Stop and Look – Mrs Jane Small by Hans Holbein (1497-1543)

Apart from its wonderful technical virtuosity, this tiny portrait is extraordinary in a number of ways. You’d expect a picture of someone, especially a likeness so finely wrought, to present the sitter boldly, even triumphantly. But Jane Small looks far from confident, or even cheerful. Her head is turned away from us, a slight frown drawing her eyebrows down, her mouth clenched in introspective thought.

Quite unexpectedly we’re projected into a private moment in the personal life of an ordinary middle-class woman living in the reign of Henry VIII. Her husband may have commissioned Holbein, a neighbour, to paint her on the occasion of her engagement.  She’s not dressed grandly, rather very modestly, with her plain cap and white shawl over an unadorned black dress. There’s some unobtrusive embroidery round the edge of her coif, and an intriguing maze pattern in black on the collar of her undershirt. From this hang threads supporting two ears of corn and a red carnation, which no doubt have symbolic meaning, as presumably does the little blue leaf she’s holding.  

Nothing else, except Jane’s age, 23, written in gold across the small blue background, the colour Holbein preferred to set off almost all the sitters of his miniatures. But this little jewel of a painting is given a handsome setting: an ornamented, moulded circular frame to which are attached on gold and enamel brackets four pearls that greatly increase the overall dimensions of the object. If it were hung from its little gold ring attached to a thread or a necklace, it would attract immediate attention. 

So the miniature was prized, even though it wasn’t the portrait of a queen or noblewoman. No doubt Jane Small’s husband valued it for her sake. But the true worth of the image is its sheer beauty as a piece of painting. Holbein was one of the greatest masters of the northern European Renaissance, a consummate draughtsman whose art is the culmination of a century-long tradition of keenly characterised portraiture. In Germany and the Low Countries truth of observation counted for more than sheer beauty, which by contrast we sometimes feel was the ideal and ultimate intention of the Italians. Yet Holbein managed to produce images of the King, Henry VIII, his queens and many members of his Court that are unforgettable in their bold immediacy. He achieved the same results on a tiny scale in his miniatures. Jane Small is presented without fuss or adornment, not even facing us directly, and yet Holbein has created out of her simple likeness a work of which, as one commentator has said, ‘there can be no question that this is one of the great portraits of the world.’ A telling example of the power of an artist’s honesty of vision to communicate human truth and move us deeply.

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