Holbein was a master of a realism which has left us riveting character-sketches of the Tudor Court, but he nevertheless found significantly few imitators in English portraiture over the next century. Cromwell’s portrait may suggest why. No one has ever suggested that it is an endearing picture, and now the watchful, slightly hooded-eyed minister, within a minute of losing his temper, hangs in the Frick Collection in New York, paired with Holbein’s image of bleakly fearless, clear-sighted Thomas More: not to the advantage of the Master of the Jewels. Hilary Mantel has engagingly imagined the
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