John Leland

Holbein’s commemorative portrait bust of Thomas Wyatt is accompanied by laudatory verses by John Leland, a royal antiquarian and Wyatt’s longtime friend. Wyatt appears in a roundel frame, with his characteristic full beard. He is bareheaded and wears a tunic in the manner of an ancient philosopher, in keeping with his own poetry and Leland’s verses. The lines above the portrait praise Holbein’s artistic mastery while acknowledging painting’s inability to represent a subject’s mind or spirit—a sentiment expressed in portraits of Erasmus that are also on view.