freedom with which Roper coloured her vernacular rendering of Latin.
Holbein's finely detailed sketch of Margaret Roper, part of the commissioned family portrait at More's home at Chelsea, stresses the resemblance to her father and also - as much to capture the full though sideward glance as anything else - represents the subject looking away or up from the book in her hand. Books are a signature emblem for Roper. For a seventeenth-century Jesuit eulogist, Pierre Le Moyne, she was an exemplary woman of strength, a modern Maccabee (cf. 2 Maccabees 7). With her knowledge of Greek and Latin, prose and verse, philosophy and history, Le Moyne observes, Margaret was More's best work, his finest book: "cette Fille a esté le plus docte Livre & le plus poly, qui soit sorty de l'Esprit de Morus" (Maber 37).
A Daughter’s Love: Thomas and Margaret More, by John Guy (Fourth Estate), 378pp, ISBN 9780007192311 offers a sympathetic treatment of Margaret.
