Thomas More face swap

Where this one comes from

Hans Holbein arrived in London in 1526 with a letter of introduction from Erasmus, and More was among the first people he painted there. The portrait is dated 1527. More became Lord Chancellor two years later, refused to accept Henry VIII as head of the church in England, and was executed on Tower Hill in 1535. The panel is in the Frick Collection in New York.

What is in the picture

A heavy chain of linked S-shapes lies across his shoulders — a collar of office, the sort of thing worn to be seen — over crimson velvet and dark fur, against a green curtain. Holbein painted the stubble on the jaw and the exact grain of the day’s growth, and he painted the chain link by link, and then he painted the eyes looking slightly to one side of you and thinking about something else. The whole portrait is about the distance between what a man wears and what he is going to do.

When people use it

For the hill you have decided to die on. It suits the message where you decline to sign something, and it is the correct face for a position held past the point where holding it is convenient.

How your face lands in it

His face is turned a few degrees to his left and lit plainly, and it is large and clear in the frame. The cap cuts a firm line across the top, the fur collar closes the bottom, and there is nothing in between to interfere. The stubble is part of the original surface and survives the swap, so a clean-shaven photograph comes out with a faint shadow along the jaw that was not there when you took it.

Sir Thomas More — Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527. Hans Holbein the Younger died in 1543. The painting has been in the public domain for centuries, and a faithful photograph of a flat work that old gains no new rights. Source

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