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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Holbein
+
+Author: Beatrice Fortescue
+
+Release Date: June 17, 2009 [EBook #29150]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLBEIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Janine Lettau, Paul Dring,
+Clive Pickton, Joseph E. Loewenstein M.D. and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Illustration: _Hans Holbein the Younger_
+ _Coloured Chalks. Basel Museum_
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BOOKS ON ART
+GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT
+
+
+
+
+HOLBEIN
+
+BY
+BEATRICE FORTESCUE
+
+WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+METHUEN & CO.
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+
+_First published in 1904_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY WORK
+
+  Historical epoch and antecedents--Special conditions and character
+  of early Christian art--Ideals and influence of the monk--Holbein's
+  relation to mediæval schools--His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+  home--Probable dates for his birth and his father's death--Troubles
+  and dispersion of the Augsburg household--From Augsburg to Basel--His
+  brother Ambrose--Erasmus and the _Praise of Folly_; some erroneous
+  impressions of both--Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+  heart--Holbein and the Bible--Illustrated Vernacular Bibles in
+  circulation before Luther and Holbein were born--Holbein's earliest
+  Basel oil-paintings--Direct and indirect education--Historical,
+  geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day--Beginning of
+  his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel--Jacob Meyer zum
+  Hasen--Holbein's woodcuts--His studies from nature--Sudden visit
+  to Lucerne--Italian influence on his art--Work for the Burgomaster
+  of Lucerne                                                           1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS (1519-1526)
+
+  _Holbein Basiliensis_--Enters the Painters' Guild--Bonifacius
+  Amerbach and his portrait--The Last Supper and its Judas--The so-called
+  "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon--Genius for design and symbolism in
+  architecture--Versatility, humour, fighting scenes--Holbein becomes a
+  citizen and marries--Basel in 1519--Froben's circle--Tremendous events
+  and issues of the time--Holbein's religious works--The Nativity and
+  Adoration at Freiburg--Hans Oberriedt--The Basel Passion in eight
+  panels--Passion Drawings--Christ in the tomb--Christ and Mary Magdalen
+  at the door of the sepulchre--Rathaus wall-paintings--Birth of
+  Holbein's eldest child--The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and
+  rescue--Holbein's wife and her portraits--Suggested solutions of
+  some biographical enigmas--Title pages--Portraits of Erasmus--Journey
+  to France, probably to Lyons and Avignon--Publishers and pictures of
+  the so-called "Dance of Death"--Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and Laïs
+  Corinthiaca--Triumph of the Protestant party--Holbein decides to
+  leave Basel for a time--The Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden,
+  and its portraits                                                     45
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHANCES AND CHANGES (1526-1530)
+
+ First visit to England--Sir Thomas More: his home and portraits--The
+ Windsor drawings--Bishop Fisher--Archbishop Warham--Bishop
+ Stokesley--Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait--Nicholas Kratzer--Sir
+ Bryan Tuke--Holbein's return to Basel--Portrait-group of his wife and
+ two eldest children; two versions--Holbein's children, and families
+ claiming descent from him--Iconoclastic fury--Ruined arts--Death of
+ Meyer zum Hasen--Another Meyer commissions the last paintings for
+ Basel--Return to England--Description of the Steelyard--Portraits of
+ its  members--George Gysze--Basel Council summons Holbein home--"The
+ Ambassadors" at the National Gallery; accepted identification--Coronation
+ of Queen Anne Boleyn--Lost paintings for the Guildhall of the Steelyard;
+ the Triumphs of Riches and Poverty--The great Morett portrait;
+ identifications--Holbein's industry and fertility--Designs for
+ metal-work and other drawings--Solomon and the Queen of Sheba         114
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PAINTER ROYAL (1536-1543)
+
+ Queen Jane Seymour--Death of Erasmus, and title-page portrait--The
+ Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.--Munich drawing of Henry VIII.--Birth
+ of an heir and the "Jane Seymour Cup"--Death of the Queen--Christina,
+ Duchess of Milan--Secret service for the King--Flying visit to Basel and
+ arrangements for a permanent return--Apprentices his son Philip at
+ Paris--Portrait of the Prince of Wales and the King's return gift--Anne
+ of Cleves--Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk--Catherine Howard--Lapse
+ of Holbein's Basel citizenship--Irregularities--Provision for wife
+ and children--Residence in London--Execution of Queen Catherine
+ Howard--Marriage of Catherine Parr--Dr. Chamber--Unfinished work
+ for the Barber-Surgeons' Hall--Death of Holbein--His will--Place of
+ burial--Holbein's genius: its true character and greatness            156
+
+CATALOGUE OF PRINCIPAL EXISTING WORKS                                  188
+
+REFERENCES                                                             189
+
+INDEX                                                                  199
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ 1. HOLBEIN      _Frontispiece_
+    Self Portrait. From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 2. "PROSY" AND "HANS" HOLBEIN                                          16
+    Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder. Silver-point.
+    (Berlin Cabinet.)
+
+ 3. SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD                                            26
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+ 4. JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)                                             31
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 5. DOROTHEA MEYER (née KANNEGIESSER)                                   31
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 6. BONIFACIUS AMERBACH                                                 46
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+ 7. FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE                                               58
+    Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the
+    Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 8. THE NATIVITY                                                        72
+    Oils. (University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral.)
+    From a photograph by G. Röbke, Freiburg.
+
+ 9. THE PASSION                                                         74
+      I. GETHSEMANE.                    II. THE KISS OF JUDAS.
+    III. BEFORE PONTIUS PILATE.         IV. THE SCOURGING.
+      V. THE MOCKING.                   VI. THE WAY TO CALVARY.
+    VII. "IT IS FINISHED."            VIII. THE ENTOMBMENT.
+    Eight-panelled Altar-piece. (Basel Museum.)
+
+10. CHRIST IN THE GRAVE                                                 78
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+11. THE RISEN CHRIST                                                    82
+    Oils. (Hampton Court Gallery.)
+
+12. THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA                              86
+    Oils. (Solothurn Museum.) From a photograph by
+    Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.
+
+13. UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY; NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S                 94
+    Silver-point and Indian ink. (Louvre Collection. Believed
+    by the writer to be Holbein's drawing of his wife before
+    her first marriage, and the model for the Solothurn Madonna.)
+    From a photograph by Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.
+
+14. ERASMUS                                                             98
+    Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.
+
+15. THE PLOUGHMAN; THE PRIEST                                          102
+    "Images of Death." Woodcut series.
+
+16. DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE                          104
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+17. DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LAÏS CORINTHIACA                             106
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+18. THE MEYER-MADONNA                                                  109
+    Oils. (Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt.)
+    From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+19. THE MEYER-MADONNA                                                  109
+    (Later Version. Held by many to be a copy.) Oils.
+    (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+20. SIR THOMAS MORE                                                    116
+    Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+21. JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER                                   118
+    Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+22. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD                                                120
+    Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+23. NICHOLAS KRATZER                                                   122
+    Oils. (The Louvre.)
+
+24. SIR BRYAN TUKE                                                     124
+    Oils. (Munich Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+25. ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN            126
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+26. "BEHOLD TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE." SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL  134
+    Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.)
+    From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+27. JÖRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE                                              142
+    Oils. (Berlin Museum.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+28. "THE AMBASSADORS"                                                  146
+    Oils. (National Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+29. THE MORETT PORTRAIT                                                152
+    Oils. (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+30. QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR                                                 158
+    Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+31. KING HENRY VIII. AND HIS FATHER                                    160
+    Fragment of cartoon used for the Whitehall wall-painting.
+    (Duke of Devonshire's Collection.)
+
+32. KING HENRY VIII.                                                   162
+    (Life Study; probably for the Whitehall Painting.)
+    Chalks. (Munich Collection.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+33. DESIGN FOR THE "JANE SEYMOUR CUP"                                  164
+    (Bodleian Library.)
+
+34. CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN                             166
+    Oils. (National Gallery.) Lent by the Duke of Norfolk.
+
+35. ANNE OF CLEVES                                                     172
+    Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.
+
+36. THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK                               174
+    Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+37. CATHERINE HOWARD                                                   176
+    Chalk drawing. (Windsor Castle.)
+
+38. DR. CHAMBER                                                        180
+    Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+
+
+
+HOLBEIN[1]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY WORK
+
+  Historical epoch and antecedents--Special conditions and character
+  of early Christian art--Ideals and influence of the monk--Holbein's
+  relation to mediæval schools--His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+  home--Probable dates for his birth and his father's death--Troubles
+  and dispersion of the Augsburg household--From Augsburg to Basel--His
+  brother Ambrose--Erasmus and the _Praise of Folly_; some erroneous
+  impressions of both--Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+  heart--Holbein and the Bible--Illustrated vernacular Bibles in
+  circulation before Luther and Holbein were born--Holbein's earliest
+  Basel oil paintings--Direct and indirect education--Historical,
+  geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day--Beginning of
+  his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel--Jacob Meyer zum
+  Hasen--Holbein's woodcuts--His studies from nature--Sudden visit to
+  Lucerne--Italian influence on his art--Work for the Burgomaster
+  of Lucerne.
+
+
+The eighty-three years stretching from 1461 to 1543--between the
+probable year of the elder Hans Holbein's birth and that in which the
+younger, the great Holbein, died--constitute one of those periods which
+rightly deserve the much-abused name of an Epoch. The Christian era of
+itself had known many: the Yellow-Danger of the fifth century making one
+hideous smear across Europe; the _Hic Jacet_ with which this same
+century entombed an Empire three continents could not content; the new
+impulse which Charlemagne and Alfred had given to Progress in the ninth
+century; the triumphant establishment of Papal Supremacy, that Napoleonic
+idea of Gregory VII.--_Sanctus Satanas_, of the eleventh, and grand
+architect in a vaster Roman Empire which still "humanly contends for
+glory"; and lastly, at the very threshold of the Holbeins, the invention
+of movable printing types about 1440, and the fall of Constantinople in
+1453, which combined to drive the prodigies and potencies of Greek
+genius through the world.
+
+Each of these had done its own special work for the advancement
+of man--as for that matter all things must, whether by help or
+helplessness. Not less than Elijah did the wretched priests of Baal
+serve those slow, sure, eternal Purposes, which include an Ahab and all
+the futile fury of his little life as the sun includes its "spots."
+
+But although the stream of History is one, and its every succeeding
+curve only an expansion of the first, there has probably been no century
+of our era when this stream has been so suddenly enlarged, or bent so
+sharply toward fresh constellations as in that of the Holbeins,--when
+Religion and Art, as well as Science, saw a New World upon its astonished
+horizon. So that we properly call it a transition period, and its
+representative men "transitional."
+
+Yet we shall never get near to these real men, to their real world, unless
+we can forget all about the pose of this or the other Zeitgeist--that tale
+
+  _Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+   Signifying nothing._
+
+For we must keep constantly in mind that what we call the Middle Ages
+or--worse yet--the Dark Ages, made up the Yesterday of the Holbeins and
+was the flesh and blood transmitted to them as their own flesh and blood
+with all its living bonds toward the Old and all its living impulses
+toward the New.
+
+A now famous New Zealander is, we know, to sketch our own "mediævalism"
+with contemptuous pity for its darkness. But until his day comes, our
+farthing-dips seem to make a gaudy illumination. And, meantime, we are
+alive; we walk about; we, too, can swell the chorus which the Initiated
+chant in every century with the same fond confidence: "We alone enjoy
+the Holy Light."
+
+The New is ever becoming old; the old ever changing into New. And if we
+ask why each waxes or wanes just when it does and as it does, there is,
+in the last analysis, no better answer than Aurora's explanation for
+chancing on the poets--
+
+  _Because the time was ripe._
+
+And the Holbein century is one of stupendous Transitions because the
+time was ripe; and not simply because printing was invented, or Greek
+scholars were driven from Constantinople to scatter abroad in Europe, or
+Ferdinand and Isabella wanted a direct route to Cathay, or Friar Martin
+nailed ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg's church, and built
+himself thereby an everlasting name as Luther.
+
+And because the time was ripe for a new Art, even more than because this
+or that great painter entrained it, it also had its transition period,
+and Holbein is set down in manuals as a transitional painter. Teutonic,
+too; because all Christian art is either Byzantine or Italian or
+Teutonic in its type.
+
+When it first crept from the catacombs under the protection of the
+Constantinople Court it could but be Byzantine; that strange composite
+obtained by stripping the Greek "beast" of every pagan beauty and then
+decking it out with crude Oriental ornament. But who that prizes the
+peculiar product of that fanaticism would have had its cradle without
+this sleepless terror, lest for the whole world of classic heathendom
+it should lose the dear-bought soul of purely Christian ideals? Or who,
+remembering that in thus relentlessly sacrificing its entire heritage of
+pagan accumulation it put back the clock of Art to the Stone Age, and
+had to begin all over again in the helpless bewilderment of untaught
+childish effort,--could find twice ten centuries too long for the
+astounding feat it achieved? Ten centuries, after all, make but a
+marvellous short course betwixt the archaic compositions of the third
+century and the compositions of Giotto or Wilhelm Meister.
+
+A great deal of nonsense is talked about the "tyrannies" which the
+Monastic Age inflicted on Art. Of course, monasticism fostered fanaticism.
+It does not need the luminous genius that said it, to teach us that
+"whatever is necessary to what we make our sole object is sure, in some
+way or in some time or other, to become our master." And with the monk,
+the true monk in his day of usefulness, every knowledge and every art
+was good or bad according as it served monastic ideals. But it is absurd
+to say that the monk--_qua_ monk--"put the intellect in chains." The
+whole body of his oppression was not so paralysing as the iron little
+finger of Malherbe and his school of "classic" despots. To charge upon
+the monk the limitations of his crude thought and cruder methods is
+about as intelligent as it would be to fall foul of Shakespeare because
+boys played his women's parts.
+
+The springs of Helicon were the monk's also, as witness Tuotilo and
+Bernard of Clairvaux; but it was by the waters of Jordan that his
+miracles were wrought. As Johnson somewhere says of Watts, "every kind
+of knowledge was by the piety of his mind converted into theology." And
+for the rest,--by the labour of his hands, by his fasting from the
+things of the flesh, by his lofty faith--however erring or forgotten or
+betrayed, in individual cases,--by every impressive lesson of a hard
+life lived unto others and a hard death died unto himself, century
+after century it was the monk who taught and helped the barbarian of
+every land to turn the desolate freedom of the wild ass into a smiling
+homestead and the savage Africa of his own heart into at least a better
+place. The marvel is that he could at the same time find room or energy
+to make his monastery also a laboratory, a library, and a studio. And
+yet he did.
+
+To say that he abhorred Greek ideals is to say that the shepherd abhors
+the wolf. His life was one long fight with the insidious poison of the
+Greek. He did not,--at any rate in his best days--believe at all in Art
+for Art's sake; and had far too intimate an acquaintance with the
+"natural man" to do him even justice. What he wanted was to do away with
+him.
+
+Yet with all its repellent features, it is to this unflinching
+exclusiveness of the monkish ideal that we owe one of the most exquisite
+blossoms on the stock of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,--their
+innocent and appealing art; an art as original and as worthy of reverence,
+within its own peculiar province, as the masterpieces of Greece or
+Italy. You must turn from the beauty of Antinous to the beauty of, say,
+the Saint Veronica, among the works of the Cologne school at Munich,
+before you can estimate the Gulf of many things besides time which for
+ever divides the world of the one from the world of the other. And
+then you must essay to embody the visions of Patmos with a child's
+colour-box and brushes, before you can compare the achievements--the
+amazing achievements--of the monkish ideal with the achievements of
+classic paganism.
+
+With the school of Wilhelm Meister this tremendous revolution had
+accomplished itself; and solely through the indomitable will of the
+monk. The ideal of Greece had been to show how gods walk the earth. This
+Christian ideal was to show how devout men and women walk with God.
+Their ineffable heavenly faces look out from their golden world--
+
+  _Inviolate, unwearied,
+   Divinest, sweetest, best,_
+
+upon this far-off, far other world, where nothing is inviolate, and
+divinest things must come at last to tears and ashes.
+
+But the monk had had his day as well as his way. The so-called Gothic
+architecture had expressed its uttermost of aspiration and tenuity; and
+painting had fulfilled its utmost accommodation to the ever more slender
+wall-spaces and forms which this architecture necessitated. And once
+again, in the fifteenth century, the time was ripe for a new transition.
+Art was now to reveal the realities of this world, and to concern itself
+with Man among them. And just as the law of reaction flung the mind
+into religious revolt from the outworn dogmas and overgrown pretensions
+of the monkish ideal, so did it drive the healthy reaction of art into
+its own extravagances of protest. And we shall see how even a genius
+like Holbein's was unable to entirely free itself from this reactionary
+defect. For with all his astonishing powers, imaginative and technical,
+he never wholly overcame that defect of making his figures too short and
+too thick-set for grace, which amounted to a deformity in the full-length
+figures of his early work, and was due to his fierce revolt from the
+unnaturally elongated forms of an earlier period.
+
+Yet we should make a grave mistake if we were to regard Holbein as cut
+off by this reaction from all affinities with the monkish ideals of
+the Cologne school. On the contrary. We shall see, especially in his
+religious pictures, how many of those ideals had fed the very springs of
+his imagination and sunk deep into his art; only expressing themselves
+in his own symbolism and in forms unlike theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Augsburg Gallery there is a painting by Holbein's father, the
+"Basilica of St. Paul," in which there is a group introduced after the
+fashion of the period, which has a special biographical interest. This
+group, in the Baptism of St. Paul, is believed by many authorities to be
+a portrait-group of the painter himself,--Hans Holbein the Elder, and
+his two young sons, Ambrose (or Amprosy, as it was often written) and
+Johannes, or "Hanns." The portrait of the father is certainly like
+Holbein's own drawing of him in the Duke d'Aumale's Collection, which
+Sandrart engraved in his account of the younger Holbein; while the heads
+of the two boys are very like those which we shall find later in a
+drawing in the Berlin Gallery. From the pronounced way in which his
+father's hand rests on little Hans' head, while the left points him
+out,--and even his elder brother "Prosy" shows by his attitude the
+special notice to be taken of Hans,--it is clear that if this is a
+portrait-group either it was painted when the boys were actually older,
+or the younger had already given some astonishing proof of that precocity
+which his early works display; for in this group the younger boy cannot
+be more than eight or nine years old.
+
+Hans Holbein the Elder, who stands here with his long brown hair and
+beard falling over his fur gown, was a citizen of Augsburg, living for
+a while in the same street with the honoured Augsburg painter, Hans
+Burgkmair, and occasionally working with him on large commissions. That
+he was a native of Augsburg, and the son--as is generally believed--of
+"Michel Holbain" (Augsburg commonly spelt _Holbein_ with an _a_),
+leather-dresser--I myself cannot feel so sure as others do. There is no
+documentary evidence to prove that the Michael Holbein of Augsburg ever
+had a son, and there is both documentary and circumstantial evidence to
+prove that the descendants of Hans Holbein the Elder claimed a different
+origin. That a man was a "citizen," or burgher, of any town, of course
+proves nothing. It was a period when painters especially learned their
+trades and practised it in many centres. And this, when guilds were
+all-powerful and no one could either join one without taking citizenship
+with it, or pursue its calling in any given place without association
+with the guild of that place, often involved a series of citizenships.
+The elder Holbein was himself a burgher of Ulm at one time, if not of
+other cities in which he worked.
+
+But that Augsburg was his fixed home for the greater part of his life is
+certain; and the rate-books show that after the leather-dresser had
+disappeared from their register of residents in the retail business
+quarter of the city, in the neighbourhood of the Lech canals, Hans
+Holbein the Elder was, in 1494, a householder in this very place. For
+some years the name of "Sigmund, his brother," is bracketed with his;
+but about 1517 Sigmund Holbein established himself in Berne, where he
+accumulated a very respectable competence, which, at his death in 1540,
+he bequeathed to his "dear nephew, Hans Holbein, the painter," at that
+time a citizen of Basel. Sigmund also was a painter, but no unquestioned
+work of his is known.
+
+There is nothing to show who was the wife of Sigmund Holbein's elder
+brother, Hans. But by 1499 this elder Hans had either a child or
+children mentioned with him (_sein kind_, applying equally to one or
+more). In all probability this is the earliest discoverable record
+of Hans Holbein the Younger, and his elder brother Ambrose. In all
+probability, too, Hans was then about two years old, and "Prosy" a year
+or two older. At one time it was vaguely thought that the elder Hans had
+three sons; and Prosy, or "Brosie," as it was sometimes written, got
+converted into a "Bruno" Holbein. But no vestige of an actual Bruno is
+to be found. And as Ambrose Holbein's trail, whether in rate-books or
+art-records, utterly vanishes after 1519, it will be seen that for the
+most part of the younger Holbein's life he had no brother. Hence it is
+easy to understand how his uncle Sigmund's Will speaks only of "my dear
+nephew."
+
+Hans the elder lived far on in his younger son's life. His works attest
+that he had talents and ideals of no mean order. But I do not propose
+to enter here upon the vexed question as to how far the "Renaissance"
+characteristics of the later works attributed to his hand are his own or
+his son's. Learned and exhaustive arguments have by turns consigned the
+best of these works to the father, to the son, and back again to the
+father. In at least one instance of high authority the same writer has,
+at different periods, held a brief for both sides and for opposite
+opinions! In this connection, as on the battlefield of some of the
+son's greatest paintings, the single-minded student of Holbein may not
+unprofitably draw three conclusions from the copious literature on the
+subject:--First, that a working hypothesis is not of necessity the right
+one; secondly, that in the matter of his pronouncements the critical
+expert also may occasionally be regarded as
+
+   _Un animal qui s'habille, déshabille et babille toujours;_
+
+and thirdly, that in default of incontestable documentary proofs the
+modest "so far as I have been able to discover" of Holbein's first
+biographer, Van Mander, is a capital anchor to windward, and is at
+any rate preferable to driving forth upon the howling waters of
+Classification, like Constance upon the Sea of Greece, "Alle sterelesse,
+God wot."
+
+But my chief reason for not pursuing the Protean phantom of Holbein's
+Augsburg period is that,--apart from my own disagreement with many
+accepted views about the works it includes, and the utter lack of
+data or determining any position irrefutably,--it is comparatively
+unimportant to the purpose of this little book. For wherever the younger
+painter was born,--whether at Augsburg or Ulm or elsewhere,--and
+whatever I believe to be his rightful claim to such paintings as the St.
+Elizabeth and St. Barbara of the St. Sebastian altar-piece at Munich,
+Fame, like Van Mander, has rightly written him down Holbein
+_Basiliensis_.
+
+It is true that his father's brushes were his alphabet. It may be true,
+though I doubt it, that his father's teaching was his only technical
+school. But if he was, as to the last he gloried in being, the child of
+the Old Period, he was much more truly the immediate pupil of the Van
+Eycks than of his father's irresolute ideals; while Basel was his
+university. And whatever may have been his debt to those childish years
+when the little Iulus followed his father with trembling steps, his
+debt to Basel was immensely greater. The door-sill of Johann Froben's
+printing-house was the threshold of his earthly immortality.
+
+When he turned his back on the low-vaulted years of Augsburg, it was
+because for him also the time was ripe. The Old Period had cast his
+genius; the New was to expand it to new powers and purposes.
+
+               _Still, as the spiral grew,
+   He left the past year's dwelling for the new;
+   Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
+                Built up its idle door,
+   Stretch'd in his last-found home and knew the old no more._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It may easily have been the elder Hans' continuous troubles, whether due
+to his fault or his misfortune it is idle now to inquire, which made his
+sons leave Augsburg. Certain it is that he but escaped from the clutches
+of one suit for debt after another in order to tumble into some fresh
+disaster of the sort, until his own brother Sigmund appears among his
+exasperated creditors. After 1524 Hans Holbein the Elder vanishes from
+the records. Probably, therefore, it was at about this date that he
+paid,--Heaven and himself only knowing how willingly,--the one debt
+which every man pays at the last.
+
+At all events his sons did leave Augsburg about 1514; or, at any rate,
+Hans did, since there is a naïve little Virgin and Child in the Basel
+Museum, dated 1514, which must have been painted in the neighbourhood of
+Constance in this year,--probably for the village church where it was
+discovered. As everything points to the conclusion that Holbein was born
+in 1497, he would have been some seventeen years old at this time, and
+"Prosy" eighteen or nineteen. Substantially, therefore, they must have
+looked pretty much as in the drawing which their father had made of them
+three years before; that precious drawing in silver-point which is now
+in the Berlin Collection (Plate 2). Over the elder, still with the curly
+locks of the group in the "St. Paul Basilica," is written _Prosy_; over
+the younger, _Hanns_. The age of the latter, fourteen, may still be
+deciphered above his portrait, but that of Ambrose has quite vanished.
+Between the two is the family name, written in Augsburg fashion,
+Holbain. At the top of the sheet stands the year of the drawing, almost
+illegible, but believed to be 1511.
+
+ Illustration: PLATE 2
+
+ "PROSY" AND "HANNS" _HOLBAIN_
+ [_Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder_]
+ _Silver-point. Berlin Cabinet_
+
+Of the elder brother all that is certainly known may be said here once
+for all. In 1517 he entered the Painters' Guild at Basel, where he is
+called "Ambrosius Holbein, citizen of Augsburg." He made a number of
+designs for wood-engraving, title-pages, and ornaments, for the printers
+of Basel--all of fair merit. He may also have worked in the studio of
+Hans Herbster, a Basel painter of considerable note. Herbster's portrait
+in oils, long held to be a fine work of the younger brother,--now that
+it has passed from the Earl of Northbrook's collection to that of the
+Basel Museum, is attributed to Ambrose Holbein. But little else is known
+of him; and after 1519, as has been said, the absence of any record of
+him among the living suggests that he died in that year.
+
+In the late summer of 1515 came that momentous trifle which has for ever
+linked the name of young Hans Holbein with that of Erasmus. Whether, as
+some say, the scholar gave him the order, or, as seems more likely, some
+friend of both had the copy, now in the Basel Museum, on the margins of
+which the lad drew his spirited pen-and-ink sketches,--it is on record
+that they were made before the end of December, and that Erasmus himself
+was delighted with their wit and vigour. And, in truth, they are
+exceedingly clever, both in the art with which a few strokes suggest a
+picture, and in that by which the picture emphasises every telling point
+in the satire. But a great deal too much has been built upon both the
+satire and the sketches; a great deal, also, falsely built upon them.
+
+They have been made to do duty, in default of all genuine proofs, as
+supports to the theory by which Protestant writers have claimed both
+Erasmus and Holbein as followers of Luther in their hearts, without
+sufficient courage or zeal to declare themselves such. I confess that,
+though myself no less ardent as a Protestant than as an admirer of
+Holbein, I cannot, for the life of me, see any justification for either
+the claim or its implied charge of timorousness.
+
+Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_--like so many a paradox started as a
+joke,--had no notion of being serious at all until it was seriously
+attacked. Some four years before its illustrations riveted the name of a
+stripling artist to that of the world-renowned scholar, Erasmus had
+fallen ill while a guest in the sunny Bucklersbury home where three tiny
+daughters and a baby son were the darlings of Sir Thomas More and his
+wife. To beguile the tedium of convalescence the invalid had scribbled
+off a jeu d'esprit, with its punning play on More's name, _Encomium
+Moriæ_, in which every theme for laughter, in a far from squeamish day,
+was collected under that title. Read aloud to More and his friends, it
+was declared much too good to be limited to private circulation; and
+accordingly, with some revision and expansion, it was printed. That it
+scourged with its mockery those things in both Church and State which
+Erasmus and More and many another fervent Churchman hated,--such as the
+crying evils which called aloud for reformation in the highest places,
+and above all, that it lashed the detested friars whom the best churchmen
+most loathed,--these things were foregone conclusions in such a
+composition. But a laugh, even a satirical laugh, at the expense of
+excrescences or follies in one's camp, is a very far cry from going over
+to its foes. As a huge joke Erasmus wrote the _Praise of Folly_; as such
+More and all his circle lauded it; as such Froben reprinted it; and as
+such young Holbein pointed all its laughing gibes.
+
+And it was part and parcel of the joke that he launched his own sly
+arrow at the author himself. Erasmus could but laugh at the adroitness
+with which the young man from Augsburg had drawn a reverend scholar
+writing away at his desk, among the votaries of Folly, and written
+_Erasmus_ over his head. But it was hardly to be expected that he should
+altogether relish the witty implication, or the presumption of the
+unknown painter who had ventured to make it. Nor did he. Turning over a
+page he also contrived to turn the laugh yet once again, this time
+against the too-presuming artist. Finding, perhaps, the coarsest of the
+sketches, one in keeping with the "fat and splendid pig from the drove
+of Epicurus," he in his turn wrote the name of _Holbein_ above the
+wanton boor at his carousals. It was a reprisal not more delicate than
+the spirit with which subjects too sacred to have been named in the same
+breath with Folly,--the very words of our Lord Himself,--had been
+dragged into such company. But though it, too, was a joke, this little
+slap of wounded amour propre has found writers to draw from it an entire
+theory that Holbein led a life of debauchery!
+
+Yet even this feat of deduction is surpassed by that which argues that
+because Erasmus and Holbein lashed bad prelates and vicious monks with
+satire, therefore they detested the whole hierarchy of Rome and loathed
+all monks, good or bad. "Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched" is
+the oft-repeated cry; forgetting or ignoring the plain fact that Erasmus
+eyed the Lutheran egg with no little mistrust in its shell and with
+unequivocal disgust in its full-feathered development. "What connection
+have I with Luther," he writes some three years after Holbein illustrated
+Stultitia's worshippers, "or what recompense have I to expect from him
+that I should join with him to oppose the Church of Rome, which I take
+to be the true part of the Church Catholic, or to oppose the Roman
+Pontiff who is the head of the Catholic Church? I am not so impious as
+to dissent from the Church nor so ungrateful as to dissent from Leo,
+from whom I have received uncommon favour and indulgence."
+
+As to Holbein's "Protestant sympathies"--using the name for the whole
+Lutheran movement in which Protestantism had its rise,--the assertions
+are even less grounded in fact, if that be possible. If he had it not
+already in his heart, through Erasmus and Amerbach and Froben and More
+and every other great influence to which he yielded himself at all, he
+early acquired a deep and devout sense of the need of reform _within_
+the Church. Like all these lifelong friends, he wanted to see the Church
+of Rome return to her purer days and cast off the corruptions of a
+profligate idleness. Like them he couched his lance against the unworthy
+priest, the gluttonous or licentious monk, the wolves in sheep's clothing
+that were destroying the fold from within. Like them, as they re-echoed
+Colet--the saintly Dean of St. Paul's,--he passionately favoured the
+translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular and placing them in
+the hands, or at any rate bringing them to the familiar knowledge, of
+peasant as well as prelate. But surely one must know very little of the
+teachings of the stoutest Churchmen of Holbein's day and acquaintance
+not to know also that they encouraged if they did not plant these
+opinions in his mind.
+
+"Dürer's woodcuts and engravings, especially his various scenes from the
+Passion," writes even Woltmann, the biographer to whom every student of
+Holbein owes so grateful a debt, "had prepared the soil among the people
+for Luther's translation of the Bible. Holbein's pictures from the Old
+Testament followed in their wake, and helped forward the work." Yet it
+seems difficult to suppose that Woltmann could have been ignorant of
+the facts of the case. So far were Holbein's, or any other artist's,
+Bible illustrations or Bible pictures from arguing a "Lutheran" monopoly
+in the vernacular Bible, that in Germany alone there were fifteen
+translated and illustrated editions of the Bible before Luther's
+appeared; and of these fifteen some half-dozen were published before
+Luther was born. Quentell, at Cologne, for instance, published a famous
+translation with exceedingly good woodcuts in 1480,--three years before
+Luther's birth. While some nine years before Quentell's German
+translation, the Abbot Niccolo Malermi published his _Biblia Vulgare_ in
+the Italian vernacular, which went through twenty editions in less than
+a century: one of which,--brought out at Venice in 1490 by the Giunta
+Brothers,--was illustrated by woodcuts of the greatest beauty. So
+widespread was the demand for this "Malermi Bible" that another edition,
+with new illustrations of almost equal merit, was produced at Venice in
+1493, by the printer known as _Anima Mia_. All of these were vernacular
+Bibles; all illustrated; all widely known throughout Italy and Germany
+before Holbein was born or Luther was in his tenth year. And certainly
+it has not yet been suggested by the most rabid Protestantism that
+either these or any of the many other illustrated vernacular Bibles
+printed long before Luther's great translation,--a translation with a
+special claim to immortality because it may be said to have set the
+standard for modern German,--were anything but Roman Catholic Bibles.
+They were translated and illustrated in behalf of no doctrine which
+Protestantism does not hold in common with the Church of Rome.
+
+To lose hold of these things, to lose sight of the true attitude of
+Holbein in his Bible woodcuts and his "Images of Death," or of either
+Erasmus or Holbein in their satires on the flagrant abuses within their
+Church, and their unwavering devotion to that Church,--is to deliberately
+throw away the clue to the most vital qualities in the work of either,
+and to the whole course and character of Holbein himself, no less than
+to that of his lifelong friend and benefactor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1515 the young painter who had come to Basel to better his fortunes
+painted a table for Hans Bär's wedding. The bridegroom marched away,
+carrying the Basel colours, to the bloody field of Marignano (or
+Melegnano) in this same year, and never came back to sit with his
+smiling bride around Holbein's most amusing conceits--where "Saint
+Nobody" was depicted among all the catastrophes of which he is the
+scapegoat, and a few ordinary trifles--a letter, a pair of spectacles,
+etc.--were marvellously represented, as if dropped by chance above the
+painted decorations, so that people were always attempting to pick them
+up. But Hans Bär's sister had been the first wife of a certain brave
+comrade--Meyer "of the Hare," who did come back and played an important
+part in young Holbein's career. Long lost among forgotten rubbish, Hans
+Bär's table has been unearthed, and is now preserved in the town library
+at Zurich.
+
+But although Holbein had got his foot on the ladder of fame in this
+year's beginning of his connection with Froben, he was as yet very
+thankful to accept any commission, however humble. And as a human
+document there is a touch of peculiar, almost pathetic interest about
+the Schoolmaster's Signboard preserved by Bonifacius Amerbach, and now
+with his collection in the Basel Museum (Plate 3). It is a simple thing,
+with no pretension to a place among "works of art"--this bit of flotsam
+from 1516, when it was painted. Originally the two views, the Infant
+Class and the Adult Class, were on opposite sides of the sign; but they
+have been carefully split apart so as to be seen side by side. In the
+one is the quaint but usual Dame's School of the period; in the other
+the public is informed how the adults of Basel may retrieve the lack of
+such early opportunities. The inscription above each sets forth how
+whosoever wishes to do so can be taught to read and write correctly, and
+be furnished with all the essentials of a decent education at a very
+moderate cost; "children on the usual terms." And there is a delightful
+clause to say that "if anyone is too dull-witted to learn at all, no
+payment will be accepted, be it Burger or Apprentice, Wife or Maid."
+
+Somehow, looking at the young fellow at the right of the table, in the
+Adult Class, sitting facing the anxious schoolmaster, with his own brow
+all furrowed by the effort to follow him and his mouth doggedly set to
+succeed,--while the late, low sun of a summer afternoon streams in
+through the leaded window,--one muses on the chance that so may the young
+painter from Augsburg, now but nineteen, himself have sat upon this very
+bench and leaned across this very table, in a like determination to
+widen out his small store of book-learning. He could have had little
+opportunity to do so in the ever-shifting, bailiff-haunted home of his
+boyhood. And somewhere he certainly learned to write quite as well as
+even the average gentleman of his day; witness the notes on his
+drawings.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 3
+  SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Somewhere, too, and no later than these first Basel years, he acquired
+the power to read and appreciate even the niceties of Latin, though
+he probably could not have done more than make these out to his own
+satisfaction. All his work of illustration is too original, too
+spontaneous, too full of flashes of subtle personal sympathy with the
+text, to have emanated from an interpreter, or been dictated by another
+mind than his own. And this very Signboard may have paid for lessons
+which he could not otherwise afford. For if there is any force in
+circumstantial evidence it is certain that Holbein not only wrote,
+but read and pondered and thought for himself in these years when
+he doubtless had many more hours of leisure than he desired, from a
+financial standpoint.
+
+And the greatest pages of his autobiography, written with his brush,
+will be only so many childish rebuses if we forget what astounding pages
+of History and Argument were turned before him. In Augsburg he had seen
+the Emperor Maximilian riding in state more than once, and heard much
+talk about that Emperor's interests and schemes and fears; and of
+thrones and battlefields engaged with or against these. Augsburg was in
+closest ties of commerce with Venice; and the tides of many a tremendous
+issue of civilisation rolled to and fro through the gates of the Free
+Swabian City.
+
+Child and lad, his was a precocious intelligence; and it had been fed
+upon meat for strong men. He had heard of Alexander VI.'s colossal
+infamies, and those of Cæsar Borgia as well; and of the kingdoms ranging
+to this or that standard after the death of Pope and Prince. He was nine
+years old then. Old enough, too, to drink in the wonderful hero-tales
+of one Christopher Columbus of Genoa, whose fame was running through
+the Whispering Gallery of Europe, while he himself lay dying at
+Valladolid--ill, heartbroken, poor, disgraced,--yet proudly confident
+that he had demonstrated, past all denial, the truth of his own
+conviction, and touched the shores of Cathay, sailing westward from
+Spain. Da Gama, Vespucci, Balboa, Magellan,--theirs were indeed names
+and deeds to set the heart of youth leaping, between its cradle and its
+twenty-fifth year.
+
+Holbein was twelve when Augsburg heard that England had a young king,
+whom it crowned as Henry VIII. He was setting out from his home, such as
+it was, to fight his own boyish battle of Life, when the news spread of
+Flodden's Field. None of these things would let such an one as he was
+rest content to apprehend them as a yokel. From either the honest dominie
+of the Signboard or some other, we may be sure he sought the means to
+read and digest them for himself. And if he learnt some smattering of
+the geography of the earth and the heavens after the crude notions of
+an older day, he could have done no other, at that time, in the most
+enlightened Universities. Ptolemy's _Geographia_ was still the text-book,
+and the so-called "Ptolemaic Theory" still the astronomical creed of
+scholars. Copernicus was, indeed, a man of forty when Holbein was
+painting this Signboard in 1516. But Copernicus was still interluding
+the active duties of Frauenburg's highly successful governor,
+tax-collector, judge, and vicar-general,--to say nothing of his
+brilliant essays on finance,--with those studies in his watch-tower
+which were to revolutionise the astronomical conceptions of twenty
+centuries and wheel the Earth around the Sun instead of the Sun around
+the Earth. But his system was not actually published until its author
+was on his death-bed, in the year of Holbein's own death. So that these
+stupendous new ideas were only the unpublished rumours and discussions
+of circles like that of Froben and Erasmus, when Holbein first entered
+it.
+
+But it is no insignificant sidelight on the history of this circle and
+this period to recall that the subversive theories of Copernicus,--far
+as even he was from anticipating how a Kepler and a Newton should one
+day shatter the "Crystalline Spheres," and relegate to the dustheap of
+antiquity the "Epicycles," to which he still clung,--had their only
+generous hearing from influential churchmen of Rome. Luther recoiled
+from them as the blasphemies of "an arrogant fool"; and even Melanchthon
+urged that they should be "suppressed by the secular arm." Nor let it be
+forgotten that these matters were never a far cry from those Basel
+printing-presses where the greatest master-printers were themselves
+thorough and eager scholars; "Men of Letters," in the noblest sense of
+the word. And the discussion of all these high concerns of history and
+letters was as much a part of the daily life surging around their
+printing-presses as the roar of the Rhine was in the air of Basel.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 4
+  JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 5
+  DOROTHEA MEYER (_née_ KANNEGIESSER)
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+As has been said, the sister of that Hans Bär for whom Holbein painted
+the "St. Nobody" table had been the first wife, Magdalena Bär--a widow
+with one daughter, when she married him--of Jacob Meyer,[2] "of the
+Hare" (_zum Hasen_). Magdalena died in 1511, and about 1512 Meyer zum
+Hasen married Dorothea Kannegiesser. And now in 1516, a memorable year
+to Holbein on account of this influential patron, the young stranger was
+commissioned to paint the portraits of Meyer (Plate 4) and his second
+wife, Dorothea (Plate 5). These oil paintings, and the drawings for
+them, are now in the Basel Museum. And no one can examine them,
+remembering that the painter was but nineteen, without echoing the
+exclamation of a brilliant French writer: "Holbein ira beaucoup plus
+loin dans son art, mais déjà il est superbe." These warm translucent
+browns are instinct with life and beauty.
+
+Against the rich Renaissance architecture and the blue of the sky-vista
+the massive head of Meyer and the blonde one of his young wife,--the
+latter so expressive of half-proud, half-shy consciousness,--stand out
+in wonderful vigour. From the scarlet cap on his thickly curling
+brown hair to the piece of money between his thumb and finger, the
+Burgomaster's picture is a virile and masterly portrait. And just as
+forcefully is the charm of his pretty wife,--with all her bravery
+of scarlet frock, gold embroidery, head-dress and chains,--her own
+individual charm. They are both as much themselves in this fine
+architectural setting as in their own good house "of the Hare" which
+adjoined the rising glories of the new Renaissance "Council Hall"
+(_Rathaus_) in which Meyer was to preside so often.
+
+In 1516 he had just been elected Mayor for the first time; but after
+this he had many consecutive re-elections in the alternate years which
+permitted this. For no burgomaster could hold office for two years in
+actual succession. Previous to being Mayor he had been an eminent
+personage as master of the guilds. And both before and after his
+mayoralty he was a distinguished soldier,--rising from ensign to captain
+in the Basel contingent which served at different times among the
+Auxiliaries of France and of the Pope.
+
+But what made this election of 1516 a civic epoch was that Meyer zum
+Hasen (there were many unrelated Meyers in Basel, and two among
+Holbein's patrons, who must be carefully distinguished according to the
+name of the house each occupied) was the first Burgomaster ever elected
+in this city from below the knightly rank. While the piece of money in his
+hand, far from fulfilling the absurd purpose sometimes suggested,--that
+of showing his claim to wealth!--marks another civic event of this year.
+For it was on the 10th of January, 1516, that the Emperor Maximilian had
+just issued the Charter which gave to Basel the right to mint her own
+gold coins. In the painting the pose of Meyer's right hand has been
+altered, and the position which Holbein originally gave it can still be
+made out. The monogram and date are on the background.
+
+In accordance with his invariable rule for portraits in oils, Holbein
+first made a careful drawing of each head on the same scale as the
+finished picture, carrying it out with great freedom but at the same
+time with astonishing care and finish. So that his studies for portraits
+are themselves works of art, sometimes invested with even more spirit
+than the oil painting, which was never made direct from the living
+model,--at any rate, until ready for the finishing touches. Drawn with
+a point which could give a line as bold or as almost impalpable as he
+wished, and modelled to the very texture of the surfaces, the carnations
+are so sufficiently indicated or rendered with red chalk as to serve
+every purpose. Sometimes notes are also added. Thus in the upper corner
+of the drawing for Meyer's head the artist has noted "eyebrows lighter
+than the hair" in his microscopic yet firm writing.
+
+With these fine portraits, painted as if united by the same architectural
+background, Holbein began a friendship of many years. After some four
+centuries it is not possible to produce written records of such ties
+except in occasional corroborative details. But neither is it possible
+to mistake the painted records of repeated commissions. While as the
+lifelong leader of the Catholic party in Basel, it was natural that
+Meyer zum Hasen should have much in common with a painter who all his
+life held firmly to his friendships with the most conspicuous champions
+of that party.
+
+Johann Froben was another of these; and from 1515 until Froben's death
+eleven years later Holbein had more and more to do for this printer.
+Occasionally, too, he drew for other Basel printers; but not often. The
+eighty-two sketches on the margins of that priceless copy of the _Praise
+of Folly_, which Basel preserves in her Museum, had been suited to their
+company. Admirable, though unequal, as are their merits, they _are_
+sketches, whose chief beauty is their happy spontaneity. Such things are
+among the trifles of art, and are not to be put into the scales at all
+with the finished perfection of his serious designs for wood engraving.
+These were drawn on the block; and even these cannot properly represent
+the drawing itself except when cut by some such master hand as his own.
+Since in preparing the design for printing the background is cut away,
+leaving the composition itself in lines of relief,--it follows that
+everything, so far as the reproduction is concerned, must depend upon
+the cleanness and delicacy of the actual cutting. A clouded eye, a
+fumbling touch, and the most ethereal idea becomes its travesty--the
+purest line debased. Hence the necessity for taking the knife into
+consideration in judging such work.
+
+This is not the place for any fraction of that hot debate which Kugler
+ironically styles "the great question of the sixteenth century"; the
+debate as to whether Holbein himself did or did not cut any of his own
+blocks. Assuredly he could do so. The exquisite adjustment of every
+line to its final purpose, the masterly understanding of the proper
+limitations and field of every effect, all prove that he had an unerring
+knowledge of the craft no less than of the art of Illustration. But in
+his day that craft, like every other, had its own guild; and it would
+not have been likely to tolerate any intrusion on its rights.
+
+We know, too, that those woodcuts which most attest Holbein's genius
+were engraved by that mysterious "Hans Lützelburger, form-cutter, called
+Franck" (_Hans Lützelburger, Formschnider, genannt Franck_), who still
+remains, after all the researches of enthusiastic admirers, a hand and a
+name, and beyond this--nothing. But it is when Holbein's designs are
+engraved with Lützelburger's astonishingly beautiful cutting that we can
+appreciate how wonderful was the design itself. To compare these fairy
+pictures with the painter's large cartoons is to get some conception of
+the arc his powers described. It seems incredible that the same hand
+could hang an equal majesty on the wall of a tiny shell and on that of a
+king's palace, and with equal justness of eye. Yet it is done. He will
+ride a donkey or an elephant with the like mastery; but you will never
+find Holbein saddling the donkey with a howdah.
+
+It is not always possible to subscribe to Ruskin's flowing judgments;
+but I gratefully borrow the one with which he sums up thus, in a lecture
+on wood-engraving: Holbein does not give many gradations of light, the
+speaker says, "but not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he
+chooses. He is twenty times a stronger master of it than Rembrandt; but
+therefore he knows exactly when and how to use it, and that wood-engraving
+is not the proper means for it. The quantity of it which is needful for
+his story he will give, and that with an unrivalled subtlety."
+
+And the student of Holbein's art can but feel that Ruskin has here
+touched upon a characteristic of the painter's peculiar power in every
+phase of it;--the power to be Cæsar within himself; to say to his hand,
+"thus far," to say to his fancy, "no farther." Those who have come to
+know Holbein something more than superficially, or as a mere maker of
+portraits, will smile at the dictum of some very recent "authority"
+which pronounces him wanting in imagination; or at the hasty conclusion
+that what he _would_ not, that he could not.
+
+He has given us, for instance, no animal paintings or landscapes pure
+and simple, or, at least, none such have come down to us. And yet what
+gems of landscape he has touched into his backgrounds here and there!
+And what drawings of animal life he made! There are two, for instance,
+in the Basel Museum which could not be surpassed; studies in silver-point
+and water-colours of lambs and a bat outstretched. No reproduction could
+give the exquisite texture of the bat's wings, the wandering red veins,
+the almost diaphanous membrane, the furry body,--a miracle of patience
+and softness. It is all purest Nature. Like Topsy one can but "'spec' it
+growed" rather than was created.
+
+And they are not only beautiful in themselves but full of living
+meanings. Many an hour the young painter enjoyed while he made such
+studies as his lambs on the pleasant slopes about Basel; the mountains
+scalloping the horizon, and all the sweet fresh winds vocal with
+tinkling bells or the chant of the deep-throated Rhine. Many of "the
+long, long thoughts" of youth,--those thoughts that ring like happy
+bells or sweep like rushing rivers, kept him company as he laid these
+delicate strokes and washes that seem to exhale the very breath of
+morning across four hundred years.
+
+In the next year after painting the portraits of Meyer and his wife
+there is a sudden break in the painter's story which has always puzzled
+his biographers. After such a brilliant start in Basel it is perplexing
+to find the young man, instead of proceeding to join the Painters' Guild
+and take the necessary citizenship, suddenly turn his back on all these
+encouragements and leave the town for a long absence and remote journeys.
+As will be seen when we come to consider the story of Holbein's married
+life, however, I have a theory that the influence which sent him south
+in such an unexpected fashion was apart from professional affairs.
+
+Whether this is a good shot or no, certain it is that he did now go far
+south,--as distances were in those days; and that, paying his way as he
+went by his brush, he went first to Lucerne, where the evidence goes to
+show that he apparently thought of settling instead of at Basel,--and
+then on beyond it. And it seems highly probable that at this time he
+pushed on over the Alps and made his way into Italy,--already the Mecca
+of every artist.
+
+Here he could not now, in 1517, have hoped to see either Bramante or
+Leonardo da Vinci in person. The former had died at Rome two years
+before; but, without getting even as far as Pavia, Milan could show some
+splendid monuments to his sojourn within her walls; characteristic
+examples of that architecture of the closing fifteenth century which
+Holbein loved as Bramante himself. Leonardo was now in France; but in
+the refectory of the Santa Maria Monastery was his immortal, though,
+alas! not imperishable, masterpiece--"The Last Supper." Time had not
+yet taught Leonardo, much less Holbein, the fleeting nature of mural
+oil-painting; the only so-called "fresco" painting which the latter ever
+attempted, so far as is known. But the great Supper was still glowing in
+all the splendour of its original painting, and would impress itself
+indelibly on an eye such as Holbein's. In more than one cathedral, too,
+as he wandered in such a holiday, he would have noted how Mantegna had
+made its architecture the background for his own individual genius.
+
+At any rate each of these, somehow and somewhere, set its own seal upon
+the reverent heart of Holbein at about this time. Whether through their
+original works or copies of them,--already familiar to Augsburg as
+well as Lucerne,--the lad sat humbly at the feet of both Leonardo and
+Mantegna. By the first, beside many a loftier lesson, he was confirmed
+and strengthened in his native respect for accurate studies of the living
+world around him. From the second he learned a still deeper scorn of
+"pretty" art. Yet though he sat at their feet, it was as no servile
+disciple. He would fain be taught by them; fain follow them in all
+humility and frankness. But it was in order to expand his own powers,
+not to surrender them; to speak his own thoughts the better, not theirs,
+nor another's.
+
+And, in any event, on such a journey Lucerne must come first. And that
+he thought of making some long stay here when he returned is shown
+by his having joined in this year 1517, the Guild of St. Luke, the
+Painters' Guild of Lucerne, then but newly organised. "Master Hans
+Holbein has given one Gulden," reads the old entry. Two other items of
+this visit give us glimpses of its flesh-and-blood realities, perhaps of
+its unrest. The first, that he also joined a local company of Archers,
+the Militia of his day, seems to bring his living footfall very close.
+A resonant, manly, wholesome footfall it is, too! This broad-shouldered
+young fellow is as ready to draw a good stout bow among mountain-marksmen
+as a lamb among its daffodils. The second item makes it still clearer
+that he had other elements as well as the pastoral in his blood. On the
+10th of December he got himself fined for his share in a street-scrimmage,
+where he would seem to have decidedly preferred the livelier to the
+"better part" of valour.
+
+And then he would appear to have shaken the dust, or more likely the
+snows, of Lucerne off his feet for the road to Italy, if not for Italy
+itself. Whatever his objective, he got, at any rate, well on toward the
+Pass of the St. Gothard. The scanty clues of such works as have remained
+on record prove that he reached Altdorf. But there the actual trail is
+altogether lost. If he spent the entire interval brush in hand, or
+if--as I believe--he treated himself to a bit of a holiday beyond the
+Alps, can be but a guess in the dark.
+
+By this time the New Year of 1518, then falling in March, could not have
+been far off, before or behind him. And in 1518 Holbein executed the
+commission which must have been the envy of every local artist. Jacob
+von Hertenstein, Burgomaster of Lucerne, had now got his fine new house
+ready for decoration; and it was to Holbein that he gave the splendid
+commission to decorate it to his fancy,--the interior as well as the
+façade.
+
+And a renowned triumph the painter made of it; a triumph such as,
+perhaps, no other artist north of Italy could then have equalled. It is
+idle now to dwell upon the religious subjects of one room, the genre
+paintings in another, the battle scenes of a third, and so on through
+those five famous rooms which were still in existence and fair
+preservation so late as 1824, but are now for ever lost; to say nothing
+of the painted Renaissance architecture and the historic legends which
+looked like solid realities when the façade was studied. But "Mizraim is
+become merchandise"; and all that is now left of what should have been a
+treasured and priceless heirloom is but a monument to the shame of that
+citizen, a banker, who could condemn such a thing to destruction as
+indifferently as if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame of the
+municipality which, at any cost, did not prevent it. Some hasty
+sketches--due to individual enterprise and a sense of the dignity of
+Holbein's fame--an original drawing for one of the façade-paintings,
+and a few fragments of the interior paintings, which still show
+themselves, by chance, in the banker's _stable wall_--these are all that
+remain to speak of what must have been the enthusiastic labour of the
+greater part of Holbein's twenty-first year!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS
+
+1519-1526
+
+  _Holbein Basiliensis_--Enters the Painters' Guild--Bonifacius Amerbach
+  and his portrait--The Last Supper and its Judas--The so-called
+  "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon--Genius for design and symbolism in
+  architecture--Versatility, humour, fighting scenes--Holbein becomes a
+  citizen and marries--Basel in 1519--Froben's circle--Tremendous events
+  and issues of the time--Holbein's religious works--The Nativity and
+  Adoration at Freiburg--Hans Oberriedt--The Basel Passion in eight
+  panels--Passion Drawings--Christ in the tomb--Christ and Mary Magdalen
+  at the door of the sepulchre--Rathaus wall-paintings--Birth of Holbein's
+  eldest child--The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and rescue--Holbein's
+  wife and her portraits--Suggested solutions of some biographical
+  enigmas--Title pages--Portraits of Erasmus--Journey to France, probably
+  to Lyons and Avignon--Publishers and pictures of the so-called "Dance
+  of Death"--Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and Laïs Corinthiaca--Triumph of
+  the Protestant party--Holbein decides to leave Basel for a time--The
+  Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden, and its portraits.
+
+
+And now it is 1519, and with it the true Hour of Holbein's destiny is
+striking. Take away the coming seven years and you will still have what
+Holbein is too often thought to be only--a great portrait-painter. No
+greater ever etched the soul of a man on his mask. His previous and his
+after achievements would still amply justify the honour of centuries.
+But add these seven years, from 1519 to 1526, and dull indeed must be
+the intelligence that cannot recognise the great Master, without
+qualification and in the light of any thoughtful comparison with the
+very greatest.
+
+His Basel career may be said to begin here; his earlier work furnishing
+the Prologue. On the 25th September, 1519, when he was about
+two-and-twenty, he joined the Basel Guild of Painters; that same "Guild
+of Heaven" (_Zunft zum Himmel_) which his brother Ambrose had joined two
+years earlier and from which he seems to have passed to the veritable
+guild of Heaven at about this latter date.
+
+And hardly is the ink dry upon the record of his membership than Holbein
+painted one of the most beautiful of his portraits--that of Bonifacius
+Amerbach (Plate 6). He stands beside a tree on which is hung an
+inscription. Behind him is Holbein's favourite early background,--the
+blue of the sky, here broken by the warm brown and green of the branch,
+and the faint glimpse of far-away mountains. Under his soft cap, with
+a cross for badge, his intensely gleaming blue eyes look out beneath
+grave brows. The lips are softly yet firmly set; the mouth framed by the
+sunny beard which repeats the red-brown of his hair. The black scholar's
+gown, with its trimming of black fur, discloses his rich damask doublet
+and white collar.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 6
+  BONIFACIUS AMERBACH
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Well may the inscription assert--above the signature, the name of the
+sitter and the date 14th October, 1519--
+
+  _"Though but a painted face I am not far removed from Life; but rather,
+   By truthful lines, the noble image of my Possessor.
+   As he accomplishes eight times three years, so faithfully in me also
+   Is Nature's work proclaimed by the work of Art."_
+
+For here in truth is a work of Nature which is no less a work of Art.
+
+This is the Amerbach who began and inspired his son Basilius (so named
+after Bonifacius's brother) to complete the Holbein Collection, which
+the Basel Museum bought long afterwards. And such was the love of
+both that they included, perhaps deliberately, much that has small
+probability of claim to be Holbein's work. They would reject nothing
+attributed to him; thinking a bushel of chaff well worth housing if it
+might yield one genuine grain. And in view of these expressive facts, it
+is hardly necessary to argue in behalf of the tradition that more than a
+conventional friendship bound the two young men together,--printer's son
+and painter's son, musician-scholar and scholar-painter, Churchman and
+Churchman; the one twenty-four, the other twenty-two.
+
+Bonifacius was the youngest of Johann Amerbach's three gifted sons. As
+all the world knows, Johann had been also a scholar as well as a printer,
+and great in both capacities. The most eminent scholars of his day
+gravitated as naturally to this noble personality as they afterwards did
+to that of his protégé and successor, Johann Froben. He had educated his
+sons, too, to worthily continue his life-work and maintain his devout
+principles. Bonifacius was the darling of more than one heart not given
+to softness. He had been more the friend than the pupil of Ulrich Zasius
+at the University of Freiburg, before he went to Avignon to complete his
+legal studies under Alciat. Five years after this portrait was painted
+he became Professor of Law in the Basel University. "I am ready to die,"
+writes Erasmus of him, "when I shall have seen any young man purer or
+kinder or more sincere than this one."
+
+Very possibly it was for Bonifacius himself that Holbein painted his own
+portrait about this time (Plate 1, frontispiece). It is a worthy mate,
+at all events. In the Amerbach Catalogue it was simply called "Holbein's
+counterfeit, in dry colour" (_ein conterfehung Holbein's mit trocken
+farben_); the frame, too, was catalogued, though the painting was kept
+in a cabinet separately when the Basel Museum acquired it with the
+Collection.
+
+The vigour and finish of this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or
+body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in
+black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or
+given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has
+the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad,
+soft, red hat, though so fine a bit of colour, is clearly worn as part
+of a simple everyday habit. There is no suggestion of studying for
+effect, or even caring at all about it. He wears his hat pulled soberly
+down over his brown hair exactly as when he wore it thus about the
+business of the day. The plastic modelling of the puckered brow and
+the mobile mouth is beautifully indicated. The bluish tone left by the
+razor is just hinted. In his drab coat with its black velvet bands, with
+his shirt, on which the high lights have been applied, slightly open at
+the throat, Holbein himself seems to stand before one as in life.
+
+Among the "early works" of the Amerbach Catalogue there is one which
+shows strong traces of Leonardo's and even more of Mantegna's influence
+on him at this time. It is a Last Supper, painted in oils on wood. But
+it was so mutilated in the iconoclastic fury of 1529, and has been so
+cobbled, re-broken, re-set, and "restored" generally, that it can no
+longer be called Holbein's work without many reservations. There is also
+another Last Supper, one of a coarsely painted set on canvas, which
+is attributed to him on much more doubtful grounds, to judge by the
+composition and colouring. Myself I should be inclined to see the
+inferior hand of Ambrose, Hans the elder, or perhaps even Sigmund
+Holbein in these, if they are genuine Holbein works at all.
+
+But there are still to be seen the traces of his own hand and mind in
+the Last Supper in oils on wood. St. John's head must originally have
+been very beautiful; very manly, too,--dark with sudden anguish and
+recoil. There is a separate head of St. John, in oils, in the same
+collection, which shows how fixed was this noble originality of type in
+Holbein's conception of "the beloved apostle." But it is in Judas that
+the patient student will find, perhaps, most of Holbein's peculiar cast
+of thought, when once the initial repulsion is overcome.
+
+By a very natural arrangement he is brought into the immediate foreground
+and sits there, already isolated, already damned, in such a torment
+of body and soul as haunts the spectator who has had the courage to
+reconsider the dictum of authorities who call him "a Jew of frightful
+vulgarity." Frightful he may be; but it is a strange judgment which can
+find him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no longer in a condition
+to justify reproduction; but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated,
+shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture to assert, find food for
+thought in it even under all the injuries the work has undergone.
+
+It is a demon-driven soul if ever there was one. He is in the very act
+of springing to his feet and rushing away anywhere, anywhere out of this
+Presence;--no more concerned about his money-bag than about the food he
+loathes. Thirty pieces of silver! If the priests have lied, if this is
+in very truth the Messiah his heart still half believes Him, will thirty
+pieces of silver buy his soul from the Avenger? Is there time still to
+escape? What if he break the promise given when he was over-persuaded in
+the market-place the other day? But did not the High Priest himself
+declare that this is Beelzebub in person,--this fair, false, dear,--oh!
+still too dear Illusion? Up! Let him be gone out of this!--from the
+sound of that Voice, from the sight of that Face, get the thing over and
+done, done--done one way or another! If God's work, as the priests
+swear, well and good. He will have earned the pity of God Himself. If
+the devil's, as his heart whispers, well, too! Let him take his price
+and buy himself a rope long enough to house his soul in any Hell, rather
+than sit on in this one! It is all painted, or was once; all written on
+that sunken cheek, that matted hair and clammy brow; in that cavernous
+socket, that eye of lurid despair; on the whole anatomy of a lost soul.
+The hand that did it was very young, very immature; but it had the youth
+and the immaturity of a Master.
+
+There is another and a very different work, an oil painting, in the
+Royal Collection at Lisbon, signed IOANNES HOLBEIN FECIT 1519, which,
+if by the younger Hans, would almost put the question as to whether
+the painter knew the landscapes of Italy, beyond doubt; so southern is
+the type of its background. The work, however, has been rejected by
+Woltmann, on the strength of an old photograph not quite perfect. He
+held the signature to be spurious, and attributed the picture to the
+school of Gerard David. And he gave to the work the name by which it is
+now generally styled in English works: "The Fountain of Life" (_Der
+Brunnen des Lebens_[3]). He did so from the inscription within the rim
+of the well immediately in the foreground; but a literal translation of
+this inscription, PVTEVS AQVARVM VIVENCIVM, is, I think, to be
+preferred: _The Well of Living Waters_.
+
+The majority of those competent to form a judgment in such matters are
+inclined to attribute the work to Hans Holbein the Elder, who did not
+die until some years later, and who made use of a very similar form of
+signature. And for myself I find it hard to see how anyone familiar
+with Hans the Younger could accept it as his work at any period of
+his career; least of all at the date given in the signature. So that
+equally whether Woltmann is right in believing the signature itself
+spurious, or those are right who hold it to be the genuine signature of
+Hans the Elder,--a more detailed description of the composition does not
+fall within the scope of this little volume. But the whole matter is
+most clearly set forth, and a very beautiful reproduction in colours
+given of the painting itself, in Herr Seeman's article upon it, which
+will be found in the appended List of References.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Considerably before 1519, as has been said, Holbein had begun to
+develop his special genius for Design, and to apply it to glass or
+window-paintings, as well as to metal and wood-engravings. The beautiful
+drawings, whether washed, or etched with the point, in chalks or Indian
+ink, of which examples may be seen in almost every great collection,
+private as well as public, that year after year were created by that
+fertile brain and ever more masterly hand, constitute an Art in
+themselves. And since so many (perhaps the greater number as well as the
+greater in subject) of his paintings have perished, it is chiefly in his
+drawings that the progression of his powers can be followed, or the
+plane and scope of his imagination recognised at all. There is seldom
+a date on them; but they will be found to date themselves pretty
+accurately by certain features. In his earliest, for instance, that
+defect of which mention has been made,--the short thick figures due
+to the energy of his rebound from Gothic attenuation is a grave fault.
+There is a Virgin and Child among his washed drawings for glass-paintings
+in the Basel Museum, for example, which, when you cut it off at the
+knees, is one of the most charming pictures of Mother and Child to be
+found in any painter's treatment of this subject. And behind them is a
+gem of landscape. Yet the whole, as it stands, is utterly marred by the
+Virgin's dwarfed limbs. But although Holbein never entirely overcame
+this fault, he did very greatly do so, as the years passed.
+
+His architectural settings, too, tended to greater simplicity in his
+later years. Yet this is not a safe guide. Some early designs have
+simple forms; some comparatively late ones, a very ornate architecture.
+For the truth is that these architectural backgrounds and settings
+remained, so long as his fancy had any free field for disporting itself,
+an integral part of his conception. But only as inseparable from the
+Symbolism, the under-tow, of his imagination. To my thinking, at any
+rate, they make a gravid mistake who look for "realism" in these things.
+
+His stately pillars and arches, his fluid forms of ornament, are not his
+idea of the actual surroundings of the characters he portrays, any more
+than they are your idea, or mine, of those surroundings. Is it to be
+supposed that he thought the dwellings of our Lord were palaces? Or
+that he could not paint a stable? Those who maintain that Holbein was a
+Realist in the modern sense of the word must reconcile as best they can
+the theory with the facts. But when we see the stage set with every
+stately circumstance,--the Babe amid the fading splendours of earthly
+palaces, our Lord mocked by matter as well as man,--I dare to think that
+we shall do well to cease from insisting on an adobe wall, and to study
+those "incongruous" circumstances to which the will and not the poverty
+of Holbein consents. We shall, at least, no longer be dull to "the tears
+of things" as he saw them.
+
+But it would be no less a mistake to think of Holbein as one without a
+sense of laughter as well. His drawings of open-mouthed peasants
+gossiping in a summer's nooning, or dancing in some uncouth frolic,--and
+still more his romping children, dancing children, and the chase of the
+fox running off with the goose,--all of these are full of boyish fun.
+Would that they could be given here without usurping the place of
+more important works! But that is impossible. And so, too, with the
+costume-figures of Basel, among which is the charming back view of a
+citizen's wife, with all the women bent far backward in the odd carriage
+that was then "the latest fashion" among them.
+
+He was particularly happy, also, in his drawings of the _Landsknechte_,
+those famous Mercenaries of "Blut und Eisen"; always ready to drink a
+good glass, and a-many; to love a good lass after the same liberal
+fashion; to troll a good song or fight a good fight; and all with equal
+zest. He had not mixed with these masterful gentry for nothing; nor they
+with him to wholly die. There are a number of drawings where they are
+engaged in combat, too, which show that Holbein's heart leapt to the
+music of sword and spear as blithely as does Scott's or Dumas's--as
+blithely as did the hearts of the _Reisläufer_ themselves. Look at
+the mad rush, the hand-to-hand grapple, in a drawing of the Basel
+Collection, for instance (Plate 7). The blood-lust, the heroism, the
+savagery, the thrust, the oath, the dust-choked prayer, the forgotten
+breathing clay under the bloodstained foot; the very clash and din of
+the fray;--all is told with the brush. And yet not one unnecessary
+detail squandered. It is as if one watched it from some palpitating
+refuge, just near enough to see the forefront figures distinctly and
+to make out the interlocked hubbub and fury where the ranks have been
+broken through. It would be a great day for Art could we but chance
+upon some lost painting for which such a study had served its completed
+purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 3rd of July, 1520, Holbein fulfilled what was then the
+requirement of almost every guild, and purchased his citizenship; a
+citizenship to reflect unfading honour on Basel, and of which she has
+ever been justly proud. And somewhere about the same time he married
+Elsbeth Schmidt, a tanner's widow, who had one child, Franz.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 7
+  FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE
+ _Washed Drawing. Basel Museum_
+
+For the past four or five years Basel had been steadily becoming more
+and more democratic. And at a period when its _élite_ were scholars and
+printers and civic officials of every origin,--when the illegitimate son
+of a Rotterdam doctor was the true prince, and Beatus Rhenanus, the
+grandson of a butcher, was his worthy second in the reverence of
+Basel,--the widow and son of a reputable tanner and a rising young
+artist, who had already the suffrages of the most influential citizens,
+would find no doors closed to them on the score of social disabilities.
+The friendship of such men as Erasmus, Froben, Bonifacius Amerbach,
+and the Mayor,--all conspicuous stars in the Church party,--would
+have ennobled a man of less genius than Holbein in the eyes of his
+fellow-citizens; and rightly. But as to the exact locality in which
+Holbein set up his first married roof-tree--that Bethel of sacred
+or saddest dreams--no documentary evidence has yet come to light.
+Circumstantial evidence, however, amounts to a strong probability in
+favour of the _Rheinhalde_ of Great-Basel.
+
+If there was an emblem peculiarly abhorrent to the Basilisk (the Device
+of Basel) it was the Crescent-and-star. But nothing could better serve
+to recall the rough outline of Basel in Holbein's day than this very
+emblem. As the Rhine suddenly swerves from its first wild rush westward
+and races away, northerly, to the German Ocean, it shapes the hollow of
+the crescent in which Little-Basel (_Klein-Basel_) nestled as the star;
+and, appropriately enough, since it was here that the Catholic's Star of
+Faith rallied when overcome across the river, where curved the crescent
+of Great-Basel (_Gross-Basel_). And the relative proportions of the two
+would be fairly enough represented by the symbols respectively used.
+
+Great-Basel's northern face was protected by the Rhine, while the stout
+city wall secured its convex curve. Of this wall the eastern horn was
+St. Alban's Gate; its north-west was St. John's Gate (_St. Johann
+Thor_); beside which stood the decaying Commandery of the Knights of
+Malta, which had contributed a large sum toward the expanded wall, in
+order to be included within it. And just as these spots still mark the
+horns of the old crescent, the _Spalen Thor_ shows where it had its
+greatest depth, midway between the other two.
+
+A straight line running due north-east from this Spalen-Thor would cross
+the big square of the Fish-market (_Fischmarktplatz_) pretty nearly as
+the uncovered stream of the Birsig, or "Little Birs," did before the
+quaint little bridge, which then united the two halves of the Fischmarkt,
+was absorbed in the paving over of stream and square before Holbein's
+day. This same straight line would of itself draw the "Old Bridge"
+(_Alte Brücke_) with approximate exactness, the even then ancient bridge
+which centred the star of Klein-Basel to its crescent. And in the
+Historical Museum, where the Barefooted Friars worshipped then, we may
+still see the grotesque piece of clockwork, the wooden "Stammering King"
+(_Lällenkönig_), that for centuries used hourly to roll great eyes and
+stick out its tongue a foot long across the river from the Gross-Basel
+end of the bridge. It is often said that this monster was set up as a
+public token of the hatred which the triumphant Protestantism of the
+south bank felt for the stubborn Catholicism of Klein-Basel. But the
+thing was a famous ancient joke before party feeling turned it into a
+gibe.
+
+Bonifacius Amerbach's home, the "Emperor's Seat" (_Kaiserstuhl_, now 23,
+Rheingasse), was in Klein-Basel. Johann Amerbach had bought it, near to
+his beloved friends, the Carthusians. In 1520 the good old man had slept
+for six years in the cloisters of the monastery; where to-day the
+children of the Orphan Asylum play above his grave.
+
+But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life would lead him to prefer
+Basel proper, and to choose the quarter in which he bought a home eight
+years later. This was then the western quarter of Gross-Basel, along the
+river-face of which ran the high southern and western bank of the Rhine,
+the _Rheinhalde_, now _St. Johann Vorstadt_. About where the present
+_Blumenrain_ ends stood the arch, or _Schwibbogen_. Further on still
+stood the "Gate of the Cross" (_Kreuzthor_), by the House of the Brothers
+of St. Anthony, the ancient _Klösterli_ of Basel. Before the Commandery
+of St. John got themselves included within the city wall the Kreuzthor
+was its western gate. The whole district of _ze Crüze_, so called
+because its boundaries were crosses before towers replaced them, has
+however become absorbed in the St. Johann Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor
+has disappeared altogether. The quarter was a favourite one with members
+of the Fishers' Guild and with decent folk of small mean
+s.
+
+As early as 1517 the Fishers' Company had extended itself so greatly as
+to become a notable institution of the Vorstadt, including many members
+from Klein-Basel also; while its military record was a proud one. But
+it was in this year, while Holbein was making his visit to Lucerne
+and beyond, that this guild took the more truly descriptive name
+which it bears to this day, that of the "Vorstadt Association"
+(_Vorstadtgesellschaft_). And to this association, which in after years
+gave him a famous banquet, Holbein, we know, belonged later on, if not
+now.
+
+Every day would take him to the Fischmarkt,--the great square humming
+with activity, crowded with inns, public-houses, shops, booths,
+dwelling-houses,--the trade mart of every nationality. The Cornmarkt
+near by, now the _Marktplatz_, with its almost finished Rathaus, was
+the centre of official civic life. When the great bell clanged on the
+Rathaus, and its flag was flung out, not only every professional
+soldier, but every guild and every male above fourteen, knew his
+appointed place at the wall, and took it. But every day, and all day,
+the Fischmarkt flung out its peaceful standards, or rallied men to
+this side or to that with the tocsin of its presses,--the old Amerbach
+printing-house "of the Settle" (_zum Sessel_), which was Johann Froben's
+home and printing-house in 1520.
+
+Morning after morning, and year upon year, Holbein turned his back upon
+St. Johannthor, and walked eastward along the Rheinhalde;--the river
+racing toward him on his left hand, the University rising in front of
+him beyond the bridge, and the delicate Cathedral towers beyond the
+University. For the Basel Minster was still the Cathedral of the great
+See of Basel. Passing the wall of the Dominican Cemetery, on which was
+painted the ancient Dance of Death with which his own after-creations
+were so often to be confused, Holbein must many a time have studied the
+famous old copy. For though the Dominican painting was then nearly a
+century old, it was a copy of a still older original in the Klein-Basel
+nunnery of _Klingenthal_, a community under Dominican direction.
+
+But he would pass another spot--one day to be of far more living
+importance to him. In 1520 it was a corn warehouse, known by the name of
+_ze Crüz_, which belonged to Adam Petri, the printer, who had inherited
+it from his uncle, the famous printer Johann Petri, by whose ingenious
+improvements the art of printing was so greatly facilitated. Two years
+later, in 1522, Froben bought this granary, ze Crüz, and converted it
+into the book-magazine which was known all over Europe as "Froben's
+Book-house." And in this latter year Adam Petri, greatly to Luther's
+disgust, pirated Luther's translation of the New Testament, which had
+appeared three months before.
+
+Holbein drew a superb title-page, ante-dated 1523, for this "enterprise"
+of Petri--the New Testament "now right faithfully rendered into
+German,"--with the symbols of the Evangelists at the four corners, the
+arms of Basel at the top, the device of the printer at the foot, and the
+noble figures of St. Paul and St. Peter on either side; figures which
+will bear comparison with Dürer's "Four Temperaments" of a later date.
+Later still he designed another striking title-page for Thomas Wolff's
+translation; and his beautiful title-pages and ornaments for Froben,
+with whom his connection was not a temporary matter such as these
+others, would need a volume to themselves.
+
+Holbein's only rival, if he could be called such, in work of this sort
+was the talented goldsmith, Urs Graf, who, as an exceedingly loose fish,
+lived most appropriately in the Fischmarkt in his own house near the old
+Birsig Bridge, when he was not in the lock-up for one or another of his
+constant brawls and scandals. But to compare the best work of both
+is to recognise a difference in kind as well as degree: the essential
+difference between even negligent genius and the most elaborate talent.
+High talent Urs Graf had unquestionably; though stamped,--I think,--with
+the lawless caprices of his own character. Holbein's every design has
+not only what Urs Graf lacked--that ordered imagination which is
+Style--but over and above all, the subtle expression of Power.
+
+Many a time, too, just where he would turn away from the Rhine for the
+business centre of Gross-Basel, the artist would make some little pause
+at the old "Flower" Inn (_zur Blume_), which gave its name to the
+Blumenplatz, and is still commemorated in the greatly extended Blumenrain
+of to-day. All the world now knows the famous hotel of "The Three
+Kings"; and where it reaches nearest to the Old Bridge stood the "Blume"
+of Holbein's time, even then the oldest of the Basel inns. This Blume,
+not to be confused with later inns of the same name, shared with its no
+less famous contemporary,--"The Stork," in the Fischmarkt,--the special
+patronage of the chief printers. Basilius Amerbach, for instance, the
+brother of Holbein's friend Bonifacius, lived at the Blume; and often
+the painter must have turned in for a friendly glass with him and a chat
+about Bonifacius, away at his law studies in Avignon.
+
+As for the Stork, its very rooms were named in remembrance of the envoys
+and merchant traders who flocked to it on all great occasions. There
+was a "Cologne Room," for instance, and a "Venetian Room," among many
+others. The men of Venice, indeed, had a particular affection for it.
+Here Holbein met with all nationalities, and learned much of the great
+centres of other countries. Here came all the Basel magnates and
+printers. And here, a few years later on, came that bizarre personage
+who was for a very brief time Basel's "town physician," the Paracelsus
+Theophrastus Bombastus to whom we owe our word _bombastic_. Holbein
+was on a visit to England during the latter's short tenure of office,
+when the combined scholarship and poverty of Oporinus made him the
+hack of Paracelsus and the victim of many a petty tyranny. At that time
+Oporinus,--the son of that Hans Herbster, painter, whose portrait is
+now attributed to Ambrose Holbein,--was glad to place his remarkable
+knowledge of Greek at Froben's service. He was not yet a printer, as
+later when Holbein drew a clever device for him. And neither he nor the
+painter could know that one day the daughter of Bonifacius Amerbach
+should marry him out of sheer pity for his unhappy old age,--somewhat as
+he himself, when but a lad of twenty, married an aged Xantippe from
+gratitude.
+
+But in 1520, when Holbein was just married, Oporinus was still a
+student and Bonifacius unmarried. Erasmus, too, did not permanently
+take up his home with Froben until the following year, and was now at
+Louvain. Yet what a true university was that little house _zum Sessel_
+(now 3, Todtengässlein, the little lane where the old post-office stood)
+to an intelligence such as Holbein's! And what a circle was that of
+Froben's staff! From Froben himself, above whom Erasmus alone could
+tower in scholarship, down through every member to the youngest, and
+from such men as Gerard Lystrius on the one hand and the literally
+"Beatus" Rhenanus on the other, what things were not to be learned!
+
+And what discussions those were that drew each man to give of his best
+in the common talk! Venice sent news of the "unspeakable" Turk, whom she
+had such good cause to watch and dread. For fifty years his name had
+ceased to blanch the cheek of other nations; but now it was said, and
+said truly, that the dying Selim, "the Grim," had forged a thunderbolt
+which Suleyman II. would not be slow to hurl. No man could know the
+worst or dared predict the end, as to that Yellow Terror of Holbein's
+time. And closer still, to keen eyes, were the threats of the coming
+Peasant Terror. Wurtemberg had battened down the flames, it is true;
+but the deck of Europe was hot under foot with the passions that were
+soon to make the Turks' atrocities seem gentle in comparison.
+
+The death of Maximilian and the election of Charles V. were a year old
+now. But none knew better than the Basel printers how much the League
+of Swabia and the Swiss Confederation had weighed in the close contest
+of claims between those three strangely youthful competitors for the
+Emperor's crown;--Charles, but nineteen; Francis I., one-and-twenty;
+and Henry VIII., not twenty-five. Basel also knew that Charles had only
+bought his triumph by swearing to summon the Diet of Worms. All the
+more, therefore, was she intensely alive to the possible issues of the
+Arabian-Nights-Entertainment which had but just concluded on the dreary
+Calais flats when Holbein became one of Basel's citizens. Erasmus had
+come back full of it. Marco Polo's best wonders made but a dingy show
+beside the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," where in this June the two
+defeated candidates for imperial honours had kissed each other midway
+between the ruined moat of Guisnes and the rased battlements of Arde.
+
+Then, on top of this, came the rumours of the English King's undertaking
+to answer Luther's most formidable attack on Rome. It was in 1520, the
+year after his great disputation with Eck at Leipzig, that Luther
+published his cataclysmic addresses: "To the Christian Nobles of
+Germany" and "On the Babylonian Captivity,"--the latter of which itself
+contains the whole Protestant Reformation in embryo. "Would to God,"
+exclaimed Erasmus of it, "that he had followed my counsel and abstained
+from odious and seditious proceedings!" Bishop Tunstall, then in Worms,
+had also written of it:--"I pray God keep that book out of England!" But
+before the year was out "that book" had reached England, and Henry VIII.
+had sworn to annihilate its arguments and to triumphantly defend the
+dogmas of Rome. The eagerly-awaited "Defence" did not get printed,
+and would remain in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet. But Basel knew,
+through More and Erasmus,--whose canny smile probably discounted its
+critical quality,--pretty much its line of defence. Nor was Froben's
+circle one whit more surprised than its royal author when its immediate
+reward was that formal style and title--_Defender of the Faith_,--to
+which a few years more were to lend so different a significance.
+
+By this latter date Ulrich von Hutten had fled to Basel, only to find
+that his violent "heresies" had completely estranged Erasmus, and closed
+Froben's door, as well as all other Roman Catholic doors, against him
+for ever. He lodged, therefore, at the Blume until the Basel Council
+requested him to leave the town, a little before his death, in 1523. But
+in 1520 Hutten was still at Sickingen's fortress, digging with fierce
+ardour the impassable gulf between him and the band of friends and
+Churchmen among whom Holbein ever ranged himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the five lost works which Patin says Holbein painted, there was a
+"Nativity" and an "Adoration of the Kings." It is impossible now to say
+what resemblances, if any, existed between these and the same subjects,
+executed not much later, which are now in the University Chapel, Freiburg
+Minster. These latter are the only known works of Holbein that still
+hang in a sacred edifice. They were evidently designed to fold in upon a
+central altar-piece with an arched top, thus making, when open, the
+usual triptych; but the central painting has vanished. This large work
+was a gift to the Carthusian monastery in Klein-Basel; and the arms of
+the donor, Hans Oberriedt, are displayed below the Nativity, as well as
+the portraits of himself and his six sons. Below the corresponding right
+wing, the Adoration, are the arms of his wife and her portrait, with her
+four daughters.
+
+In both wings what I can only describe as the atmosphere of Infancy,--and
+a touching atmosphere it is too--is strengthened by keeping all the
+figures small and heightening this suggestion by contrast with a grandiose
+architecture. In both, too, the sacred scenes reveal themselves like
+visions unseen by the Oberriedt family, who face outward toward the
+altar and are supposed to be lighted by the actual lights of the church.
+The whole work must once have been a glorious creation, with its rich
+colours, its beautiful architectural forms, and its mingling of purest
+imagination with realism. What would one not give to see the lost work
+these wings covered?
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 8
+  THE NATIVITY
+ _Oils. University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral_
+
+In the left wing, the Nativity (Plate 8), Holbein has remarkably
+anticipated the lighting of Correggio's famous masterpiece, not finished
+until years after this must have been painted, by the conditions of
+Oberriedt's history and Basel's as well. The Light that is to light the
+world lights up the scene with an exquisite enchanting softness,--yet
+so brilliantly that the very lights of heaven seem dimmed in comparison.
+The moon, in Holbein's deliberate audacity, seems but a disc as she bows
+her face, too, in worship. Shining by some compulsion of purest Nature,
+the divine radiance glows on the ecstatic Mother; and away above and
+beyond her--"How far that little candle shines," and shines, and shines
+again amid the shadows! It illumines the beautiful face of the Virgin,
+touches the reverent awe of St. Joseph, plays over marble arch and
+pillar, discovers the wondering shepherd peering from behind the pillar
+on the left, and irradiates the angel in the distance, hastening to
+carry the "glad tidings." The happy cherubs behind the Child rejoice
+in it; and as they spring forward one notices how Holbein has boldly
+discarded the conventional, and attached their pinions as if these were
+a natural development of the arm instead of a separate member.
+
+The same union of unfettered fancy symbolism and realism displays itself
+throughout the right wing,--where the Virgin is enthroned in front of
+crumbling palaces. The sun's rays form a great star, of such dazzling
+light that one of the attendants shades his eyes to look upward, and
+an old man with a noble head, wearing an ermine cape, presents his
+offering as the chief of the three kings; while a Moorish sovereign,
+dressed in white, makes a splendid figure as he waits to kneel with
+his gift, and his greyhound stands beside him. The colouring of both
+paintings must have had an extraordinary beauty when the painter laid
+down his brush.
+
+To carp at such conceptions because their architecture is as imaginative
+and as deeply symbolical as the action, is to demand that Holbein shall
+be someone else. These pictures, beyond the portraits below them, are
+the farthest possible from aiming at what we demand of Realism, though
+their own realism is astonishing. Holbein all too seldom sounds them,
+but when he does choose to stir only a joyous elation in the heart he
+rings a peal of silver bells. Here all is glad thanksgiving. The Divine
+has come into a sick and sorry world; and, behold, all is changed!
+Nothing sordid, nothing shabby, consists with the _meaning_ of this
+miracle. Therefore it is not here. All is transformed; all is a New
+Jerusalem--splendour, peace, ineffable and mysterious Beauty.
+
+With the dominance of the anti-Catholic party, which unseated Meyer
+zum Hasen in 1521, his friend Oberriedt also fell into trouble. And
+soon after Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach,--disgusted with the
+iconoclast fanaticism of 1528 and 1529,--took refuge in Catholic
+Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau, Oberriedt also left Basel for that city. He
+took these wings with him to save them from the destruction which
+probably overtook the central work. The latter was, perhaps, too large
+to conceal or get away. During the Thirty Years' War they were again
+removed, and safeguarded at Schaffhausen. And so great was their
+fame that they were twice expressly commanded to be brought before a
+sovereign; once to Munich, to be seen by Maximilian of Bavaria; and
+again to Ratisbon for the Emperor Ferdinand III. In 1798 they were
+looted by the French, and were only restored to Freiburg in 1808.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 9
+  THE PASSION
+ _Eight-panelled Altar-piece Oils. Basel Museum_
+     I _Gethsemane_
+    II _The Kiss of Judas_
+   III _Before Pontius Pilate_
+    IV _The Scourging_
+     V _The Mocking_
+    VI _The Way to Calvary_
+   VII _"It is finished"_
+  VIII _The Entombment_
+
+Another great religious picture, once no less renowned than Oberriedt's
+altar-paintings, has suffered a worse fate. This is the eight-panelled
+altar-piece of the Passion, now in the Basel Museum (Plate 9). So far
+back as is known it was preserved, probably after being hidden from the
+fury that attacked all church pictures, in the Rathaus. Maximilian I.,
+of Bavaria, the zealous collector of Dürer's works, offered almost any
+price for this altar-piece by Dürer's great contemporary. But Basel,
+unlike Nüremberg, was not to be bribed; and the world-famous painting
+remained to draw art-lovers from every country in Europe. Nor did the
+most competent judges fail to envy Basel her jewel, and to eulogise its
+perfections. Painters such as Sandrart, looking at it after it had
+survived a hundred and fifty years of vicissitude, could exclaim: "It is
+a work in which the utmost that our art is capable of may be found;
+yielding the palm to none, whether of Germany or Italy, and justly
+wearing the laurel-wreath among the works of former times."
+
+Alas! this laurel, too, has been filched from Holbein's fame. In 1771
+the altar-piece was consigned to the collection where it now is; and it
+was then decided to gild the gold and paint the lily. The work was
+subjected to one of those crude "restorations" which respect nothing
+save the frame. And no monarch will ever again compete for its possession.
+Red is over red and blue over blue, doubtless; but in place of Holbein's
+rich harmony a jangle of gaudy conflicting colours now sets one's teeth
+on edge. So that only in a photograph can one even enjoy the
+composition--all that is left of the Master.
+
+But here it can be seen with what art the painter has so combined
+eight separate and distinct pictures, each a gem, into one, by such a
+distribution and balance that the whole is as integral as a pearl. The
+scene on the Mount of Olives, which a great critic once pronounced
+worthy to compare with Correggio's work, is only to be surpassed by the
+Entombment. And in every scene--what freedom, action, verve! From the
+first to the last all passes with the swift step of Calamity, yet all
+with noble dignity.
+
+The Basel Museum possesses also a set of ten washed drawings in Indian
+ink,--scenes of the Passion designed for glass-painting,--which must be
+conned and conned again before one can "know" Holbein at all in his
+deepest moods. They are a great Testament, though they seem unbearably
+harsh at a superficial glance. But put aside your own ideas and humbly
+study the ideas of Holbein,--sure that they must be well worth the
+reverence of yours or mine,--and little by little you will be made free
+of that Underworld where Holbein's true self has its home; you will
+pierce its gloom and find its clue and understand its tongue. It is a
+small matter whether you and I find ourselves in sympathy with that
+world, or can never be acclimatised. The great matter, the only matter,
+is to understand it; to see in its skeletons something more than lively
+bones, in its graves something besides Horror.
+
+Without mastering the logical sequence of these ten drawings,--where
+scene by scene the Divine recedes before our eyes, and the Son of Man
+assumes more and more the whole burden of Sin and Death,--it is
+inevitable that the life-size painting of Christ in the Grave, also in
+the Basel Museum (Plate 10), should seem just a ghastly and "unpardonable"
+piece of realism. Realism of the most ghastly truthfulness, as to a
+corpse in the grave, it certainly is. But although it may be questioned
+whether such a picture should ever be painted, no one who looks through
+the form to the thought that shapes it would pronounce even this awful
+utterance "unpardonable."
+
+There have been those who could see in this dead Christ,--lying rigid in
+a green sarcophagus that throws over the waxen flesh the ghastly threat
+of that decay which would follow if no miracle intervened,--there have
+been those, I say, who could see in it only superb technique. And others
+see only the negation of all idealism, if not of all faith.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 10
+  CHRIST IN THE GRAVE
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Yet put this painting,--the acme of technical beauty as well as of
+ruthless realism,--at the close of the ten Passion drawings, and I
+venture to believe that the one coherent conception that runs through
+them all will legitimately find its conclusion here.
+
+Here He lies that surrendered Himself to the punishment of Sin and the
+penalty of Death--for all men and all time. His pale lips are set with
+the superhuman agony of the cry with which He paid the uttermost
+farthing of that bond. Man has died for man, martyrs for faith; here God
+has died unto Himself, for us. There has been no playing at death. All
+the pitiless terrors of the grave are here, with Him who for love of us
+has chosen to know Mortality "like at all points" with mortal men. What
+He bore for us, shall we shrink from so much as realising? The great
+eyes are fixed in a look whose penetrating, almost liquid sweetness
+not even the rigor of the final anguish could obliterate. Divine
+devotion,--devotion more than mortal,--still lingers in those sockets.
+The heart may well dilate before this sight; the soul fall on its knees.
+By each of those bloodstained steps, by the sting of this death, we have
+been paid for. Here, here only,--as Holbein saw it,--is the leverage the
+heathen philosopher vainly sighed for to move the world; God's
+leverage, Infinite Love.
+
+This is anything but a theological tangent. A great artist has
+bequeathed us his beliefs,--drawn and painted in many works, with every
+patient, virile, expressive power at his command. There has been enough
+and to spare of shrieks or scoffs. A little humility and a little study
+is in place, too. For the rest, let us not forget that this large
+painting was made for some altar; and that many a weeping penitent, many
+a devout heart, has been pierced with its message. On the edge of the
+stone coffin, which is tinted a warm green within, and lit by some
+opening at the foot, is the inscription in gold letters: "JESUS
+NAZARENUS REX JUDÆORUM." The stigmata are painted with unsparing truth.
+The work is dated 1521.
+
+There is in the Hampton Court Gallery a little painting which has only
+comparatively recently been recognised as Holbein's, but which forms the
+beautiful and fitting close of this set of religious pictures. As is the
+case with so many of his works, the critics are not unanimous upon it.
+But the authorities who have no doubts as to its being a genuine Holbein
+of this period are so weighty that I need not argue the point in
+support of my own convictions.
+
+In the Hampton Court Catalogue it is styled "Mary Magdalen at our Lord's
+Sepulchre," but I prefer to call it the Risen Christ (Plate 11). It must
+once have been supremely beautiful; for even now its ideal loveliness
+shines through all the evil fortunes which have once again defaced
+the handiwork of Holbein. The type of Christ, and indeed the work
+throughout, bears a marked resemblance to the eight-panelled Basel
+altar-piece.
+
+The painter has chosen the moment recorded in the twentieth chapter of
+St. John. In that early dawn, "when it was yet dark," Mary has brought
+spikenard in a marble cup, if not to anoint the sacred Dead at least to
+pour it on the threshold of the sealed tomb, with tears and prayers. She
+has fled to tell St. John and St. Peter of the sacrilege of the open
+tomb,--has followed them back, still mechanically clasping her useless
+spikenard,--has seen them go in where her trembling knees refused to
+follow, and then go homeward, as we can see them in the distance,
+arguing the almost incredible fact.
+
+Poor Mary has had no heart for discussion. She has stayed weeping by the
+empty grave until two pitying angels have appeared to recall her from
+despair, and she has "turned herself back,"--too frightened to stay for
+comfort. And then she has seen near her a Face, a Form, she was too
+dazed to recognise until the unforgettable Voice has thrilled through
+her, and she has flung herself forward with the old, instinctive cry,
+"Master!" to touch, to clasp that Hand, so dear, so familiar, so
+all-protecting, and find it a reality.
+
+It is this tremendous moment that Holbein has seized. And with what
+exquisite feeling for every detail of the scene, every great emotion!
+Had the painting been preserved, as it deserved to be, surely it too
+could claim a part of that laurel wreath which Sandrart averred could
+not be torn from the Basel altar-piece by any rival, whether Italian or
+German.
+
+  Illustration: Plate 11
+  THE RISEN CHRIST
+ _Oils. Hampton Court Gallery_
+
+The misty landscape, with the crosses of Golgotha and the eastern hills
+catching the first brightness of the new Day dawning over mortality; the
+broken clouds of night, scattered like the conquered horrors of the
+grave, and the illuminated tomb where Hope and Faith henceforth ask
+us why we weep; the hurrying agitation of St. Peter and the trusting
+serenity of St. John, expressed in every gesture; the dusky trees;
+Mary's quivering doubt and rapture, touched with some new awe; and
+the simple majesty with which our Lord stays that unconscious innocent
+presumption, _Touch me not_.
+
+What forbidding tenderness in that Face lighted by the grave He has
+passed through! What a subtle yet eloquent suggestion of the eternal
+difference, henceforth, between Love and love is in these mortal
+lineaments that have evermore resumed their divinity! No face, no type,
+no art, can ever realise Christ; yet when this little painting was first
+added to the great roll of Holbein _Basiliensis_, it must have gone as
+near to realising its subject as the colours of earth can go.
+
+But every man, happily for himself, has a material as well as an
+immaterial world with which he must be concerned. To transpose Bagehot's
+profound little saying,--Each man dines in a room apart, but we all go
+down to dinner together. And though Holbein knew the pinch of narrow
+means, he had no lack of good cheer as well as austere food in his art.
+
+On March 12th, 1521, the Great Council held its first meeting in the new
+Rathaus; and Meyer zum Hasen, who presided over it as Burgomaster,
+entrusted to his protégé the enviable task of decorating the Council
+Chamber. Fifty-six years after Holbein's work was completed these
+wall-paintings were described as "representations of the noblest
+subjects--done by the German Apelles." By this title the painter was
+everywhere recognised throughout the greater part of his lifetime.
+
+In all, there would seem to have been six large pictures or set pieces;
+but two were not done until years later. One wall being too broken up by
+windows to be suitable, there remained three,--of which "the back wall"
+adjoining Meyer's house was not touched at this time. Ostensibly the
+reason was want of funds; but as a matter of fact the Protestant party
+(to anticipate this name), which grew strong enough to unseat Meyer
+before the year was out, was at this time indifferent to art when not
+positively inimical to it.
+
+Whether treating a façade or an interior it was Holbein's custom to make
+a flat wall-space assume the most solid-looking forms of Renaissance
+architecture. Iselin once said of a façade of Holbein's, that there was
+a dog painted on it so naturally that the dogs in the street would run
+up and bark at it. And so astounding was the realism with which he threw
+out balconies, and added windows, cornices, and statues, and the richest
+carvings, pillars, arches, and vistas of every sort, that no eye could
+credit them with illusion. Horses neighed in the courtyards, flowers
+bloomed in the gardens, dogs leaped beside master or mistress, and
+children played in the spacious balconies, or moved to and fro between
+the splendid marble pillars and the distant wall. To study the copies
+that remain of such works is to be astounded by their feats of
+perspective.
+
+Inside would be kindred illusions. Large pictures would seem to be
+actually taking place without, and beheld through beautifully carved
+archways or windows; while the apparent walls would have niches filled
+with superb marble statues and the ceiling be supported by pillars,
+behind which people walked and talked or leaned out to watch the chief
+scenes.
+
+And so it was with the Council Chamber. But nothing now remains of these
+works except fragments and a few drawings for the principal features. So
+far as can be judged, each wall had two large scenes; the four pictures
+of this period being chosen from the heroic legends of the _Gesta
+Romanorum_; the two painted later, from the Old Testament.
+
+But while these large works were going forward Holbein was busy with
+many others; private commissions for Froben, occasionally for other
+printers, and for altar-pieces or portraits. All through his life his
+industry and accomplishment left him small time for leisure or the
+dissipations of leisure. Nor is there any year of his life when his work
+does not attest a clear eye and a firm hand. These things are their own
+certificate of conduct; at any rate, of "worldly" conduct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1522 occurred two important events in his life. His first child, the
+son he called Philip, was born; and he painted an altar-piece which is
+in some respects the most beautiful of his extant works. The latter--now
+in the Solothurn Museum, and therefore called the "Solothurn Madonna"
+(Plate 12)--has had one of the most extraordinary histories to be found
+in the records of art.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 12
+  THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA
+ _Oils. Solothurn Museum_
+
+The background of this picture,--a massive arch of grey sandstone
+supported by iron stanchions,--was evidently designed to suit the
+surrounding architecture of some grey-walled ancient structure. On a
+daïs covered with a green carpet, patterned in white and red and
+emblazoned with the arms of the donor and his wife, sits the lovely
+Madonna with the Child held freely yet firmly in two of the most
+exquisite hands which even Holbein ever painted. Her dress is a rich
+rose-red; her symbolical mantle of universal Motherhood, or "Grace," is
+a most beautiful ultramarine, loaded in the shadows and like a sapphire
+in its lights. The flowing gold of her hair shimmers under its filmy
+veil, and the jewels in her gold crown flash below the great white
+pearls that tip its points. Where the sky-background approaches Mother
+and Child, its azure tone is lost in a pure effulgence of light; as if
+the very ether were suffused with the sense of the Divine.
+
+The Child is drawn and painted superbly. The carnations are exquisite;
+the gravity of infancy is not exaggerated, yet fittingly enforces the
+gesture of benediction. The left hand is turned outward in a movement so
+peculiar to happy, vigorous babyhood that it is a marvel of observation
+and nature. The little foot is admirably foreshortened, and the wrinkled
+sole a bit of inimitable painting. But perhaps most wonderful of all is
+the art with which, amid so many splendid details, the Child is the
+centre of interest as well as of the picture. How it is so, is Holbein's
+own secret.
+
+To right and left of the Virgin stand two fine types of spiritual and
+temporal authority. Behind and at her right, almost hidden by the
+amplitude of her mantle, kneels a poor wretch who is introduced here by
+some necessity of the commission itself, but is skilfully prevented from
+obtruding his needs on the serene beauty of the scene. Dropping gold
+into his alms-bowl with a hand effectively contrasted with his brown
+thumb, stands "the sinner's saint"--the good Bishop of Tours; while some
+other condition of the work has embroidered St. Martin's red mitre with
+the figure of St. Nicholas. There is one other striking circumstance
+about St. Martin; and that is that, although he is in the Virgin's
+presence, he wears the violet chasuble of an Intercessor. The chasuble
+is lined with red, and it and the rich vestments, on which scenes of
+the Passion are displayed, are the patient verisimilitude of ancient
+vestments. In St. Martin's gloved left hand is his crozier and the right
+glove, which he has drawn off to bestow his alms.
+
+Opposite to him stands the patron-saint of Solothurn,--St. Ursus, a
+hero of the Theban legend,--dressed from head to foot in a suit of
+magnificently painted armour. His left hand grasps his sword-hilt; his
+right supports the great red flag with its white cross. Nor is that flag
+of the year 1522 the least interesting detail of this work. With the
+crimson reflections of the flag streaking the cold gleams of his
+glittering armour, his stern dark face and the white plumes tossing
+to his shoulder, St. Ursus is a figure that may well leave historical
+accuracy to pedants. Below his foot are the initials H.H., and the date,
+1522; as if cut into the stone.
+
+This work was commissioned by Hans Gerster, for many years Town
+Archivist of Basel, in which capacity he had to convey important state
+papers to other councils with which that of Basel had negotiations. From
+this it came about that from the year when Basel entered the Swiss
+Confederation, in 1501, Gerster was almost as much at home in the "City
+of Ambassadors" as in his own, and the Dean or _Probst_ of the Solothurn
+Cathedral--the "Cathedral of St. Ursus and St. Victor"--became not only
+his spiritual director, but one of his most intimate friends. Many
+circumstances which cannot be given here make it pretty evident that in
+1522 Gerster, probably under the advice of the Probst, the Coadjutor
+Nicholas von Diesbach, made this picture an _expiatory_ offering for
+some secret sin of grave proportions. There are hints that point to
+treachery to the Basel troops, in the Imperial interests, sympathy with
+which finally cost him, as well as his friend Meyer zum Hasen, his
+official position. Gerster himself was not a native of Basel, although
+his wife, Barbara Guldenknopf, was.
+
+Be this as it may, it is apparently in direct connection with this
+confessed sin that "the sinner's saint," St. Martin of Tours, is chosen
+as Intercessor for Gerster, wearing the prescribed chasuble for this
+office. And it seems likely that the addition to his mitre of the figure
+of St. Nicholas was Gerster's wish, in order to specially associate the
+name-saint of his friend--Nicholas von Diesbach--with this intercession.
+It is assumed by those who have patiently unearthed these details of
+circumstantial evidence, that the beggar is introduced to mark the
+identity of the boundlessly charitable Bishop of Tours. But I venture to
+suggest still another reason: this is, that in the uplifted, pleading
+face of the mendicant, whose expression of appeal and humility is a
+striking bit of realism in these ideal surroundings, we may have the
+actual portrait of the donor, Hans Gerster himself. That this should be
+so would be in strict accord with the methods of the period. There is a
+striking parallel which will occur to all who are familiar with the St.
+Elizabeth in the St. Sebastian altar-piece at Munich. Here the undoubted
+portrait of Hans Holbein the elder is seen as the beggar in the
+background.
+
+It is, as has been said, a marvellous story by which this glorious
+painting,--in which the introduction of the patron-saint of Solothurn
+proves that it was created for one of her own altars,--was completely
+lost to her, and to the very histories of Art, and then returned to the
+city for which it was originally destined; all by a chain of seemingly
+unrelated accidents. But only the skeleton of that story can be given
+here.[4]
+
+In all probability this Madonna was executed for the altar of the ancient
+Lady Chapel of the Solothurn Cathedral. A hundred and twenty-six years
+after it was painted, this chapel was pulled down, to be replaced by a
+totally different style of architecture; and as the picture was then
+smoke-stained and "old-fashioned" it would in all likelihood drop into
+some lumber-room. At all events, it must have become the property of the
+Cathedral choirmaster,--one Hartmann,--after another five-and-thirty
+years. For at this time he built, and soon after endowed, the little
+village church of Allerheiligen, on the outskirts of the industrial town
+of Grenchen, which lies at the southern foot of the Jura.
+
+_Facilis descensus!_ Another turn of the centuries' wheel and the gift
+of this chapel's founder was once again thought unworthy of the altar to
+which it had been presented. When Herr Zetter of Solothurn first saw it
+in the queer little Allerheiligen chapel, it hung high up on the choir
+wall; blackened, worm-eaten, without a frame, suspended by a string
+passed through two holes which had been bored through the painted panel
+itself. Yet his acute eye was greatly interested by it. And when, during
+an official visit in 1864, he heard that the chapel was undergoing a
+drastic renovation, he was concerned for the fate of the discoloured old
+painting. At first it could not be discovered at all. Finally he found
+it, face downward, spotted all over with whitewash, under the rough
+boards that served for the workmen's platform. A few hours later and it,
+too, would have been irrevocably gone; carted away with the "old
+rubbish"!
+
+He examined it, made out the signature, knew that this might mean either
+any one of a number of painters who used it, or a clumsy copy or
+forgery, yet had the courage of his conviction that it was Holbein's
+genuine work. He bought it of the responsible authority, who was glad
+to be rid of four despised paintings, for the cost of all the new
+decorations. He had expert opinion, which utterly discouraged his
+belief; but stuck to it, took the risks of having it three long years
+(so rotten was its whole condition) under repairs which might at any
+moment collapse with it, yet leave their tremendous expenses behind to
+be settled just the same; and finally found himself the possessor of a
+perfectly restored chef-d'oeuvre of Holbein's brush, which, from the
+first, Herr Zetter devoted to the Museum (now a fine new one) of
+Solothurn.
+
+To-day this work, which some forty years ago no one dreamed had ever
+existed, smiles in all the beauty of its first painting; a monument to
+the insight and generous enthusiasm of the gentleman whose name is rightly
+connected with its own in its official title--"The Zetter-Madonna of
+Solothurn." And it smiles with Holbein's own undebased handiwork
+throughout. _Pace_ Woltmann's blunder,--its network of fine cracks, even
+over the Virgin's face, attests that it has suffered no over-painting.
+The work has been mounted on a solid back, the greatest fissures and the
+holes filled up to match their surroundings, the stains and defacements
+of neglect cleared away, and the triumph is complete. It might well be
+the "swan song" of a veteran artist at such work. Whatever the mistakes
+of Eigener's career, the restoration of the Solothurn Madonna was a
+flawless achievement for himself and his associates.
+
+This work, too, is the most precious of all that have come down to us of
+Holbein's imaginative compositions, from the fact that his first-born,
+Philip, who was born about 1522, was the model for the Child, and that a
+portrait of Elsbeth, his wife, served as a study for the Virgin. This
+portrait is an unnamed and unsigned drawing in silver-point and Indian
+ink, heightened with touches of red chalk, now in the Louvre Collection.
+(Plate 13.)
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 13
+  UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY: NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S
+ _Silver-point and Indian-ink. Louvre Collection_
+ _Believed by the writer to be Holbein's drawing of
+  his wife before her first marriage, and the model
+  for the Solothurn Madonna_
+
+That this is a portrait of Holbein's wife any careful comparison with
+her portrait at Basel must establish. Feature for feature, allowing for
+the changes of sufficient years, the two faces are one and the same. The
+very line of the shoulder, setting of the head, and even the outline of
+the fashion in which the low dress is cut, is alike in both. And equally
+unmistakable is the relation between this Louvre drawing and the
+Madonna of Solothurn.
+
+Yet I am unable to accept Woltmann's theory that the drawing was made in
+1522 "for" the Virgin. He assumes that the lettering which borders the
+bodice in this drawing--ALS. IN. ERN. ALS. IN....--and the braids in
+which the hair is worn are simply some "fancy" dress. But surely if ever
+hair bore the stamp of unstudied, even ugly custom, it does so here.
+Then, too, Woltmann himself, as are all who adopt this explanation, is
+unable to reconcile the oldest age which can be assigned to this sitter
+with the youngest that can be assumed for the Basel painting of 1529
+upon a hypothesis of only seven years' interval. Temperament and trouble
+can do much in seven years; but not so much as this. I say _temperament_
+advisedly; because all the evidence of Holbein's life substantiates
+the assertion of Van Mander, who had it from Holbein's own circle of
+contemporaries,--that the painter's life was made wretched by her
+violent temper. We shall find him far from blameless in later years; but
+though it may not excuse him, his unhappy home must largely explain his
+alienation.
+
+Yet that it can explain such an alteration as that between the Louvre
+drawing and the Basel portrait I do not believe. Nor could I persuade
+myself either that any married woman of the sixteenth century wore her
+hair in that most exclusive and invariable of Teuton symbols--"maiden"
+plaits;--or that any husband ever thought it necessary to advertise upon
+a picture of his wife that he held her "in all honour."
+
+Myself, I must believe, then, that this portrait was made years before
+1522; probably in the young painter's first months in Basel, in 1515;
+and thus some fourteen years before the Basel group of 1529 was painted.
+It may well have been that some serious misunderstanding between them
+was at the bottom of that otherwise inexplicable departure in 1517, and
+the two years' absence in Lucerne and still more southern cities. Of
+course this is mere guesswork; so is every hypothesis until it is proved.
+But all the simple commonplaces of first love, estrangement, separation,
+and a renewed betrothal after Elsbeth's early widowhood with one child,
+could easily have run a natural course between 1515 and their marriage,
+somewhere about 1520.
+
+As for the inscription,--it is a detail that Woltmann thinks represents
+a repetition of the one phrase, and that I imagine to have suggested
+what for some reason Holbein did not wish to proclaim:--"In all honour.
+[In all love.]" But nothing can shake my conviction that in it we hear
+the faint far-off echoes from some belfry in Holbein's own city of Îs.
+The realities of that chime are buried,--whether well or ill,--four
+hundred years deep in the seas that roll over that submerged world of
+his youth and passion. But living emotion, we may be sure, went to the
+writing and the treasuring of this pledge to Elsbeth or himself; a
+pledge redeemed when she became his wife.
+
+Thus for the altar-piece of 1522 there would be this portrait of Elsbeth
+in her girlhood ready to his hand. But even so, see how he has idealised
+it, made a new creature of it, all compact of exquisite ideals! He has
+eliminated the subtle sensuousness which has its own allure in the
+drawing. Every trait is refined, purified, vivified, raised to another
+plane of character. Genius has put the inferior elements into its
+retort, and transmuted them to some heavenly metal far enough from
+Holbein's home-life.
+
+Throughout all these years, as has been said, he was busy for the
+printers also. In 1522 he drew the noble title-page for Petri's edition
+of Luther's New Testament, with the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul
+at either side, of which mention has been made. And in Thomas Wolff's
+edition of 1523 there is a series of his designs. His alphabets, borders,
+illustrations of all sorts, continued to enrich the Basel press from
+this date, and were often borrowed by printers in other cities. In 1523
+there came to Basel that masterly wood-cutter who has been already
+referred to,--Hans Lützelburger. And from this time on, therefore,
+Holbein's designs may be seen in their true beauty.
+
+He had painted, besides portraits of Froben and others, at least three
+portraits of Erasmus by 1524. For in June of this year the latter writes
+to his friend Pirkheimer, at Nürnberg, to say that he has sent two of
+these portraits by the "most accomplished painter" to England; while the
+artist himself, he adds, has conveyed still a third to France.
+
+The smaller of the two sent to England, two-thirds the size of life, is
+probably the one now in the Louvre (Plate 14). It is a masterpiece of
+penetration and technique. Erasmus is here seen in the most unaffected
+simplicity of dress and pose; in profile against a dark-green tapestry
+patterned with light green, and red and white flowers. The usual
+scholar's cap covers his grey hair. The blue-grey eyes are glancing down
+at his writing. Studies for the marvellously painted hands are among the
+Louvre drawings. The very Self of the man--the lean, strong, _thinking_
+countenance,--the elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly, stealing
+out on his lips,--is alive here by some necromancy of art.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 14
+  ERASMUS
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+The portrait now in the Basel Museum, in oils on paper, afterwards
+fastened to the panel, is in all likelihood that third portrait which
+Erasmus told Pirkheimer the painter himself had taken to France. So
+that Holbein must have painted it for, and carried it to, Bonifacius
+Amerbach, who was then, in 1524, finishing a renewed course of study at
+Avignon. Probably it was during this visit to France, too, that he made
+the spirited sketches of monuments at Bourges. In that case it would
+seem that he struck across by way of Dijon to the Cathedral City, in
+connection with some matter not now to be discovered, and from there
+took the great highway to Avignon by way of Lyons; carrying with him the
+gift of his sketches from the monuments of Duke Jehan of Berri and his
+wife. These were treasured in Amerbach's collection.
+
+Whatever the reason that sent him abroad on this journey,--whether
+unhappiness at home or the troubled state of public affairs during the
+Peasants' War of 1524 and 1525,--or whether he simply had business in
+France which delayed him there for a year or two--at all events, all
+records fail as to his wanderings or work in this long interval. And
+many circumstances go to show that it was at this time that he entered
+upon the immortal work which was published at Lyons, by the Trechsel
+Brothers, many years later;--those "Images of Death" which have borrowed
+the old name in popular parlance, and are generally called Holbein's
+"Dance" of Death.
+
+Just why the Trechsels did not issue the publication until 1538 it is
+impossible to say. As one of the largest Catholic publishing-houses of
+France, they would be governed by circumstances entirely outside of
+Holbein's history or control. But more than one circumstance presses the
+conclusion that the designs were made between 1523 and 1526. And there
+is a certain amount of evidence for the belief that they may have been
+first struck off in Germany, possibly by some one of the multifarious
+connections of the Trechsels, as early as 1527. But this is a large
+subject, not to be dealt with as an aside.
+
+All the world knows these wonderful designs; their beauty of line, power
+of expression, and sparkling fancy. Among them all there are only two
+where Death is a figure of violence; and but one,--the knight, transfixed
+by one fell, malignant stroke from behind--where Death exhibits positive
+ferocity. In both of these,--the Count, beaten down by his own great
+coat-of-arms, is the other,--it is easy to read a reflection of the
+actualities of the Peasants' War then raging.
+
+For the rest, the grim skeleton wears no unkind smile; though that he
+_is_ Death makes it look a ghastly-enough pleasantry. But toward the
+poor and the aged he is better than merry; he is kind. His fleshless
+hand is raised in benediction over the aged woman; and the bent
+patriarch leans on his arm, listening to Death's attendant playing the
+sweet old melodies of Long-Ago as he stands on the verge of the great
+Silence.
+
+But where a selection must be made, there are two drawings with their
+own special claim to consideration. These are the Ploughman and the
+Priest (Plates 14 and 15). The former has been cited by Ruskin as an
+example of a perfect design for wood-engraving; but even higher than its
+art, to my thinking, is its feeling. To the labourer of this sort,--poor,
+patient, toilworn,--Holbein's heart is very gentle. And so is Death--who
+muffles up his harsh features and speeds the heavy plough with a step
+like that of Hope. And at the end of the long, last uphill furrow, see
+how the setting sun shines on "God's Acre!"
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 15
+  THE PLOUGHMAN
+ _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_
+
+  THE PRIEST
+ _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_
+
+The second selection, the Priest, is its own proof, if any were needed,
+of how sharply Holbein distinguished cloth from cloth. In it, nearly a
+decade after he had pointed Erasmus's satire on the unworthy prelate or
+the unclean friar, may plainly be read that reverence for the true
+priest which Holbein shared with all his best friends. In the quaint,
+quiet street this solemn procession is too familiar a sight to draw any
+spectator from the hearth where the fire of the Living is blazing
+so cheerily. The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts his kind
+glance around as he passes on his Office with the veiled Pyx carried
+reverently. Before him goes Death, his Server, hastening the last mercy
+with eager steps. Under his arm is the tiny glass that has measured the
+whole of a mortality; the sands have lost their moving charm, and all
+their dazzle makes but a little shadow now. In his hand is the bell that
+sounds Take heed, Take heed, to the careless; and Pardon, Peace, to
+dying ears that strain to hear it. But largest of all his symbols is the
+lamp in his right hand; his own lamp, the lamp that dissipates Earth's
+last shadows--the Light of Death.
+
+Holbein must have had his own solemn memories of the Last Office as he
+drew this picture of the good parish priest. For it was just about this
+time that the Viaticum must have been administered to his father. In
+1526 the then Burgomaster of Basel wrote to the monastery at Issenheim,
+where Hans Holbein the Elder had left his painting implements behind him
+years before, in which he recalls to the Fathers how vainly and how
+often "our citizen," Hans the Younger, had applied to get these costly
+materials restored to their owner during his life; or to himself as his
+father's heir afterwards. This application was no more successful than
+Holbein's own, apparently; and the painter was told to seek his father's
+gold and pigments among the peasants who had pillaged the monastery.
+
+By 1526 Holbein was back in Basel; but two works of this year would go
+to show that he was little less separated from his wife in Basel than
+when away. The first of these, about one-third life-size, is a portrait
+of a woman with a child beside her who grasps an arrow to suggest the
+Goddess of Love attended by a wingless Cupid (Plate 16). The little
+red-haired child does not do much to realise the ideal; but the woman,
+though not an ideal Venus, might nevertheless well pose as a man's
+goddess. A "fair" woman in more senses than her colouring. Her dark-red
+velvet dress slashed with white; wide sleeves of dusky gold-coloured
+silk; her close-fitting black head-dress embroidered with gold; the soft
+seduction of her look; the welcoming gesture of that pretty palm flung
+outward as if to embrace; these are all in keeping.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 16
+  DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+This was a lady whose past career might have warned a lover that
+whatever she might prove as a goddess, she could play but a fallen
+angel's part. The annals of Basel knew her only too well. This was
+Dorothea, the daughter of a knight of good old lineage,--Hans von
+Offenburg. But the knight died while she was quite young, and her
+mother, better famed for looks than conduct, married the girl to a
+debauched young aristocrat,--Joachim von Sultz. His own record is
+hardly less shameless than Dorothea's soon became,--though the latter
+is chiefly in archives of the "unspeakable" sort. At the time when this
+picture was painted she must have been about two-and-twenty.
+
+Unhappy Holbein, indeed! The temper of Xantippe herself, if she be but
+the decent mother of one's children, might work less havoc with a life
+than this embroidered cestus. But "the German Apelles" was no Greek
+voluptuary, ambitious in heathen vices, such as that other Apelles
+whose painting of Venus was said to be his masterpiece. And when
+Holbein inscribed his second portrait of Dorothea with the words LAÏS
+CORINTHIACA, the midsummer madness must have been already a matter of
+scorn and wonder to himself. His whole life and the works of his life
+are the negation of the groves of Corinth.
+
+The paint was not long dry on the Goddess of Love--at any rate, her
+dress was not worn out--before he had seen her in her true colours; "the
+daughter of the horse-leech, crying Give, Give."
+
+And so he painted her in 1526 (Plate 17); to scourge himself, surely,
+since she was too notoriously infamous to be affected by it. As if in
+stern scorn of every beauty, every allure, he set himself to record
+them in detail: something in the spirit with which Macaulay set himself,
+"by the blessing of God," to do "full justice" to the poems of Montgomery.
+Laïs is far more beautiful, and far more beautifully painted, than
+Venus. No emotion has hurried the painter's hand or confused his eye
+this time. In vain she wears such sadness in her eyes, such pensive
+dignity of attitude, such a wistful smile on her lips. He knows them,
+now, for false lights on the wrecker's coast. No faltering; no turning
+back. He can even fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and add the
+puffed sleeves below the short ones. He is a painter now; not a lover.
+And lest there should be one doubt as to his purpose, he flings a heap
+of gold where "Cupid's" little hand would now seem desecrated, and
+inscribes beneath it the name that fits her beauty and his contempt.
+The plague was raging in Basel all through that spring and summer,
+but I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact as at the loveliness he
+painted. The brand he placed upon it is proof of that--Laïs Corinthiaca,
+the infamous mistress of the Greek Apelles.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 17
+  DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LAÏS CORINTHIACA
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+But in 1526 men sat among the ashes of far goodlier palaces and larger
+interests than personal ones. The party in power was not friendlier to
+Art than to the Church of Rome. In January the Painters' Guild had
+presented a petition to the Council,--humbly praying that its members,
+"who had wives and children depending on their work," might be allowed
+to pursue it in Basel! And so hard was Holbein himself hit by the
+fanatical excitement of the time that the Council's account-books show
+the paltry wage he was glad to earn for painting a few shields on some
+official building "in the borough of Waldenburg."
+
+Small wonder that an artist such as Holbein should feel his heart grow
+sick within him, and should turn his thoughts with increasing
+determination to some fresh field. Even without the bitterness that now
+must have edged the tongue of a wronged wife, or the bitterer taste of
+Dead Sea fruit in his own mouth,--he must have been driven to try his
+luck elsewhere. And of all the invitations urged upon him, the chances
+which Erasmus's introductions could give him in England would probably
+offer the greatest promise.
+
+But before he set out with these letters, in the late summer of 1526, he
+executed yet one more great commission for his old friend, Jacob Meyer
+zum Hasen, now leader of the Catholic party in opposition. This was the
+work known now to all the civilised world as "The Meyer Madonna." For
+centuries the beautiful picture which bears this name in the Dresden
+Gallery has been cited by every expert authority and critic as this
+work. But since the mysterious appearance of the Darmstadt painting,
+which suddenly turned up in a Paris art collector's possession, from no
+one knows where in 1822, the tide of belief has slowly receded from the
+Dresden painting. Until now there are only a few judges who do not
+hold--especially since the public comparison of the two works at Dresden
+in 1871--that the Dresden picture is "a copy by an inferior hand."
+
+Unquestionably the painting now in the Schloss at Darmstadt is the
+earlier version. And unquestionably, too, the changes introduced in the
+Dresden copy,--the elevated architecture, slenderer figures, and less
+happy Child,--are so great as to lend weight to the arguments of those
+who still claim that no copyist would ever have made them. But, as has
+been said, the contention that the Dresden work is a replica by Holbein
+of the older Darmstadt altar-piece, is now maintained by only a very
+small minority of judges. The painting of the Darmstadt work is admitted
+by all to be more uniformly admirable, more completely carried out;
+the details more finished (except in the case of the Virgin), and the
+colours richer and more harmonious. Yet both works should be studied to
+appreciate fully their claims and differences (Plates 18 and 19).
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 18
+  THE MEYER-MADONNA
+ _Oils. Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt_
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 19
+  THE MEYER-MADONNA
+  [_Later Version. Held by many to be a copy_]
+ _Oils. Dresden Gallery_
+
+In the Darmstadt work the Virgin's dress is wholly different in tone
+from her robe at Dresden; otherwise the colouring aims to be the same
+in each. Here, in the original altar-piece, it is a greenish-blue. The
+lower sleeves are golden, a line of white at the wrist, and a filmier
+one within the bodice. Her girdle is a rich red; her mantle a
+greenish-grey. Over this latter her fair hair streams like softest
+sunshine. Above her noble, pity-full face sits her crown of fine gold
+and pearls.
+
+The woman kneeling nearest to the Madonna is commonly believed to be
+Meyer's first wife, who had died in 1511, the mother of one child--a
+daughter--by a previous husband. Between this stepdaughter and Meyer
+there was considerable litigation over her property. The younger woman,
+whose chin-cloth is dropped in the painting though worn like the others
+in the drawing for her portrait, is Meyer's second wife, Dorothea
+Kannegiesser, whom he married about 1512, and with whom he was painted
+by Holbein in 1516. The sombre garments of both women are echoed by the
+black of Meyer's hair and coat, the latter lined with light-brown fur.
+Meyer's face, in its manly intensity of devotional feeling, is a
+wonderful piece of psychology in the Darmstadt picture.
+
+In the drawing for the young girl, Anna Meyer, who kneels beside her
+mother with a red rosary in her hands, she has her golden-brown hair
+hanging loose down her back, as befits a girl of thirteen. But in
+the painting it is coiled in glossy braids beneath some ceremonial
+head-dress; this is richly embroidered with pearls, with red silk tassel
+and a wreath of red and white flowers above it. This head-dress is
+painted with much more beautiful precision in the older work, and the
+expression of the girl's face is much more deeply devout; her hands,
+too, are decidedly superior to those of the Dresden work.
+
+This is true also of the carpet, patterned in red and green, with
+touches of white and black, on a ground of deep yellow. The Dresden
+carpet is conspicuously inferior in finish and colour to that of
+Darmstadt, so much so that Waagen and others, who believe the former a
+replica, think a pupil or assistant may have been responsible for this
+and other details, which for some reason Holbein himself was unable to
+finish.
+
+The elder boy, with the tumbled brown hair, dressed in a light-brown
+coat trimmed with red-brown velvet, and hose of cinnabar-red, with
+decorations of gold clasps and tags on fine blue cords, has a
+yellowish-green portemonnaie, with tassels of dull blue hanging from his
+girdle. All the carnations are superb, and in the Darmstadt picture the
+infant Christ wears a sweet and happy smile. In that of Dresden He looks
+sad and ill; a fact which has given rise to the theory Ruskin
+adopted--that the Virgin had put down the divine Child and taken up
+Meyer's ailing one. But the absence of wonder on the faces of Meyer's
+family, and, indeed, the familiar affection of the elder boy, would of
+itself negative this theory. I have my own ideas as to this point, but
+it would serve no useful purpose to go into them in this place. Of these
+two sons of Meyer there is no other record. Anna alone survived her
+mother, who married again after Meyer's death. Anna's daughter married
+Burgomaster Remigius Fäsch, or Fesch, whose grandson--Remigius Fäsch,
+counsellor-at-law--was the well-known art collector whose collection and
+manuscript are also in the Basel Museum, where there is an oil-copy of
+the Dresden Meyer-Madonna.
+
+Even the cool eye of Walpole was warmed by this great work of 1526, as
+he saw it in the Dresden painting then hanging in the Palazzo Delfino
+at Venice. "For the colouring," he exclaims, "it is beautiful beyond
+description; and the carnations have that enamelled bloom so peculiar to
+Holbein, who touched his works till not a touch remained discernible."
+Twenty years earlier Edward Wright had written of Meyer's youngest
+boy--"The little naked boy could hardly have been outdone, if I may
+dare to say such a word, by Raphael himself." And in our own day that
+fine and measured critic, Mrs. Jameson, has spoken for generation upon
+generation who have thought the same thought before the Meyer-Madonna
+of Dresden, when she says of it: "In purity, dignity, humility and
+intellectual grace this exquisite Madonna has never been surpassed; not
+even by Raphael. The face, once seen, haunts the memory."
+
+When Wright and Walpole saw this Dresden work at Venice, it was supposed
+to be "the family of Sir Thomas More"--_Meier_ having slipped into
+"More" in the course of centuries, which had retained only the vivid
+impression of Holbein's association with the latter, and knew that
+the painter had drawn him in the midst of his family. That living
+association was now, late in the summer of this year, about to begin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHANCES AND CHANGES
+
+1526-1530
+
+  First visit to England--Sir Thomas More; his home and portraits--The
+  Windsor drawings--Bishop Fisher--Archbishop Warham--Bishop
+  Stokesley--Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait--Nicholas
+  Kratzer--Sir Bryan Tuke--Holbein's return to Basel--Portrait-group of
+  his wife and two eldest children; two versions--Holbein's children,
+  and families claiming descent from him--Iconoclastic fury--Ruined
+  arts--Death of Meyer zum Hasen--Another Meyer commissions the
+  last paintings for Basel--Return to England--Description of the
+  Steelyard--Portraits of its members--George Gysze--Basel Council
+  summons Holbein home--"The Ambassadors" at the National Gallery;
+  accepted identification--Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn--Lost paintings
+  for the Guildhall of the Steelyard; the Triumphs of Riches and
+  Poverty--The great Morett portrait; identifications--Holbein's industry
+  and fertility--Designs for metal-work and other drawings--Solomon and
+  the Queen of Sheba.
+
+
+Two years earlier Erasmus had evidently thought that London was the
+true stage for such a genius as Holbein's, and More had written that
+he would gladly do all he could to further the painter's success if
+he should decide to visit England. More himself called Holbein "a
+marvellous artist" for his portrait of Erasmus, and could not but be
+delighted with the beautiful little woodcut which opened Froben's
+edition of his own _Utopia_.
+
+This illustration represents More and his only son seated with Ægidius,
+or Peter Gillis, in the latter's own garden at Antwerp, listening to the
+tale of _Utopia_ from the ancient comrade of Amerigo Vespucci. And very
+likely Holbein himself sat in this garden, in the late summer of 1526,
+when he was passing through Antwerp to England. He had a letter of
+introduction from Erasmus to Ægidius, as also to the host who was
+expecting him in England--Sir Thomas More.
+
+Van Mander says that long before this the Earl of Arundel, when pausing
+at Basel, had been so much pleased with Holbein's works in that city
+that he had urged the painter to forsake it for London. But it would
+pretty surely have been the promise of More's influence which actually
+induced him to try his fortune so far afield. And by the autumn of 1526
+he was one of that happy company which the genial soul of More drew
+around him in his new home in "Chelsea Village," where Beaufort Row now
+has its north end. Here the master's love of every art, and aptitude in
+affairs, filled his hospitable mansion with wit and music and joyous
+strenuousness. Here he was the idol of his family, as well as the King's
+friend. Henry himself must surely have shuddered could he have pictured
+that face, over which thought and humour were ever chasing one another
+like sun and shadow on the lawn, black above London Bridge and flung at
+last from it into the Thames only a few years hence. Now it turned to
+his own all life and loyalty, as he laid his arm around More's shoulders
+while they wandered between the garden beds of Chelsea.
+
+Early in 1527, probably, Holbein had finished the fine portrait of his
+host, which is now in Mr. Huth's collection. The study for this oil
+painting is among the Windsor drawings (Plate 20), as also one for
+the large family picture now lost, if indeed it was ever completed by
+Holbein; a matter of some doubt, notwithstanding Van Mander's account
+of it in the possession of the art-collector Van Loo. An outline sketch
+of it, or for it, he certainly made. And that precious pen-and-ink
+outline,--with the name of each written above or below the figure
+in More's hand, and notes as to alterations to be made in the final
+composition in Holbein's hand,--is now in the Basel Museum; having come
+into Amerbach's possession as the heir of Erasmus.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 20
+  SIR THOMAS MORE
+ _Chalks. Windsor Castle_
+
+In Mr. Huth's oil portrait More is wearing a dark-green coat trimmed
+with fur, and showing the purple sleeves of his doublet beneath. His
+eyes are grey-blue. He never wore a beard, made the fashion by Henry
+VIII. at the same time that the head was "polled,"--a singularly ugly
+combination,--until he was in the Tower and grew that beard which he
+smilingly swept away from the path of the executioner's axe. "It," he
+said with astonishing self-possession, could be "accused of no treason."
+In 1527, however, no shadow of tragedy seemed possible unless the
+suspicion of it slept in More's own heart when he said to his son-in-law,
+in answer to some flattering congratulation on the King's favour, "Son
+Roper, if my head could win him a castle in France, my head should
+fall."
+
+But for these superb drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, we
+should know nothing at all of many a portrait Holbein painted--all
+among the immediate friends of More and Erasmus on this first visit
+to England; nor, for that matter, of many a portrait painted in later
+years. And how little these can be trusted to tell the whole tale of
+achievement is shown by the fact that they include no studies for a
+number of oil paintings that are still in existence.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 21
+  JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER
+ _Chalks. Windsor Castle_
+
+Of the drawings which represent a lost painting, there is a noble one of
+Bishop Fisher, whose execution preceded More's by only a few weeks. A
+literally venerable head it was (Plate 21), to be the shuttlecock of
+papal defiance and royal determination not to be defied with impunity.
+For assuredly if the life of the Bishop of Rochester hung in the
+balance, as it did, in May, 1535, it was Paul III.'s mad effrontery
+in making him a Cardinal while he was actually in the Tower under his
+sovereign's displeasure which heated the King's anger to white-hot
+brutality. "Let the Pope send him a hat," he thundered, "but I will so
+provide that he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head he shall have
+none to set it on!" And on the 17th of that June he made good the savage
+oath. Yet the painter, after all, has been more potent than the King.
+For here lives Fisher. Bishop or Cardinal this is the man, as More loved
+him.
+
+A striking and richly painted oil portrait of Erasmus's "Mæcenas,"
+Archbishop Warham, is in the Louvre; of which there are a number of
+copies, as well as a replica, at Lambeth Palace. The latter was
+exhibited at Manchester in 1857. The study for these portraits is among
+the Windsor drawings. The painting in the Louvre has more vividness in
+the carnations, and the impasto is thicker than at Lambeth; otherwise
+the two are identical. But for myself I find a more seizing quality in
+the chalk drawing than in either. There is something in its sunken
+fading eyes that speaks of the majesty of office as well as its burdens.
+
+Holbein painted a prelate of a very different sort in the oil portrait
+of John Stokesley, Bishop of London, which is preserved at Windsor
+Castle. And yet he dared to paint the Truth--now as always. The painting
+is a masterpiece of modelling and soft transparency of light and shade.
+But the truculent, lowering countenance leaves small doubt that the
+sitter was a gentleman pre-eminently "gey ill to live wi'."
+
+There is another oil painting at Windsor which has not escaped the
+injuries of time, but is none the less a splendid survival of 1527. This
+is the portrait of Sir Henry Guildford, Master of the Horse to Henry
+VIII., and holder of many another office of trust (Plate 22). It has
+sometimes been thought that the yellow tone of the complexion was due to
+over-painting, but the chalk drawing shows that it was a personal
+peculiarity.
+
+Sir Henry, a warm friend to both More and Erasmus, was forty-nine when
+he sat for this portrait. Under his black fur-trimmed surcoat he wears
+a doublet of gold brocade. In his hand is the wand of office as
+Chamberlain, and he is decorated with the collar and badge of the
+Garter.
+
+He was always a great favourite with the King from the time when the
+latter came to the throne and young Guildford, then twenty, was one of
+the gayest, bravest, most loyal spirits about it. Always as ready for a
+real battle as a mimic one; as clever at writing plays for the King's
+amusement as at acting in them; as good in a revel as at a piece of
+diplomacy; it is not much wonder that his knighthood in 1512 should but
+have been the prelude to a long series of promotions.
+
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 22
+  SIR HENRY GUILDFORD
+ _Oils. Windsor Castle_
+
+The affection of master and man, too, was singularly sincere for a
+court. Sir Henry loyally supported the King's demand for a divorce, but
+he was by no means ready to support a second marriage without the papal
+preliminary. Hence he was not a persona grata to Anne Boleyn. Nor
+would he stoop to curry favour at the expense of an honest conviction.
+When Anne warned him that he was likely to lose his office as soon as
+she became Queen, he promptly replied that he would spare her all
+concern about that, and went straight to the King to resign the office
+of Controller. The latter showed the depth of his affection by urging
+Sir Henry, twice, to reconsider his determination. But he wisely
+preferred to quit his apartments under the King's roof,--without,
+however, breaking the bond of mutual attachment. Five years after this
+picture was painted he died; in May, 1532. Holbein also painted Lady
+Guildford's portrait; an oil painting in Mr. Frewer's collection. And
+Sir Henry selected him as one of the chief artists commissioned to
+decorate the interior of the Banqueting Hall specially erected for the
+celebration of the French Alliance in 1527. By all of which it would
+seem that in securing a new patron the painter had once more made a
+friend.
+
+Erasmus had asked Ægidius to assist Holbein's success in any way he
+could. And it was probably owing to a letter from the Antwerp scholar
+that a friendship of many years sprang up between the painter and
+Nicholas Kratzer of Munich, then Astronomer-Royal at the Court of Henry
+VIII. It began with what was once a fine portrait. But the oil painting,
+now in the Louvre (Plate 23), has suffered such severe injuries as to be
+but a poor ghost of what it was originally. Only the composition, and
+the fidelity with which all his friend's scientific instruments are drawn
+attest Holbein. He never adds a detail for merely pictorial purposes;
+and never shuffles one that concerns the personality of a sitter. No
+biographer with his pen sets every straw to show the winds of character
+and circumstance more deliberately than does this historian with his
+brush. Something of Kratzer's shrewd wit,--for he was a "character"--can
+still be read in his half-destroyed picture. Years later we shall
+see the intimate friend of both him and his painter writing of the
+astronomer as a man "brim-full" of humour and fancy. And once, we may be
+sure, it sparkled in the eyes of Kratzer's portrait as brilliantly as in
+his own.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 23
+  NICHOLAS KRATZER
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+In the Munich Gallery there is another portrait in oils which has
+undergone, if possible, still more atrocious treatment than Kratzer's;
+yet, like it, still keeps enough of its original charm to rivet attention
+in any company. This latter is one of the most striking of the
+half-dozen portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke, which all claim, with more or
+less of probability, to be paintings by Holbein. And certainly in the
+years when Sir Bryan was Treasurer of the King's Household it would be
+natural that the painter, whose salary he regularly disbursed, should
+gladly oblige him to his utmost.
+
+But the Munich portrait also shows a far deeper bond of interests than
+one of money. The undercurrent of their natures ran in a groove of more
+than common sympathy; and to an analyst, such as Holbein was, the
+reflections behind these inscrutable eyes were full of unusual
+attraction.
+
+Myself, I feel convinced, for more than one reason, that it is a work of
+some years later. But as a consensus of authorities places it during
+this visit, the picture is noticed here. It gains rather than loses by
+reproduction;--since the painting now shows a strange disagreeable
+colour most unlike the carnations of Holbein. But the composition is
+unmistakable (Plate 24). Between the sitter and the green-curtained
+background stands perhaps the ghastliest of all Holbein's skeletons,--one
+hand on his scythe, the other grimly pointing at the nearly-spent sands
+of the hour-glass. Below the latter is a tablet on which, in Latin, are
+the words of Job: "My short life, does it not come to an end soon?" and
+the signature without the date. Sir Bryan wears a fur-trimmed doublet
+with gold buttons; the gold-patterned sleeves revealed by the black silk
+gown, also trimmed with fur. On a massive gold chain he wears a cross of
+great richness, enamelled with the pierced Hands and Feet. Fine lawn is
+at throat and wrists; and in one hand he holds his gloves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 24
+  SIR BRYAN TUKE
+ _Oils. Munich Gallery_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the researches of Eduard His, it used to be sometimes said that
+Holbein had virtually deserted his family when he left Basel in 1526. We
+know now, however, that whatever were the moral wrongs which he suffered
+or committed, he never forsook the duty of providing for his wife and
+children in no ungenerous proportion to his means.
+
+The records show that the fruit of his two years' industry was used to
+acquire a comfortable home which remained the property of his wife. And
+the inventory of its contents at Elsbeth's death, some six years after
+Holbein's death, proves that this home was to the full as well furnished
+and comfortable as was usual with people of similar condition.
+
+In the summer of 1528 the painter bade farewell for ever to Sir Thomas
+More's gracious Chelsea home. He took with him the pen-and-ink sketch
+for a large picture of More in the midst of his family, which has been
+already referred to. This was for Erasmus, who had temporarily abandoned
+Basel,--now so utterly unlike the Basel of former years,--and had sought
+the more sympathetic atmosphere of Freiburg. Bonifacius Amerbach, from
+the same causes, was here with Erasmus for some time. So that something
+like the old Froben days must have seemed still about them as the three
+friends sat together and talked of all that had come and gone.
+
+But by the latter part of August Holbein was back in that now
+sadly-altered Basel whence his best friends were reft by trouble or
+death. And on the 29th of August, 1528, he bought the house next to
+Froben's _Buchhaus_, the deed attesting that he did so in person, in
+company with Elsbeth. The price, 300 guldens or florins, was by no means
+the small one it now seems, nor could the painter pay the whole sum at
+once. He paid down one-third, and secured the rest by a mortgage. The
+site of this house is now occupied by 22 St. Johann Vorstadt. Three
+years later, March 28th, 1531, Holbein bought out a disagreeable
+neighbour; and thus added to his two-storied house overlooking the
+Rhine the little one-storied cottage which cost him only seventy
+guldens. The factory at No. 20 now partially covers this latter site.
+Fifty years ago both of the original houses were still standing; quaint,
+crumbling, affecting monuments of days when Holbein's voice and
+Holbein's step rang through their rooms, when Frau Elsbeth swept and
+garnished them; and when four children added their links to the chain of
+a marriage which Holbein was now manfully trying to make the best of.
+
+It must have been in the year after the purchase of the larger house
+that he painted the group of his wife and the two children she had then
+borne him. This life-size group, done in oils on paper, is now in the
+Basel Museum (Plate 25). The stoical sincerity with which they are
+represented, and the hard outline produced by cutting out the work to
+mount it on its wood panel, makes a somewhat repellent impression at the
+first glance. And this is in no way dispersed by studying Elsbeth's
+traits. But the painting itself is a tour-de-force. By sheer Quality
+Holbein has invested these portraits,--a middle-aged, coarse-figured,
+unamiable-looking woman, a very commonplace infant, and a bright-faced
+boy,--with the prestige inseparable from an achievement of a high
+order.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 25
+  ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Clearly Elsbeth Holbein was not one to give up the costume of her youth
+simply because she would have been well advised to do so; and the cut
+and fashion of her dress remains almost identical with the drawing in
+the Louvre. Her lustreless light-brown hair is covered with a gauzy veil
+and a reddish-brown cap. Her brown stuff upper garment, trimmed with
+thin fur, shows a dark-green dress beneath it. The baby wears a gown of
+undyed woollen material, and the boy a jacket of dark bluish green.
+
+Out of such unpromising materials has the painter made a picture that
+would challenge attention among any. If we knew nothing as to the
+identity of this woman, sitting oblivious of the children at her knee,
+wrapped in her own dark thoughts, we should certainly want to know
+something of her story and of the story of the little fellow whose eyes
+are breathlessly intent upon some purer, sweeter vision. There is at
+Cologne, in a private collection, a deeply interesting duplicate of
+this work; also on paper afterwards mounted on wood, but not cut out.
+Unfortunately this latter has suffered such irremediable injuries that
+it is quite impossible now to pronounce upon its claim to be either the
+earlier example or a replica; but good judges have believed it to be by
+Holbein. Its chief interest, however, from a biographical point of view,
+may be said to lie in the sixteenth-century writing pasted on at the
+top. Literally translated, this runs--
+
+  "Love towards God consists in Charity.
+  Who hath this love can feel no hate."[5]
+
+It is difficult to see on what grounds Woltmann, who was inclined to
+accept the picture as genuine, should hold the inscription to have
+been added by someone desirous of increasing the value of the work by
+representing it to be an allegorical picture of Charity. There was never
+a time when the allegory, if accepted, could have carried the same value
+as the portraits. And surely the second line is utterly inconsistent
+with the theory. Original or not, it has a very startling likeness to a
+plea which Holbein himself must have urged more than once, to soften a
+bitterness his own errors could not have tended to cure.
+
+When the Basel painting was cut out to be mounted, the last numeral was
+lost; so that it now stands dated 152-. But all the other facts put it
+beyond question that the picture could not have been done before 1529.
+The baby of 1522 was now the boy of seven, and his successor would seem
+to have been born during the first months of its father's visit to
+England, and to be now some eighteen months old.
+
+It may be as well to say here, once for all, as much as need be said of
+Holbein's family. As already stated, his wife survived him by six years,
+dying at Basel in 1549. By her first marriage she had one son, Franz
+Schmidt--who seems to have been a worthy and successful man of trade.
+She was the mother of four children by her marriage with Holbein;--Philip,
+born 1522; Katharina, 1527; Jacob, about 1530; and Künegoldt, about
+1532.
+
+Some years before the painter's death he took Philip Holbein to Paris,
+and there apprenticed him to the eminent goldsmith, Jerome David, with
+whom he remained until a couple of years after Holbein's death. Later,
+he somehow drifted to Lisbon, where he followed his trade until he
+settled in the old home of his grandfather and great-grandfather,
+Augsburg. In 1611 his son, Philip Holbein, junior, then "Imperial Court
+Jeweller" at Augsburg, petitioned the Emperor Matthias for letters
+patent to "confirm" his right to certain noble arms. The claims put
+forward in this document are utterly at variance with the received
+belief in Holbein's humble Augsburg origin. Yet the most expert
+investigators who have carefully studied this subject agree in thinking
+that this grandson based the genealogical tree on mythical foundations,
+and therefore planted it remote from Augsburg itself. But be this as it
+may--and it seems hard to reconcile such discrepancies within a century
+of the time when both Hans Holbein the Elder and his son were well-known
+citizens of Augsburg,--the application was successful. Mechel says that
+this Philip, who claims descent from the renowned "painter of Basel,"
+lived in Vienna during his later years; and that a descendant of his
+again got their patent "confirmed" in 1756, with the right to carry the
+surname of _Holbeinsberg_; also that this latter descendant was made a
+Knight of the Empire in 1787, as the noble _von Holbeinsberg_. So much
+for the eldest branch, that of Philip Holbein.
+
+The younger boy, Jacob, was a goldsmith in London after Holbein's death.
+The evidence seems to show that he was never here previous to that
+event,--which of itself may have first occasioned his coming, though
+hardly at the time, as Jacob was not more than thirteen at his father's
+death. A document in existence proves that he also died in London, about
+1552, and apparently unmarried; at which time his elder brother, Philip,
+was still in Lisbon.
+
+Katharina, the elder daughter, the baby of the Basel painting, seems to
+have left no descendants. She married a butcher of Basel and died in
+1590. And in the same year, very likely from one of the frequent
+epidemics so fatal to Basel, died Künegoldt, Elsbeth's youngest child.
+The Merian family of Frankfurt-am-Main claims an hereditary right to
+the artistic gifts of its famous copper-engraver, Mathew Merian, as
+descendants of Holbein through this daughter Künegoldt, who, when she
+died, was the wife of Andreas Syff, a miller, of Basel. According to
+the greatest authority on this subject, Eduard His, to whose exhaustive
+researches we owe almost all that is known of Holbein's family, the
+Merian claims have not, so far, been proved by actual archives; but he
+is of opinion that there is considerable circumstantial evidence to
+support their claim to be lineal descendants of Holbein through the
+female line.
+
+But in 1529, when the family group was painted, neither Jacob nor
+Künegoldt were yet born; and the painter was much more concerned with
+the anxieties of a living father than with the shadowy cares of an
+ancestor.
+
+And dark enough was the outlook in Basel, where the Lutheran agitation
+had, as Erasmus said, "frozen the arts." Before Holbein came back from
+England many churches had abjured all pictures. The tide of religious
+antagonism had, as we know, driven both Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach
+for a time to a Catholic stronghold; and had driven their old friend
+Meyer to do literal battle on behalf of the Church.
+
+Altar paintings were out of the question. And Holbein could but devote
+himself to designs for the printers and for goldsmiths. Many beautiful
+compositions for both crafts remain to testify of his matured powers
+and constant industry. The exquisite designs for dagger-sheaths, in
+particular, are rightly counted among the treasures of art. But in the
+summer of 1530 came a commission for the painter's last great work in
+Basel. This was the long-delayed order for the decoration of that vacant
+wall in the Council Hall, which adjoined the house _zum Hasen_.
+
+Oddly enough, this commission also came officially through a
+burgomaster, Jacob Meyer. But the Meyer of 1530, Meyer "of-the-Stag"
+(_zum Hirten_), had neither blood nor sentiments in common with the
+Meyer under whom Holbein had done his first work in the Rathaus. Each
+headed a party at deadly issue. For the past year Meyer-of-the-Hare had
+vainly tried to turn back the clock or to stay the iconoclastic fury
+of the hour. Religious fanaticism had wrecked him as well as every
+beautiful piece of art on which it could lay its hands. And now at last
+it mattered nothing any more so far as he was concerned. The dreadful
+harvests that had brought virtual famine, the earthquake shocks which
+had unsettled many a mental as well as material foundation, the flooding
+devastations of the Birsig, the rage of Canton against Canton, the Civil
+War ready to begin, Pope or Luther come by his own,--it was all one at
+last to Meyer zum Hasen, who died just as his protégé of earlier years
+was commissioned to paint the blank wall.
+
+But something of his spirit, something of what he himself had been
+preaching to Basel in warning and threat for years, seems to have passed
+on into the pictures Holbein set before the Council. The paintings,
+alas! are no more. But a fragment or two and the drawings for them show
+how truly grand the two works were which Holbein had probably already
+intended should be his swan-song as Holbein _Basiliensis_. He chose for
+his subjects Rehoboam's answer to the suffering Israelites: "My little
+finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; my father hath chastised
+you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions"; and Samuel
+prophesying to Saul how dearly he shall learn that "Rebellion is as the
+sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness as an iniquity and idolatry."
+
+Both subjects are treated in the Great manner. Rehoboam, leaning forward
+from his throned seat with flashing eyes, and his little finger seeming
+actually to quiver in the air, is wonderfully conceived. But the meeting
+of Samuel and Saul (Plate 26) most splendidly demonstrates how far
+Holbein towered above mere portraiture when he had the opportunity. To
+picture this drawing in all the beauty of colour is to realise what we
+have lost, and what his just fame has lost, with the utter destruction
+of such works.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 26
+ _Behold to obey is better than sacrifice_
+  SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL
+ _Washed Drawing. Basel Museum_
+
+Not the greatest of the Italians could have improved upon the
+distribution and balance of this composition. The blazing background,
+the sense of a densely crowded host beyond what the eye can grasp, of
+captives and captors--all the stupendous crackle and roar and shout
+and sudden strained silence of Saul's immediate followers--is amply
+matched by those two typical protagonists, just then repeating the old
+drama with varying fortunes on the world's new stage. The Secular Arm
+has been short in the service of God, as interpreted by his Vicar; it
+has thought, in Saul's person, to win the cause, yet spare its enemies.
+Vain is it for him to run with humility, to tell what he has won and
+what overcome and done. He has not destroyed All--root and branch. For
+reasons of personal policy, he has given quarter. And the Priest, for
+God, will have none of his well-meaning excuses, of his good intentions,
+his policy, his burnt offerings of half-way measures;--"Behold to obey
+is better than sacrifice," begins his fierce anathema, "and to hearken
+than the fat of rams."
+
+Doubtless the Protestant party read its own meanings into these texts,
+when once the pictures were painted and paid for with seventy-two good
+guldens. But two very significant facts form their own commentary. One
+is that the only employment he received from the Council afterward was
+to redecorate the old Lällenkönig monstrosity on the bridge!--and the
+other, that as soon as Holbein got his pay for this disgraceful
+commission, a pay he was now much too hard pressed to refuse, he quietly
+slipped away from Basel without taking the Council into his confidence.
+Judging from his after conduct to his family, he probably left the
+seventy-two guldens to support his wife and children--now four little
+ones--until such time as he could send them more from England; and took
+his way once more, in the late autumn of 1531, with knapsack and
+paint-brushes for the journey, to a city that might give him few walls
+to cover, but would certainly not set him to painting the town clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Things had changed in London also, and gravely, Holbein found, since
+he had quitted Sir Thomas More's home at Chelsea with the sketch for
+Erasmus, in the summer of 1528. He had barely settled himself, in the
+City this time, before the struggle between Henry VIII. and the English
+Clergy ended in that Convocation when the latter made its formal
+"Submission." And in the same month that this took place, Sir Henry
+Guildford died. Then the three great Acts of Parliament, which swept
+away the crying abuses of "Benefit of Clergy," resurrected the "dead"
+lands (so called because perpetually _aliened in mortmain_) by restoring
+them to the national circulation of the Sovereign-Will, and turned the
+rich stream of Annates or "First-Fruits" of the bishoprics from the
+Pope's coffers to the King's,--were passed in this year.
+
+This legislation was followed by the solemn protest and then the death
+of Archbishop Warham. So that now of that great and close quartet of
+friends,--Colet, Warham, More, and Erasmus,--there were two on either
+shore of the last crossing. And More could already see the dark river
+ahead. His eye marked the consequences of the Acts as keenly as his aged
+friend Warham had discerned them on his death-bed; and shortly after the
+"Submission," More resigned his great office as Chancellor.
+
+These seem matters too high to twist the threads of a poor painter's
+life. But in reality Holbein's career was shaped, from many a year back,
+by such events as rarely touch the humble individual directly. All his
+friends and all his patrons in this country were carried far out of
+reach by 1532; and he must sink or swim, as they in darker waters,
+according to his own powers. That under such unexpected ill-fortune he
+did not immediately sink was due to two things--the greatness of his
+powers, and the circumstance that a trading-company of Continentals,
+chiefly German, was seated in London with immense wealth and immense
+influence at its disposal, and that they were men who knew how to
+appreciate Holbein at his worth.
+
+The roots of the Steelyard (_Stahlhof_), or "Stilyard," as it is often
+called in early dramatists, go far back to the legendary centuries of
+English history. From before the time of Alfred the Great, traders from
+Germany had clustered together on the bank of the Thames, close to where
+Cannon Street Station now stands. Amalgamation with the Hanseatic
+League, and the necessities and gratitude of more than one king of
+England--but especially of Edward IV.--had made of the Steelyard a
+company such as only the East India Company of later centuries may
+be compared to. With the world's new geography and new commercial
+conditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its methods and
+its monopoly of the seas were gradually superseded by the great seamen
+of the Elizabethan era. But in Holbein's time, though already some of
+the Hanseatic ships were too overgrown to pass London Bridge and cast
+anchor at their own docks just above it, there was scarce a cloud upon
+the colossal prosperity of the Steelyard.
+
+Its walled and turreted enclosure, able to withstand the fiercest
+assaults of Wat Tyler's men, stretched from the river northward to
+Thames Street, and from Allhallows Street on the east to Dowgate Street
+on the west; and it might well have been described as a German city and
+port situated in the heart of the City of London. Its massive front in
+Thames Street, where were its three portcullised and fortified gateways
+with German inscriptions above and the Imperial Double-Eagle high over
+all, was one of the sights of London. And the Steelyard Tavern was a
+famous resort. When Holbein knew it well the greatest prelates and
+nobles and all the Court crowd,--which stretched its gardens and great
+houses from the stream of the Fleet, just west of the City wall, to
+Westminster Abbey,--used to flock to this Thames Street corner of the
+Steelyard to drink Rhenish wine and eat smoked reindeer-tongue and
+caviar.
+
+Within the gates stood the big Guildhall, which answered both for its
+councils and its noted banquets. The high carved mantelpieces and
+wainscotting served admirably to display the glittering plate and
+strange souvenirs of every known land and sea. On the walls which
+Holbein's works were so to enrich hung portraits of eminent members of
+the Guild. The Hall was flanked by the huge stone kitchen and by a
+strong-tower for the safeguarding of special valuables. In the open
+space between the Hall and the west wall of the enclosure was the
+garden, where trees and flowers and a greenery of vines had been planted
+in exact imitation of the gardens of the Fatherland. And here sat
+Holbein among the Associates, many a time, over their good cheer,--as in
+the old Basel gardens of the Blume or the Stork in other years, and
+heard only the German tongue or the songs of home around him.
+
+Away down to the docks ran the lanes of warehouses; shops and booths
+where every German trader or craftsman in London had his place; and
+where the merchandise of the world--the greater part of it destined for
+Lübeck as a centre of European distribution--might be sampled. Here were
+choicest specimens of the then costly spices of Cathay, or the famous
+falcons of Norway and Livonia, for which English sportsmen were willing
+to pay fabulous prices.
+
+As in other guilds, the government of this cosmopolitan beehive was that
+of a despotic democracy. All the inmates of the precincts were subjected
+to a rule little short of monastic in its strict discipline. The penalties
+for any infringement, for drunkenness or dicing or even for an abusive
+epithet, were very severe. The civic duties of the corporation, too,
+were sharply defined. In case of war every member had his appointed post
+in the defence of London. Every "master" had to keep the prescribed
+accoutrements and arms ready for immediate use, and the repairs and
+maintenance of the Bishop's Gate were at the sole cost of the Steelyard.
+
+No chapel was erected within its enclosure, the Guild preferring to be
+incorporated with the adjoining parish of Allhallows. Whether or not
+there is any truth at the bottom of the ancient tradition that this
+church had been originally founded by Germans, the Guild maintained its
+own altar in it in Holbein's time, where Masses were said on its own
+special days and festivals. So far are the facts from the common
+supposition that the doctrines of Luther would find natural favour in
+such a community, that the latter only gradually came into the "Church
+of England" by the same slow processes which transformed the whole
+parish around it. And when More, who was anything but _Utopian_ himself
+in the practice of tolerating "heresy" during his chancellorship, headed
+a domiciliary visit in search of Lutheran writings, he could find
+nothing but orthodox German Prayer-books and the Scriptures, whose use
+among laymen he always strenuously advocated; while every member of the
+community was able to make honest and hearty oath at St. Paul's Cross
+that no heretic or heretical doctrine would be tolerated amongst them.
+
+Here, then, in this staunch citadel of his own faith, Holbein naturally
+found a new circle of friends among whom it must have been strangely
+easy to fancy himself back in the Fischmarkt of his young years, with
+Froben and Erasmus and Amerbach and Meyer zum Hasen.
+
+The curtain rings up on his work for the Steelyard,--work which covered
+many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated
+here--with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait
+of Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often written, now in the
+Berlin Gallery (Plate 27), inscribed 1532, has called forth the
+enthusiastic eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece of rare good
+fortune it is in perfect preservation. The black of the surcoat alone
+has lost a little of its first lustre; all the rest is as though it had
+left the easel but the other day.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 27
+  JÖRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE
+ _Oils. Berlin Museum_
+
+The young merchant is seated among his daily surroundings in the
+Steelyard. He is in the act of leisurely opening a letter addressed, "To
+the hand of the honourable Jörg Gyze, my brother, in London, England"
+(_Dem ersamen herrn Jörg Gyzen zu Lunden in Engelant meinem broder to
+henden_). The merchant's motto, "No pleasure without care," is chalked
+up in Latin on the background, with his signature beneath it. Written on
+a paper stuck higher up is a Latin verse in praise of the portrait; also
+the date, and the sitter's age--thirty-four. On the racks and shelves
+are documents, books, keys, a watch and seals, and a pair of scales. A
+gold ball is hanging from above with a lovely chasing in blue enamel; a
+miracle of painting in itself, to say nothing of the exquisite Venetian
+glass, filled with water and carnation-pinks. This flower has its own
+meaning, and is introduced in more than one of Holbein's portraits. On
+the rich oriental table-cloth are writing materials also, with
+account-books, seal and scissors.
+
+Gyze himself is a fair-haired man, wearing a brilliant red silk doublet
+beneath his black cloak. And the amazing thing is that amidst this
+bewildering array of pictures--for every article is such in itself,
+owing to the perfection of its painting--Gyze is not lost or overridden
+for a moment. It is unmistakably _his_ picture; and he dominates the
+accessories as much as he did in reality. The man, the whole man, is
+there; and the things are there around him; that is all. But that
+the eye recognises this is the demonstration of the painter's own
+mastership. It is as much Holbein's peculiar secret as are the cool
+shadows, the luminous glow, the astounding elaboration, all made to
+express the dignity of one, and but one, theme.
+
+As has been said, the Steelyard portraits are too many to even catalogue
+here, covering many years. But Gyze's may be taken as their high-water
+mark. For that matter it could not, in its own way, be surpassed by
+any portrait. Holbein himself greatly surpassed it in the matter of
+subtle and noble simplicity, in his two greatest extant pieces of
+portraiture--the Morett of Dresden and the Duchess of Milan, now
+in our National Gallery. But in technical powers, and the power of
+subordinating their very virtuosity to the requirement of a true
+picture, this was a superlative expression of his matured method.
+
+In the midst of all his fresh London successes came a summons from
+Basel, which must have made the painter smile a little grimly. It had
+slowly dawned on the Council that Holbein--whose renown they well knew
+was a feather in Basel's cap--was proposing to make a prolonged absence.
+The result was a decision which the Burgomaster officially conveyed to
+him. Jacob Meyer zum Hirten wrote to say that Holbein was desired to
+return immediately to resume the duties of a citizen-artist, and that
+the Council, anxious to assist him in the support of his family, had
+resolved to allow him an annuity of thirty guldens yearly "until
+something better" could be afforded. Whether he replied in evasive
+terms, or whether he let the Lällenkönig speak for him, is not on
+record.
+
+By the time Holbein received this letter, written late in the autumn of
+1532, he was plunged into a year of almost incredible activity. The
+whole of it would hardly seem too long for one such painting as the
+life-size double portrait--his largest extant portrait-painting--that
+now belongs to the National Gallery: "The Ambassadors" (Plate 28).
+
+At the extremities of a heavy table, something like a rude dinner-waggon,
+are two full-length figures which show a curious reflection of his
+early defect in their want of sufficient height. At the spectator's left
+stands a richly-costumed individual, whose stalwart proportions, ruddy
+complexion, and boldly ardent eye denote the perfection of vigorous
+health, and are in striking contrast to the physique, colouring, and
+expression of his companion. The former wears a black velvet doublet,
+which reveals an under-garment of gleaming rose-red satin. Over all
+is a black velvet mantle lined and trimmed with white fur. On his black
+cap is a silver brooch which displays a skull. He wears a gold badge
+exhibiting a mailed figure spearing a dragon suspended by a heavy gold
+chain. The hilt of his sword is seen at his left hand, and his right
+grasps a gold-sheathed dagger. On this latter is the inscription: ÆT.
+SVÆ. 29; and from it depends a massive green-and-gold silk tassel,
+incomparably painted.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 28
+  "THE AMBASSADORS"
+ _Oils. National Gallery_
+
+As has been noted, the complexion of the man at our right is singularly
+pallid; the eyes mournfully listless; the skin of his knuckles drawn
+into the wrinkles of wasting tissues. He wears a scholar's cap and gown;
+the latter of some chocolate-brown pile, richly patterned, and lined
+with brown fur. He holds his gloves in his right hand and leans this
+arm on a closed book, on the edges of which is the lettering: ÆTATIS SVÆ
+25.
+
+An oriental cover is spread on the table, and upon it are a number of
+the scientific instruments common to astrology and to the uses of
+astronomers like Kratzer, in whose portrait at the Louvre they are also
+to be seen. On the lower shelf are mathematical and musical instruments
+and books. The two latter are opened to display their text conspicuously.
+Near the man at our left, and kept open by a T-square, is the Arithmetic
+which Peter Apian, astronomer and globe-maker, published in 1527. It is
+opened at a page in Division, with its German text plainly legible and
+identical with the actual page, as seen in the British Museum's copy of
+this edition.
+
+The book nearest the man at our right, lying beneath the lute, has been
+also identified as Luther's Psalm-book with music,--in which the German
+text is by himself and the music by Johann Walther--first published in
+1524. Mr. Barclay Squire has shown that the two hymns could not, however,
+have faced each other in reality, as they do in the painting, without
+the intervening leaves having been purposely suppressed to gain this
+end. These hymns are "Come Holy Ghost" (_Kom Heiliger Geyst Herregott_)
+and "Mortal, wouldst thou live blessedly?" (_Mensch wiltu leben
+seliglich_). In each case the entire verse is given.
+
+The background is a green-diapered damask curtain most significantly
+drawn aside to show a silver crucifix high up in the left-hand corner,
+above the man with the dagger and sword. On the beautiful mosaic
+pavement is an ugly object that looks like some dried fish. But
+experiments have shown that the French Sale-Catalogues in which this
+work first appears in the eighteenth century--first, that is, so far as
+we can trace it by any records now known--were right in calling this a
+"skull in perspective"; _i.e._ a skull painted as seen distorted in a
+convex mirror. Some hint of its true character can be gathered, though
+not much, by looking at this object from the lower left-hand corner of
+the painting, when the exaggerated length will be seen to be reduced to
+something more nearly approaching the height of the usual "Death's
+Head."
+
+According to the views which are now officially accepted by the National
+Gallery, the persons of this picture are two French Catholics. The one
+at our left is Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, Bailly of Troyes
+and Knight of the French Order of St. Michael, of which he wears the
+badge without the splendid collar--as was permitted, by a special
+statute, to persons in the field, on a journey, or in a privacy that
+would not require the full dress of a state occasion. Jean de Dinteville
+was French Ambassador at the Court of Henry VIII. in 1533; born in 1504,
+he was then twenty-nine. He died in 1555.
+
+The man in the scholar's cap and gown is George de Selve, privately
+associated with de Dinteville's mission for a few weeks in the spring of
+1533. He was born in 1508, nominated Bishop of Lavaur in 1526, and
+confirmed in that office in 1529, in which year he was French Ambassador
+at the Court of Charles V. He was twenty-five in 1533, and died in 1541.
+
+For myself, holding convictions concerning these portraits utterly at
+variance with any published opinions--and that in more than one vital
+respect--I am compelled to limit my account to the bare record of its
+appearance and catalogued description, until prepared to submit other
+facts and conclusions to a verdict.
+
+Two portraits in the Hague Gallery, each with a falcon hooded on the
+wrist, show to how much purpose Holbein had studied these birds in the
+Steelyard. The one of Robert Cheseman, done in this year, is especially
+fine, with a strange, elusive suggestion of something kindred in the
+nature of man and bird.
+
+In 1533, also, the Steelyard placed its contribution to the celebration
+of Anne Boleyn's coronation in the painter's hands. And the result was,
+as Stow tells us, "a costly and marvellous cunning pageant by the
+merchants of the Stilyard, wherein was the Mount Parnassus, with the
+Fountaine of Helicon, which was of white marble; and four streams
+without pipe did rise an ell high and mette together in a little cup
+above the fountaine; which fountaine ran abundantly with Rhenish wine
+till night. On the mountaine sat Apollo, and at his feet sat Calliope;
+and on every side of the mountaine sate four Muses, playing on severell
+sweet instruments."
+
+But of more importance to his living fame were the two large oil
+paintings--the Triumph of Riches and the Triumph of Poverty--which he
+executed for the Hall of the Steelyard. In their day they were renowned
+far and wide; but they also have slipped into some abyss of oblivion,
+perhaps to be yet recovered as miraculously as was the Solothurn
+Madonna.
+
+When the Guild was compelled to abandon the Steelyard, in Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, the Hall stood so long unguarded and uncared for that
+when it regained possession, under James I., everything was in a sad
+state of neglect. And when the association finally dissolved not long
+after, the Hanseatic League agreed to present these paintings to Henry
+Prince of Wales, known, like Charles I., to be a lover of Art.
+
+If they passed to the possession of the latter, he must have exchanged
+them with, or presented them to, the Earl of Arundel. For in 1627
+Sandrart saw them in the collection of the latter, like his father an
+enthusiastic admirer of Holbein's work. After this, one or two vague
+notices suggest that they somehow drifted to Flanders, and thence to
+Paris. But there every trace of them is lost. Federigo Zucchero thought
+they yielded to no work of the kind, even among Italian masters; and
+copied them from pure admiration. Holbein's drawing for the Triumph of
+Riches is in the Louvre Collection.
+
+That he ever painted Anne Boleyn, unless in miniature, seems doubtful.
+The portrait among the Windsor drawings which has been labelled with her
+name agrees with no description of her in any single respect. But in
+1534 he painted one whose destiny was closely linked to hers--Thomas
+Cromwell, then Master of the Jewel House.
+
+And it was probably about this time that he painted what is in some
+respects the greatest of all his portraits--one of the galaxy of supreme
+works of all portraiture--the oil painting of Morett, or Morette, so
+long regarded as a triumph of Leonardo da Vinci's art. The world knows
+it well in the Dresden Gallery (Plate 29).
+
+The figure is life-size. The pose, even the costume in its feasible
+essentials, strikingly repeats the Whitehall portrait of Henry VIII., as
+copies show this to have been completed in the wall painting. The
+background is a green curtain.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 29
+  THE MORETT PORTRAIT
+ _Oils. Dresden Gallery_
+
+The sitter wears neither velvet nor cloth-of-gold, nor Order of any
+sort; but his costume is rich black satin, the sleeves puffed with
+white, the broad fur collar of sable. In his cap is a cameo brooch. His
+buttons are gold; and a gold locket hangs from a plain, heavy chain of
+the same metal. His right hand carries his gloves, his left rests on the
+gold sheath of the dagger that hangs from his waist. His auburn hair and
+beard is streaked with grey.
+
+No words, no reproduction, can hope to express the qualities of such
+a painting. Neither can show the mastery or the spell by which the green
+background, the hair, the cool transparent flesh-tones, the fur, the
+satin, the gold, are all woven into a witchery as virile as it is
+penetrating.
+
+This is another work which has undergone more than one transformation in
+the course of its records. As late as 1657 it was correctly ascribed to
+Holbein in the Modena Collection. But the first syllable of the sitter's
+name has been its only constant. In time Morett slipped into Moretta,
+and then--like _Meier_ in the Madonna picture--into Morus. So far it
+seems to have clung to some English tradition. But when Morus got
+changed to Moro it was but natural for an Italian to think of Ludovico
+Sforza, "Il Moro." Long before this Holbein had become Olbeno; and
+thereafter a puzzle. When the portrait was labelled Sforza, however, who
+could its obviously great painter be but Leonardo? _Et voilà!_ Thus the
+work passed to the Gallery and Catalogue of the Royal Collection at
+Dresden. And thus it long remained, as if to attest the true level of
+Holbein's genius.
+
+But when the Gallery also acquired the drawing of the Arundel
+Collection, labelled "Mr. Morett" in Hollar's engraving from it, the
+painting was held to be unquestionably identified by it as Hubert
+Morett, goldsmith to Henry VIII. Nor is there anything incongruous in
+this belief. Such a master goldsmith was no tradesman, in our sense of
+the word. He was often much more like one of our merchant princes. The
+merchants of the Steelyard were frequently the royal bankers, and many
+times were employed on high and delicate diplomatic missions to other
+courts. Neither is there anything in the sitter's dress to forbid it to
+a man of this stamp, even after the sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were
+passed; while there is much, very much, to suggest an English origin.
+
+On the other hand, M. Larpent has now shown that the Arundel drawing was
+down in a catalogue of 1746-7 as: "One Holbein, Sieur de Moret, one of
+the French hostage in England"; and also that a "Chas. sieur de Morette"
+is recorded among the four French hostages sent to England in 1519. It
+would thus appear that the painting is a portrait of Charles de Solier,
+seigneur de Morette; an eminent soldier and diplomatist of France; born
+in 1480, Ambassador to England more than once, and finally, in 1534.
+
+Besides all the portraits of Holbein's English period, many of them
+scattered throughout the collections of all Europe, and many others now
+lost, it must not be forgotten that he was at the same time pouring
+forth miniature paintings, designs for engraving, designs for the
+goldsmith, and conceptions of every sort--from a carved chimney-piece to
+a woman's jewelled trinket; and all designed with the same exquisite
+precision and felicity. In the British Museum as on the Continent these
+drawings are an education in themselves. And besides the portrait
+studies in the Windsor Collection there is a sketch for a large painting
+which, if ever executed, is lost: "The Queen of Sheba visiting King
+Solomon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PAINTER ROYAL
+
+1536-1543
+
+  Queen Jane Seymour--Death of Erasmus, and title-page portrait--The
+  Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.--Munich drawing of Henry VIII.--Birth
+  of an heir and the "Jane Seymour Cup"--Death of the Queen--Christina,
+  Duchess of Milan--Secret service for the King--Flying visit to Basel
+  and arrangements for a permanent return--Apprentices his son Philip at
+  Paris--Portrait of the Prince of Wales and the King's return gift--Anne
+  of Cleves--Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk--Catherine Howard--Lapse
+  of Holbein's Basel citizenship--Irregularities--Provision for wife
+  and children--Residence in London--Execution of Queen Catherine
+  Howard--Marriage of Catherine Parr--Dr. Chamber--Unfinished work for
+  the Barber-Surgeons' Hall--Death of Holbein--His will--Place of
+  burial--Holbein's genius; its true character and greatness.
+
+
+These were years of pleasant friendships, too, as well as work and
+cares. Nicholas Bourbon, scholar and poet, after his sojourn in London,
+writes back in 1536: "Greet in my name as heartily as you can all with
+whom you know me to be connected by intercourse and friendship." And
+after mentioning high dignitaries who had followed the King's example of
+showing special courtesies to Bourbon, he adds: "Mr. Cornelius Heyss, my
+host, the King's Goldsmith; Mr. Nicolaus Kratzer, the King's Astronomer,
+a man who is brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies; and Mr. Hans,
+the Royal Painter, the Apelles of our time. I wish them from my heart
+all joy and happiness." This little pen-picture of Holbein's intimate
+circle is a beautiful break in the mists of centuries--and shows us what
+manner of men they were among whom he had made for himself an honoured
+place. We could ill spare it from the few and meagre records of his
+life. It is also the very earliest documentary evidence of his being in
+the King's immediate service.
+
+It was in this very year, 1536, that he received his commission to paint
+Anne Boleyn's successor, Jane Seymour, then on the throne the block
+had left vacant. The Vienna Gallery possesses this painting, of which
+another version is at Woburn Abbey, and the chalk drawing at Windsor
+(Plate 30).
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 30
+  QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR
+ _Oils. Vienna Gallery_
+
+The Queen was noted for her milk-white fairness, and Holbein has
+borrowed the pearly shadows of the lily in rendering it. The figure is a
+little under life-size. Her head-dress and robes of silver brocade and
+royal velvet are studded with splendid rubies and pearls to match the
+jewels on her neck and breast. The hands are as full of character as of
+art.
+
+The Queen's portrait may properly be said to belong to the great wall
+painting which Holbein finished in 1537 for the Royal Palace at Whitehall.
+But before that date the painter's inner life had suffered one more
+great wrench. At midnight of July 12th, 1536, Erasmus died in the home
+that had been his own, except for the Freiburg interval, ever since John
+Froben's death in 1526; a death that had probably had much to do with
+Holbein's first departure from Basel. That event had uprooted the
+scholar from the old house _zum Sessel_, in the Fischmarkt, and
+transplanted him to the home of Froben's son, Hieronymus. The latter
+house, then known as _zum Luft_, is now No. 18, Bäumleingasse. And it
+was here that Erasmus passed away, his mind keeping to the last its
+humour and its interests in all around him. But no one, remembering how
+Fisher and More had died in the preceding year, can doubt but that the
+good old man was very willing to be gone, away from changed faces and
+changed ways--though Bonifacius Amerbach and young Froben were as sons
+to him.
+
+Basel, for all her differences with him, buried Erasmus with great
+honours. But no tablet could so commemorate him as the noble monument
+which Holbein built to him in the title-page he designed for Hieronymus
+Froben's edition of Erasmus's _Works_, published in 1540. It is a
+woodcut of extraordinary beauty. The full-length figure of the scholar
+stands in cap and gown, with one hand resting lightly on the bust of
+the god Terminus (the god of immovable boundary lines, significantly
+conjoined to Erasmus's chosen motto: _Concedo nulli_) and the other
+calling attention to this significant emblem of fixed convictions. Not
+even the Louvre oil painting expresses the whole Erasmus quite so
+completely or so nobly as this little drawing of the man whom Holbein
+had loved and revered for twenty years; and to whom he owed, in the
+first place, the splendid opportunities of his career in England.
+
+And as he drew it, what ghosts of his own Past must have clustered
+around the lean little figure! What echoes and visions! The Rhine, the
+gardens, the clang of the press, the Fischmarkt, the friendly smiles at
+Froben's and Meyer's firesides; his marriage; the stars and dews and
+perfume of all his dreams in the years--those matchless years of a man's
+young manhood--when he had walked with angels as well as peasants, had
+seen the Way of the Cross, the Christ in the Grave, and the Risen Lord
+even more clearly than the faces of flesh and blood. _Eheu fugaces!_
+"God help thee, Elia, how art thou sophisticated."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ah, well! Those years, and the darker, sadder years that had led far
+from them, were now like his oldest friends--dead and buried. The
+Holbein of 1537 was painting the King of England on the wall of his
+Privy Chamber. There was a place for honest pride as well as for honest
+regret in his thoughts.
+
+This painting perished with the palace in the fire of 1698. Charles
+II., however, had a small copy of it made by Leemput. And a portion of
+Holbein's original cartoon (Plate 31) in chalk and Indian ink, is in
+the possession of the Duke of Devonshire--the face much washed out by
+cleaning, and the outline pricked for transferring to the wall. The
+figures are life-size, but Walpole has already noticed how the massive
+proportions and solidly-planted pose of the King heighten the illusion
+of a Colossus. Behind him stands the admirably contrasted figure of
+Henry VII. The whole composition consisted of four portraits; Queen
+Jane Seymour opposite her husband, and the King's mother opposite to,
+and on a level with, Henry VII., who stands on the elevation of the
+background.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 31
+  KING HENRY VIII AND HIS FATHER
+  (_Fragment of Cartoon used for the Whitehall Wall-Painting_)
+ _Duke of Devonshire's Collection_
+
+The pose and costume of Henry VIII. in the cartoon were, as Leemput's
+copy shows, faithfully carried out in the painting; but in the latter
+the face was afterwards turned to the full front view familiar to us in
+the many copies of the King's portrait which so long passed as works of
+Holbein, on the strength of reproducing his own painting. There is no
+evidence that he ever again painted Henry VIII. or that he executed
+any replica of this portrait. The old copy at Windsor Castle serves,
+however, to recall its details of costume; such as his brown doublet
+stiff with gold brocade and scintillating with the gleams of splendid
+jewels, his coat of royal red embroidered with gold thread and lined
+with ermine to match the wide collar; his plumed and jewelled cap; as
+also the huge gems on collar, pendant, rings, and the gold-hilted dagger
+in its blue velvet sheath.
+
+But Holbein's own portrait of Henry VIII.--as shown by the original
+chalk study from life now in the Munich Gallery (Plate 32)--may in
+all sobriety of speech be called a stupendous work. Looking at this
+marvellous drawing and picturing to one's self those cheeks informed
+with pulsing blood, those lips with breath, those eyes with blue
+gleams,--it is easy to understand that Van Mander was using no hyperbole
+when he said that the painting on the wall of the Privy Chamber made the
+stoutest knees to tremble. It was literally, as he said, "a terrible
+painting," of which none of the stupidly-heavy copies that have for the
+most part travestied Holbein's work give any true conception. Many a man
+could paint cloth-of-gold and gems; but only once and again in the
+centuries comes a man who can thus paint, not alone the mane and stride
+of the lion, but the fires that light his glance, the roar rushing to
+his lips. To look long into these eyes that Holbein had the genius to
+read and the firmness to draw, is to feel one's self in the grip of an
+insatiable, implacable, yet leonine soul; a being who, to borrow the
+matchless description of Burke's political career, is "parted asunder in
+his works like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature;
+each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing
+altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility
+with one another." And so long as the great drama of Tudor England
+enthrals the minds of men, hard by Shakespeare's supreme name must be
+read the name of the painter in whose pages the actors in that drama
+have been compelled themselves to declare themselves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 32
+  KING HENRY VIII
+  (_Life-study; probably for the Whitehall Painting_)
+ _Chalks. Munich Collection_
+
+To crown the King's pride, and to the no less intense delight of the
+whole nation which saw in this event the rainbow of every promise, at
+Hampton Court, on the 12th of October, 1537, Queen Jane Seymour gave
+birth to the son who was to reign so briefly as Edward VI. And it was
+doubtless in connection with this happy circumstance that the King
+commissioned Holbein's design for a truly royal piece of goldsmith's
+work. This drawing, generally known as "the Jane Seymour cup," is at
+Oxford, in the Bodleian Library (Plate 33).
+
+No sketch of the artist's powers would be even barely complete without a
+realising sense of their versatility. And in this design Holbein has more
+than equalled the highest achievement of his great contemporary, Benvenuto
+Cellini, at this time in the service of the French Court. The initials
+of the King and Queen, H. and J., and the exceedingly judicious motto of
+the latter--"Bound to obey and to serve"--are recurring devices. But it
+is in the originality and unflawed beauty of the whole--the springing
+grace of outline, the taste and cunning with which flowers of gold
+naturally bloom into gems and pearls, the combination of freest, richest
+fancy with every restraint of a pure taste--that the perfection of this
+little masterpiece consists.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 33
+  DESIGN FOR "THE JANE SEYMOUR CUP"
+ _Bodleian Library_
+
+In the midst of all the public rejoicings, the Te Deums, feasts, and
+bonfires, came the thunderclap of the young mother's death. Some
+negligence had permitted her to take cold, and on the twelfth day after
+his coveted heir was born, Henry VIII. was once again a widower. The
+Court went into deepest mourning until the 3rd of February. But Thomas
+Cromwell was very shortly authorised to take secret steps to ascertain
+what Princess might most suitably fill the late Queen's vacant place and
+strengthen the assurance of an unbroken succession.
+
+Choice fell at first on a Roman Catholic--Christina, the sixteen-year-old
+widow of Francis Sforza Duke of Milan, who had died in the autumn of
+1535. The upshot of private inquiries was that Holbein was sent over to
+Brussels in March, 1538, to bring back a portrait of this daughter of
+Christian of Denmark and niece of Charles V. And although the painter
+had but three hours in which to do it, he did make what Hutton described
+as her "very perffight" image; besides which, said the envoy, the
+portrait previously despatched, though painted in all her state finery,
+"was but slobbered."
+
+From this "perffight" painting, which could not have been more than one
+of his portrait studies, he afterwards completed that full-length oil
+painting which is worthy to rank with his great Morett portrait. By the
+kindness of the Duke of Norfolk, who has lent it, this beautiful work
+is now in the National Gallery (Plate 34). But unhappily for its best
+appreciation, to my thinking at least, it hangs at one side and in too
+close proximity to the bold colouring of "The Ambassadors"; so that its
+own subtle, yet reticent superiority is well-nigh shouted down by its
+lusty neighbour. It is a picture to be seen by itself; as it must stand
+by itself in the usual inane gallery of women's portraits.
+
+Hutton tells us that the painter who "slobbered" Christina's portrait
+had painted her in full dress. But Holbein's eye was quick to recognise
+the values of her everyday dress--the widow's costume of Italy--in
+enhancing the distinction of her face and the stately slenderness of her
+figure. And so he drew her as she stood, with a hint of bending
+forward, her gloves being restlessly fingered in a shy yet proud
+embarrassment, in the first moments when he saw her.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 34
+  CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN
+ _Oils. National Gallery_
+  [_Lent by the Duke of Norfolk_]
+
+The portrait is nearly life-size. Over a plain black satin dress she
+wears a gown of the same material, lined with yellow sable. Her hair is
+entirely concealed by a black hood. At her throat and wrists are plain
+cambric frills. The ranging scale of tawny tones--in the floor, the
+gloves, the fur, the golden glint in her brown eyes--and the one ruby,
+on her hand, are the only colours, except those of her fresh young lips
+and skin and the black and white of her costume. "She is not so white as
+the late Queen," wrote Hutton, "but she hath a singular good countenance,
+and when she chanceth to smile there appeareth two pits in her cheeks
+and one in her chin, the which becometh her excellently well."
+
+It is easy to believe that they did, but her dimples did not chance for
+Henry VIII. Whether she really sent him, along with her picture, the
+witty refusal credited to her--that she had but one head; had she two,
+one should be at His Majesty's service--or whether it was the Emperor's
+doing entirely that his niece married the Duke of Lorraine instead of
+the man whose first wife had been Charles V.'s aunt, there is, at all
+events, a soft lurking devil in the demure little face which seems to
+whisper that the answer was one which she could have made an' she would.
+
+Van Mander heard from Holbein's circle a story which modern pedantry
+is inclined to flout. This is, that when an irate nobleman wanted the
+painter punished for an affront, the King hotly exclaimed:--"Understand,
+my lord, that I can make seven earls out of as many hinds, any day; but
+out of seven earls I could not make one such painter as this Holbein."
+An eminently ben-trovato story, at all events. And certain it is that
+the painter stood sufficiently high in the royal favour to be despatched
+on some special private mission for the King in the summer of 1538, of
+which the secret was so well kept that nothing beyond the record of
+payment for it has ever transpired.
+
+From this date Holbein's name is regularly down in the Royal Accounts.
+The amounts drawn total, it has been computed, about £360 in present
+value, and would make an agreeable annual addition to his other
+earnings. So that it is little wonder he was not tempted by the small
+sum offered by the Basel Council in 1532. But in 1538 the Council
+greatly increased the old offer, and was so anxious to have him among
+her citizens that the painter seized the opportunity of his secret
+mission to Upper Burgundy, whatever it was, to pay a flying visit to
+Basel in the interests of his family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His old companions of the Guild of St. Johann Vorstadt made this
+visit--when Holbein was back among them, as was noted, "in silk and
+velvet"--the occasion of a grand banquet in his honour. But the real
+motive for his visit was to arrange upon what terms he could meet the
+Council's wishes. The terms were far from ungenerous, as is shown by the
+contract which followed him back to London.
+
+In this the Council bound itself, in consideration of the great honour
+of retaining in their city a painter "famous beyond all other painters
+on account of the riches of his art," and in further consideration of
+his promise to make no absence from Basel more prolonged than should be
+really necessary to carry his foreign commissions to their destination
+and receive his pay for them--to give him an annuity of fifty guldens,
+equally whether Holbein should be ill or well, but only during his own
+life. In addition to this, they granted him permission to make short
+visits to specified art-centres, of which Milan was one, "once, twice,
+or thrice, every year." And recognising the impossibility of his freeing
+himself from his English engagements in less than two years, they also
+granted him this interval before he need resume his residence at Basel;
+and engaged to pay forty guldens yearly to his wife, on his behalf, for
+each of these two years.
+
+There is every probability that Holbein himself took a goodly sum to
+Basel to invest for his family's permanent benefit in one way and
+another. For it could only have been as a part of this gleaning for
+them that he drew--as the Account Books show that he did just at this
+juncture--a whole year's salary in advance from the Royal Exchequer;
+seeing that the same books prove that he was liberally paid for all his
+own expenses on the King's service, in addition to his regular salary.
+
+Part of the sum he collected to take with him was doubtless used to
+apprentice his son Philip, now sixteen, to the goldsmith's trade. And
+that the father chose Paris for this purpose, where he left Philip on
+his return journey, might well be due either to his own estimation
+of Jerome David, to whom Philip was indentured, or to the fact that
+Benvenuto Cellini's presence at Paris afforded some advantage; or that
+his own promised return to Basel would make it preferable to have the
+lad on the same side of the Channel as all his family. And that Holbein
+fully intended to make the necessary and obvious sacrifice involved in
+exchanging London for Basel is also proved by a contemporary account.
+"His intention was," says his fellow-townsman, "had God lengthened his
+life, to paint many of his pictures again at his own expense, as well as
+the hall in the Rathaus. The paintings on the _Haus zum Tanz_ he
+pronounced 'pretty good.'" But it was not to be.
+
+His New Year's offering to the King on the opening of 1539 was a
+portrait, probably the oil painting in the Hague Gallery, of the infant
+Prince of Wales. It was a spirited picture of the royal baby with his
+gold rattle in his chubby little fist, such as might have delighted a
+father less doting than Henry VIII., whose return gift is recorded: "To
+Hans Holbyne, paynter, a gilte cruse with a cover, weighing x oz. 1
+quarter." The cruse was made by a friend of the painter; that Cornelius
+Hayes, goldsmith, whom Bourbon's letter mentioned in connection with him
+in 1536.
+
+All these months the negotiations for the hand of the Duchess of Milan
+had fluctuated with the varying fortunes of the King's relations with
+her uncle, Charles V. But at last they had altogether collapsed with
+what seemed to Henry VIII. the threatening attitude assumed by the
+Emperor and the Pope. Hereupon followed that historical chapter, so full
+of fatal consequences to Cromwell, and no less big with shame for the
+King's own story: the pitiful chapter of Anne of Cleves.
+
+Her brother, the Duke of Cleves, was at this time a troublesome foe to
+the Emperor; while the fact that she was a Protestant was a "Roland"
+for the Imperial and Papal "Oliver." So Holbein was again posted off to
+bring back a counterfeit of Anne, and to carry to her a miniature of the
+King. And by the 1st September he had acquitted himself of the new
+mission.
+
+There is not an iota of historical or other evidence for that "Flanders
+mare" anecdote, which seems to have had a gratuitous as well as
+spontaneous origin in Bishop Burnet's seventeenth-century brain, to the
+effect that the King was the victim of a flattering portrait by Holbein,
+and cruelly undeceived by the actual looks of his bride. In the first
+place his agents wrote to him frankly that the Princess was of no great
+beauty, though not uncomely, and "never from the ellebowe of the Ladye
+Duchesse her Mother," who was said to be most unwilling to part with her
+(as a mother might well be, for the husband in question). The King was
+also told that she was quite unskilled in languages or music, and
+held, with her mother, that it was "for a rebuke and an occasion of
+lightenesse that great Ladyes shuld be lernyd or have enye knowledge of
+musike." And in the next place even a superficial knowledge of Holbein
+would disprove any tradition of "flattery" from his unflinching, almost
+brutally truthful brush. It was hardly likely that the painter who would
+not stoop to flatter Bishop Stokesley, or Henry VIII. himself, would be
+swerved from his good faith by Anne of Cleves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 35
+  ANNE OF CLEVES
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+On the contrary, the painting, in oils on vellum and mounted on a panel,
+now in the Louvre (Plate 35), is the very embodiment of contemporary
+accounts of this Princess. Her fair-skinned, commonplace, yet "not
+uncomely" face looks out placidly at you from the quaint Flemish
+head-dress of fine gauze and jewelled cloth-of-gold. Her inert hands
+(Holbein's hands belong to his truth-telling revelations), jewelled
+even on the thumb, are listlessly clasped upon each other; her
+crimson-velvet dress is heavily banded with gold and pearl embroidery.
+
+No Venus certainly, and perhaps somewhat heavily handicapped by the
+maternal "elbowe." But still perfectly in keeping with her descriptions
+and making no denial to the French Ambassador's statement that she was
+"the gentlest and kindest" of queens; or to an English eye-witness who
+writes that at her coronation the people all applauded her for being "so
+fayre a Ladye, of so goodly a stature and so womanly a countenance, and
+in especial of so good qualities."
+
+The fact is that the King's very cruelty to this poor girl--torn from
+her mother's side and her Protestant home in Dürren to be the pawn of an
+unscrupulous diplomacy--was based on grounds, at least, less infamous
+than that of a slave-buyer. After both Cromwell and Holbein had been
+well rewarded for their services, the former lost his head and the Queen
+her crown on considerations that took no more account of her looks than
+her feelings. The Catholic glass had risen; the King himself was not
+ashamed to avow it; and the Protestant alliance was therefore an
+incubus. After some two months of a queen's and wife's estate, poor
+Anne of Cleves was bid to pack her belongings and take up a separate
+establishment as an unmarried woman. No wonder she fainted when first
+informed of such an infamy.
+
+But there was no law in England save the _fiat_ of Henry VIII. The
+marriage was pronounced "null and void," and Anne retired into private
+life, on the rigid condition that she would make no attempt to ever quit
+England, with an allowance of £3,000 a year, and the formal title of the
+King's "sister." There was no help for her. Never again for her would
+there be the austere joys of Dürren--her mother's side, her own timid
+dreams of other companionship, and never the price at which she had lost
+them.
+
+At the head of the triumphant anti-Protestant, anti-Cromwell party stood
+Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, whose portrait, in the Royal
+Collection at Windsor, Holbein painted about this time (Plate 36). The
+lean face and the figure clothed in red stand out strikingly from the
+plain green background, although the painting has suffered not a little
+injury. The robe is lined and trimmed with ermine, and over it is the
+collar and badge of the Order of the Garter. In his right hand he holds
+the gold baton of his office as Earl Marshal, and in his left the White
+Staff of the Lord Chamberlain.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 36
+  THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK
+ _Oils. Windsor Castle_
+
+According to Roper, Norfolk, then Earl of Surrey, was a great friend of
+Sir Thomas More. But it would be hard to imagine a greater contrast than
+the records of the two men. The latter a pattern of personal purity and
+lofty ideals; the former as venal as the King's Parliaments, and as
+unscrupulous in pursuit of his passions as the King himself.
+
+Norfolk's star of influence had already waxed and waned with the evil
+destinies of one niece, before it arose anew with the fortunes of
+another only to plunge sharply after them into the gulf of ruin. For the
+present he and Gardiner, restored to favour with him, were all-powerful.
+Their calculations seemed to prosper, too, beyond their most ambitious
+dreams, when, instead of ruling through a rival to Anne who should be
+the King's mistress, they were to rule through a legal successor. For
+the King was nothing if not technically correct; and from the moment
+when the fatal royal glance flamed on Catherine Howard when Gardiner was
+entertaining him, nothing would do but she should become his wife. And
+thus once more the wild wheel of Fortune was to make Norfolk uncle to a
+Queen of England.
+
+Anne was divorced on the 12th of July, 1540, and on the 28th of the
+same month, on the very day when Thomas Cromwell was beheaded, the King
+married Anne Boleyn's cousin, Catherine Howard. On the 8th of August she
+was proclaimed Queen, and on the 15th of that month she was publicly
+prayed for as such in all the churches of the realm. Well might she be!
+Dry your outraged tears, Anne of Cleves, and give thanks to God that you
+are well out of it!
+
+There is a miniature in the Windsor Collection now believed to be
+Holbein's portrait of Catherine Howard. Until recently it was held to be
+the portrait of Catherine Parr. But there is a larger portrait of the
+former among the Windsor drawings, a study evidently made for an oil
+painting (Plate 37). By this it seems that she had auburn hair, hazel
+eyes, a fair complexion, and a piquant smile. There is a painting which
+accords with this drawing in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection, but it
+is said to be by a French artist.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 37
+  CATHERINE HOWARD
+ _Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle_
+
+In the autumn of this year, 1540, the two years of absence expired which
+had been granted to Holbein by his contract with the Basel Council. But
+he had now formed ties which were too powerful to yield to Basel's.
+Those plans of painting again the walls by which coming generations
+would judge him, the resolve to try again if he and Elsbeth might not
+manage to live in peace under one roof where the children, who were
+strangers to him, should come to know and be known by him in something
+more than name, were all relinquished. They must certainly have
+been relinquished on some definite mutual understanding, and at a
+"compensation" agreed upon between him and Elsbeth and his step-son,
+Franz Schmidt; because it must have been Holbein himself who enabled
+Franz, acting on his mother's behalf, to take over as he did the entire
+legacy--a snug little competency in itself--to which Holbein fell heir
+in this autumn by the bequest of his uncle, Sigmund Holbein, citizen of
+Berne. Philip having been launched by his father in the goldsmith's
+craft, there only remained the second son and two daughters at home.
+Thus so far as mere money went, Holbein might now think himself
+discharged from the support of his family, and free to divert his future
+earnings from them. And, as has been said, the Will and Inventory proved
+at Elsbeth's death, six years after her husband's, that he had made no
+bad provision for them in the matter of material comforts, however
+remiss his conduct in its moral aspects.
+
+The Royal Accounts break off in 1541, but the Subsidy Roll for the City
+of London has a very precious item for Holbein's biography in the
+October of this year. This announces that "Hanns Holbene" is among the
+"straungers" then residing in "the Parisshe of Saint Andrew Undershafte,"
+and that he is assessed as such.
+
+Not only the Windsor chalk drawings, but the paintings at Vienna,
+Berlin, and other Continental galleries, show the pressure, as well as
+the high level of quality, at which he was now working. These portraits
+are among almost his very best, while the one shortly to be mentioned is
+quite among them.
+
+By the summer of 1542 the tragedy of Catherine Howard was over. That
+Royal Progress, like more than one of its forerunners, had become the
+royal shame. This time it was a shame so black and so wide that within
+two years, after madness and death had purged the complicity of many,
+there still remained so many more involved in the sins and follies of
+Norfolk's niece that the ordinary prisons were unable to contain all
+that were arraigned; a shame so bitter that when the proofs of it were
+first laid before Henry VIII. the Privy Council quaked to see him shed
+tears. It was, they said with awe, "a strange thing in his courage!"
+The guilty woman had her own tears to shed in expiation; but in the
+dawn of February 12th, 1542, she walked to the block as full of wilful,
+cheerful audacity, and as careful of her toilet, as she had ever gone to
+meet her royal lover. And so the auburn head of the King's fifth wife
+rolled from the axe that had severed her guilty cousin's.
+
+On July 12th, 1543, the "next" year as it then began, the King married
+Catherine Parr. She had been twice widowed and was about to marry Sir
+Thomas Seymour when the King interfered, and she became his wife
+instead; though one can well credit the story that she tremblingly
+told him, "It were better to be his mistress." She was a good woman, a
+generous stepmother, and a good wife. But there is plenty of probability
+for the assertion that her own death had been debated with the King when
+her wit delayed it, and his death set her free to marry at last the man
+from whom the King had snatched her.
+
+It was formerly believed, as has been said, that Holbein had painted
+her miniature--the one at Windsor, now declared to be the portrait
+of Catherine Howard. About this time he must have painted the great
+portrait of which mention has been made. This is the oil portrait of
+Dr. Chamber, the King's physician, now in the Vienna Gallery (Plate 38).
+The sitter was, as the inscription shows, eighty-eight years old; and
+the strong, stern face is full of that "inward" look which comes to
+the faces of men whose meat and drink has been a lifetime of heavy
+responsibilities. He had been associated with the Charter of the College
+of Physicians in 1518, and was also instrumental in that of the Guild of
+"Barbers and Surgeons," in 1541. And it was probably through him and Dr.
+Butts, another physician to the King whom Holbein had painted and who
+was likewise a Master of the new Guild, that he undertook to paint a
+large work for their hall--Henry VIII. granting their Charter to the
+Master-Surgeons kneeling before him.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 38
+  DR. CHAMBER
+ _Oils. Vienna Gallery_
+
+This work Holbein did not live to finish; and it is to-day exceedingly
+doubtful as to how much of the smoke-blackened painting is by him. The
+very drawing has a woodenness foreign to his compositions, and much of
+the painting is by an evidently inferior hand. But good judges hold some
+of the heads to be undoubtedly his work.
+
+However this may be, with the autumn of 1543 Holbein's life came to a
+sudden close. Van Mander, wrong as to the date by eleven years which
+have fathered a host of spurious _Holbeins_ on the Histories of Art, is
+apparently right as to the cause of death--"the Plague." By the great
+discovery of Hans Holbein's Will, found by Mr. Black in 1861 among the
+archives of St. Paul's Cathedral, it is proved that the painter made his
+Will on October 7th, and must have died between this and November 29th,
+1543, when administration was granted to one of his executors (the other
+would seem to have perished, meanwhile, from the same epidemic). This
+surviving executor was an old friend of the artist, whose portrait,
+in the Windsor Gallery, he had painted eleven years before--Hans of
+Antwerp, a master-goldsmith of the Steelyard.
+
+The Will bears about it evident signs of having been made in great haste
+and mental disturbance. But it accomplished all that Holbein probably
+had at heart; that is, the ensuring that whatsoever moneys could be
+collected from his accounts, or by the sale of "all my goodes and also
+my horse," should first be applied to clear a couple of specified debts,
+and the rest be managed for the sole benefit of "my two chylder which
+be at nurse." From the very fact that nothing as to the identity or
+whereabouts of these babies is mentioned, it is clear that Holbein
+relied on the verbal instructions which he had given to his trusted
+friends and to their complete understanding of all the circumstances as
+well as of his wishes. He was only concerned, apparently, that such
+small means as could thus be saved for them should not be permitted to
+pass to his legal heirs.
+
+No other heirs are mentioned; no other legacy is made. From the Will
+alone one who did not know otherwise would suppose that he had no
+other family or relatives in existence. The Plague left no man in its
+neighbourhood much leisure for explanations. Stowe records that the one
+of that autumn was such "a great death" that the Law Courts had to be
+transferred to St. Albans. But two things seem to speak in this curt
+document. First, that by the transference of his uncle Sigmund's little
+fortune to Franz Schmidt (as trustee for Elsbeth and the children of her
+marriage with Holbein), which the archives prove took place three years
+earlier, and by his other arrangements for his family at Basel and for
+Philip at Paris, Holbein held himself free of any further responsibility
+for their support, and, indeed, determined that they should not obtain
+possession of the residue in London.
+
+Secondly, that if the mother of his two illegitimate children had lived
+with him in London as his wife, she must have just died--perhaps in
+childbed, perhaps of the Plague. She is not in any way referred to.
+And there is something in the very signs of confusion and distress
+throughout the wording of the Will which seems to exhale a far-away
+anguish--sudden parting, sad apprehensions, keenest anxiety for "my two
+chylder which be at nurse." There comes before the eye a picture of
+the five grave men--Holbein, his two executors, the one a goldsmith,
+the other an armourer, and his two witnesses, a "merchaunte" and a
+"paynter"--hurrying along the plague-infected streets to get this
+document legalised as some protection for two motherless babies, in the
+event of their father's death. No man knew whose turn would come within
+the hour.
+
+And by November 29th Holbein's had come, and one executor's also,
+apparently. The Latin record of administration on this date is that it
+has been consigned to John Anwarpe (Johann or Hans of Antwerp), and
+accepted by him in accordance with "the last will of John, alias Hans
+Holbein, recently deceased in the parish of Saint Andrew Undershaft."
+
+It would seem probable, then, that the painter was buried in this church
+rather than in the closely adjoining church of Saint Catharine-Cree to
+which tradition assigned his body. But the horrors of such an epidemic
+as that in which the painter was swept suddenly away make it easy to
+understand how even such a man as he had now become could die unnoticed
+and be buried in an unrecorded grave. When the Earl of Arundel, a few
+years later, sought to learn where he might set up a monument to one he
+so greatly admired, there was only this vague and uncorroborated rumour
+that the painter was buried in Saint Catharine-Cree. And so no monument
+was built to mark the spot where Holbein's "measure of sliding sand" had
+been spilled at last.
+
+But, as they ran, those sands had measured more than "_a great
+portrait-painter_." They had measured Greatness; greatness which is not
+to be delimited by the wanton outrages of man or the accidents of time.
+Both have had their share in the judgments of generations that have lost
+all his greatest and nearly all his imaginative creations. And what
+the Spoiler has spared, the self-styled Restorer has too often ruined.
+Self-love, on the other hand, and family pride have been engaged to
+preserve those portraits by which it is now the fashion to mulct him of
+his far larger dues.
+
+Of his mysticism, of the symbolism in which his "Journal Intime" is
+written in his own firm cipher, this little book is not the place to
+speak; though for those who have once come to know the true Holbein
+these have a spell, a stern, inexhaustible enchantment all their own.
+
+But study the few fortunate survivals of his imaginative works, study
+even more the wrecks and skeletons of his loftier conceptions, and ask
+yourself if it could be by only a quick eye and a clever hand (and he
+had both, assuredly) that Holbein caught up the dying ember of the Van
+Eycks' torch and fanned it by his originality, his fancy, his winged
+realism, until its light lit up the dim ways of Man with a clairvoyance
+far beyond theirs. This eye, this mind, flung its gleaming penetration
+into every covert of the soul and deep, deep, deep into the most
+shrouded, the most shuddering secrets of Mortality.
+
+Was it by virtue of a mere portrait-painter's powers that the son of
+the Augsburg Bohemian came to lay his finger upon the very core and
+composition of perhaps the haughtiest, the subtlest, the most dread
+despot since the Cæsars? Henry VIII. and Fisher; the Laïs Corinthiaca,
+the Duchess of Milan, his brooding wife; dancing children, and dancing
+Death; Christ on the Cross, Christ in the Grave, Christ Arisen; lambs in
+the fields, woods and hills, gaping peasants, wild battle;--put them
+side by side, the poor ghosts of them left to us, and compute the range
+of art--"the majestic range" that framed them all.
+
+Let us be just. Let us forget for a moment the chirp of the family
+housekeeper over her gods. Let us gather up the broken fragments that
+are more than the meal, and humbly own the Miracle that created them.
+It is idle to argue with the intelligence that can see "a want of
+imagination" in Holbein. But we can find proof and to spare that it
+is not so; that his so-called "limitations"--apart from method, which
+is a matter of Epoch--are due to a creed we may or may not agree with,
+but surely must respect. The creed that Beauty is the framework, the
+ornament, rather than the substance of things; the pleasure, not the
+purpose of "this mortal"; and that the sweetest flower that blows is but
+an exquisite moment of transfigured clay.
+
+He smells the mould above the rose; yet how he draws the rose! The
+brazen arrogance of pomp, the pearl on a woman's neck, the shimmer of a
+breaking bubble, the wrinkles in a baby's foot, the beauty of life, the
+pathos of life, the irony and the lust of life,--he has painted them
+all, as he saw them all, in the phantasmagoric Procession of Being
+betwixt garret and throne.
+
+He has painted each, too, with that genius for seizing the essential
+quality which _is_ the thing, that never forsook him from Augsburg to
+Saint Andrew's Undershaft; that singular, vivid, original genius which
+can well afford to let his grave be forgotten, whose works build for
+him, as Hans Holbein--
+
+   _One of the few, the immortal names
+    That were not born to die._
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+ 1: The name used thus, without further identification, is to be taken
+ throughout these pages to mean Hans Holbein the _Younger_.
+
+ 2: Variously written Meyer, Meier, Mejer, Meiger, or Megger. Bär is also
+ written _Ber_, or _Berin_.
+
+ 3: I am deeply indebted to the personal kindness and trouble of Sir
+ Martin Gosselin, K.C.M.G., British Minister at the Court of Portugal,
+ for greatly facilitating my own study of this interesting picture.
+
+ 4: I am indebted to the personal kindness of the discoverer's son, Herr
+ Direktor Zetter-Collin of the Solothurn Museum, for these details. But
+ the whole story, as well as Herr Zetter-Collin's contributions to the
+ history of the work, should be read in his own absorbingly interesting
+ monograph:--"_Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn. (...) Ihre
+ Geschichte, etc._" 1902.
+
+ 5:
+   _"Die Liebe zu Gott Heist charite.
+     Wer Liebe hat der Tragt kein Hass."_
+
+
+
+
+A CATALOGUE OF THE PRINCIPAL
+EXISTING WORKS OF
+HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
+
+ARRANGED, SO FAR AS CAN BE KNOWN,
+IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE
+
+ ** signifies--_Superlative qualities._
+
+  * signifies--_Of some particular importance._
+
+  ? signifies--_Authorities differ._ Held by some (and by the writer)
+                to have been, in its original condition, the work of
+                Holbein's own hand.
+
+
+I.
+
+EARLIEST INDIVIDUAL WORKS (BEFORE GOING TO BASEL)
+
+ ? St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Barbara. Oils. (Wings of the St.
+   Sebastian altar-piece.) Munich Gallery.
+
+   Virgin and Child. Oils. Basel Museum. (Earliest signed work known.
+   Dated 1514.)
+
+
+II.
+
+ FIRST BASEL PERIOD
+ (1515, 1516, 1519-1526)
+
+   Illustrations to Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_.
+   Eighty-two pen-and-ink sketches on the margins.
+   Original copy, Basel Museum.
+
+   Portrait of an unknown young man.
+   Oils. Grand-Ducal Museum, Darmstadt.
+
+   Jacob Meyer _zum Hasen_ and his second wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser.
+   [Plates 4 and 5.] Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Bonifacius Amerbach. [Plate 6.] Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Portrait of himself. [Frontispiece.] Coloured Chalks. Basel Museum.
+
+ * Studies from Nature. (A bat outspread and a lamb.)
+   Drawings in water-colour and silver-point. Basel Museum.
+
+   Designs for armorial windows. (More especially those
+   with _Landsknechte_ and one with three peasants gossiping.)
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum and Print Cabinet, Berlin.
+
+  _Landsknechte_ in a hand-to-hand fight. [Plate 7.]
+   Washed Drawing. Basel Museum. Others in various collections.
+
+   Design for the wings of an organ-case.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+
+   Head of St. John the Evangelist.
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Last Supper. (On wood; ruined fragment.)
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Nativity [Plate 8.] and The Adoration. Oils.
+   Freiburg Cathedral. (Wings of a lost altar-piece.)
+
+   Holy Family. Washed Drawing. Basel Museum.
+   (Also other drawings of the Virgin and Child.)
+
+   The Passion. Eight-panelled altar-piece. [Plate 9.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum. (Utterly ruined by over-painting.)
+
+ * The Passion. A series of ten designs for glass-painting.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+   (A set of seven reversed impressions in the British Museum.)
+
+   The Man of Sorrows and the Mater Dolorosa.
+   Oils, in tones of brown. Basel Museum.
+
+   Christ borne to the ground by the weight of the cross.
+   A Washed Drawing and a * Woodcut (unique impression).
+   Basel Museum.
+
+ * Christ in the grave. [Plate 10.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+ ? The risen Christ and Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre. [Plate 11.]
+   Oils. Hampton Court Gallery. (Very much injured.)
+
+   St. George. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
+
+   St. Ursula. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
+
+ ? Portrait of a young girl. [Plate 13.]
+   Drawing in chalk and silver-point. Jabach Collection. The Louvre.
+
+** The Solothurn Madonna. [Plate 12.]
+   Oils. Solothurn Museum. ("Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn,"
+   of which the remarkable history is given in the text; together
+   with the evident relationship of Plate 13 and the hypothesis of
+   the present writer in that connection.)
+
+** Portrait of Erasmus. [Plate 14.]
+   Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   A Citizen's Wife, and others, in the dress of the time.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Table of Cebes. Border for title-page.
+   Woodcut. Royal Print Cabinet, Berlin.
+
+   St. Peter and St. Paul; on the title-page of Adam Petri's
+   reprint of Luther's translation of the New Testament.
+
+   Alphabet of "The Dance of Death." Woodcuts.
+   Proof-impressions in the Basel Museum, the British Museum,
+   and the Dresden Royal Collection.
+
+   Bible Pictures: illustrating Old Testament. Woodcuts.
+
+** "Images of Death." [Two shown at Plates 14 and 15.]
+   Proof-impressions, some sets incomplete, in the Basel Museum,
+   British Museum and the National Print Collections of Paris,
+   Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Karlsruhe, and the Bodleian Library.
+   (This is the immortal series of Woodcuts, often called
+   "The Dance of Death," done for the Trechsel Brothers of Lyons,
+   but not published there until many years later.)
+
+   Dorothea Offenburg as the Goddess of Love. [Plate 16.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The above as Laïs Corinthiaca.
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+** The Meyer Madonna. [Plates 18 and 19.]
+   Oils. Grand-Ducal Collection, Darmstadt (superbly restored);
+   and ?Dresden Gallery. (Notwithstanding the many and eminent
+   authorities who hold this to be a copy, there still remain
+   a sufficiency of no less eminent authorities to warrant the
+   present writer in her unshaken opinion that, at any rate in
+   its first estate and in the main, this Dresden version--revered
+   for more than one century as such by the highest authorities--was
+   the creation of Holbein's own hand.)
+
+
+III.
+
+FIRST LONDON PERIOD
+(1526-1528)
+
+   Portrait of Sir Thomas More.
+   Oils. Mr. Huth's Collection.
+   Chalk Drawing at Windsor. [Plate 20.]
+   (Also a drawing of Sir John More, father of the above.)
+
+** John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. [Plate 21.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle. (Another in the British Museum.)
+
+   Archbishop Warham.
+   Oils. The Louvre, and Lambeth Palace.
+
+ ? John Stokesley, Bishop of London.
+   Oils. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Sir Henry Guildford. [Plate 22.]
+   Oils. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Lady Guildford.
+   Oils. Mr. Frewen's Collection.
+
+   Sir Thomas Godsalve and his son John.
+   Oils. Dresden Gallery.
+
+   Chalk Drawing of Sir John Godsalve.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Nicholas Kratzer, Astronomer Royal to King Henry VIII. [Plate 23.]
+   Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   Sir Henry Wyat. Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   Sir Bryan Tuke, Treasurer of the Household to King Henry VIII.
+   Oils. Munich Gallery. [Plate 24.]
+   Also at Grosvenor House. (As stated in the text, the writer holds
+   that the portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke should properly be classed
+   with those of a later period. But they are given here in accordance
+   with opinions which obtain at present.)
+
+
+IV.
+
+LAST BASEL PERIOD
+(1528-1531)
+
+** Portrait group of Holbein's wife, Elsbeth, and his two eldest children.
+   [Plate 25.] Oils, on paper.
+   Basel Museum. (Outline hard from having been cut out and mounted.)
+
+   King Rehoboam replying to his people, and
+** Samuel denouncing Saul. [Plate 26.]
+   Two Washed Drawings. Basel Museum. (These are the designs for "the
+   back wall" of the Basel Council Chamber.)
+
+  "Portrait of an English Lady" (unknown).
+   Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+
+** Portrait of an unknown young man in a broad-brimmed hat.
+   Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+   (This is one of the most beautiful of Holbein's portrait studies. There
+   is a soft, yet virile, witchery about it which haunts the memory.)
+
+   Round Portrait of Erasmus. (Bust, 3/4 view.)
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Designs for dagger-sheaths and other goldsmith's work.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum, British Museum, etc.
+   (More especially the "Dance of Death"; a chef-d'oeuvre.)
+
+   A ship making sail.
+   Washed Drawing. Städel Institut. Frankfurt.
+
+
+V.
+
+LAST PERIOD; LONDON
+(1531-43)
+
+** Portrait of Jörg Gyze. [Plate 27.]
+   Oils. Berlin Gallery.
+
+   Portrait of an unknown man.
+   Oils. Schönborn Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Johann or Hans of Antwerp.
+   Oils. Windsor Castle. (Holbein's friend and executor.)
+
+   Derich Tybis of Duisburg.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Derich Born.
+   Oils. Munich Gallery, and Windsor Castle.
+
+   Derich Berck.
+   Oils. Petworth.
+
+   Unknown Man.
+   Oils. Prado Gallery, Madrid.
+
+   The Triumph of Riches.
+   Drawing. The Louvre.
+   (Copies of this and the pendant design, The Triumph of Poverty,
+   in the British Museum and in the Collection of Lady Eastlake.)
+
+   The Queen of Sheba before Solomon.
+   Washed Drawing, heightened with gold and colours. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Robert Cheseman, with falcon.
+   Oils. Hague Gallery.
+
+ * "The Ambassadors." [Plate 28.]
+   Oils. National Gallery.
+   (A double portrait, life size. Formerly supposed to be Sir Thomas
+   Wyatt and a scholar; now officially held to be Jean de Dinteville,
+   Bailli de Troyes, and George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. As stated
+   in the text, the present writer differs from any identification of
+   either figure yet published, but is not prepared to put forward her
+   own views for the present.)
+
+   Nicholas Bourbon de Vandoeuvre, scholar and poet.
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+   (An intimate friend of Holbein, Kratzer, and their circle. Recently
+   identified as the man in the scholar's gown, in "The Ambassadors,"
+   and so given by Mr. Lionel Cust, in the _Dictionary of National
+   Biography_, in his article upon Holbein.)
+
+**The Morett Portrait. [Plate 29.]
+   Oils. Dresden Gallery.
+   (Long believed to be a triumph of Leonardo da Vinci's art, and the
+   portrait of Ludovico Sforza, "Il Moro." At one time held to be Henry
+   Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Afterwards "established" and catalogued as
+   Hubert Morett, goldsmith to King Henry VIII. Following M. Larpent's
+   suggestion, however, it is now supposed to be the portrait of Charles
+   Solier, Sieur de Morette. But as to this the last word may yet remain
+   to be said. The drawing which the majority of authorities hold to be
+   the study for this painting now hangs near it.)
+
+   Thomas Cromwell.
+   Oils. Tittenhanger.
+
+** Miniature portrait of Henry Brandon, son of the Duke of Suffolk.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Title-page used in Coverdale's Bible. Woodcut.
+
+   Q. Jane Seymour. [Plate 30.]
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+** Portrait of Erasmus, full length, in scholar's robes, with his hand
+   on the head of the god Terminus. Woodcut.
+   Frontispiece to Hieronymus Froben's edition of Erasmus's
+   Works, published in 1540.
+   (Commonly known as "Erasmus in a surround," or niche.)
+
+   Fragment of the Cartoon [Plate 31] used for the four royal portraits
+   in the wall-painting at Whitehall. The fragment shows only the figures
+   of King Henry VIII. and his father. Hardwick Hall.
+   (Remigius van Leemput's copy of the wall-painting shows that the
+   position of the King's head was changed, in the completed work, to the
+   full-face view so familiar in the oil-painting at Windsor Castle. The
+   latter is one of the many copies of Holbein's original portrait of
+   Henry VIII. which long passed muster as genuine _Holbeins_.)
+
+** Portrait study of the face of King Henry VIII. [Plate 32.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Royal Print Cabinet, Munich.
+   (Probably the Life-study for the Whitehall painting. If nothing
+   else remained, this mask alone would incontestably rank Holbein
+   among the Masters of all time. To the writer's thinking, at any
+   rate, it stands among the very few works of art which it would be
+   difficult to match, and impossible to surpass in its own colossal
+   qualities.)
+
+** Design for "the Jane Seymour Cup." [Plate 33.]
+   Bodleian Library.
+
+** Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan. [Plate 34.]
+   Oils. National Gallery; lent from Arundel Castle.
+
+   Edward VI., when infant Prince of Wales.
+   Oils. Hanover Gallery, and Lord Yarborough's Collection.
+
+   Anne of Cleves. [Plate 35.]
+   Oils on Vellum. The Louvre.
+
+   Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk. [Plate 36.]
+   Oils. Windsor Castle, and Arundel Castle.
+
+   Catherine Howard. [Plate 37.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+   (The Miniature at Windsor Castle, formerly said to be Holbein's
+   portrait of Catherine Parr, is now said to be Catherine Howard. If
+   so, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile it with the drawing,
+   which latter seems much more in keeping with the descriptions of
+   her traits.)
+
+   Title-page used in Cranmer's Bible. Woodcut.
+   (This is the title-page from which Cromwell's Arms are erased in
+   the second edition.)
+
+   Sir Nicholas Carew.
+   Oils. Dalkeith Palace. Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+
+   Simon George of Cornwall.
+   Oils. Städel Institut, Frankfurt.
+
+   Miniature portrait of Charles Brandon, son of the Duke of Suffolk.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Lady; unknown.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+   Also a fine portrait of an unknown man.
+   Oils. Same Gallery.
+
+   Sir Richard Southwell.
+   Oils. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   John Reskymeer.
+   Oils. Hampton Court Gallery.
+
+   Nicholas Poyntz.
+   Oils. De la Rosière Collection, Paris. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Sir John Russell.
+   Oils. Woburn Abbey. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Three portraits; men unknown.
+   Oils. Berlin Gallery.
+
+   Designs for jewelry, ornamental panels, clocks, chimney-piece,
+   etc., etc. Washed Drawings. British Museum, Basel Museum, etc.
+
+   Many fine portraits of which no versions in oils are known.
+   Chalk Drawings. Windsor Castle.
+   Among these one of Edward VI. as boy Prince of Wales, the Duchess of
+   Suffolk, Sir Thomas Wyatt, etc., etc.
+
+   Dr. John Chamber, or Chambers.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Also many other oil-portraits, more or less genuine, in various
+   Collections.
+
+
+
+
+REFERENCES
+
+
+ The Literature of Holbein's Life, much more of his Works, is far too
+ extensive to admit of a Bibliography in a volume of this sort. But the
+ following List will be found to contain (or themselves refer the reader
+ to) all that is of essential importance to even the most complete study
+ of this Master.
+
+ Carel van Mander, _Het Schilder-Boeck_, etc., 1604.
+   The above translated into French, and admirably edited by
+   M. Henri Hyman. 2 tom., 1884.
+
+ Alfred Woltmann, _Holbein und seine Zeit. Zweite umgearbeitete
+   Auflage_, 1874. 2 Bde.
+   There is an English translation of the First Edition of 1871, by
+   F. E. Bunnètt; but unfortunately its views on many vital points are
+   reversed by Woltmann himself in his latest edition.
+
+ R. N. Wornum, _Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein_, 1867.
+   Corrected in many respects by the author in a monograph on
+   "The Meier Madonna," 1891.
+
+ Paul Mantz, _Hans Holbein_. Paris, 1879.
+
+ H. Knackfuss, _Holbein_. Leipzig, 1899.
+   English translation of the above by Mr. Campbell Dodgson.
+
+ Eduard His, _Die Basler Archive über Hans Holbein den
+   Jungern_. In Zahn's _Jahrbücher für Kunstwissenschaft_,
+   1870.
+
+ Francis Douce, _The Dance of Death_, 1833.
+
+ J. R. Smith, _Holbein's Dance of Death_, 1849.
+   (Especially fine reproductions.)
+
+ H. N. Humphreys, _Holbein's Dance of Death_, 1868.
+
+ G. Th. Fechner, _Über die Deutungsfrage der Holbein'schen Madonna._
+   _Die älteste historische Quelle über die Holbein'sche Madonna_.
+   Both in _Archiv für die zeichnenden Künste_, 1866, I., 4.
+   These give all the known facts of the history of the Meyer Madonnas
+   of Darmstadt and Dresden.
+
+ S. Larpent, _Sur le portrait de Morett_. Christiania, 1881.
+
+ Mary F. S. Hervey, _Holbein's "Ambassadors,"_ 1900.
+   This volume also embodies, and gives the references to, the original
+   identifications of Professor Sidney Colvin, and the suggested
+   identifications of Mr. C. L. Eastlake; as well as to the contribution
+   concerning the hymn-book by Mr. Barclay Squire.
+
+ W. F. Dickes, _Holbein's "Ambassadors" Unriddled_, 1903.
+
+ F. A. Zetter-Collin, _Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn.
+   Ihre Geschichte aus Originalquellen_, etc.
+   In _Festschrift des Kunst-Vereins der Stadt Solothurn_, 1902.
+
+ Artur Seeman, _Der Brunnen des Lebens, von H. Holbein_.
+   In _Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst_. Mai, 1903.
+   With a superb illustration in colour.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+ "Adoration," painting, 71
+ "Ambassadors, The," painting, 145-9, 193
+ Amerbach, Basilius, 66
+   Bonifacius, 25, 46-50, 99, 125
+   Johann, 48, 61
+ Anne, of Cleves, Queen, 171-4
+ Antwerp, Johann or Hans of, 183
+ Arundel, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of, 184
+   Thomas Howard, Earl of, 151
+   William Fitzalan, Earl of, 115
+ Augsburg, 10, 11, 16
+
+ Bär, Hans, 24, 25
+   Magdalena, first wife of Meyer zum Hasen, 31
+ Barber-Surgeons, Guild of, 180
+ Basel, description of, 58-64
+   decoration of the Rathhaus by Holbein, 83-5, 132, 135, 170
+   decoration of the Lällenkönig by Holbein, 135
+   offers of an annuity to Holbein, 145, 168, 169, 176, 177
+ Basel, banquet to Holbein, 168
+ Beatus Rhenanus, 68
+ Berne, 12
+ Bible, translations before the Reformation, 23, 24
+ Boleyn, Anne, Queen, 150, 151
+ Bourbon, Nicholas, 156, 157, 193
+ Bourges, 99
+ Burgkmair, Hans, 11
+ Butts, Sir William, 180
+
+ Cellini, Benvenuto, 169-70
+ Chamber, John, 180
+ Cheseman, Robert, 150
+ "Christ in the Grave," painting, 78-80
+ Christ in Holbein's Art, 77-83
+ Christina, Duchess of Milan, 144, 164-7
+ Colet, John, Dean of St. Paul's, 22, 137
+ Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 152
+
+ "Dance of Death," 100-103
+ Darmstadt, "Meyer-Madonna" at, 108-13
+ David, Gerard, 53
+ David, Jerome, 169
+ Diesbach, Nicholas von, 89, 90
+ Dinteville, Jean de, 149
+ Dresden, "Meyer-Madonna" at, 108-13
+ Dürer, Albrecht, 22
+
+ Edward VI., King, 163, 170
+ Elizabeth of York, Queen, 161
+ Erasmus, Desiderius, 17-21, 125, 137, 158
+   Portraits of, 98, 99, 159
+ Eyck, H. and J. van, 15, 185
+
+ Fäsch, Remigius, 111
+ Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 118
+ "Fountain of Life," painting, 53, 54
+ Froben, Hieronymus, 158
+ Froben, Johann, 15, 34, 35, 63, 64, 68, 98
+
+ Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 175
+ Gerster, Hans, 89, 90
+ Glass-painting, designs for, 54, 55
+ "Goddess of Love," painting, 104
+ Gold-work, designs for, 163
+ Graf, Urs, 65, 66
+ Guildford, Sir Henry, 119-21
+   Lady, 121
+ Gyze, Georg, 142-43
+
+ Hayes, Cornelius, 170
+ Henry VII., King, portrait, 161
+ Henry VIII., King, portrait, 160-63, 195
+   New Year present to Holbein, 170
+ Henry, Prince of Wales, 151
+ Hertenstein, Jacob von, 43
+ Holbein, Ambrose, 10, 12, 13, 17
+   Bruno, 12
+   Elsbeth, 58, 94-7, 104, 105, 107, 126-9, 177-82
+   Hans, the Elder, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 91
+     the Younger, birth (1497), 16
+       at Basel (1515-17), 24
+       at Lucerne (1517-18), 41, 42
+       a citizen of Basel (1519-26), 58-113
+       marriage, 58
+       wife and children, 104-7, 124, 129-31, 169, 170, 182
+       first visit to England (1526-8), 115-25
+       last years in Basel (1528-31), 125-36
+       purchase of Basel House (1528), 125, 126
+       final return to London (1531), 136
+       mention of, by Nicholas Bourbon, 157
+       official income, 167
+       will and death, 180-83
+       place of interment, 184
+       illegitimate children, 183
+       as a designer and engraver, 35-7
+       greatness of, 184-7
+       religious ideals and sympathies, 21-4, 77-83
+   Jacob, 128-30
+   Katharina, 128-31
+   Künegoldt, wife of Andreas Syff, 129-31
+   Michael, 11
+   Philip, son of Hans the Younger, 86, 94, 129, 169, 170
+   Philip, grandson of Hans the Younger, 130
+   Sigmund, 12, 177
+ Howard, Catherine, Queen, 175
+   Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 175
+ Hutten, Ulrich von, 71
+ Hyss, Cornelius, 157
+
+ "Jane Seymour Cup," 163
+
+ Kratzer, Nicholas, 121, 122, 157
+
+ Laïs Corinthiaca, painting, 105, 106
+ Landsknechte, drawings, 57, 58
+ "Last Supper," paintings, 50-52
+ Leemput, Remi von, 160
+ Leonardo da Vinci, 40, 50
+ Lisbon, painting, the "Fountain of Life" at, 53, 54
+ Lucerne, 41, 42
+ Lützelburger, Hans, 36, 98
+ Lystrius, Gerard, 68
+
+ Mantegna, Andrea, 40, 41, 50
+ "Mary Magdalen at the Sepulchre," painting, 80-83
+ Merian, family of, at Frankfurt, 131
+ Meyer, Anna, 110, 111
+   Dorothea, née Kannegiesser, 31-4, 109
+   Jacob zum Hasen, 31-4, 75, 89, 107
+   Jacob zum Hirten, 132, 133
+   Magdalena, née Bär, 31
+ "Meyer-Madonna" (Darmstadt and Dresden), 108-13
+ Milan, 40
+ Monasticism and Art, 5-8
+ More, Sir Thomas, 112, 114-17, 137
+ Morett, Hubert, or Morette, Charles de Solier, portrait, 144, 154, 194
+
+ "Nativity," paintings, 71-4
+
+ Oberriedt, Hans, 72, 75
+ Oporinus, Joannes, 67, 68
+
+ Paracelsus, 67
+ Parr, Catherine, 176, 179
+ Passion, eight-panelled altar-piece, 75-77
+   drawings, 77, 78
+ Plague (in 1543), 182
+
+ Saint Andrew Undershaft, London, 178, 183, 184
+ Saint Catharine Cree, London, 184
+ Schmidt, Franz, 177, 182
+ Schoolmaster's Sign-board, paintings, 25, 26
+ Selve, Georges de, Bishop of Lavaur, 149
+ Seymour, Jane, Queen, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164
+ "Sheba, Queen of, visiting Solomon," drawing, 155
+ Solier, Charles de, Seigneur de Morette, 154
+ Solothurn Madonna, painting and its history, 86-97
+ Steelyard, the, London, 138-42
+ Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, 119
+ Sultz, Dorothea von, née Offenburg, 104-6
+
+ Title-pages, woodcuts, 65, 98, 115, 159
+ "Triumph of Riches and of Poverty," drawings, 150
+ Tuke, Sir Bryan, 122, 123
+
+ Ulm, 11
+ Utopia, woodcut title-page, 115
+
+ "Virgin and Child," drawings, 55
+   paintings by Holbein, 86-97, 108-13
+
+ Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 118, 119, 137
+ Wilhelm Meister, School of, 8
+ Windsor, portrait, drawings at, 117
+
+ Zetter, "Madonna" at Solothurn, 86-97
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BOOKS ON ART
+
+_Demy 16mo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+
+=SUBJECTS=
+
+MINIATURES. Alice Corkran
+BOOKPLATES. Edward Almack
+GREEK ART. H. B. Walters
+ROMAN ART. H. B. Walters
+THE ARTS OF JAPAN. Mrs. C. M. Salwey
+JEWELLERY. C. Davenport
+CHRIST IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner
+OUR LADY IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner
+CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. H. Jenner
+ILLUMINATED MSS. J. W. Bradley
+ENAMELS. Mrs. Nelson Dawson
+FURNITURE. Egan Mew
+
+
+=ARTISTS=
+
+ROMNEY. George Paston
+DÜRER. L. Jessie Allen
+REYNOLDS. J. Sime
+WATTS. Miss R. E. D. Sketchley
+HOPPNER. H. P. K. Skipton
+TURNER. Frances Tyrrell-Gill
+HOGARTH. Egan Mew
+BURNE-JONES. Fortunée De Lisle
+LEIGHTON. Alice Corkran
+REMBRANDT. Mrs. E. A. Sharp
+VELASQUEZ. Wilfrid Wilberforce and A. R. Gilbert
+VANDYCK. M. G. Smallwood
+DAVID COX. Arthur Tomson
+HOLBEIN. Beatrice Fortescue
+COROT. Ethel Birnstingl and Mrs. A. Pollard
+MILLET. Netta Peacock
+CLAUDE. E. Dillon
+GREUZE AND BOUCHER. Eliza F. Pollard
+RAPHAEL. A. R. Dryhurst
+
+
+PLYMOUTH
+WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
+PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+Contemporary spellings have generally been retained even when
+inconsistent. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been
+corrected and some names regularised; missing punctuation has been
+silently added. Advertising material has been moved to the end.
+
+
+The following additional changes have been made:
+
+ to away with him                        to _do_ away with him
+
+ and in Pope Leo's hands for a           and _would remain_ in Pope Leo's
+ year yet                                for a year yet
+
+ Die zetter'schen Madonna                Die _Zetter'sche_ Madonna
+ vow Solothurn                           _von_ Solothurn
+
+ that I imagine it to have               that I imagine to have
+
+ Mecænas                                 Mæcenas
+
+ at Basel (1515-77)                      at Basel (1515-_17_)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg  eBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue.</title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Holbein
+
+Author: Beatrice Fortescue
+
+Release Date: June 17, 2009 [EBook #29150]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLBEIN ***
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+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Janine Lettau, Paul Dring,
+Clive Pickton, Joseph E. Loewenstein M.D. and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><a name="hpl1" id="hpl1">&nbsp;</a></p>
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="HANS_HOLBEIN">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img1.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img1.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i><big>Hans Holbein the Younger</big>.<br />
+			Coloured Chalks. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img1.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4><span class="wide">LITTLE BOOKS ON ART</span></h4>
+<h5>GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT</h5>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>HOLBEIN</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>BEATRICE FORTESCUE</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h5>WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS</h5>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>METHUEN &amp; CO.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><p class="noindent"><i>First published in 1904</i></p></div>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br /><br />
+
+HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY WORK<br /><br />
+
+<table class="j" summary="detail"><tr><td>
+Historical epoch and antecedents&mdash;Special conditions and character
+of early Christian art&mdash;Ideals and influence of the monk&mdash;Holbein's
+relation to medi&aelig;val schools&mdash;His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+home&mdash;Probable dates for his birth and his father's death&mdash;Troubles
+and dispersion of the Augsburg household&mdash;From Augsburg to Basel&mdash;His
+brother Ambrose&mdash;Erasmus and the <i>Praise of Folly</i>; some
+erroneous impressions of both&mdash;Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+heart&mdash;Holbein and the Bible&mdash;Illustrated Vernacular Bibles in
+circulation before Luther and Holbein were born&mdash;Holbein's earliest
+Basel oil-paintings&mdash;Direct and indirect education&mdash;Historical,
+geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day&mdash;Beginning of
+his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel&mdash;Jacob Meyer zum
+Hasen&mdash;Holbein's woodcuts&mdash;His studies from nature&mdash;Sudden visit
+to Lucerne&mdash;Italian influence on his art&mdash;Work for the Burgomaster
+of Lucerne</td></tr></table>
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="justify" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br /><br />
+HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS (1519-1526)<br /><br />
+
+<table class="j" summary="detail"><tr><td>
+<i>Holbein Basiliensis</i>&mdash;Enters the Painters' Guild&mdash;Bonifacius
+Amerbach and his portrait&mdash;The Last Supper and its Judas&mdash;The so-called
+"Fountain of Life" at Lisbon&mdash;Genius for design and symbolism in
+architecture&mdash;Versatility, humour, fighting scenes&mdash;Holbein becomes a
+citizen and marries&mdash;Basel in 1519&mdash;Froben's circle&mdash;Tremendous events
+and issues of the time&mdash;Holbein's religious works&mdash;The Nativity and
+Adoration at Freiburg&mdash;Hans Oberriedt&mdash;The Basel Passion in eight
+panels&mdash;Passion Drawings&mdash;Christ in the tomb&mdash;Christ and Mary Magdalen
+at the door of the sepulchre&mdash;Rathaus wall-paintings&mdash;Birth of
+Holbein's eldest child&mdash;The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and
+rescue&mdash;Holbein's wife and her portraits&mdash;Suggested solutions of
+some biographical enigmas&mdash;Title pages&mdash;Portraits of Erasmus&mdash;Journey
+to France, probably to Lyons and Avignon&mdash;Publishers and pictures of
+the so-called "Dance of Death"&mdash;Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and La&iuml;s
+Corinthiaca&mdash;Triumph of the Protestant party&mdash;Holbein decides to
+leave Basel for a time&mdash;The Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden,
+and its portraits</td></tr></table>
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br /><br />
+CHANCES AND CHANGES (1526-1530)<br /><br />
+
+<table class="j" summary="detail"><tr><td>
+First visit to England&mdash;Sir Thomas More: his home and portraits&mdash;The
+Windsor drawings&mdash;Bishop Fisher&mdash;Archbishop Warham&mdash;Bishop
+Stokesley&mdash;Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait&mdash;Nicholas Kratzer&mdash;Sir
+Bryan Tuke&mdash;Holbein's return to Basel&mdash;Portrait-group of his wife and
+two eldest children; two versions&mdash;Holbein's children, and families
+claiming descent from him&mdash;Iconoclastic fury&mdash;Ruined arts&mdash;Death of
+Meyer zum Hasen&mdash;Another Meyer commissions the last paintings for
+Basel&mdash;Return to England&mdash;Description of the Steelyard&mdash;Portraits
+of its members&mdash;George Gysze&mdash;Basel Council summons Holbein
+home&mdash;"The Ambassadors" at the National Gallery; accepted
+identification&mdash;Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn&mdash;Lost paintings
+for the Guildhall of the Steelyard; the Triumphs of Riches and
+Poverty&mdash;The great Morett portrait; identifications&mdash;Holbein's
+industry and fertility&mdash;Designs for metal-work and other
+drawings&mdash;Solomon and the Queen of Sheba</td></tr></table>
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br /><br />
+PAINTER ROYAL (1536-1543)<br /><br />
+
+<table class="j" summary="detail"><tr><td>Queen Jane Seymour&mdash;Death of Erasmus, and title-page portrait&mdash;The
+Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.&mdash;Munich drawing of Henry
+VIII.&mdash;Birth of an heir and the "Jane Seymour Cup"&mdash;Death of the
+Queen&mdash;Christina, Duchess of Milan&mdash;Secret service for the
+King&mdash;Flying visit to Basel and arrangements for a permanent
+return&mdash;Apprentices his son Philip at Paris&mdash;Portrait of the
+Prince of Wales and the King's return gift&mdash;Anne of Cleves&mdash;Thomas
+Howard, Duke of Norfolk&mdash;Catherine Howard&mdash;Lapse of Holbein's
+Basel citizenship&mdash;Irregularities&mdash;Provision for wife and
+children&mdash;Residence in London&mdash;Execution of Queen Catherine
+Howard&mdash;Marriage of Catherine Parr&mdash;Dr. Chamber&mdash;Unfinished work
+for the Barber-Surgeons' Hall&mdash;Death of Holbein&mdash;His will&mdash;Place of
+burial&mdash;Holbein's genius: its true character and greatness</td></tr></table>
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#CAT">CATALOGUE OF PRINCIPAL EXISTING WORKS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#REFERENCES">REFERENCES.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<table class="small" style= "margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="Illustrations">
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">1. <a href="#himg1">HOLBEIN</a> <span class="ind6"><i>Frontispiece</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Self Portrait. From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">2. <a href="#himg2">"PROSY" AND "HANS" HOLBEIN</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder. Silver-point.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">3. <a href="#himg3">SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">4. <a href="#himg4">JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">5. <a href="#himg5">DOROTHEA MEYER</a> (<i>n&eacute;e</i> KANNEGIESSER)</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">6. <a href="#himg6">BONIFACIUS AMERBACH</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">7. <a href="#himg7">FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">8. <a href="#himg8">THE NATIVITY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral.)</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">From a photograph by G. R&ouml;bke, Freiburg.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">9. <a href="#himg9">THE PASSION</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>
+
+<table class="j" summary="PASSION">
+<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td>GETHSEMANE.</td><td align="right">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>THE KISS OF JUDAS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td>BEFORE PONTIUS PILATE.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>THE SCOURGING.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td>THE MOCKING.</td><td align="right">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>THE WAY TO CALVARY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td>"IT IS FINISHED."</td><td align="right">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>THE ENTOMBMENT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align="center">Eight-panelled Altar-piece. (Basel Museum.)</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">10. <a href="#himg10">CHRIST IN THE GRAVE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">11. <a href="#himg11">THE RISEN CHRIST</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Hampton Court Gallery.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">12. <a href="#himg12">THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Solothurn Museum.)</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">From a Photograph by Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">13. <a href="#himg13">UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY;</a> NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Silver-point and Indian ink. (Louvre Collection. Believed by the writer to be</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2"> Holbein's drawing of his wife before her first marriage, and the model for the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2"> Solothurn Madonna.) From a Photograph by Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">14. <a href="#himg14">ERASMUS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (The Louvre.) From a Photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">15. <a href="#himg15">THE PLOUGHMAN; THE PRIEST</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">"Images of Death." Woodcut series.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">16. <a href="#himg16">DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">17. <a href="#himg17">DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LA&Iuml;S CORINTHIACA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">18. <a href="#himg18">THE MEYER-MADONNA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">19. <a href="#himg19">THE MEYER-MADONNA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">(Later Version. Held by many to be a copy.)</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">20. <a href="#himg20">SIR THOMAS MORE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">21. <a href="#himg21">JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">22. <a href="#himg22">SIR HENRY GUILDFORD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">23. <a href="#himg23">NICHOLAS KRATZER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (The Louvre.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">24. <a href="#himg24">SIR BRYAN TUKE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Munich Gallery.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">25. <a href="#himg25">ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE</a>, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">26. <a href="#himg26">"BEHOLD TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">27. <a href="#himg27">J&Ouml;RG (OR GEORGE) GYZE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Berlin Museum.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">28. <a href="#himg28">"THE AMBASSADORS"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (National Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">29. <a href="#himg29">THE MORETT PORTRAIT</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">30. <a href="#himg30">QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">31. <a href="#himg31">KING HENRY VIII. AND HIS FATHER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Fragment of cartoon used for the Whitehall wall-painting.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">(Duke of Devonshire's Collection.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">32. <a href="#himg32">KING HENRY VIII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">(Life Study; probably for the Whitehall Painting.)</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Chalks. (Munich Collection.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">33. <a href="#himg33">DESIGN FOR THE "JANE SEYMOUR CUP"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">(Bodleian Library.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">34. <a href="#himg34">CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (National Gallery.) Lent by the Duke of Norfolk.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">35. <a href="#himg35">ANNE OF CLEVES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">36. <a href="#himg36">THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">37. <a href="#himg37">CATHERINE HOWARD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Chalk drawing. (Windsor Castle.)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">38. <a href="#himg38">DR. CHAMBER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="ind2">Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.</span></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>HOLBEIN <a href="#fn1"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a><a name="fn1r" id="fn1r"></a></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<div class="center"><p class="noindent">HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND<br />
+EARLY WORK</p></div>
+
+<table class ="j" summary="CHAPTER_1">
+<tr><td>Historical epoch and antecedents&mdash;Special conditions and character
+of early Christian art&mdash;Ideals and influence of the monk&mdash;Holbein's
+relation to medi&aelig;val schools&mdash;His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+home&mdash;Probable dates for his birth and his father's death&mdash;Troubles
+and dispersion of the Augsburg household&mdash;From Augsburg to Basel&mdash;His
+brother Ambrose&mdash;Erasmus and the <i>Praise of Folly</i>; some
+erroneous impressions of both&mdash;Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+heart&mdash;Holbein and the Bible&mdash;Illustrated vernacular Bibles in
+circulation before Luther and Holbein were born&mdash;Holbein's earliest
+Basel oil paintings&mdash;Direct and indirect education&mdash;Historical,
+geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day&mdash;Beginning of
+his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel&mdash;Jacob Meyer zum
+Hasen&mdash;Holbein's woodcuts&mdash;His studies from nature&mdash;Sudden visit to
+Lucerne&mdash;Italian influence on his art&mdash;Work for the Burgomaster
+of Lucerne.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>The eighty-three years stretching from
+1461 to 1543&mdash;between the probable year
+of the elder Hans Holbein's birth and that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+which the younger, the great Holbein, died&mdash;constitute
+one of those periods which rightly
+deserve the much-abused name of an Epoch.
+The Christian era of itself had known many:
+the Yellow-Danger of the fifth century making
+one hideous smear across Europe; the <i>Hic
+Jacet</i> with which this same century entombed
+an Empire three continents could not content;
+the new impulse which Charlemagne and Alfred
+had given to Progress in the ninth century; the
+triumphant establishment of Papal Supremacy,
+that Napoleonic idea of Gregory VII.&mdash;<i>Sanctus
+Satanas</i>, of the eleventh, and grand architect
+in a vaster Roman Empire which still "humanly
+contends for glory"; and lastly, at the very
+threshold of the Holbeins, the invention of
+movable printing types about 1440, and the fall
+of Constantinople in 1453, which combined to
+drive the prodigies and potencies of Greek
+genius through the world.</p>
+
+<p>Each of these had done its own special work
+for the advancement of man&mdash;as for that
+matter all things must, whether by help or
+helplessness. Not less than Elijah did the
+wretched priests of Baal serve those slow,
+sure, eternal Purposes, which include an Ahab
+and all the futile fury of his little life as the
+sun includes its "spots."</p>
+
+<p>But although the stream of History is one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+and its every succeeding curve only an expansion
+of the first, there has probably been no
+century of our era when this stream has been
+so suddenly enlarged, or bent so sharply toward
+fresh constellations as in that of the Holbeins,&mdash;when
+Religion and Art, as well as Science,
+saw a New World upon its astonished horizon.
+So that we properly call it a transition period,
+and its representative men "transitional."</p>
+
+<p>Yet we shall never get near to these real
+men, to their real world, unless we can forget
+all about the pose of this or the other Zeitgeist&mdash;that
+tale</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+ <p class="noindent">
+  <i>Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,<br />
+Signifying nothing.</i>
+ </p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">For we must keep constantly in mind that
+what we call the Middle Ages or&mdash;worse yet&mdash;the
+Dark Ages, made up the Yesterday of the
+Holbeins and was the flesh and blood transmitted
+to them as their own flesh and blood
+with all its living bonds toward the Old and
+all its living impulses toward the New.</p>
+
+<p>A now famous New Zealander is, we know,
+to sketch our own "medi&aelig;valism" with contemptuous
+pity for its darkness. But until his
+day comes, our farthing-dips seem to make a
+gaudy illumination. And, meantime, we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+alive; we walk about; we, too, can swell the
+chorus which the Initiated chant in every century
+with the same fond confidence: "We
+alone enjoy the Holy Light."</p>
+
+<p>The New is ever becoming old; the old ever
+changing into New. And if we ask why each
+waxes or wanes just when it does and as it does,
+there is, in the last analysis, no better answer
+than Aurora's explanation for chancing on the
+poets&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+ <p class="noindent">
+  <i>Because the time was ripe.</i>
+ </p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And the Holbein century is one of stupendous
+Transitions because the time was ripe; and
+not simply because printing was invented, or
+Greek scholars were driven from Constantinople
+to scatter abroad in Europe, or Ferdinand
+and Isabella wanted a direct route to Cathay,
+or Friar Martin nailed ninety-five Theses to the
+door of Wittenberg's church, and built himself
+thereby an everlasting name as Luther.</p>
+
+<p>And because the time was ripe for a new
+Art, even more than because this or that great
+painter entrained it, it also had its transition
+period, and Holbein is set down in manuals
+as a transitional painter. Teutonic, too; because
+all Christian art is either Byzantine or
+Italian or Teutonic in its type.</p>
+
+<p>When it first crept from the catacombs under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+the protection of the Constantinople Court it
+could but be Byzantine; that strange composite
+obtained by stripping the Greek "beast" of
+every pagan beauty and then decking it out
+with crude Oriental ornament. But who that
+prizes the peculiar product of that fanaticism
+would have had its cradle without this sleepless
+terror, lest for the whole world of classic
+heathendom it should lose the dear-bought
+soul of purely Christian ideals? Or who, remembering
+that in thus relentlessly sacrificing
+its entire heritage of pagan accumulation it
+put back the clock of Art to the Stone Age,
+and had to begin all over again in the helpless
+bewilderment of untaught childish effort,&mdash;could
+find twice ten centuries too long for the
+astounding feat it achieved? Ten centuries,
+after all, make but a marvellous short course
+betwixt the archaic compositions of the third
+century and the compositions of Giotto or
+Wilhelm Meister.</p>
+
+<p>A great deal of nonsense is talked about the
+"tyrannies" which the Monastic Age inflicted
+on Art. Of course, monasticism fostered fanaticism.
+It does not need the luminous genius
+that said it, to teach us that "whatever is necessary
+to what we make our sole object is sure, in
+some way or in some time or other, to become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+our master." And with the monk, the true
+monk in his day of usefulness, every knowledge
+and every art was good or bad according as
+it served monastic ideals. But it is absurd
+to say that the monk&mdash;<i>qua</i> monk&mdash;"put the
+intellect in chains." The whole body of his
+oppression was not so paralysing as the iron
+little finger of Malherbe and his school of
+"classic" despots. To charge upon the monk
+the limitations of his crude thought and cruder
+methods is about as intelligent as it would be
+to fall foul of Shakespeare because boys played
+his women's parts.</p>
+
+<p>The springs of Helicon were the monk's also,
+as witness Tuotilo and Bernard of Clairvaux;
+but it was by the waters of Jordan that his
+miracles were wrought. As Johnson somewhere
+says of Watts, "every kind of knowledge
+was by the piety of his mind converted into
+theology." And for the rest,&mdash;by the labour
+of his hands, by his fasting from the things of
+the flesh, by his lofty faith&mdash;however erring or
+forgotten or betrayed, in individual cases,&mdash;by
+every impressive lesson of a hard life lived
+unto others and a hard death died unto himself,
+century after century it was the monk who
+taught and helped the barbarian of every land
+to turn the desolate freedom of the wild ass into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+a smiling homestead and the savage Africa of
+his own heart into at least a better place. The
+marvel is that he could at the same time find
+room or energy to make his monastery also a
+laboratory, a library, and a studio. And yet
+he did.</p>
+
+<p>To say that he abhorred Greek ideals is to
+say that the shepherd abhors the wolf. His
+life was one long fight with the insidious
+poison of the Greek. He did not,&mdash;at any rate
+in his best days&mdash;believe at all in Art for Art's
+sake; and had far too intimate an acquaintance
+with the "natural man" to do him even justice.
+What he wanted was to <ins title="lacking in original">do</ins> away with him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet with all its repellent features, it is to
+this unflinching exclusiveness of the monkish
+ideal that we owe one of the most exquisite
+blossoms on the stock of the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries,&mdash;their innocent and appealing
+art; an art as original and as worthy of reverence,
+within its own peculiar province, as the
+masterpieces of Greece or Italy. You must
+turn from the beauty of Antinous to the beauty
+of, say, the Saint Veronica, among the works
+of the Cologne school at Munich, before you
+can estimate the Gulf of many things besides
+time which for ever divides the world of the one
+from the world of the other. And then you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+must essay to embody the visions of Patmos
+with a child's colour-box and brushes, before
+you can compare the achievements&mdash;the amazing
+achievements&mdash;of the monkish ideal with
+the achievements of classic paganism.</p>
+
+<p>With the school of Wilhelm Meister this
+tremendous revolution had accomplished itself;
+and solely through the indomitable will of the
+monk. The ideal of Greece had been to show
+how gods walk the earth. This Christian ideal
+was to show how devout men and women walk
+with God. Their ineffable heavenly faces look
+out from their golden world&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="noindent"><i>Inviolate, unwearied,<br />
+Divinest, sweetest, best,</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">upon this far-off, far other world, where nothing
+is inviolate, and divinest things must come at
+last to tears and ashes.</p>
+
+<p>But the monk had had his day as well as his
+way. The so-called Gothic architecture had expressed
+its uttermost of aspiration and tenuity;
+and painting had fulfilled its utmost accommodation
+to the ever more slender wall-spaces and
+forms which this architecture necessitated. And
+once again, in the fifteenth century, the time
+was ripe for a new transition. Art was now
+to reveal the realities of this world, and to
+concern itself with Man among them. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+just as the law of reaction flung the mind
+into religious revolt from the outworn dogmas
+and overgrown pretensions of the monkish
+ideal, so did it drive the healthy reaction of art
+into its own extravagances of protest. And
+we shall see how even a genius like Holbein's
+was unable to entirely free itself from this reactionary
+defect. For with all his astonishing
+powers, imaginative and technical, he never
+wholly overcame that defect of making his
+figures too short and too thick-set for grace,
+which amounted to a deformity in the full-length
+figures of his early work, and was due
+to his fierce revolt from the unnaturally elongated
+forms of an earlier period.</p>
+
+<p>Yet we should make a grave mistake if we
+were to regard Holbein as cut off by this
+reaction from all affinities with the monkish
+ideals of the Cologne school. On the contrary.
+We shall see, especially in his religious pictures,
+how many of those ideals had fed the very
+springs of his imagination and sunk deep into
+his art; only expressing themselves in his own
+symbolism and in forms unlike theirs.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In the Augsburg Gallery there is a painting
+by Holbein's father, the "Basilica of St. Paul,"
+in which there is a group introduced after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+fashion of the period, which has a special
+biographical interest. This group, in the
+Baptism of St. Paul, is believed by many
+authorities to be a portrait-group of the painter
+himself,&mdash;Hans Holbein the Elder, and his two
+young sons, Ambrose (or Amprosy, as it was
+often written) and Johannes, or "Hanns." The
+portrait of the father is certainly like Holbein's
+own drawing of him in the Duke d'Aumale's
+Collection, which Sandrart engraved in his
+account of the younger Holbein; while the
+heads of the two boys are very like those
+which we shall find later in a drawing in the
+Berlin Gallery. From the pronounced way in
+which his father's hand rests on little Hans'
+head, while the left points him out,&mdash;and even
+his elder brother "Prosy" shows by his attitude
+the special notice to be taken of Hans,&mdash;it
+is clear that if this is a portrait-group either
+it was painted when the boys were actually
+older, or the younger had already given some
+astonishing proof of that precocity which his
+early works display; for in this group the
+younger boy cannot be more than eight or
+nine years old.</p>
+
+<p>Hans Holbein the Elder, who stands here
+with his long brown hair and beard falling
+over his fur gown, was a citizen of Augsburg,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+living for a while in the same street with the
+honoured Augsburg painter, Hans Burgkmair,
+and occasionally working with him on large
+commissions. That he was a native of Augsburg,
+and the son&mdash;as is generally believed&mdash;of
+"Michel Holbain" (Augsburg commonly
+spelt <i>Holbein</i> with an <i>a</i>), leather-dresser&mdash;I
+myself cannot feel so sure as others do. There
+is no documentary evidence to prove that the
+Michael Holbein of Augsburg ever had a son,
+and there is both documentary and circumstantial
+evidence to prove that the descendants
+of Hans Holbein the Elder claimed a different
+origin. That a man was a "citizen," or
+burgher, of any town, of course proves nothing.
+It was a period when painters especially learned
+their trades and practised it in many centres.
+And this, when guilds were all-powerful and
+no one could either join one without taking
+citizenship with it, or pursue its calling in any
+given place without association with the guild
+of that place, often involved a series of citizenships.
+The elder Holbein was himself a burgher
+of Ulm at one time, if not of other cities in
+which he worked.</p>
+
+<p>But that Augsburg was his fixed home for
+the greater part of his life is certain; and the
+rate-books show that after the leather-dresser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+had disappeared from their register of residents
+in the retail business quarter of the city, in
+the neighbourhood of the Lech canals, Hans
+Holbein the Elder was, in 1494, a householder
+in this very place. For some years the name
+of "Sigmund, his brother," is bracketed with
+his; but about 1517 Sigmund Holbein established
+himself in Berne, where he accumulated a
+very respectable competence, which, at his death
+in 1540, he bequeathed to his "dear nephew,
+Hans Holbein, the painter," at that time a
+citizen of Basel. Sigmund also was a painter,
+but no unquestioned work of his is known.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing to show who was the wife
+of Sigmund Holbein's elder brother, Hans.
+But by 1499 this elder Hans had either a child
+or children mentioned with him (<i>sein kind</i>,
+applying equally to one or more). In all probability
+this is the earliest discoverable record
+of Hans Holbein the Younger, and his elder
+brother Ambrose. In all probability, too,
+Hans was then about two years old, and
+"Prosy" a year or two older. At one time
+it was vaguely thought that the elder Hans
+had three sons; and Prosy, or "Brosie," as it
+was sometimes written, got converted into a
+"Bruno" Holbein. But no vestige of an
+actual Bruno is to be found. And as Ambrose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+Holbein's trail, whether in rate-books or art-records,
+utterly vanishes after 1519, it will be
+seen that for the most part of the younger
+Holbein's life he had no brother. Hence it
+is easy to understand how his uncle Sigmund's
+Will speaks only of "my dear nephew."</p>
+
+<p>Hans the elder lived far on in his younger
+son's life. His works attest that he had talents
+and ideals of no mean order. But I do not
+propose to enter here upon the vexed question
+as to how far the "Renaissance" characteristics
+of the later works attributed to his hand are
+his own or his son's. Learned and exhaustive
+arguments have by turns consigned the best of
+these works to the father, to the son, and back
+again to the father. In at least one instance
+of high authority the same writer has, at different
+periods, held a brief for both sides and for
+opposite opinions! In this connection, as on
+the battlefield of some of the son's greatest
+paintings, the single-minded student of Holbein
+may not unprofitably draw three conclusions
+from the copious literature on the subject:&mdash;First,
+that a working hypothesis is not of
+necessity the right one; secondly, that in the
+matter of his pronouncements the critical expert
+also may occasionally be regarded as</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Un animal qui s'habille, d&eacute;shabille et babille toujours;</i></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>and thirdly, that in default of incontestable
+documentary proofs the modest "so far as I
+have been able to discover" of Holbein's first
+biographer, Van Mander, is a capital anchor
+to windward, and is at any rate preferable to
+driving forth upon the howling waters of
+Classification, like Constance upon the Sea
+of Greece, "Alle sterelesse, God wot."</p>
+
+<p>But my chief reason for not pursuing the
+Protean phantom of Holbein's Augsburg period
+is that,&mdash;apart from my own disagreement with
+many accepted views about the works it includes,
+and the utter lack of data for determining
+any position irrefutably,&mdash;it is comparatively
+unimportant to the purpose of this little book.
+For wherever the younger painter was born,&mdash;whether
+at Augsburg or Ulm or elsewhere,&mdash;and
+whatever I believe to be his rightful claim
+to such paintings as the St. Elizabeth and St.
+Barbara of the St. Sebastian altar-piece at
+Munich, Fame, like Van Mander, has rightly
+written him down Holbein <i>Basiliensis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that his father's brushes were his
+alphabet. It may be true, though I doubt it,
+that his father's teaching was his only technical
+school. But if he was, as to the last he gloried
+in being, the child of the Old Period, he was
+much more truly the immediate pupil of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+Van Eycks than of his father's irresolute
+ideals; while Basel was his university. And
+whatever may have been his debt to those
+childish years when the little Iulus followed
+his father with trembling steps, his debt to
+Basel was immensely greater. The door-sill
+of Johann Froben's printing-house was the
+threshold of his earthly immortality.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned his back on the low-vaulted
+years of Augsburg, it was because for him also
+the time was ripe. The Old Period had cast
+his genius; the New was to expand it to new
+powers and purposes.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<i><span class="ind6">Still, as the spiral grew,</span><br />
+He left the past year's dwelling for the new;<br />
+Stole with soft step its shining archway through,<br />
+<span class="ind6">Built up its idle door,</span><br />
+Stretch'd in his last-found home and knew the old no more.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It may easily have been the elder Hans'
+continuous troubles, whether due to his fault
+or his misfortune it is idle now to inquire,
+which made his sons leave Augsburg. Certain
+it is that he but escaped from the clutches of
+one suit for debt after another in order to
+tumble into some fresh disaster of the sort,
+until his own brother Sigmund appears among
+his exasperated creditors. After 1524 Hans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+Holbein the Elder vanishes from the records.
+Probably, therefore, it was at about this date
+that he paid,&mdash;Heaven and himself only knowing
+how willingly,&mdash;the one debt which every
+man pays at the last.</p>
+
+<p>At all events his sons did leave Augsburg
+about 1514; or, at any rate, Hans did, since
+there is a na&iuml;ve little Virgin and Child in the
+Basel Museum, dated 1514, which must have
+been painted in the neighbourhood of Constance
+in this year,&mdash;probably for the village church
+where it was discovered. As everything points
+to the conclusion that Holbein was born in
+1497, he would have been some seventeen years
+old at this time, and "Prosy" eighteen or
+nineteen. Substantially, therefore, they must
+have looked pretty much as in the drawing
+which their father had made of them three
+years before; that precious drawing in silver-point
+which is now in the Berlin Collection
+(<a href="#hpl2">Plate 2</a>). Over the elder, still with the curly
+locks of the group in the "St. Paul Basilica," is
+written <i>Prosy</i>; over the younger, <i>Hanns</i>. The
+age of the latter, fourteen, may still be deciphered
+above his portrait, but that of Ambrose has
+quite vanished. Between the two is the family
+name, written in Augsburg fashion, Holbain.
+At the top of the sheet stands the year of
+the drawing, almost illegible, but believed to
+be 1511.<a name="himg2" id="himg2"></a><a name="hpl2" id="hpl2"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_2">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img2.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img2.jpg" height="350"
+      alt="PLATE_2" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 2.<br />
+			"PROSY" AND "HANNS" <i>HOLBAIN</i><br />
+      <i>[Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder]</i><br />
+       <i>Silver-point. Berlin Cabinet</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img2.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of the elder brother all that is certainly
+known may be said here once for all. In 1517
+he entered the Painters' Guild at Basel, where
+he is called "Ambrosius Holbein, citizen of
+Augsburg." He made a number of designs
+for wood-engraving, title-pages, and ornaments,
+for the printers of Basel&mdash;all of fair
+merit. He may also have worked in the studio
+of Hans Herbster, a Basel painter of considerable
+note. Herbster's portrait in oils, long held
+to be a fine work of the younger brother,&mdash;now
+that it has passed from the Earl of Northbrook's
+collection to that of the Basel Museum, is
+attributed to Ambrose Holbein. But little else
+is known of him; and after 1519, as has been
+said, the absence of any record of him among
+the living suggests that he died in that year.</p>
+
+<p>In the late summer of 1515 came that
+momentous trifle which has for ever linked
+the name of young Hans Holbein with that
+of Erasmus. Whether, as some say, the
+scholar gave him the order, or, as seems more
+likely, some friend of both had the copy, now
+in the Basel Museum, on the margins of which
+the lad drew his spirited pen-and-ink sketches,&mdash;it
+is on record that they were made before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+end of December, and that Erasmus himself
+was delighted with their wit and vigour. And,
+in truth, they are exceedingly clever, both in
+the art with which a few strokes suggest a
+picture, and in that by which the picture emphasises
+every telling point in the satire. But
+a great deal too much has been built upon
+both the satire and the sketches; a great deal,
+also, falsely built upon them.</p>
+
+<p>They have been made to do duty, in default
+of all genuine proofs, as supports to the theory
+by which Protestant writers have claimed both
+Erasmus and Holbein as followers of Luther
+in their hearts, without sufficient courage or
+zeal to declare themselves such. I confess
+that, though myself no less ardent as a Protestant
+than as an admirer of Holbein, I
+cannot, for the life of me, see any justification
+for either the claim or its implied charge of
+timorousness.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's <i>Praise of Folly</i>&mdash;like so many
+a paradox started as a joke,&mdash;had no notion
+of being serious at all until it was seriously
+attacked. Some four years before its illustrations
+riveted the name of a stripling artist
+to that of the world-renowned scholar, Erasmus
+had fallen ill while a guest in the sunny Bucklersbury
+home where three tiny daughters and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+a baby son were the darlings of Sir Thomas
+More and his wife. To beguile the tedium of
+convalescence the invalid had scribbled off a
+jeu d'esprit, with its punning play on More's
+name, <i>Encomium Mori&aelig;</i>, in which every theme
+for laughter, in a far from squeamish day,
+was collected under that title. Read aloud to
+More and his friends, it was declared much too
+good to be limited to private circulation; and
+accordingly, with some revision and expansion,
+it was printed. That it scourged with its
+mockery those things in both Church and State
+which Erasmus and More and many another
+fervent Churchman hated,&mdash;such as the crying
+evils which called aloud for reformation in the
+highest places, and above all, that it lashed
+the detested friars whom the best churchmen
+most loathed,&mdash;these things were foregone
+conclusions in such a composition. But a
+laugh, even a satirical laugh, at the expense
+of excrescences or follies in one's camp, is a
+very far cry from going over to its foes. As a
+huge joke Erasmus wrote the <i>Praise of Folly</i>;
+as such More and all his circle lauded it; as
+such Froben reprinted it; and as such young
+Holbein pointed all its laughing gibes.</p>
+
+<p>And it was part and parcel of the joke that
+he launched his own sly arrow at the author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+himself. Erasmus could but laugh at the
+adroitness with which the young man from
+Augsburg had drawn a reverend scholar
+writing away at his desk, among the votaries
+of Folly, and written <i>Erasmus</i> over his head.
+But it was hardly to be expected that he should
+altogether relish the witty implication, or the
+presumption of the unknown painter who had
+ventured to make it. Nor did he. Turning
+over a page he also contrived to turn the laugh
+yet once again, this time against the too-presuming
+artist. Finding, perhaps, the coarsest
+of the sketches, one in keeping with the "fat
+and splendid pig from the drove of Epicurus,"
+he in his turn wrote the name of <i>Holbein</i> above
+the wanton boor at his carousals. It was a
+reprisal not more delicate than the spirit with
+which subjects too sacred to have been named
+in the same breath with Folly,&mdash;the very words
+of our Lord Himself,&mdash;had been dragged into
+such company. But though it, too, was a
+joke, this little slap of wounded amour propre
+has found writers to draw from it an entire
+theory that Holbein led a life of debauchery!</p>
+
+<p>Yet even this feat of deduction is surpassed
+by that which argues that because Erasmus
+and Holbein lashed bad prelates and vicious
+monks with satire, therefore they detested the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+whole hierarchy of Rome and loathed all monks,
+good or bad. "Erasmus laid the egg which
+Luther hatched" is the oft-repeated cry; forgetting
+or ignoring the plain fact that Erasmus
+eyed the Lutheran egg with no little mistrust
+in its shell and with unequivocal disgust in its
+full-feathered development. "What connection
+have I with Luther," he writes some
+three years after Holbein illustrated Stultitia's
+worshippers, "or what recompense have I to
+expect from him that I should join with him
+to oppose the Church of Rome, which I take
+to be the true part of the Church Catholic,
+or to oppose the Roman Pontiff who is the
+head of the Catholic Church? I am not so
+impious as to dissent from the Church nor
+so ungrateful as to dissent from Leo, from
+whom I have received uncommon favour and
+indulgence."</p>
+
+<p>As to Holbein's "Protestant sympathies"&mdash;using
+the name for the whole Lutheran movement
+in which Protestantism had its rise,&mdash;the
+assertions are even less grounded in fact, if
+that be possible. If he had it not already in
+his heart, through Erasmus and Amerbach and
+Froben and More and every other great influence
+to which he yielded himself at all, he
+early acquired a deep and devout sense of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+need of reform <i>within</i> the Church. Like all
+these lifelong friends, he wanted to see the
+Church of Rome return to her purer days and
+cast off the corruptions of a profligate idleness.
+Like them he couched his lance against the
+unworthy priest, the gluttonous or licentious
+monk, the wolves in sheep's clothing that
+were destroying the fold from within. Like
+them, as they re-echoed Colet&mdash;the saintly Dean
+of St. Paul's,&mdash;he passionately favoured the
+translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular
+and placing them in the hands, or at any rate
+bringing them to the familiar knowledge, of
+peasant as well as prelate. But surely one
+must know very little of the teachings of
+the stoutest Churchmen of Holbein's day and
+acquaintance not to know also that they encouraged
+if they did not plant these opinions
+in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"D&uuml;rer's woodcuts and engravings, especially
+his various scenes from the Passion,"
+writes even Woltmann, the biographer to
+whom every student of Holbein owes so grateful
+a debt, "had prepared the soil among the
+people for Luther's translation of the Bible.
+Holbein's pictures from the Old Testament
+followed in their wake, and helped forward the
+work." Yet it seems difficult to suppose that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Woltmann could have been ignorant of the
+facts of the case. So far were Holbein's,
+or any other artist's, Bible illustrations or
+Bible pictures from arguing a "Lutheran"
+monopoly in the vernacular Bible, that in Germany
+alone there were fifteen translated and
+illustrated editions of the Bible before Luther's
+appeared; and of these fifteen some half-dozen
+were published before Luther was born.
+Quentell, at Cologne, for instance, published
+a famous translation with exceedingly good
+woodcuts in 1480,&mdash;three years before Luther's
+birth. While some nine years before Quentell's
+German translation, the Abbot Niccolo Malermi
+published his <i>Biblia Vulgare</i> in the Italian vernacular,
+which went through twenty editions
+in less than a century: one of which,&mdash;brought
+out at Venice in 1490 by the Giunta Brothers,&mdash;was
+illustrated by woodcuts of the greatest
+beauty. So widespread was the demand for
+this "Malermi Bible" that another edition,
+with new illustrations of almost equal merit,
+was produced at Venice in 1493, by the printer
+known as <i>Anima Mia</i>. All of these were
+vernacular Bibles; all illustrated; all widely
+known throughout Italy and Germany before
+Holbein was born or Luther was in his tenth
+year. And certainly it has not yet been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+suggested by the most rabid Protestantism that
+either these or any of the many other illustrated
+vernacular Bibles printed long before
+Luther's great translation,&mdash;a translation with
+a special claim to immortality because it may
+be said to have set the standard for modern
+German,&mdash;were anything but Roman Catholic
+Bibles. They were translated and illustrated
+in behalf of no doctrine which Protestantism
+does not hold in common with the Church of
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>To lose hold of these things, to lose sight of
+the true attitude of Holbein in his Bible woodcuts
+and his "Images of Death," or of either
+Erasmus or Holbein in their satires on the
+flagrant abuses within their Church, and their
+unwavering devotion to that Church,&mdash;is to
+deliberately throw away the clue to the most
+vital qualities in the work of either, and to the
+whole course and character of Holbein himself,
+no less than to that of his lifelong friend and
+benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In 1515 the young painter who had come to
+Basel to better his fortunes painted a table
+for Hans B&auml;r's wedding. The bridegroom
+marched away, carrying the Basel colours, to
+the bloody field of Marignano (or Melegnano)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+in this same year, and never came back to sit
+with his smiling bride around Holbein's most
+amusing conceits&mdash;where "Saint Nobody" was
+depicted among all the catastrophes of which
+he is the scapegoat, and a few ordinary trifles&mdash;a
+letter, a pair of spectacles, etc.&mdash;were marvellously
+represented, as if dropped by chance
+above the painted decorations, so that people
+were always attempting to pick them up. But
+Hans B&auml;r's sister had been the first wife of a
+certain brave comrade&mdash;Meyer "of the Hare,"
+who did come back and played an important part
+in young Holbein's career. Long lost among
+forgotten rubbish, Hans B&auml;r's table has been
+unearthed, and is now preserved in the town
+library at Zurich.</p>
+
+<p>But although Holbein had got his foot on
+the ladder of fame in this year's beginning
+of his connection with Froben, he was as yet
+very thankful to accept any commission, however
+humble. And as a human document there
+is a touch of peculiar, almost pathetic interest
+about the Schoolmaster's Signboard preserved
+by Bonifacius Amerbach, and now with his collection
+in the Basel Museum (<a href="#hpl3">Plate 3</a>). It is
+a simple thing, with no pretension to a place
+among "works of art"&mdash;this bit of flotsam
+from 1516, when it was painted. Originally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+the two views, the Infant Class and the Adult
+Class, were on opposite sides of the sign; but
+they have been carefully split apart so as to
+be seen side by side. In the one is the quaint
+but usual Dame's School of the period; in the
+other the public is informed how the adults
+of Basel may retrieve the lack of such early
+opportunities. The inscription above each sets
+forth how whosoever wishes to do so can be
+taught to read and write correctly, and be
+furnished with all the essentials of a decent
+education at a very moderate cost; "children
+on the usual terms." And there is a delightful
+clause to say that "if anyone is too dull-witted
+to learn at all, no payment will be accepted,
+be it Burger or Apprentice, Wife or Maid."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, looking at the young fellow at
+the right of the table, in the Adult Class,
+sitting facing the anxious schoolmaster, with
+his own brow all furrowed by the effort to
+follow him and his mouth doggedly set to
+succeed,&mdash;while the late, low sun of a summer
+afternoon streams in through the leaded window,&mdash;one
+muses on the chance that so may
+the young painter from Augsburg, now but
+nineteen, himself have sat upon this very
+bench and leaned across this very table, in
+a like determination to widen out his small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+store of book-learning. He could have had
+little opportunity to do so in the ever-shifting,
+bailiff-haunted home of his boyhood. And
+somewhere he certainly learned to write quite
+as well as even the average gentleman of his
+day; witness the notes on his drawings.<a name="himg3" id="himg3"></a><a name="hpl3" id="hpl3"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_3">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img3.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img3.jpg" height="180"
+      alt="PLATE_3" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 3.<br />
+			 SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD<br />
+       <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img3.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Somewhere, too, and no later than these
+first Basel years, he acquired the power to
+read and appreciate even the niceties of Latin,
+though he probably could not have done more
+than make these out to his own satisfaction.
+All his work of illustration is too original, too
+spontaneous, too full of flashes of subtle personal
+sympathy with the text, to have emanated
+from an interpreter, or been dictated by another
+mind than his own. And this very Signboard
+may have paid for lessons which he could not
+otherwise afford. For if there is any force in
+circumstantial evidence it is certain that Holbein
+not only wrote, but read and pondered
+and thought for himself in these years when
+he doubtless had many more hours of leisure
+than he desired, from a financial standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>And the greatest pages of his autobiography,
+written with his brush, will be only so many
+childish rebuses if we forget what astounding
+pages of History and Argument were turned
+before him. In Augsburg he had seen the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+Emperor Maximilian riding in state more than
+once, and heard much talk about that Emperor's
+interests and schemes and fears; and of thrones
+and battlefields engaged with or against these.
+Augsburg was in closest ties of commerce with
+Venice; and the tides of many a tremendous
+issue of civilisation rolled to and fro through
+the gates of the Free Swabian City.</p>
+
+<p>Child and lad, his was a precocious intelligence;
+and it had been fed upon meat for
+strong men. He had heard of Alexander VI.'s
+colossal infamies, and those of C&aelig;sar Borgia
+as well; and of the kingdoms ranging to this
+or that standard after the death of Pope and
+Prince. He was nine years old then. Old
+enough, too, to drink in the wonderful hero-tales
+of one Christopher Columbus of Genoa,
+whose fame was running through the Whispering
+Gallery of Europe, while he himself lay
+dying at Valladolid&mdash;ill, heartbroken, poor,
+disgraced,&mdash;yet proudly confident that he had
+demonstrated, past all denial, the truth of his
+own conviction, and touched the shores of
+Cathay, sailing westward from Spain. Da
+Gama, Vespucci, Balboa, Magellan,&mdash;theirs
+were indeed names and deeds to set the heart
+of youth leaping, between its cradle and its
+twenty-fifth year.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>Holbein was twelve when Augsburg heard
+that England had a young king, whom it
+crowned as Henry VIII. He was setting out
+from his home, such as it was, to fight his
+own boyish battle of Life, when the news
+spread of Flodden's Field. None of these
+things would let such an one as he was rest
+content to apprehend them as a yokel. From
+either the honest dominie of the Signboard
+or some other, we may be sure he sought
+the means to read and digest them for himself.
+And if he learnt some smattering of
+the geography of the earth and the heavens
+after the crude notions of an older day, he
+could have done no other, at that time, in
+the most enlightened Universities. Ptolemy's
+<i>Geographia</i> was still the text-book, and the
+so-called "Ptolemaic Theory" still the astronomical
+creed of scholars. Copernicus
+was, indeed, a man of forty when Holbein
+was painting this Signboard in 1516. But
+Copernicus was still interluding the active
+duties of Frauenburg's highly successful governor,
+tax-collector, judge, and vicar-general,&mdash;to
+say nothing of his brilliant essays on finance,&mdash;with
+those studies in his watch-tower which
+were to revolutionise the astronomical conceptions
+of twenty centuries and wheel the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+Earth around the Sun instead of the Sun around
+the Earth. But his system was not actually
+published until its author was on his death-bed,
+in the year of Holbein's own death. So
+that these stupendous new ideas were only
+the unpublished rumours and discussions of
+circles like that of Froben and Erasmus, when
+Holbein first entered it.</p>
+
+<p>But it is no insignificant sidelight on the
+history of this circle and this period to recall
+that the subversive theories of Copernicus,&mdash;far
+as even he was from anticipating how a
+Kepler and a Newton should one day shatter
+the "Crystalline Spheres," and relegate to the
+dustheap of antiquity the "Epicycles," to which
+he still clung,&mdash;had their only generous hearing
+from influential churchmen of Rome. Luther
+recoiled from them as the blasphemies of "an
+arrogant fool"; and even Melanchthon urged
+that they should be "suppressed by the secular
+arm." Nor let it be forgotten that these
+matters were never a far cry from those Basel
+printing-presses where the greatest master-printers
+were themselves thorough and eager
+scholars; "Men of Letters," in the noblest
+sense of the word. And the discussion of all
+these high concerns of history and letters was
+as much a part of the daily life surging around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+their printing-presses as the roar of the Rhine
+was in the air of Basel.</p>
+
+<p>As has been said, the sister of that Hans
+B&auml;r for whom Holbein painted the "St. Nobody"
+table had been the first wife, Magdalena
+B&auml;r&mdash;a widow with one daughter, when she
+married him&mdash;of Jacob Meyer,<a href="#fn2"><sup><small>2</small></sup></a><a name="fn2r" id="fn2r"></a> "of the Hare"
+(<i>zum Hasen</i>). Magdalena died in 1511, and
+about 1512 Meyer zum Hasen married Dorothea
+Kannegiesser. And now in 1516, a
+memorable year to Holbein on account of this
+influential patron, the young stranger was
+commissioned to paint the portraits of Meyer
+(<a href="#hpl4">Plate 4</a>) and his second wife, Dorothea (<a href="#hpl5">Plate
+5</a>). These oil paintings, and the drawings for
+them, are now in the Basel Museum. And no
+one can examine them, remembering that the
+painter was but nineteen, without echoing the
+exclamation of a brilliant French writer:
+"Holbein ira beaucoup plus loin dans son
+art, mais d&eacute;j&agrave; il est superbe." These warm
+translucent browns are instinct with life and
+beauty.<a name="himg4" id="himg4"></a><a name="himg5" id="himg5">
+</a><a name="hpl4" id="hpl4"></a><a name="hpl5" id="hpl5"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_4">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img4.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img4.jpg" height="350"
+      alt="PLATE_4" /></a>
+    </td>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img5.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img5.jpg" height="350"
+      alt="PLATE_5" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 4.<br />
+			JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img4.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 5.<br />
+			DOROTHEA MEYER (<i>n&eacute;e</i> KANNEGIESSER)<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img5.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Against the rich Renaissance architecture
+and the blue of the sky-vista the massive head
+of Meyer and the blonde one of his young
+wife,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>&mdash;the latter so expressive of half-proud, half-shy
+consciousness,&mdash;stand out in wonderful
+vigour. From the scarlet cap on his thickly
+curling brown hair to the piece of money
+between his thumb and finger, the Burgomaster's
+picture is a virile and masterly portrait.
+And just as forcefully is the charm of
+his pretty wife,&mdash;with all her bravery of scarlet
+frock, gold embroidery, head-dress and chains,&mdash;her
+own individual charm. They are both as
+much themselves in this fine architectural setting
+as in their own good house "of the Hare"
+which adjoined the rising glories of the new
+Renaissance "Council Hall" (<i>Rathaus</i>) in which
+Meyer was to preside so often.</p>
+
+<p>In 1516 he had just been elected Mayor for
+the first time; but after this he had many
+consecutive re-elections in the alternate years
+which permitted this. For no burgomaster
+could hold office for two years in actual succession.
+Previous to being Mayor he had
+been an eminent personage as master of the
+guilds. And both before and after his mayoralty
+he was a distinguished soldier,&mdash;rising
+from ensign to captain in the Basel contingent
+which served at different times among the
+Auxiliaries of France and of the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>But what made this election of 1516 a civic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+epoch was that Meyer zum Hasen (there were
+many unrelated Meyers in Basel, and two
+among Holbein's patrons, who must be carefully
+distinguished according to the name of
+the house each occupied) was the first Burgomaster
+ever elected in this city from below the
+knightly rank. While the piece of money in
+his hand, far from fulfilling the absurd purpose
+sometimes suggested,&mdash;that of showing his
+claim to wealth!&mdash;marks another civic event
+of this year. For it was on the 10th of January,
+1516, that the Emperor Maximilian had
+just issued the Charter which gave to Basel
+the right to mint her own gold coins. In the
+painting the pose of Meyer's right hand has
+been altered, and the position which Holbein
+originally gave it can still be made out.
+The monogram and date are on the background.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with his invariable rule for
+portraits in oils, Holbein first made a careful
+drawing of each head on the same scale as
+the finished picture, carrying it out with great
+freedom but at the same time with astonishing
+care and finish. So that his studies for portraits
+are themselves works of art, sometimes
+invested with even more spirit than the oil
+painting, which was never made direct from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+the living model,&mdash;at any rate, until ready for
+the finishing touches. Drawn with a point which
+could give a line as bold or as almost impalpable
+as he wished, and modelled to the very
+texture of the surfaces, the carnations are so
+sufficiently indicated or rendered with red chalk
+as to serve every purpose. Sometimes notes
+are also added. Thus in the upper corner of
+the drawing for Meyer's head the artist has
+noted "eyebrows lighter than the hair" in his
+microscopic yet firm writing.</p>
+
+<p>With these fine portraits, painted as if
+united by the same architectural background,
+Holbein began a friendship of many years.
+After some four centuries it is not possible to
+produce written records of such ties except in
+occasional corroborative details. But neither
+is it possible to mistake the painted records of
+repeated commissions. While as the lifelong
+leader of the Catholic party in Basel, it was
+natural that Meyer zum Hasen should have
+much in common with a painter who all his life
+held firmly to his friendships with the most
+conspicuous champions of that party.</p>
+
+<p>Johann Froben was another of these; and
+from 1515 until Froben's death eleven years
+later Holbein had more and more to do for
+this printer. Occasionally, too, he drew for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+other Basel printers; but not often. The
+eighty-two sketches on the margins of that
+priceless copy of the <i>Praise of Folly</i>, which
+Basel preserves in her Museum, had been
+suited to their company. Admirable, though
+unequal, as are their merits, they <i>are</i> sketches,
+whose chief beauty is their happy spontaneity.
+Such things are among the trifles of art, and
+are not to be put into the scales at all with the
+finished perfection of his serious designs for
+wood engraving. These were drawn on the
+block; and even these cannot properly represent
+the drawing itself except when cut by some such
+master hand as his own. Since in preparing
+the design for printing the background is cut
+away, leaving the composition itself in lines of
+relief,&mdash;it follows that everything, so far as the
+reproduction is concerned, must depend upon
+the cleanness and delicacy of the actual cutting.
+A clouded eye, a fumbling touch, and the most
+ethereal idea becomes its travesty&mdash;the purest
+line debased. Hence the necessity for taking
+the knife into consideration in judging such
+work.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place for any fraction of that
+hot debate which Kugler ironically styles "the
+great question of the sixteenth century"; the
+debate as to whether Holbein himself did or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+did not cut any of his own blocks. Assuredly
+he could do so. The exquisite adjustment of
+every line to its final purpose, the masterly
+understanding of the proper limitations and
+field of every effect, all prove that he had an
+unerring knowledge of the craft no less than of
+the art of Illustration. But in his day that
+craft, like every other, had its own guild; and
+it would not have been likely to tolerate any
+intrusion on its rights.</p>
+
+<p>We know, too, that those woodcuts which
+most attest Holbein's genius were engraved
+by that mysterious "Hans L&uuml;tzelburger, form-cutter,
+called Franck" (<i>Hans L&uuml;tzelburger,
+Formschnider, genannt Franck</i>), who still remains,
+after all the researches of enthusiastic
+admirers, a hand and a name, and beyond this&mdash;nothing.
+But it is when Holbein's designs
+are engraved with L&uuml;tzelburger's astonishingly
+beautiful cutting that we can appreciate how
+wonderful was the design itself. To compare
+these fairy pictures with the painter's large cartoons
+is to get some conception of the arc his
+powers described. It seems incredible that the
+same hand could hang an equal majesty on
+the wall of a tiny shell and on that of a king's
+palace, and with equal justness of eye. Yet
+it is done. He will ride a donkey or an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+elephant with the like mastery; but you will
+never find Holbein saddling the donkey with a
+howdah.</p>
+
+<p>It is not always possible to subscribe to
+Ruskin's flowing judgments; but I gratefully
+borrow the one with which he sums up thus,
+in a lecture on wood-engraving: Holbein
+does not give many gradations of light, the
+speaker says, "but not because Holbein cannot
+give chiaroscuro if he chooses. He is
+twenty times a stronger master of it than
+Rembrandt; but therefore he knows exactly
+when and how to use it, and that wood-engraving
+is not the proper means for it. The
+quantity of it which is needful for his story
+he will give, and that with an unrivalled
+subtlety."</p>
+
+<p>And the student of Holbein's art can but
+feel that Ruskin has here touched upon a
+characteristic of the painter's peculiar power
+in every phase of it;&mdash;the power to be C&aelig;sar
+within himself; to say to his hand, "thus far,"
+to say to his fancy, "no farther." Those who
+have come to know Holbein something more
+than superficially, or as a mere maker of
+portraits, will smile at the dictum of some
+very recent "authority" which pronounces
+him wanting in imagination; or at the hasty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+conclusion that what he <i>would</i> not, that he
+could not.</p>
+
+<p>He has given us, for instance, no animal
+paintings or landscapes pure and simple, or, at
+least, none such have come down to us. And
+yet what gems of landscape he has touched
+into his backgrounds here and there! And
+what drawings of animal life he made! There
+are two, for instance, in the Basel Museum
+which could not be surpassed; studies in silver-point
+and water-colours of lambs and a bat
+outstretched. No reproduction could give the
+exquisite texture of the bat's wings, the
+wandering red veins, the almost diaphanous
+membrane, the furry body,&mdash;a miracle of
+patience and softness. It is all purest Nature.
+Like Topsy one can but "'spec' it growed"
+rather than was created.</p>
+
+<p>And they are not only beautiful in themselves
+but full of living meanings. Many an hour the
+young painter enjoyed while he made such
+studies as his lambs on the pleasant slopes
+about Basel; the mountains scalloping the
+horizon, and all the sweet fresh winds vocal
+with tinkling bells or the chant of the deep-throated
+Rhine. Many of "the long, long
+thoughts" of youth,&mdash;those thoughts that ring
+like happy bells or sweep like rushing rivers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+kept him company as he laid these delicate
+strokes and washes that seem to exhale the
+very breath of morning across four hundred
+years.</p>
+
+<p>In the next year after painting the portraits
+of Meyer and his wife there is a sudden break
+in the painter's story which has always puzzled
+his biographers. After such a brilliant start
+in Basel it is perplexing to find the young man,
+instead of proceeding to join the Painters'
+Guild and take the necessary citizenship, suddenly
+turn his back on all these encouragements
+and leave the town for a long absence
+and remote journeys. As will be seen when
+we come to consider the story of Holbein's
+married life, however, I have a theory that
+the influence which sent him south in such
+an unexpected fashion was apart from professional
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Whether this is a good shot or no, certain
+it is that he did now go far south,&mdash;as distances
+were in those days; and that, paying his way
+as he went by his brush, he went first to
+Lucerne, where the evidence goes to show
+that he apparently thought of settling instead
+of at Basel,&mdash;and then on beyond it. And it
+seems highly probable that at this time he
+pushed on over the Alps and made his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+way into Italy,&mdash;already the Mecca of every
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>Here he could not now, in 1517, have hoped
+to see either Bramante or Leonardo da Vinci
+in person. The former had died at Rome two
+years before; but, without getting even as
+far as Pavia, Milan could show some splendid
+monuments to his sojourn within her walls;
+characteristic examples of that architecture
+of the closing fifteenth century which Holbein
+loved as Bramante himself. Leonardo was
+now in France; but in the refectory of the
+Santa Maria Monastery was his immortal,
+though, alas! not imperishable, masterpiece&mdash;"The
+Last Supper." Time had not yet taught
+Leonardo, much less Holbein, the fleeting
+nature of mural oil-painting; the only so-called
+"fresco" painting which the latter ever attempted,
+so far as is known. But the great
+Supper was still glowing in all the splendour
+of its original painting, and would impress
+itself indelibly on an eye such as Holbein's.
+In more than one cathedral, too, as he wandered
+in such a holiday, he would have noted
+how Mantegna had made its architecture the
+background for his own individual genius.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate each of these, somehow and
+somewhere, set its own seal upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+reverent heart of Holbein at about this time.
+Whether through their original works or
+copies of them,&mdash;already familiar to Augsburg
+as well as Lucerne,&mdash;the lad sat humbly at
+the feet of both Leonardo and Mantegna. By
+the first, beside many a loftier lesson, he was
+confirmed and strengthened in his native respect
+for accurate studies of the living world around
+him. From the second he learned a still deeper
+scorn of "pretty" art. Yet though he sat
+at their feet, it was as no servile disciple. He
+would fain be taught by them; fain follow
+them in all humility and frankness. But it
+was in order to expand his own powers, not
+to surrender them; to speak his own thoughts
+the better, not theirs, nor another's.</p>
+
+<p>And, in any event, on such a journey
+Lucerne must come first. And that he thought
+of making some long stay here when he returned
+is shown by his having joined in this year
+1517, the Guild of St. Luke, the Painters'
+Guild of Lucerne, then but newly organised.
+"Master Hans Holbein has given one Gulden,"
+reads the old entry. Two other items of this
+visit give us glimpses of its flesh-and-blood
+realities, perhaps of its unrest. The first,
+that he also joined a local company of Archers,
+the Militia of his day, seems to bring his living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+footfall very close. A resonant, manly, wholesome
+footfall it is, too! This broad-shouldered
+young fellow is as ready to draw a good stout
+bow among mountain-marksmen as a lamb
+among its daffodils. The second item makes
+it still clearer that he had other elements as
+well as the pastoral in his blood. On the 10th
+of December he got himself fined for his share
+in a street-scrimmage, where he would seem
+to have decidedly preferred the livelier to the
+"better part" of valour.</p>
+
+<p>And then he would appear to have shaken
+the dust, or more likely the snows, of Lucerne
+off his feet for the road to Italy, if not for
+Italy itself. Whatever his objective, he got,
+at any rate, well on toward the Pass of
+the St. Gothard. The scanty clues of such
+works as have remained on record prove that
+he reached Altdorf. But there the actual trail
+is altogether lost. If he spent the entire interval
+brush in hand, or if&mdash;as I believe&mdash;he
+treated himself to a bit of a holiday beyond
+the Alps, can be but a guess in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the New Year of 1518, then falling
+in March, could not have been far off, before
+or behind him. And in 1518 Holbein executed
+the commission which must have been the envy
+of every local artist. Jacob von Hertenstein,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+Burgomaster of Lucerne, had now got his
+fine new house ready for decoration; and it
+was to Holbein that he gave the splendid
+commission to decorate it to his fancy,&mdash;the
+interior as well as the fa&ccedil;ade.</p>
+
+<p>And a renowned triumph the painter made
+of it; a triumph such as, perhaps, no other
+artist north of Italy could then have equalled.
+It is idle now to dwell upon the religious
+subjects of one room, the genre paintings in
+another, the battle scenes of a third, and so
+on through those five famous rooms which
+were still in existence and fair preservation
+so late as 1824, but are now for ever lost;
+to say nothing of the painted Renaissance
+architecture and the historic legends which
+looked like solid realities when the fa&ccedil;ade was
+studied. But "Mizraim is become merchandise";
+and all that is now left of what
+should have been a treasured and priceless
+heirloom is but a monument to the shame of
+that citizen, a banker, who could condemn
+such a thing to destruction as indifferently as
+if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame
+of the municipality which, at any cost, did
+not prevent it. Some hasty sketches&mdash;due to
+individual enterprise and a sense of the dignity
+of Holbein's fame&mdash;an original drawing for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+one of the fa&ccedil;ade-paintings, and a few fragments
+of the interior paintings, which still show
+themselves, by chance, in the banker's <i>stable
+wall</i>&mdash;these are all that remain to speak of
+what must have been the enthusiastic labour
+of the greater part of Holbein's twenty-first
+year!</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<div class="center"><p class="noindent">HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS<br />
+1519-1526</p></div>
+
+<table class ="j" summary="CHAPTER_2">
+<tr><td><i>Holbein Basiliensis</i>&mdash;Enters the Painters' Guild&mdash;Bonifacius
+Amerbach and his portrait&mdash;The Last Supper and its
+Judas&mdash;The so-called "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon&mdash;Genius
+for design and symbolism in architecture&mdash;Versatility,
+humour, fighting scenes&mdash;Holbein becomes a
+citizen and marries&mdash;Basel in 1519&mdash;Froben's circle&mdash;Tremendous
+events and issues of the time&mdash;Holbein's
+religious works&mdash;The Nativity and Adoration at Freiburg&mdash;Hans
+Oberriedt&mdash;The Basel Passion in eight
+panels&mdash;Passion Drawings&mdash;Christ in the tomb&mdash;Christ
+and Mary Magdalen at the door of the
+sepulchre&mdash;Rathaus wall-paintings&mdash;Birth of Holbein's
+eldest child&mdash;The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery
+and rescue&mdash;Holbein's wife and her portraits&mdash;Suggested
+solutions of some biographical enigmas&mdash;Title pages&mdash;Portraits
+of Erasmus&mdash;Journey to France, probably to
+Lyons and Avignon&mdash;Publishers and pictures of the so-called
+"Dance of Death"&mdash;Dorothea Offenburg as
+Venus and La&iuml;s Corinthiaca&mdash;Triumph of the Protestant
+party&mdash;Holbein decides to leave Basel for a time&mdash;The
+Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden, and
+its portraits.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>And now it is 1519, and with it the true
+Hour of Holbein's destiny is striking.
+Take away the coming seven years and you
+will still have what Holbein is too often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+thought to be only&mdash;a great portrait-painter.
+No greater ever etched the soul of a man on
+his mask. His previous and his after achievements
+would still amply justify the honour of
+centuries. But add these seven years, from
+1519 to 1526, and dull indeed must be the
+intelligence that cannot recognise the great
+Master, without qualification and in the light
+of any thoughtful comparison with the very
+greatest.</p>
+
+<p>His Basel career may be said to begin here;
+his earlier work furnishing the Prologue. On
+the 25th September, 1519, when he was about
+two-and-twenty, he joined the Basel Guild of
+Painters; that same "Guild of Heaven" (<i>Zunft
+zum Himmel</i>) which his brother Ambrose had
+joined two years earlier and from which he
+seems to have passed to the veritable guild of
+Heaven at about this latter date.</p>
+
+<p>And hardly is the ink dry upon the record
+of his membership than Holbein painted one of
+the most beautiful of his portraits&mdash;that of
+Bonifacius Amerbach (<a href="#hpl6">Plate 6</a>). He stands
+beside a tree on which is hung an inscription.
+Behind him is Holbein's favourite early background,&mdash;the
+blue of the sky, here broken by the
+warm brown and green of the branch, and the
+faint glimpse of far-away mountains. Under his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+soft cap, with a cross for badge, his intensely
+gleaming blue eyes look out beneath grave
+brows. The lips are softly yet firmly set; the
+mouth framed by the sunny beard which repeats
+the red-brown of his hair. The black
+scholar's gown, with its trimming of black fur,
+discloses his rich damask doublet and white
+collar.<a name="himg6" id="himg6"></a><a name="hpl6" id="hpl6"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_6">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img6.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img6.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_6" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 6.<br />
+			BONIFACIUS AMERBACH<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img6.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Well may the inscription assert&mdash;above the
+signature, the name of the sitter and the date
+14th October, 1519&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="noindent">
+<i>"Though but a painted face I am not far removed from Life; but rather,<br />
+By truthful lines, the noble image of my Possessor.<br />
+As he accomplishes eight times three years, so faithfully in me also<br />
+Is Nature's work proclaimed by the work of Art."</i><br />
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="noindent">For here in truth is a work of Nature which is
+no less a work of Art.</p>
+
+<p>This is the Amerbach who began and inspired
+his son Basilius (so named after Bonifacius's
+brother) to complete the Holbein
+Collection, which the Basel Museum bought
+long afterwards. And such was the love of
+both that they included, perhaps deliberately,
+much that has small probability of claim to
+be Holbein's work. They would reject nothing
+attributed to him; thinking a bushel of chaff<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+well worth housing if it might yield one
+genuine grain. And in view of these expressive
+facts, it is hardly necessary to argue in
+behalf of the tradition that more than a conventional
+friendship bound the two young men
+together,&mdash;printer's son and painter's son,
+musician-scholar and scholar-painter, Churchman
+and Churchman; the one twenty-four, the
+other twenty-two.</p>
+
+<p>Bonifacius was the youngest of Johann
+Amerbach's three gifted sons. As all the
+world knows, Johann had been also a scholar
+as well as a printer, and great in both capacities.
+The most eminent scholars of his day
+gravitated as naturally to this noble personality
+as they afterwards did to that of his prot&eacute;g&eacute;
+and successor, Johann Froben. He had educated
+his sons, too, to worthily continue his
+life-work and maintain his devout principles.
+Bonifacius was the darling of more than one
+heart not given to softness. He had been
+more the friend than the pupil of Ulrich Zasius
+at the University of Freiburg, before he went
+to Avignon to complete his legal studies under
+Alciat. Five years after this portrait was
+painted he became Professor of Law in the
+Basel University. "I am ready to die," writes
+Erasmus of him, "when I shall have seen any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+young man purer or kinder or more sincere
+than this one."</p>
+
+<p>Very possibly it was for Bonifacius himself
+that Holbein painted his own portrait about
+this time (<a href="#hpl1">Plate 1</a>, frontispiece). It is a worthy
+mate, at all events. In the Amerbach Catalogue
+it was simply called "Holbein's counterfeit,
+in dry colour" (<i>ein conterfehung Holbein's
+mit trocken farben</i>); the frame, too, was catalogued,
+though the painting was kept in a
+cabinet separately when the Basel Museum
+acquired it with the Collection.</p>
+
+<p>The vigour and finish of this portrait on
+vellum, done in crayons or body-colour, make
+it a gem of the first water. The drawing was
+done in black chalk, and the tints have been
+rubbed in with coloured crayons or given with
+the point where lines of colour were required.
+The work has the delicacy of a water-colour
+and the strength of oils. The broad, soft, red
+hat, though so fine a bit of colour, is clearly
+worn as part of a simple everyday habit.
+There is no suggestion of studying for effect,
+or even caring at all about it. He wears his
+hat pulled soberly down over his brown hair
+exactly as when he wore it thus about the
+business of the day. The plastic modelling of
+the puckered brow and the mobile mouth is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+beautifully indicated. The bluish tone left by
+the razor is just hinted. In his drab coat with
+its black velvet bands, with his shirt, on which
+the high lights have been applied, slightly open
+at the throat, Holbein himself seems to stand
+before one as in life.</p>
+
+<p>Among the "early works" of the Amerbach
+Catalogue there is one which shows strong
+traces of Leonardo's and even more of Mantegna's
+influence on him at this time. It is
+a Last Supper, painted in oils on wood. But
+it was so mutilated in the iconoclastic fury
+of 1529, and has been so cobbled, re-broken,
+re-set, and "restored" generally, that it can
+no longer be called Holbein's work without
+many reservations. There is also another
+Last Supper, one of a coarsely painted set on
+canvas, which is attributed to him on much
+more doubtful grounds, to judge by the composition
+and colouring. Myself I should be inclined
+to see the inferior hand of Ambrose,
+Hans the elder, or perhaps even Sigmund
+Holbein in these, if they are genuine Holbein
+works at all.</p>
+
+<p>But there are still to be seen the traces of
+his own hand and mind in the Last Supper
+in oils on wood. St. John's head must originally
+have been very beautiful; very manly,
+too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>&mdash;dark
+with sudden anguish and recoil. There
+is a separate head of St. John, in oils, in the
+same collection, which shows how fixed was
+this noble originality of type in Holbein's conception
+of "the beloved apostle." But it is in
+Judas that the patient student will find, perhaps,
+most of Holbein's peculiar cast of thought,
+when once the initial repulsion is overcome.</p>
+
+<p>By a very natural arrangement he is brought
+into the immediate foreground and sits there,
+already isolated, already damned, in such a
+torment of body and soul as haunts the spectator
+who has had the courage to reconsider
+the dictum of authorities who call him "a Jew
+of frightful vulgarity." Frightful he may be;
+but it is a strange judgment which can find
+him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no
+longer in a condition to justify reproduction;
+but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated,
+shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture
+to assert, find food for thought in it even under
+all the injuries the work has undergone.</p>
+
+<p>It is a demon-driven soul if ever there was
+one. He is in the very act of springing to his
+feet and rushing away anywhere, anywhere
+out of this Presence;&mdash;no more concerned about
+his money-bag than about the food he loathes.
+Thirty pieces of silver! If the priests have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+lied, if this is in very truth the Messiah his
+heart still half believes Him, will thirty pieces
+of silver buy his soul from the Avenger? Is
+there time still to escape? What if he break
+the promise given when he was over-persuaded
+in the market-place the other day? But did
+not the High Priest himself declare that this is
+Beelzebub in person,&mdash;this fair, false, dear,&mdash;oh!
+still too dear Illusion? Up! Let him
+be gone out of this!&mdash;from the sound of that
+Voice, from the sight of that Face, get the
+thing over and done, done&mdash;done one way or
+another! If God's work, as the priests swear,
+well and good. He will have earned the pity
+of God Himself. If the devil's, as his heart
+whispers, well, too! Let him take his price
+and buy himself a rope long enough to house
+his soul in any Hell, rather than sit on in this
+one! It is all painted, or was once; all
+written on that sunken cheek, that matted
+hair and clammy brow; in that cavernous
+socket, that eye of lurid despair; on the whole
+anatomy of a lost soul. The hand that did it
+was very young, very immature; but it had
+the youth and the immaturity of a Master.</p>
+
+<p>There is another and a very different work, an
+oil painting, in the Royal Collection at Lisbon,
+signed <span class="small">IOANNES HOLBEIN FECIT 1519</span>, which, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+by the younger Hans, would almost put the
+question as to whether the painter knew the
+landscapes of Italy, beyond doubt; so southern
+is the type of its background. The work, however,
+has been rejected by Woltmann, on the
+strength of an old photograph not quite perfect.
+He held the signature to be spurious, and attributed
+the picture to the school of Gerard David.
+And he gave to the work the name by which it
+is now generally styled in English works: "The
+Fountain of Life" (<i>Der Brunnen des Lebens</i>).<a href="#fn3"><sup><small>3</small></sup></a><a name="fm3r" id="fn3r"></a>
+He did so from the inscription within the rim
+of the well immediately in the foreground; but
+a literal translation of this inscription, <span class="small">PVTEVS
+AQUARUM VIVENCIUM</span>, is, I think, to be preferred:
+<i>The Well of Living Waters</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of those competent to form a
+judgment in such matters are inclined to attribute
+the work to Hans Holbein the Elder, who
+did not die until some years later, and who
+made use of a very similar form of signature.
+And for myself I find it hard to see how anyone
+familiar with Hans the Younger could accept
+it as his work at any period of his career; least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+of all at the date given in the signature. So
+that equally whether Woltmann is right in
+believing the signature itself spurious, or those
+are right who hold it to be the genuine signature
+of Hans the Elder,&mdash;a more detailed description
+of the composition does not fall within
+the scope of this little volume. But the whole
+matter is most clearly set forth, and a very
+beautiful reproduction in colours given of the
+painting itself, in Herr Seeman's article upon
+it, which will be found in the appended List
+of References.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Considerably before 1519, as has been said,
+Holbein had begun to develop his special
+genius for Design, and to apply it to glass or
+window-paintings, as well as to metal and
+wood-engravings. The beautiful drawings,
+whether washed, or etched with the point, in
+chalks or Indian ink, of which examples may
+be seen in almost every great collection,
+private as well as public, that year after year
+were created by that fertile brain and ever
+more masterly hand, constitute an Art in themselves.
+And since so many (perhaps the
+greater number as well as the greater in
+subject) of his paintings have perished, it is
+chiefly in his drawings that the progression of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+his powers can be followed, or the plane and
+scope of his imagination recognised at all.
+There is seldom a date on them; but they will
+be found to date themselves pretty accurately
+by certain features. In his earliest, for instance,
+that defect of which mention has been made,&mdash;the
+short thick figures due to the energy of
+his rebound from Gothic attenuation is a grave
+fault. There is a Virgin and Child among his
+washed drawings for glass-paintings in the
+Basel Museum, for example, which, when you
+cut it off at the knees, is one of the most
+charming pictures of Mother and Child to be
+found in any painter's treatment of this subject.
+And behind them is a gem of landscape. Yet
+the whole, as it stands, is utterly marred by the
+Virgin's dwarfed limbs. But although Holbein
+never entirely overcame this fault, he did very
+greatly do so, as the years passed.</p>
+
+<p>His architectural settings, too, tended to
+greater simplicity in his later years. Yet this
+is not a safe guide. Some early designs have
+simple forms; some comparatively late ones,
+a very ornate architecture. For the truth is
+that these architectural backgrounds and settings
+remained, so long as his fancy had any
+free field for disporting itself, an integral
+part of his conception. But only as inseparable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+from the Symbolism, the under-tow, of his imagination.
+To my thinking, at any rate, they
+make a gravid mistake who look for "realism"
+in these things.</p>
+
+<p>His stately pillars and arches, his fluid forms
+of ornament, are not his idea of the actual
+surroundings of the characters he portrays,
+any more than they are your idea, or mine,
+of those surroundings. Is it to be supposed
+that he thought the dwellings of our Lord
+were palaces? Or that he could not paint a
+stable? Those who maintain that Holbein was
+a Realist in the modern sense of the word
+must reconcile as best they can the theory
+with the facts. But when we see the stage
+set with every stately circumstance,&mdash;the Babe
+amid the fading splendours of earthly palaces,
+our Lord mocked by matter as well as man,&mdash;I
+dare to think that we shall do well to cease
+from insisting on an adobe wall, and to study
+those "incongruous" circumstances to which
+the will and not the poverty of Holbein consents.
+We shall, at least, no longer be dull
+to "the tears of things" as he saw them.</p>
+
+<p>But it would be no less a mistake to think
+of Holbein as one without a sense of laughter
+as well. His drawings of open-mouthed peasants
+gossiping in a summer's nooning, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+dancing in some uncouth frolic,&mdash;and still more
+his romping children, dancing children, and
+the chase of the fox running off with the goose,&mdash;all
+of these are full of boyish fun. Would
+that they could be given here without usurping
+the place of more important works! But that
+is impossible. And so, too, with the costume-figures
+of Basel, among which is the charming
+back view of a citizen's wife, with all the
+women bent far backward in the odd carriage
+that was then "the latest fashion" among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He was particularly happy, also, in his drawings
+of the <i>Landsknechte</i>, those famous Mercenaries
+of "Blut und Eisen"; always ready
+to drink a good glass, and a-many; to love
+a good lass after the same liberal fashion; to
+troll a good song or fight a good fight; and
+all with equal zest. He had not mixed with
+these masterful gentry for nothing; nor they
+with him to wholly die. There are a number
+of drawings where they are engaged in combat,
+too, which show that Holbein's heart leapt
+to the music of sword and spear as blithely
+as does Scott's or Dumas's&mdash;as blithely as did
+the hearts of the <i>Reisl&auml;ufer</i> themselves. Look
+at the mad rush, the hand-to-hand grapple,
+in a drawing of the Basel Collection, for instance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+(<a href="#hpl7">Plate 7</a>). The blood-lust, the heroism,
+the savagery, the thrust, the oath, the dust-choked
+prayer, the forgotten breathing clay
+under the bloodstained foot; the very clash and
+din of the fray;&mdash;all is told with the brush.
+And yet not one unnecessary detail squandered.
+It is as if one watched it from some palpitating
+refuge, just near enough to see the forefront
+figures distinctly and to make out the interlocked
+hubbub and fury where the ranks have
+been broken through. It would be a great
+day for Art could we but chance upon some
+lost painting for which such a study had served
+its completed purpose.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>On the 3rd of July, 1520, Holbein fulfilled
+what was then the requirement of almost every
+guild, and purchased his citizenship; a citizenship
+to reflect unfading honour on Basel, and
+of which she has ever been justly proud. And
+somewhere about the same time he married
+Elsbeth Schmidt, a tanner's widow, who had
+one child, Franz.<a name="himg7" id="himg7"></a><a name="hpl7" id="hpl7"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_7">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img7.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img7.jpg" height="330"
+      alt="PLATE_7" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 7.<br />
+			FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE<br />
+      <i>Washed Drawing. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img7.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the past four or five years Basel had
+been steadily becoming more and more democratic.
+And at a period when its <i>&eacute;lite</i> were
+scholars and printers and civic officials of every
+origin,&mdash;when the illegitimate son of a Rotterdam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+doctor was the true prince, and Beatus
+Rhenanus, the grandson of a butcher, was his
+worthy second in the reverence of Basel,&mdash;the
+widow and son of a reputable tanner and a
+rising young artist, who had already the suffrages
+of the most influential citizens, would
+find no doors closed to them on the score of
+social disabilities. The friendship of such men
+as Erasmus, Froben, Bonifacius Amerbach,
+and the Mayor,&mdash;all conspicuous stars in the
+Church party,&mdash;would have ennobled a man of
+less genius than Holbein in the eyes of his
+fellow-citizens; and rightly. But as to the
+exact locality in which Holbein set up his first
+married roof-tree&mdash;that Bethel of sacred or
+saddest dreams&mdash;no documentary evidence has
+yet come to light. Circumstantial evidence,
+however, amounts to a strong probability in
+favour of the <i>Rheinhalde</i> of Great-Basel.</p>
+
+<p>If there was an emblem peculiarly abhorrent
+to the Basilisk (the Device of Basel) it was the
+Crescent-and-star. But nothing could better
+serve to recall the rough outline of Basel in
+Holbein's day than this very emblem. As the
+Rhine suddenly swerves from its first wild rush
+westward and races away, northerly, to the
+German Ocean, it shapes the hollow of the
+crescent in which Little-Basel (<i>Klein-Basel</i>)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+nestled as the star; and, appropriately enough,
+since it was here that the Catholic's Star of
+Faith rallied when overcome across the river,
+where curved the crescent of Great-Basel
+(<i>Gross-Basel</i>). And the relative proportions of
+the two would be fairly enough represented by
+the symbols respectively used.</p>
+
+<p>Great-Basel's northern face was protected
+by the Rhine, while the stout city wall secured
+its convex curve. Of this wall the eastern
+horn was St. Alban's Gate; its north-west was
+St. John's Gate (<i>St. Johann Thor</i>); beside
+which stood the decaying Commandery of the
+Knights of Malta, which had contributed a
+large sum toward the expanded wall, in order
+to be included within it. And just as these
+spots still mark the horns of the old crescent,
+the <i>Spalen Thor</i> shows where it had its greatest
+depth, midway between the other two.</p>
+
+<p>A straight line running due north-east from
+this Spalen-Thor would cross the big square
+of the Fish-market (<i>Fischmarktplatz</i>) pretty
+nearly as the uncovered stream of the Birsig,
+or "Little Birs," did before the quaint little
+bridge, which then united the two halves of the
+Fischmarkt, was absorbed in the paving over
+of stream and square before Holbein's day.
+This same straight line would of itself draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+the "Old Bridge" (<i>Alte Br&uuml;cke</i>) with approximate
+exactness, the even then ancient bridge
+which centred the star of Klein-Basel to its
+crescent. And in the Historical Museum,
+where the Barefooted Friars worshipped then,
+we may still see the grotesque piece of clockwork,
+the wooden "Stammering King" (<i>L&auml;llenk&ouml;nig</i>),
+that for centuries used hourly to roll
+great eyes and stick out its tongue a foot long
+across the river from the Gross-Basel end of
+the bridge. It is often said that this monster
+was set up as a public token of the hatred
+which the triumphant Protestantism of the
+south bank felt for the stubborn Catholicism of
+Klein-Basel. But the thing was a famous
+ancient joke before party feeling turned it into
+a gibe.</p>
+
+<p>Bonifacius Amerbach's home, the "Emperor's
+Seat" (<i>Kaiserstuhl</i>, now 23, Rheingasse),
+was in Klein-Basel. Johann Amerbach
+had bought it, near to his beloved friends, the
+Carthusians. In 1520 the good old man had
+slept for six years in the cloisters of the
+monastery; where to-day the children of the
+Orphan Asylum play above his grave.</p>
+
+<p>But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life
+would lead him to prefer Basel proper, and to
+choose the quarter in which he bought a home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+eight years later. This was then the western
+quarter of Gross-Basel, along the river-face of
+which ran the high southern and western bank
+of the Rhine, the <i>Rheinhalde</i>, now <i>St. Johann
+Vorstadt</i>. About where the present <i>Blumenrain</i>
+ends stood the arch, or <i>Schwibbogen</i>.
+Further on still stood the "Gate of the Cross"
+(<i>Kreuzthor</i>), by the House of the Brothers of
+St. Anthony, the ancient <i>Kl&ouml;sterli</i> of Basel.
+Before the Commandery of St. John got themselves
+included within the city wall the Kreuzthor
+was its western gate. The whole district
+of <i>ze Cr&uuml;ze</i>, so called because its boundaries
+were crosses before towers replaced them, has
+however become absorbed in the St. Johann
+Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor has disappeared
+altogether. The quarter was a favourite one
+with members of the Fishers' Guild and with
+decent folk of small means.</p>
+
+<p>As early as 1517 the Fishers' Company had
+extended itself so greatly as to become a
+notable institution of the Vorstadt, including
+many members from Klein-Basel also; while
+its military record was a proud one. But it
+was in this year, while Holbein was making
+his visit to Lucerne and beyond, that this guild
+took the more truly descriptive name which
+it bears to this day, that of the "Vorstadt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+Association" (<i>Vorstadtgesellschaft</i>). And to
+this association, which in after years gave him
+a famous banquet, Holbein, we know, belonged
+later on, if not now.</p>
+
+<p>Every day would take him to the Fischmarkt,&mdash;the
+great square humming with activity,
+crowded with inns, public-houses, shops,
+booths, dwelling-houses,&mdash;the trade mart of
+every nationality. The Cornmarkt near by,
+now the <i>Marktplatz</i>, with its almost finished
+Rathaus, was the centre of official civic life.
+When the great bell clanged on the Rathaus,
+and its flag was flung out, not only every
+professional soldier, but every guild and every
+male above fourteen, knew his appointed place
+at the wall, and took it. But every day, and
+all day, the Fischmarkt flung out its peaceful
+standards, or rallied men to this side or to that
+with the tocsin of its presses,&mdash;the old Amerbach
+printing-house "of the Settle" (<i>zum Sessel</i>),
+which was Johann Froben's home and printing-house
+in 1520.</p>
+
+<p>Morning after morning, and year upon year,
+Holbein turned his back upon St. Johannthor,
+and walked eastward along the Rheinhalde;&mdash;the
+river racing toward him on his left hand,
+the University rising in front of him beyond
+the bridge, and the delicate Cathedral towers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+beyond the University. For the Basel Minster
+was still the Cathedral of the great See of
+Basel. Passing the wall of the Dominican
+Cemetery, on which was painted the ancient
+Dance of Death with which his own after-creations
+were so often to be confused, Holbein
+must many a time have studied the famous old
+copy. For though the Dominican painting
+was then nearly a century old, it was a copy
+of a still older original in the Klein-Basel
+nunnery of <i>Klingenthal</i>, a community under
+Dominican direction.</p>
+
+<p>But he would pass another spot&mdash;one day
+to be of far more living importance to him.
+In 1520 it was a corn warehouse, known by
+the name of <i>ze Cr&uuml;z</i>, which belonged to Adam
+Petri, the printer, who had inherited it from
+his uncle, the famous printer Johann Petri,
+by whose ingenious improvements the art of
+printing was so greatly facilitated. Two years
+later, in 1522, Froben bought this granary,
+ze Cr&uuml;z, and converted it into the book-magazine
+which was known all over Europe
+as "Froben's Book-house." And in this
+latter year Adam Petri, greatly to Luther's
+disgust, pirated Luther's translation of the
+New Testament, which had appeared three
+months before.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Holbein drew a superb title-page, ante-dated
+1523, for this "enterprise" of Petri&mdash;the New
+Testament "now right faithfully rendered into
+German,"&mdash;with the symbols of the Evangelists
+at the four corners, the arms of Basel at the
+top, the device of the printer at the foot, and
+the noble figures of St. Paul and St. Peter
+on either side; figures which will bear comparison
+with D&uuml;rer's "Four Temperaments"
+of a later date. Later still he designed another
+striking title-page for Thomas Wolff's translation;
+and his beautiful title-pages and ornaments
+for Froben, with whom his connection
+was not a temporary matter such as these
+others, would need a volume to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Holbein's only rival, if he could be called such,
+in work of this sort was the talented goldsmith,
+Urs Graf, who, as an exceedingly loose fish, lived
+most appropriately in the Fischmarkt in his own
+house near the old Birsig Bridge, when he was
+not in the lock-up for one or another of his
+constant brawls and scandals. But to compare
+the best work of both is to recognise a difference
+in kind as well as degree: the essential
+difference between even negligent genius and
+the most elaborate talent. High talent Urs
+Graf had unquestionably; though stamped,&mdash;I
+think,&mdash;with the lawless caprices of his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+character. Holbein's every design has not
+only what Urs Graf lacked&mdash;that ordered imagination
+which is Style&mdash;but over and above
+all, the subtle expression of Power.</p>
+
+<p>Many a time, too, just where he would turn
+away from the Rhine for the business centre of
+Gross-Basel, the artist would make some little
+pause at the old "Flower" Inn (<i>zur Blume</i>),
+which gave its name to the Blumenplatz, and
+is still commemorated in the greatly extended
+Blumenrain of to-day. All the world now knows
+the famous hotel of "The Three Kings";
+and where it reaches nearest to the Old Bridge
+stood the "Blume" of Holbein's time, even then
+the oldest of the Basel inns. This Blume, not
+to be confused with later inns of the same
+name, shared with its no less famous contemporary,&mdash;"The
+Stork," in the Fischmarkt,&mdash;the
+special patronage of the chief printers. Basilius
+Amerbach, for instance, the brother of Holbein's
+friend Bonifacius, lived at the Blume;
+and often the painter must have turned in for
+a friendly glass with him and a chat about
+Bonifacius, away at his law studies in Avignon.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Stork, its very rooms were named
+in remembrance of the envoys and merchant
+traders who flocked to it on all great occasions.
+There was a "Cologne Room," for instance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+and a "Venetian Room," among many others.
+The men of Venice, indeed, had a particular
+affection for it. Here Holbein met with all
+nationalities, and learned much of the great
+centres of other countries. Here came all the
+Basel magnates and printers. And here, a few
+years later on, came that bizarre personage
+who was for a very brief time Basel's "town
+physician," the Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus
+to whom we owe our word <i>bombastic</i>.
+Holbein was on a visit to England during the
+latter's short tenure of office, when the combined
+scholarship and poverty of Oporinus
+made him the hack of Paracelsus and the
+victim of many a petty tyranny. At that time
+Oporinus,&mdash;the son of that Hans Herbster,
+painter, whose portrait is now attributed to
+Ambrose Holbein,&mdash;was glad to place his remarkable
+knowledge of Greek at Froben's
+service. He was not yet a printer, as later
+when Holbein drew a clever device for him.
+And neither he nor the painter could know that
+one day the daughter of Bonifacius Amerbach
+should marry him out of sheer pity for his
+unhappy old age,&mdash;somewhat as he himself,
+when but a lad of twenty, married an aged
+Xantippe from gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>But in 1520, when Holbein was just married,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+Oporinus was still a student and Bonifacius
+unmarried. Erasmus, too, did not permanently
+take up his home with Froben until the
+following year, and was now at Louvain. Yet
+what a true university was that little house
+<i>zum Sessel</i> (now 3, Todteng&auml;sslein, the little
+lane where the old post-office stood) to an
+intelligence such as Holbein's! And what a
+circle was that of Froben's staff! From Froben
+himself, above whom Erasmus alone could
+tower in scholarship, down through every
+member to the youngest, and from such men
+as Gerard Lystrius on the one hand and the
+literally "Beatus" Rhenanus on the other,
+what things were not to be learned!</p>
+
+<p>And what discussions those were that drew
+each man to give of his best in the common
+talk! Venice sent news of the "unspeakable"
+Turk, whom she had such good cause to watch
+and dread. For fifty years his name had ceased
+to blanch the cheek of other nations; but now
+it was said, and said truly, that the dying
+Selim, "the Grim," had forged a thunderbolt
+which Suleyman II. would not be slow to hurl.
+No man could know the worst or dared predict
+the end, as to that Yellow Terror of Holbein's
+time. And closer still, to keen eyes, were the
+threats of the coming Peasant Terror. Wurtemberg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+had battened down the flames, it is
+true; but the deck of Europe was hot under
+foot with the passions that were soon to make
+the Turks' atrocities seem gentle in comparison.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Maximilian and the election of
+Charles V. were a year old now. But none
+knew better than the Basel printers how much
+the League of Swabia and the Swiss Confederation
+had weighed in the close contest of claims
+between those three strangely youthful competitors
+for the Emperor's crown;&mdash;Charles,
+but nineteen; Francis I., one-and-twenty; and
+Henry VIII., not twenty-five. Basel also knew
+that Charles had only bought his triumph by
+swearing to summon the Diet of Worms. All
+the more, therefore, was she intensely alive
+to the possible issues of the Arabian-Nights-Entertainment
+which had but just concluded on
+the dreary Calais flats when Holbein became
+one of Basel's citizens. Erasmus had come
+back full of it. Marco Polo's best wonders
+made but a dingy show beside the "Field of
+the Cloth of Gold," where in this June the two
+defeated candidates for imperial honours had
+kissed each other midway between the ruined
+moat of Guisnes and the rased battlements of
+Arde.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on top of this, came the rumours of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+English King's undertaking to answer Luther's
+most formidable attack on Rome. It was
+in 1520, the year after his great disputation
+with Eck at Leipzig, that Luther published
+his cataclysmic addresses: "To the Christian
+Nobles of Germany" and "On the Babylonian
+Captivity,"&mdash;the latter of which itself contains
+the whole Protestant Reformation in embryo.
+"Would to God," exclaimed Erasmus of it,
+"that he had followed my counsel and abstained
+from odious and seditious proceedings!"
+Bishop Tunstall, then in Worms, had
+also written of it:&mdash;"I pray God keep that book
+out of England!" But before the year was
+out "that book" had reached England, and
+Henry VIII. had sworn to annihilate its arguments
+and to triumphantly defend the dogmas
+of Rome. The eagerly-awaited "Defence"
+did not get printed, and <ins title="lacking in original">would remain</ins> in Pope Leo's hands
+for a year yet. But Basel knew, through More
+and Erasmus,&mdash;whose canny smile probably
+discounted its critical quality,&mdash;pretty much its
+line of defence. Nor was Froben's circle one
+whit more surprised than its royal author when
+its immediate reward was that formal style and
+title&mdash;<i>Defender of the Faith</i>,&mdash;to which a few
+years more were to lend so different a
+significance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>By this latter date Ulrich von Hutten had
+fled to Basel, only to find that his violent
+"heresies" had completely estranged Erasmus,
+and closed Froben's door, as well as all other
+Roman Catholic doors, against him for ever.
+He lodged, therefore, at the Blume until the
+Basel Council requested him to leave the town,
+a little before his death, in 1523. But in 1520
+Hutten was still at Sickingen's fortress,
+digging with fierce ardour the impassable
+gulf between him and the band of friends and
+Churchmen among whom Holbein ever ranged
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Among the five lost works which Patin says
+Holbein painted, there was a "Nativity" and
+an "Adoration of the Kings." It is impossible
+now to say what resemblances, if any, existed
+between these and the same subjects, executed
+not much later, which are now in the University
+Chapel, Freiburg Minster. These latter are
+the only known works of Holbein that still
+hang in a sacred edifice. They were evidently
+designed to fold in upon a central altar-piece
+with an arched top, thus making, when open,
+the usual triptych; but the central painting
+has vanished. This large work was a gift
+to the Carthusian monastery in Klein-Basel;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+and the arms of the donor, Hans Oberriedt, are
+displayed below the Nativity, as well as the
+portraits of himself and his six sons. Below
+the corresponding right wing, the Adoration,
+are the arms of his wife and her portrait, with
+her four daughters.</p>
+
+<p>In both wings what I can only describe as
+the atmosphere of Infancy,&mdash;and a touching
+atmosphere it is too&mdash;is strengthened by
+keeping all the figures small and heightening
+this suggestion by contrast with a grandiose
+architecture. In both, too, the sacred scenes
+reveal themselves like visions unseen by the
+Oberriedt family, who face outward toward
+the altar and are supposed to be lighted by
+the actual lights of the church. The whole
+work must once have been a glorious creation,
+with its rich colours, its beautiful architectural
+forms, and its mingling of purest imagination
+with realism. What would one not give to see
+the lost work these wings covered?</p>
+
+<p>In the left wing, the Nativity (<a href="#hpl8">Plate 8</a>), Holbein
+has remarkably anticipated the lighting of
+Correggio's famous masterpiece, not finished
+until years after this must have been painted, by
+the conditions of Oberriedt's history and Basel's
+as well. The Light that is to light the world
+lights up the scene with an exquisite enchanting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+softness,&mdash;yet so brilliantly that the very
+lights of heaven seem dimmed in comparison.
+The moon, in Holbein's deliberate audacity,
+seems but a disc as she bows her face, too,
+in worship. Shining by some compulsion of
+purest Nature, the divine radiance glows on
+the ecstatic Mother; and away above and
+beyond her&mdash;"How far that little candle
+shines," and shines, and shines again amid
+the shadows! It illumines the beautiful face
+of the Virgin, touches the reverent awe of
+St. Joseph, plays over marble arch and pillar,
+discovers the wondering shepherd peering from
+behind the pillar on the left, and irradiates the
+angel in the distance, hastening to carry the
+"glad tidings." The happy cherubs behind
+the Child rejoice in it; and as they spring
+forward one notices how Holbein has boldly
+discarded the conventional, and attached their
+pinions as if these were a natural development
+of the arm instead of a separate member.<a name="himg8" id="himg8"></a><a name="hpl8" id="hpl8"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_8">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img8.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img8.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_8" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 8.<br />
+			THE NATIVITY<br />
+      <i>Oils. University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img8.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The same union of unfettered fancy symbolism
+and realism displays itself throughout
+the right wing,&mdash;where the Virgin is enthroned
+in front of crumbling palaces. The sun's rays
+form a great star, of such dazzling light that
+one of the attendants shades his eyes to look
+upward, and an old man with a noble head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+wearing an ermine cape, presents his offering
+as the chief of the three kings; while a Moorish
+sovereign, dressed in white, makes a splendid
+figure as he waits to kneel with his gift, and
+his greyhound stands beside him. The colouring
+of both paintings must have had an extraordinary
+beauty when the painter laid down his
+brush.</p>
+
+<p>To carp at such conceptions because their
+architecture is as imaginative and as deeply
+symbolical as the action, is to demand that
+Holbein shall be someone else. These pictures,
+beyond the portraits below them, are the
+farthest possible from aiming at what we demand
+of Realism, though their own realism
+is astonishing. Holbein all too seldom sounds
+them, but when he does choose to stir only
+a joyous elation in the heart he rings a peal
+of silver bells. Here all is glad thanksgiving.
+The Divine has come into a sick and sorry
+world; and, behold, all is changed! Nothing
+sordid, nothing shabby, consists with the <i>meaning</i>
+of this miracle. Therefore it is not here.
+All is transformed; all is a New Jerusalem&mdash;splendour,
+peace, ineffable and mysterious
+Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>With the dominance of the anti-Catholic
+party, which unseated Meyer zum Hasen in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+1521, his friend Oberriedt also fell into trouble.
+And soon after Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach,&mdash;disgusted
+with the iconoclast fanaticism
+of 1528 and 1529,&mdash;took refuge in Catholic
+Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau, Oberriedt also left
+Basel for that city. He took these wings with
+him to save them from the destruction which
+probably overtook the central work. The latter
+was, perhaps, too large to conceal or get away.
+During the Thirty Years' War they were again
+removed, and safeguarded at Schaffhausen.
+And so great was their fame that they were
+twice expressly commanded to be brought
+before a sovereign; once to Munich, to be
+seen by Maximilian of Bavaria; and again
+to Ratisbon for the Emperor Ferdinand III.
+In 1798 they were looted by the French, and
+were only restored to Freiburg in 1808.</p>
+
+<p>Another great religious picture, once no less
+renowned than Oberriedt's altar-paintings, has
+suffered a worse fate. This is the eight-panelled
+altar-piece of the Passion, now in
+the Basel Museum (<a href="#hpl9">Plate 9</a>). So far back as
+is known it was preserved, probably after
+being hidden from the fury that attacked all
+church pictures, in the Rathaus. Maximilian
+I., of Bavaria, the zealous collector of D&uuml;rer's
+works, offered almost any price for this altar-piece<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+by D&uuml;rer's great contemporary. But
+Basel, unlike N&uuml;remberg, was not to be bribed;
+and the world-famous painting remained to
+draw art-lovers from every country in Europe.
+Nor did the most competent judges fail to
+envy Basel her jewel, and to eulogise its perfections.
+Painters such as Sandrart, looking
+at it after it had survived a hundred and
+fifty years of vicissitude, could exclaim: "It
+is a work in which the utmost that our art
+is capable of may be found; yielding the palm
+to none, whether of Germany or Italy, and
+justly wearing the laurel-wreath among the
+works of former times."<a name="himg9" id="himg9"></a><a name="hpl9" id="hpl9"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_9">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img9a.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9a.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="Gethsemane" /></a>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+		<a href="images/img9b.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9b.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="Kiss_of_Judas" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>Gethsemane</i><br />
+	      Click to <a href="images/img9a.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>The Kiss of Judas</i><br />
+			Click to <a href="images/img9b.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img9c.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9c.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="Before_Pontius_Pilate" /></a>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+		<a href="images/img9d.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9d.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="The_Scourging" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>Before Pontius Pilate</i><br />
+	      Click to <a href="images/img9c.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>The Scourging</i><br />
+			Click to <a href="images/img9d.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img9e.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9e.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="The_Mocking" /></a>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+		<a href="images/img9f.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9f.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="The_Way_to_Calvary" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>The Mocking</i><br />
+	      Click to <a href="images/img9e.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>The Way to Calvary</i><br />
+			Click to <a href="images/img9f.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+<tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img9g.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9g.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="It_is_finished" /></a>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+		<a href="images/img9h.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img9h.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="The_Entombment" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>"It is finished"</i><br />
+	      Click to <a href="images/img9g.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+		<td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><i>The Entombment</i><br />
+			Click to <a href="images/img9h.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+	<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><span class="small"><b>THE PASSION<br />
+<i>Eight-panelled Altar-piece.<br />
+Oils. Basel Museum.</i>)</b></span></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Alas! this laurel, too, has been filched
+from Holbein's fame. In 1771 the altar-piece
+was consigned to the collection where it now
+is; and it was then decided to gild the gold and
+paint the lily. The work was subjected to one
+of those crude "restorations" which respect
+nothing save the frame. And no monarch will
+ever again compete for its possession. Red is
+over red and blue over blue, doubtless; but
+in place of Holbein's rich harmony a jangle of
+gaudy conflicting colours now sets one's teeth
+on edge. So that only in a photograph can one
+even enjoy the composition&mdash;all that is left of
+the Master.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+But here it can be seen with what art the
+painter has so combined eight separate and
+distinct pictures, each a gem, into one, by such
+a distribution and balance that the whole is as
+integral as a pearl. The scene on the Mount
+of Olives, which a great critic once pronounced
+worthy to compare with Correggio's work, is
+only to be surpassed by the Entombment. And
+in every scene&mdash;what freedom, action, verve!
+From the first to the last all passes with the
+swift step of Calamity, yet all with noble
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>The Basel Museum possesses also a set of
+ten washed drawings in Indian ink,&mdash;scenes of
+the Passion designed for glass-painting,&mdash;which
+must be conned and conned again before one
+can "know" Holbein at all in his deepest
+moods. They are a great Testament, though
+they seem unbearably harsh at a superficial
+glance. But put aside your own ideas and
+humbly study the ideas of Holbein,&mdash;sure that
+they must be well worth the reverence of yours
+or mine,&mdash;and little by little you will be made
+free of that Underworld where Holbein's true
+self has its home; you will pierce its gloom
+and find its clue and understand its tongue.
+It is a small matter whether you and I find
+ourselves in sympathy with that world, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+can never be acclimatised. The great matter,
+the only matter, is to understand it; to
+see in its skeletons something more than
+lively bones, in its graves something besides
+Horror.</p>
+
+<p>Without mastering the logical sequence of
+these ten drawings,&mdash;where scene by scene the
+Divine recedes before our eyes, and the Son of
+Man assumes more and more the whole burden
+of Sin and Death,&mdash;it is inevitable that the life-size
+painting of Christ in the Grave, also in
+the Basel Museum (<a href="#hpl10">Plate 10</a>), should seem
+just a ghastly and "unpardonable" piece of
+realism. Realism of the most ghastly truthfulness,
+as to a corpse in the grave, it certainly
+is. But although it may be questioned whether
+such a picture should ever be painted, no one
+who looks through the form to the thought
+that shapes it would pronounce even this awful
+utterance "unpardonable."</p>
+
+<p>There have been those who could see in this
+dead Christ,&mdash;lying rigid in a green sarcophagus
+that throws over the waxen flesh the ghastly
+threat of that decay which would follow if no
+miracle intervened,&mdash;there have been those, I
+say, who could see in it only superb technique.
+And others see only the negation of all idealism,
+if not of all faith.<a name="himg10" id="himg10"></a><a name="hpl10" id="hpl10"></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_10">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img10.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img10.jpg" height="80"
+      alt="PLATE_10" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 10.<br />
+			CHRIST IN THE GRAVE<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img10.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Yet put this painting,&mdash;the acme of technical
+beauty as well as of ruthless realism,&mdash;at the
+close of the ten Passion drawings, and I
+venture to believe that the one coherent conception
+that runs through them all will legitimately
+find its conclusion here.</p>
+
+<p>Here He lies that surrendered Himself to the
+punishment of Sin and the penalty of Death&mdash;for
+all men and all time. His pale lips are set
+with the superhuman agony of the cry with
+which He paid the uttermost farthing of that
+bond. Man has died for man, martyrs for
+faith; here God has died unto Himself, for us.
+There has been no playing at death. All the
+pitiless terrors of the grave are here, with Him
+who for love of us has chosen to know Mortality
+"like at all points" with mortal men.
+What He bore for us, shall we shrink from so
+much as realising? The great eyes are fixed in
+a look whose penetrating, almost liquid sweetness
+not even the rigor of the final anguish
+could obliterate. Divine devotion,&mdash;devotion
+more than mortal,&mdash;still lingers in those sockets.
+The heart may well dilate before this sight;
+the soul fall on its knees. By each of those
+bloodstained steps, by the sting of this death,
+we have been paid for. Here, here only,&mdash;as
+Holbein saw it,&mdash;is the leverage the heathen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+philosopher vainly sighed for to move the
+world; God's leverage, Infinite Love.</p>
+
+<p>This is anything but a theological tangent.
+A great artist has bequeathed us his beliefs,&mdash;drawn
+and painted in many works, with every
+patient, virile, expressive power at his command.
+There has been enough and to spare
+of shrieks or scoffs. A little humility and a
+little study is in place, too. For the rest, let us
+not forget that this large painting was made
+for some altar; and that many a weeping penitent,
+many a devout heart, has been pierced
+with its message. On the edge of the stone
+coffin, which is tinted a warm green within,
+and lit by some opening at the foot, is the
+inscription in gold letters: "<span class="smallcaps">Jesus Nazarenus
+Rex Jud&aelig;orum</span>." The stigmata are painted
+with unsparing truth. The work is dated
+1521.</p>
+
+<p>There is in the Hampton Court Gallery a
+little painting which has only comparatively
+recently been recognised as Holbein's, but
+which forms the beautiful and fitting close of
+this set of religious pictures. As is the case
+with so many of his works, the critics are not
+unanimous upon it. But the authorities who
+have no doubts as to its being a genuine
+Holbein of this period are so weighty that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+I need not argue the point in support of my
+own convictions.</p>
+
+<p>In the Hampton Court Catalogue it is styled
+"Mary Magdalen at our Lord's Sepulchre,"
+but I prefer to call it the Risen Christ (<a href="#hpl11">Plate
+11</a>). It must once have been supremely beautiful;
+for even now its ideal loveliness shines
+through all the evil fortunes which have once
+again defaced the handiwork of Holbein. The
+type of Christ, and indeed the work throughout,
+bears a marked resemblance to the eight-panelled
+Basel altar-piece.</p>
+
+<p>The painter has chosen the moment recorded
+in the twentieth chapter of St. John. In that
+early dawn, "when it was yet dark," Mary
+has brought spikenard in a marble cup, if not
+to anoint the sacred Dead at least to pour it on
+the threshold of the sealed tomb, with tears
+and prayers. She has fled to tell St. John and
+St. Peter of the sacrilege of the open tomb,&mdash;has
+followed them back, still mechanically
+clasping her useless spikenard,&mdash;has seen them
+go in where her trembling knees refused to
+follow, and then go homeward, as we can see
+them in the distance, arguing the almost incredible
+fact.<a name="himg11" id="img11"></a><a name="hpl11" id="hpl11"></a></p>
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_11">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img11.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img11.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_11" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 11.<br />
+			THE RISEN CHRIST<br />
+      <i>Oils. Hampton Court Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img11.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Poor Mary has had no heart for discussion.
+She has stayed weeping by the empty grave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+until two pitying angels have appeared to
+recall her from despair, and she has "turned
+herself back,"&mdash;too frightened to stay for comfort.
+And then she has seen near her a Face,
+a Form, she was too dazed to recognise until
+the unforgettable Voice has thrilled through
+her, and she has flung herself forward with the
+old, instinctive cry, "Master!" to touch, to
+clasp that Hand, so dear, so familiar, so all-protecting,
+and find it a reality.</p>
+
+<p>It is this tremendous moment that Holbein
+has seized. And with what exquisite feeling for
+every detail of the scene, every great emotion!
+Had the painting been preserved, as it deserved
+to be, surely it too could claim a part of that
+laurel wreath which Sandrart averred could
+not be torn from the Basel altar-piece by any
+rival, whether Italian or German.</p>
+
+
+<p>The misty landscape, with the crosses of
+Golgotha and the eastern hills catching the
+first brightness of the new Day dawning over
+mortality; the broken clouds of night, scattered
+like the conquered horrors of the grave,
+and the illuminated tomb where Hope and
+Faith henceforth ask us why we weep; the
+hurrying agitation of St. Peter and the trusting
+serenity of St. John, expressed in every gesture;
+the dusky trees; Mary's quivering doubt and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+rapture, touched with some new awe; and
+the simple majesty with which our Lord stays
+that unconscious innocent presumption, <i>Touch
+me not</i>.</p>
+
+<p>What forbidding tenderness in that Face
+lighted by the grave He has passed through!
+What a subtle yet eloquent suggestion of the
+eternal difference, henceforth, between Love
+and love is in these mortal lineaments that have
+evermore resumed their divinity! No face, no
+type, no art, can ever realise Christ; yet when
+this little painting was first added to the great
+roll of Holbein <i>Basiliensis</i>, it must have gone
+as near to realising its subject as the colours
+of earth can go.</p>
+
+<p>But every man, happily for himself, has a
+material as well as an immaterial world with
+which he must be concerned. To transpose
+Bagehot's profound little saying,&mdash;Each man
+dines in a room apart, but we all go down
+to dinner together. And though Holbein knew
+the pinch of narrow means, he had no lack of
+good cheer as well as austere food in his art.</p>
+
+<p>On March 12th, 1521, the Great Council held
+its first meeting in the new Rathaus; and Meyer
+zum Hasen, who presided over it as Burgomaster,
+entrusted to his prot&eacute;g&eacute; the enviable
+task of decorating the Council Chamber. Fifty-six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+years after Holbein's work was completed
+these wall-paintings were described as "representations
+of the noblest subjects&mdash;done by the
+German Apelles." By this title the painter was
+everywhere recognised throughout the greater
+part of his lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>In all, there would seem to have been six
+large pictures or set pieces; but two were not
+done until years later. One wall being too
+broken up by windows to be suitable, there
+remained three,&mdash;of which "the back wall" adjoining
+Meyer's house was not touched at this
+time. Ostensibly the reason was want of funds;
+but as a matter of fact the Protestant party (to
+anticipate this name), which grew strong enough
+to unseat Meyer before the year was out, was
+at this time indifferent to art when not positively
+inimical to it.</p>
+
+<p>Whether treating a fa&ccedil;ade or an interior it
+was Holbein's custom to make a flat wall-space
+assume the most solid-looking forms of Renaissance
+architecture. Iselin once said of a fa&ccedil;ade
+of Holbein's, that there was a dog painted on
+it so naturally that the dogs in the street would
+run up and bark at it. And so astounding was
+the realism with which he threw out balconies,
+and added windows, cornices, and statues, and
+the richest carvings, pillars, arches, and vistas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+of every sort, that no eye could credit them
+with illusion. Horses neighed in the courtyards,
+flowers bloomed in the gardens, dogs
+leaped beside master or mistress, and children
+played in the spacious balconies, or moved to
+and fro between the splendid marble pillars and
+the distant wall. To study the copies that
+remain of such works is to be astounded by
+their feats of perspective.</p>
+
+<p>Inside would be kindred illusions. Large
+pictures would seem to be actually taking place
+without, and beheld through beautifully carved
+archways or windows; while the apparent walls
+would have niches filled with superb marble
+statues and the ceiling be supported by pillars,
+behind which people walked and talked or
+leaned out to watch the chief scenes.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was with the Council Chamber.
+But nothing now remains of these works except
+fragments and a few drawings for the principal
+features. So far as can be judged, each wall
+had two large scenes; the four pictures of this
+period being chosen from the heroic legends
+of the <i>Gesta Romanorum</i>; the two painted
+later, from the Old Testament.</p>
+
+<p>But while these large works were going
+forward Holbein was busy with many others;
+private commissions for Froben, occasionally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+for other printers, and for altar-pieces or portraits.
+All through his life his industry and
+accomplishment left him small time for leisure
+or the dissipations of leisure. Nor is there any
+year of his life when his work does not attest a
+clear eye and a firm hand. These things are
+their own certificate of conduct; at any rate,
+of "worldly" conduct.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In 1522 occurred two important events in his
+life. His first child, the son he called Philip,
+was born; and he painted an altar-piece which
+is in some respects the most beautiful of his
+extant works. The latter&mdash;now in the Solothurn
+Museum, and therefore called the "Solothurn
+Madonna" (<a href="#hpl12">Plate 12</a>)&mdash;has had one of the
+most extraordinary histories to be found in the
+records of art.<a name="himg12" id="himg12"></a><a name="hpl12" id="hpl12"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_12">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img12.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img12.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_12" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 12.<br />
+			THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA<br />
+      <i>Oils. Solothurn Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img12.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The background of this picture,&mdash;a massive
+arch of grey sandstone supported by iron stanchions,&mdash;was
+evidently designed to suit the
+surrounding architecture of some grey-walled
+ancient structure. On a da&iuml;s covered with a
+green carpet, patterned in white and red and
+emblazoned with the arms of the donor and his
+wife, sits the lovely Madonna with the Child held
+freely yet firmly in two of the most exquisite
+hands which even Holbein ever painted. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+dress is a rich rose-red; her symbolical mantle
+of universal Motherhood, or "Grace," is a most
+beautiful ultramarine, loaded in the shadows
+and like a sapphire in its lights. The flowing
+gold of her hair shimmers under its filmy veil,
+and the jewels in her gold crown flash below
+the great white pearls that tip its points.
+Where the sky-background approaches Mother
+and Child, its azure tone is lost in a pure effulgence
+of light; as if the very ether were
+suffused with the sense of the Divine.</p>
+
+<p>The Child is drawn and painted superbly.
+The carnations are exquisite; the gravity of
+infancy is not exaggerated, yet fittingly enforces
+the gesture of benediction. The left hand is
+turned outward in a movement so peculiar to
+happy, vigorous babyhood that it is a marvel
+of observation and nature. The little foot is
+admirably foreshortened, and the wrinkled sole
+a bit of inimitable painting. But perhaps most
+wonderful of all is the art with which, amid so
+many splendid details, the Child is the centre
+of interest as well as of the picture. How it
+is so, is Holbein's own secret.</p>
+
+<p>To right and left of the Virgin stand two
+fine types of spiritual and temporal authority.
+Behind and at her right, almost hidden by the
+amplitude of her mantle, kneels a poor wretch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+who is introduced here by some necessity of the
+commission itself, but is skilfully prevented
+from obtruding his needs on the serene beauty
+of the scene. Dropping gold into his alms-bowl
+with a hand effectively contrasted with his
+brown thumb, stands "the sinner's saint"&mdash;the
+good Bishop of Tours; while some other condition
+of the work has embroidered St. Martin's
+red mitre with the figure of St. Nicholas. There
+is one other striking circumstance about St.
+Martin; and that is that, although he is in the
+Virgin's presence, he wears the violet chasuble
+of an Intercessor. The chasuble is lined with
+red, and it and the rich vestments, on which
+scenes of the Passion are displayed, are the
+patient verisimilitude of ancient vestments. In
+St. Martin's gloved left hand is his crozier and
+the right glove, which he has drawn off to
+bestow his alms.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite to him stands the patron-saint
+of Solothurn,&mdash;St. Ursus, a hero of the Theban
+legend,&mdash;dressed from head to foot in a suit
+of magnificently painted armour. His left
+hand grasps his sword-hilt; his right supports
+the great red flag with its white cross. Nor is
+that flag of the year 1522 the least interesting
+detail of this work. With the crimson reflections
+of the flag streaking the cold gleams of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+glittering armour, his stern dark face and the
+white plumes tossing to his shoulder, St. Ursus
+is a figure that may well leave historical
+accuracy to pedants. Below his foot are the
+initials H.H., and the date, 1522; as if cut
+into the stone.</p>
+
+<p>This work was commissioned by Hans
+Gerster, for many years Town Archivist of
+Basel, in which capacity he had to convey
+important state papers to other councils with
+which that of Basel had negotiations. From
+this it came about that from the year when
+Basel entered the Swiss Confederation, in 1501,
+Gerster was almost as much at home in the
+"City of Ambassadors" as in his own, and the
+Dean or <i>Probst</i> of the Solothurn Cathedral&mdash;the
+"Cathedral of St. Ursus and St. Victor"&mdash;became
+not only his spiritual director, but one
+of his most intimate friends. Many circumstances
+which cannot be given here make it
+pretty evident that in 1522 Gerster, probably
+under the advice of the Probst, the Coadjutor
+Nicholas von Diesbach, made this picture an
+<i>expiatory</i> offering for some secret sin of grave
+proportions. There are hints that point to
+treachery to the Basel troops, in the Imperial
+interests, sympathy with which finally cost him,
+as well as his friend Meyer zum Hasen, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+official position. Gerster himself was not a
+native of Basel, although his wife, Barbara
+Guldenknopf, was.</p>
+
+<p>Be this as it may, it is apparently in direct
+connection with this confessed sin that "the
+sinner's saint," St. Martin of Tours, is chosen
+as Intercessor for Gerster, wearing the prescribed
+chasuble for this office. And it seems
+likely that the addition to his mitre of the
+figure of St. Nicholas was Gerster's wish, in
+order to specially associate the name-saint
+of his friend&mdash;Nicholas von Diesbach&mdash;with this
+intercession. It is assumed by those who have
+patiently unearthed these details of circumstantial
+evidence, that the beggar is introduced
+to mark the identity of the boundlessly charitable
+Bishop of Tours. But I venture to suggest
+still another reason: this is, that in the uplifted,
+pleading face of the mendicant, whose
+expression of appeal and humility is a striking
+bit of realism in these ideal surroundings, we
+may have the actual portrait of the donor, Hans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+Gerster himself. That this should be so would
+be in strict accord with the methods of the
+period. There is a striking parallel which will
+occur to all who are familiar with the St.
+Elizabeth in the St. Sebastian altar-piece at
+Munich. Here the undoubted portrait of Hans
+Holbein the elder is seen as the beggar in the
+background.</p>
+
+<p>It is, as has been said, a marvellous story by
+which this glorious painting,&mdash;in which the introduction
+of the patron-saint of Solothurn proves
+that it was created for one of her own altars,&mdash;was
+completely lost to her, and to the very
+histories of Art, and then returned to the city
+for which it was originally destined; all by
+a chain of seemingly unrelated accidents. But
+only the skeleton of that story can be given
+here.<a href="#fn4"><sup><small>4</small></sup></a><a name="fm4r" id="fn4r"></a></p>
+
+<p>In all probability this Madonna was executed
+for the altar of the ancient Lady Chapel of the
+Solothurn Cathedral. A hundred and twenty-six
+years after it was painted, this chapel was pulled
+down, to be replaced by a totally different style
+of architecture; and as the picture was then
+smoke-stained and "old-fashioned" it would
+in all likelihood drop into some lumber-room.
+At all events, it must have become the property
+of the Cathedral choirmaster,&mdash;one
+Hartmann,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>&mdash;after another five-and-thirty years. For at this
+time he built, and soon after endowed, the little
+village church of Allerheiligen, on the outskirts
+of the industrial town of Grenchen, which lies
+at the southern foot of the Jura.</p>
+
+<p><i>Facilis descensus!</i> Another turn of the centuries'
+wheel and the gift of this chapel's founder
+was once again thought unworthy of the altar to
+which it had been presented. When Herr Zetter
+of Solothurn first saw it in the queer little Allerheiligen
+chapel, it hung high up on the choir
+wall; blackened, worm-eaten, without a frame,
+suspended by a string passed through two holes
+which had been bored through the painted panel
+itself. Yet his acute eye was greatly interested
+by it. And when, during an official visit in
+1864, he heard that the chapel was undergoing
+a drastic renovation, he was concerned for
+the fate of the discoloured old painting. At
+first it could not be discovered at all. Finally
+he found it, face downward, spotted all over
+with whitewash, under the rough boards that
+served for the workmen's platform. A few
+hours later and it, too, would have been irrevocably
+gone; carted away with the "old
+rubbish"!</p>
+
+<p>He examined it, made out the signature,
+knew that this might mean either any one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+a number of painters who used it, or a clumsy
+copy or forgery, yet had the courage of his
+conviction that it was Holbein's genuine work.
+He bought it of the responsible authority, who
+was glad to be rid of four despised paintings,
+for the cost of all the new decorations. He
+had expert opinion, which utterly discouraged
+his belief; but stuck to it, took the risks of
+having it three long years (so rotten was its
+whole condition) under repairs which might
+at any moment collapse with it, yet leave their
+tremendous expenses behind to be settled just
+the same; and finally found himself the possessor
+of a perfectly restored chef-d'&oelig;uvre of
+Holbein's brush, which, from the first, Herr
+Zetter devoted to the Museum (now a fine new
+one) of Solothurn.</p>
+
+<p>To-day this work, which some forty years
+ago no one dreamed had ever existed, smiles
+in all the beauty of its first painting; a monument
+to the insight and generous enthusiasm
+of the gentleman whose name is rightly connected
+with its own in its official title&mdash;"The
+Zetter-Madonna of Solothurn." And it smiles
+with Holbein's own undebased handiwork
+throughout. <i>Pace</i> Woltmann's blunder,&mdash;its
+network of fine cracks, even over the Virgin's
+face, attests that it has suffered no over-painting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+The work has been mounted on a solid
+back, the greatest fissures and the holes filled
+up to match their surroundings, the stains and
+defacements of neglect cleared away, and the
+triumph is complete. It might well be the
+"swan song" of a veteran artist at such work.
+Whatever the mistakes of Eigener's career,
+the restoration of the Solothurn Madonna was
+a flawless achievement for himself and his
+associates.</p>
+
+<p>This work, too, is the most precious of all
+that have come down to us of Holbein's imaginative
+compositions, from the fact that his first-born,
+Philip, who was born about 1522, was
+the model for the Child, and that a portrait of
+Elsbeth, his wife, served as a study for the
+Virgin. This portrait is an unnamed and unsigned
+drawing in silver-point and Indian ink,
+heightened with touches of red chalk, now in
+the Louvre Collection. (Plate 13.)<a name="himg13" id="himg13"></a><a name="hpl13" id="hpl13"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_13">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img13.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img13.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_13" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 13.<br />
+			UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY: NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S<br />
+      <i>Silver-point and Indian-ink. Louvre Collection</i><br />
+			<i>Believed by the writer to be Holbein's drawing of his wife before her<br />
+first marriage, and the model for the Solothurn Madonna</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img13.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>That this is a portrait of Holbein's wife any
+careful comparison with her portrait at Basel
+must establish. Feature for feature, allowing
+for the changes of sufficient years, the two faces
+are one and the same. The very line of the
+shoulder, setting of the head, and even the
+outline of the fashion in which the low dress is
+cut, is alike in both. And equally unmistakable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+is the relation between this Louvre drawing
+and the Madonna of Solothurn.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I am unable to accept Woltmann's
+theory that the drawing was made in 1522
+"for" the Virgin. He assumes that the lettering
+which borders the bodice in this drawing&mdash;<span class="small">ALS.
+IN. ERN. ALS. IN....</span>&mdash;and the braids in which
+the hair is worn are simply some "fancy"
+dress. But surely if ever hair bore the stamp
+of unstudied, even ugly custom, it does so
+here. Then, too, Woltmann himself, as are
+all who adopt this explanation, is unable to
+reconcile the oldest age which can be assigned
+to this sitter with the youngest that can be
+assumed for the Basel painting of 1529 upon
+a hypothesis of only seven years' interval.
+Temperament and trouble can do much in
+seven years; but not so much as this. I say
+<i>temperament</i> advisedly; because all the evidence
+of Holbein's life substantiates the assertion of
+Van Mander, who had it from Holbein's own
+circle of contemporaries,&mdash;that the painter's
+life was made wretched by her violent temper.
+We shall find him far from blameless in later
+years; but though it may not excuse him, his
+unhappy home must largely explain his alienation.</p>
+
+<p>Yet that it can explain such an alteration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+as that between the Louvre drawing and the
+Basel portrait I do not believe. Nor could I
+persuade myself either that any married woman
+of the sixteenth century wore her hair in that
+most exclusive and invariable of Teuton symbols&mdash;"maiden"
+plaits;&mdash;or that any husband
+ever thought it necessary to advertise upon
+a picture of his wife that he held her "in all
+honour."</p>
+
+<p>Myself, I must believe, then, that this portrait
+was made years before 1522; probably in
+the young painter's first months in Basel, in
+1515; and thus some fourteen years before the
+Basel group of 1529 was painted. It may
+well have been that some serious misunderstanding
+between them was at the bottom of
+that otherwise inexplicable departure in 1517,
+and the two years' absence in Lucerne and
+still more southern cities. Of course this is
+mere guesswork; so is every hypothesis until
+it is proved. But all the simple commonplaces
+of first love, estrangement, separation, and a
+renewed betrothal after Elsbeth's early widowhood
+with one child, could easily have run a
+natural course between 1515 and their marriage,
+somewhere about 1520.</p>
+
+<p>As for the inscription,&mdash;it is a detail that
+Woltmann thinks represents a repetition of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+the one phrase, and that I <ins title="original has imagine it">imagine</ins> to have
+suggested what for some reason Holbein did not
+wish to proclaim:&mdash;"In all honour. [In all
+love.]" But nothing can shake my conviction
+that in it we hear the faint far-off echoes from
+some belfry in Holbein's own city of &Icirc;s. The
+realities of that chime are buried,&mdash;whether
+well or ill,&mdash;four hundred years deep in the
+seas that roll over that submerged world of his
+youth and passion. But living emotion, we
+may be sure, went to the writing and the
+treasuring of this pledge to Elsbeth or himself;
+a pledge redeemed when she became his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>Thus for the altar-piece of 1522 there would
+be this portrait of Elsbeth in her girlhood
+ready to his hand. But even so, see how he
+has idealised it, made a new creature of it, all
+compact of exquisite ideals! He has eliminated
+the subtle sensuousness which has its
+own allure in the drawing. Every trait is
+refined, purified, vivified, raised to another
+plane of character. Genius has put the inferior
+elements into its retort, and transmuted
+them to some heavenly metal far enough from
+Holbein's home-life.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout all these years, as has been
+said, he was busy for the printers also. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+1522 he drew the noble title-page for Petri's
+edition of Luther's New Testament, with the
+figures of St. Peter and St. Paul at either side,
+of which mention has been made. And in
+Thomas Wolff's edition of 1523 there is a series
+of his designs. His alphabets, borders, illustrations
+of all sorts, continued to enrich the
+Basel press from this date, and were often
+borrowed by printers in other cities. In 1523
+there came to Basel that masterly wood-cutter
+who has been already referred to,&mdash;Hans L&uuml;tzelburger.
+And from this time on, therefore,
+Holbein's designs may be seen in their true
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>He had painted, besides portraits of Froben
+and others, at least three portraits of Erasmus
+by 1524. For in June of this year the latter
+writes to his friend Pirkheimer, at N&uuml;rnberg,
+to say that he has sent two of these portraits by
+the "most accomplished painter" to England;
+while the artist himself, he adds, has conveyed
+still a third to France.</p>
+
+<p>The smaller of the two sent to England,
+two-thirds the size of life, is probably the one
+now in the Louvre (<a href="#hpl14">Plate 14</a>). It is a masterpiece
+of penetration and technique. Erasmus
+is here seen in the most unaffected simplicity
+of dress and pose; in profile against a dark-green<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+tapestry patterned with light green, and
+red and white flowers. The usual scholar's
+cap covers his grey hair. The blue-grey eyes
+are glancing down at his writing. Studies for
+the marvellously painted hands are among the
+Louvre drawings. The very Self of the man&mdash;the
+lean, strong, <i>thinking</i> countenance,&mdash;the
+elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly,
+stealing out on his lips,&mdash;is alive here by some
+necromancy of art.<a name="hpl14" id="hpl14"></a><a name="himg14" id="himg14"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_14">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img14.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img14.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_14" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 14.<br />
+			ERASMUS<br />
+      <i>Oils. The Louvre</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img14.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The portrait now in the Basel Museum, in
+oils on paper, afterwards fastened to the panel,
+is in all likelihood that third portrait which
+Erasmus told Pirkheimer the painter himself
+had taken to France. So that Holbein must
+have painted it for, and carried it to, Bonifacius
+Amerbach, who was then, in 1524,
+finishing a renewed course of study at Avignon.
+Probably it was during this visit to
+France, too, that he made the spirited sketches
+of monuments at Bourges. In that case it
+would seem that he struck across by way of
+Dijon to the Cathedral City, in connection
+with some matter not now to be discovered,
+and from there took the great highway to
+Avignon by way of Lyons; carrying with
+him the gift of his sketches from the monuments
+of Duke Jehan of Berri and his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+These were treasured in Amerbach's collection.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the reason that sent him abroad
+on this journey,&mdash;whether unhappiness at home
+or the troubled state of public affairs during the
+Peasants' War of 1524 and 1525,&mdash;or whether
+he simply had business in France which delayed
+him there for a year or two&mdash;at all
+events, all records fail as to his wanderings
+or work in this long interval. And many circumstances
+go to show that it was at this time
+that he entered upon the immortal work which
+was published at Lyons, by the Trechsel
+Brothers, many years later;&mdash;those "Images
+of Death" which have borrowed the old name
+in popular parlance, and are generally called
+Holbein's "Dance" of Death.</p>
+
+<p>Just why the Trechsels did not issue the
+publication until 1538 it is impossible to say.
+As one of the largest Catholic publishing-houses
+of France, they would be governed by
+circumstances entirely outside of Holbein's history
+or control. But more than one circumstance
+presses the conclusion that the designs
+were made between 1523 and 1526. And there
+is a certain amount of evidence for the belief
+that they may have been first struck off in
+Germany, possibly by some one of the multifarious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+connections of the Trechsels, as early
+as 1527. But this is a large subject, not to be
+dealt with as an aside.</p>
+
+<p>All the world knows these wonderful designs;
+their beauty of line, power of expression,
+and sparkling fancy. Among them all
+there are only two where Death is a figure
+of violence; and but one,&mdash;the knight, transfixed
+by one fell, malignant stroke from behind&mdash;where
+Death exhibits positive ferocity. In
+both of these,&mdash;the Count, beaten down by his
+own great coat-of-arms, is the other,&mdash;it is easy
+to read a reflection of the actualities of the
+Peasants' War then raging.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, the grim skeleton wears no unkind
+smile; though that he <i>is</i> Death makes it
+look a ghastly-enough pleasantry. But toward
+the poor and the aged he is better than merry;
+he is kind. His fleshless hand is raised in
+benediction over the aged woman; and the
+bent patriarch leans on his arm, listening to
+Death's attendant playing the sweet old melodies
+of Long-Ago as he stands on the verge of
+the great Silence.</p>
+
+<p>But where a selection must be made, there
+are two drawings with their own special claim
+to consideration. These are the Ploughman
+and the Priest (<a href="#hpl15">Plate 15</a>). The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+former has been cited by Ruskin as an example
+of a perfect design for wood-engraving; but
+even higher than its art, to my thinking, is its
+feeling. To the labourer of this sort,&mdash;poor,
+patient, toilworn,&mdash;Holbein's heart is very
+gentle. And so is Death&mdash;who muffles up his
+harsh features and speeds the heavy plough
+with a step like that of Hope. And at the end
+of the long, last uphill furrow, see how the
+setting sun shines on "God's Acre!"<a name="himg15" id="himg15"></a>
+<a name="hpl15" id="hpl15"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_15a">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img15a.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img15a.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_15a" /></a>
+    </td>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img15b.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img15b.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_15b" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 15a.<br />
+			THE PLOUGHMAN<br />
+      <i>"Images of Death"<br />
+          Woodcut series</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img15a.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 15b.<br />
+			THE PRIEST<br />
+      <i>"Images of Death"<br />
+           Woodcut series</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img15b.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second selection, the Priest, is its own
+proof, if any were needed, of how sharply
+Holbein distinguished cloth from cloth. In it,
+nearly a decade after he had pointed Erasmus's
+satire on the unworthy prelate or the unclean
+friar, may plainly be read that reverence for
+the true priest which Holbein shared with all
+his best friends. In the quaint, quiet street
+this solemn procession is too familiar a sight
+to draw any spectator from the hearth where
+the fire of the Living is blazing so cheerily.
+The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts
+his kind glance around as he passes on his
+Office with the veiled Pyx carried reverently.
+Before him goes Death, his Server, hastening
+the last mercy with eager steps. Under his
+arm is the tiny glass that has measured the
+whole of a mortality; the sands have lost their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+moving charm, and all their dazzle makes but
+a little shadow now. In his hand is the bell
+that sounds Take heed, Take heed, to the careless;
+and Pardon, Peace, to dying ears that
+strain to hear it. But largest of all his symbols
+is the lamp in his right hand; his own lamp,
+the lamp that dissipates Earth's last shadows&mdash;the
+Light of Death.</p>
+
+<p>Holbein must have had his own solemn
+memories of the Last Office as he drew this
+picture of the good parish priest. For it was
+just about this time that the Viaticum must
+have been administered to his father. In 1526
+the then Burgomaster of Basel wrote to the
+monastery at Issenheim, where Hans Holbein
+the Elder had left his painting implements
+behind him years before, in which he recalls to
+the Fathers how vainly and how often "our
+citizen," Hans the Younger, had applied to get
+these costly materials restored to their owner
+during his life; or to himself as his father's
+heir afterwards. This application was no more
+successful than Holbein's own, apparently; and
+the painter was told to seek his father's gold
+and pigments among the peasants who had
+pillaged the monastery.</p>
+
+<p>By 1526 Holbein was back in Basel; but two
+works of this year would go to show that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+was little less separated from his wife in Basel
+than when away. The first of these, about
+one-third life-size, is a portrait of a woman with
+a child beside her who grasps an arrow to suggest
+the Goddess of Love attended by a wingless
+Cupid (<a href="#hpl16">Plate 16</a>). The little red-haired
+child does not do much to realise the ideal; but
+the woman, though not an ideal Venus, might
+nevertheless well pose as a man's goddess. A
+"fair" woman in more senses than her colouring.
+Her dark-red velvet dress slashed with white;
+wide sleeves of dusky gold-coloured silk; her
+close-fitting black head-dress embroidered with
+gold; the soft seduction of her look; the
+welcoming gesture of that pretty palm flung
+outward as if to embrace; these are all in
+keeping.<a name="hpl16" id="hpl16"></a><a name="himg16" id="himg16"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_16">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img16.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img16.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_16" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 16.<br />
+			DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img16.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was a lady whose past career might
+have warned a lover that whatever she might
+prove as a goddess, she could play but a
+fallen angel's part. The annals of Basel knew
+her only too well. This was Dorothea, the
+daughter of a knight of good old lineage,&mdash;Hans
+von Offenburg. But the knight died
+while she was quite young, and her mother,
+better famed for looks than conduct, married
+the girl to a debauched young aristocrat,&mdash;Joachim
+von Sultz. His own record is hardly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+less shameless than Dorothea's soon became,&mdash;though
+the latter is chiefly in archives of the
+"unspeakable" sort. At the time when this
+picture was painted she must have been about
+two-and-twenty.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappy Holbein, indeed! The temper of
+Xantippe herself, if she be but the decent
+mother of one's children, might work less
+havoc with a life than this embroidered cestus.
+But "the German Apelles" was no Greek voluptuary,
+ambitious in heathen vices, such as that
+other Apelles whose painting of Venus was
+said to be his masterpiece. And when Holbein
+inscribed his second portrait of Dorothea with
+the words <span class="smallcaps">La&iuml;s Corinthiaca</span>, the midsummer
+madness must have been already a matter of
+scorn and wonder to himself. His whole life
+and the works of his life are the negation of
+the groves of Corinth.</p>
+
+<p>The paint was not long dry on the Goddess
+of Love&mdash;at any rate, her dress was not worn
+out&mdash;before he had seen her in her true colours;
+"the daughter of the horse-leech, crying Give,
+Give."</p>
+
+<p>And so he painted her in 1526 (<a href="#hpl17">Plate 17</a>);
+to scourge himself, surely, since she was too
+notoriously infamous to be affected by it. As
+if in stern scorn of every beauty, every allure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+he set himself to record them in detail: something
+in the spirit with which Macaulay set
+himself, "by the blessing of God," to do "full
+justice" to the poems of Montgomery. La&iuml;s
+is far more beautiful, and far more beautifully
+painted, than Venus. No emotion has hurried
+the painter's hand or confused his eye this
+time. In vain she wears such sadness in her
+eyes, such pensive dignity of attitude, such a
+wistful smile on her lips. He knows them,
+now, for false lights on the wrecker's coast.
+No faltering; no turning back. He can even
+fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and
+add the puffed sleeves below the short ones.
+He is a painter now; not a lover. And lest
+there should be one doubt as to his purpose,
+he flings a heap of gold where "Cupid's" little
+hand would now seem desecrated, and inscribes
+beneath it the name that fits her beauty and
+his contempt. The plague was raging in
+Basel all through that spring and summer, but
+I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact
+as at the loveliness he painted. The brand
+he placed upon it is proof of that&mdash;La&iuml;s
+Corinthiaca, the infamous mistress of the
+Greek Apelles.<a name="hpl17" id="hpl17"></a><a name="himg17" id="himg17"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_17">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img17.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img17.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_17" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 17.<br />
+			DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LA&Iuml;S CORINTHIACA<br />
+      <i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img17.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+But in 1526 men sat among the ashes of
+far goodlier palaces and larger interests than
+personal ones. The party in power was not
+friendlier to Art than to the Church of Rome.
+In January the Painters' Guild had presented
+a petition to the Council,&mdash;humbly praying that
+its members, "who had wives and children
+depending on their work," might be allowed
+to pursue it in Basel! And so hard was
+Holbein himself hit by the fanatical excitement
+of the time that the Council's account-books
+show the paltry wage he was glad to earn for
+painting a few shields on some official building
+"in the borough of Waldenburg."</p>
+
+<p>Small wonder that an artist such as Holbein
+should feel his heart grow sick within him,
+and should turn his thoughts with increasing
+determination to some fresh field. Even without
+the bitterness that now must have edged
+the tongue of a wronged wife, or the bitterer
+taste of Dead Sea fruit in his own mouth,&mdash;he
+must have been driven to try his luck elsewhere.
+And of all the invitations urged upon
+him, the chances which Erasmus's introductions
+could give him in England would probably
+offer the greatest promise.</p>
+
+<p>But before he set out with these letters,
+in the late summer of 1526, he executed yet one
+more great commission for his old friend, Jacob
+Meyer zum Hasen, now leader of the Catholic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+party in opposition. This was the work known
+now to all the civilised world as "The Meyer
+Madonna." For centuries the beautiful picture
+which bears this name in the Dresden Gallery
+has been cited by every expert authority and
+critic as this work. But since the mysterious
+appearance of the Darmstadt painting, which
+suddenly turned up in a Paris art collector's
+possession, from no one knows where in 1822,
+the tide of belief has slowly receded from the
+Dresden painting. Until now there are only
+a few judges who do not hold&mdash;especially since
+the public comparison of the two works at
+Dresden in 1871&mdash;that the Dresden picture is
+"a copy by an inferior hand."</p>
+
+<p>Unquestionably the painting now in the
+Schloss at Darmstadt is the earlier version. And
+unquestionably, too, the changes introduced in
+the Dresden copy,&mdash;the elevated architecture,
+slenderer figures, and less happy Child,&mdash;are so
+great as to lend weight to the arguments of those
+who still claim that no copyist would ever have
+made them. But, as has been said, the contention
+that the Dresden work is a replica by
+Holbein of the older Darmstadt altar-piece, is
+now maintained by only a very small minority
+of judges. The painting of the Darmstadt
+work is admitted by all to be more uniformly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+admirable, more completely carried out; the
+details more finished (except in the case of the
+Virgin), and the colours richer and more harmonious.
+Yet both works should be studied
+to appreciate fully their claims and differences
+(Plates 18 and 19).<a name="hpl18" id="hpl18"></a><a name="himg18" id="himg18"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_18">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img18.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img18.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_18" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 18.<br />
+			THE MEYER-MADONNA<br />
+      <i>Oils. Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img18.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<p><a name="hpl19" id="hpl19"></a><a name="himg19" id="himg19"></a></p>
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_19">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img19.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img19.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_19" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 19.<br />
+			THE MEYER-MADONNA<br />
+			[<i>Later Version. Held by many to be a copy</i>]<br />
+      <i>Oils. Dresden Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img19.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Darmstadt work the Virgin's dress is
+wholly different in tone from her robe at
+Dresden; otherwise the colouring aims to
+be the same in each. Here, in the original
+altar-piece, it is a greenish-blue. The lower
+sleeves are golden, a line of white at the wrist,
+and a filmier one within the bodice. Her
+girdle is a rich red; her mantle a greenish-grey.
+Over this latter her fair hair streams
+like softest sunshine. Above her noble, pity-full
+face sits her crown of fine gold and pearls.</p>
+
+<p>The woman kneeling nearest to the Madonna
+is commonly believed to be Meyer's first wife,
+who had died in 1511, the mother of one child&mdash;a
+daughter&mdash;by a previous husband. Between
+this stepdaughter and Meyer there was
+considerable litigation over her property. The
+younger woman, whose chin-cloth is dropped
+in the painting though worn like the others in
+the drawing for her portrait, is Meyer's second
+wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser, whom he married
+about 1512, and with whom he was painted by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+Holbein in 1516. The sombre garments of both
+women are echoed by the black of Meyer's
+hair and coat, the latter lined with light-brown
+fur. Meyer's face, in its manly intensity of
+devotional feeling, is a wonderful piece of psychology
+in the Darmstadt picture.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing for the young girl, Anna
+Meyer, who kneels beside her mother with
+a red rosary in her hands, she has her golden-brown
+hair hanging loose down her back, as
+befits a girl of thirteen. But in the painting it
+is coiled in glossy braids beneath some ceremonial
+head-dress; this is richly embroidered
+with pearls, with red silk tassel and a wreath
+of red and white flowers above it. This head-dress
+is painted with much more beautiful
+precision in the older work, and the expression
+of the girl's face is much more deeply devout;
+her hands, too, are decidedly superior to those
+of the Dresden work.</p>
+
+<p>This is true also of the carpet, patterned
+in red and green, with touches of white and
+black, on a ground of deep yellow. The
+Dresden carpet is conspicuously inferior in
+finish and colour to that of Darmstadt, so
+much so that Waagen and others, who believe
+the former a replica, think a pupil or assistant
+may have been responsible for this and other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+details, which for some reason Holbein himself
+was unable to finish.</p>
+
+<p>The elder boy, with the tumbled brown hair,
+dressed in a light-brown coat trimmed with
+red-brown velvet, and hose of cinnabar-red,
+with decorations of gold clasps and tags on
+fine blue cords, has a yellowish-green portemonnaie,
+with tassels of dull blue hanging
+from his girdle. All the carnations are superb,
+and in the Darmstadt picture the infant Christ
+wears a sweet and happy smile. In that of
+Dresden He looks sad and ill; a fact which has
+given rise to the theory Ruskin adopted&mdash;that
+the Virgin had put down the divine Child and
+taken up Meyer's ailing one. But the absence
+of wonder on the faces of Meyer's family, and,
+indeed, the familiar affection of the elder boy,
+would of itself negative this theory. I have
+my own ideas as to this point, but it would
+serve no useful purpose to go into them in this
+place. Of these two sons of Meyer there is
+no other record. Anna alone survived her
+mother, who married again after Meyer's
+death. Anna's daughter married Burgomaster
+Remigius F&auml;sch, or Fesch, whose grandson&mdash;Remigius
+F&auml;sch, counsellor-at-law&mdash;was the
+well-known art collector whose collection and
+manuscript are also in the Basel Museum,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+where there is an oil-copy of the Dresden
+Meyer-Madonna.</p>
+
+<p>Even the cool eye of Walpole was warmed
+by this great work of 1526, as he saw it in the
+Dresden painting then hanging in the Palazzo
+Delfino at Venice. "For the colouring," he
+exclaims, "it is beautiful beyond description;
+and the carnations have that enamelled bloom
+so peculiar to Holbein, who touched his works
+till not a touch remained discernible." Twenty
+years earlier Edward Wright had written of
+Meyer's youngest boy&mdash;"The little naked boy
+could hardly have been outdone, if I may dare
+to say such a word, by Raphael himself." And
+in our own day that fine and measured critic,
+Mrs. Jameson, has spoken for generation upon
+generation who have thought the same thought
+before the Meyer-Madonna of Dresden, when
+she says of it: "In purity, dignity, humility
+and intellectual grace this exquisite Madonna
+has never been surpassed; not even by
+Raphael. The face, once seen, haunts the
+memory."</p>
+
+<p>When Wright and Walpole saw this Dresden
+work at Venice, it was supposed to be "the
+family of Sir Thomas More"&mdash;<i>Meier</i> having
+slipped into "More" in the course of centuries,
+which had retained only the vivid impression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+of Holbein's association with the latter, and
+knew that the painter had drawn him in the
+midst of his family. That living association
+was now, late in the summer of this year, about
+to begin.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<div class="center"><p class="noindent">CHANCES AND CHANGES<br />
+1526-1530</p></div>
+
+<table class ="j" summary="CHAPTER_3">
+<tr><td>First visit to England&mdash;Sir Thomas More; his home and
+portraits&mdash;The Windsor drawings&mdash;Bishop Fisher&mdash;Archbishop
+Warham&mdash;Bishop Stokesley&mdash;Sir Henry
+Guildford and his portrait&mdash;Nicholas Kratzer&mdash;Sir Bryan
+Tuke&mdash;Holbein's return to Basel&mdash;Portrait-group of his
+wife and two eldest children; two versions&mdash;Holbein's
+children, and families claiming descent from him&mdash;Iconoclastic
+fury&mdash;Ruined arts&mdash;Death of Meyer zum Hasen&mdash;Another
+Meyer commissions the last paintings for
+Basel&mdash;Return to England&mdash;Description of the Steelyard&mdash;Portraits
+of its members&mdash;George Gysze&mdash;Basel
+Council summons Holbein home&mdash;"The Ambassadors"
+at the National Gallery; accepted identification&mdash;Coronation
+of Queen Anne Boleyn&mdash;Lost paintings for the
+Guildhall of the Steelyard; the Triumphs of Riches
+and Poverty&mdash;The great Morett portrait; identifications&mdash;Holbein's
+industry and fertility&mdash;Designs for metal-work
+and other drawings&mdash;Solomon and the Queen of
+Sheba.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Two years earlier Erasmus had evidently
+thought that London was the true stage
+for such a genius as Holbein's, and More had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+written that he would gladly do all he could
+to further the painter's success if he should
+decide to visit England. More himself called
+Holbein "a marvellous artist" for his portrait
+of Erasmus, and could not but be delighted
+with the beautiful little woodcut which opened
+Froben's edition of his own <i>Utopia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This illustration represents More and his
+only son seated with &AElig;gidius, or Peter Gillis,
+in the latter's own garden at Antwerp, listening
+to the tale of <i>Utopia</i> from the ancient comrade
+of Amerigo Vespucci. And very likely Holbein
+himself sat in this garden, in the late summer
+of 1526, when he was passing through Antwerp
+to England. He had a letter of introduction
+from Erasmus to &AElig;gidius, as also to the host
+who was expecting him in England&mdash;Sir
+Thomas More.</p>
+
+<p>Van Mander says that long before this the
+Earl of Arundel, when pausing at Basel, had
+been so much pleased with Holbein's works in
+that city that he had urged the painter to forsake
+it for London. But it would pretty surely
+have been the promise of More's influence
+which actually induced him to try his fortune
+so far afield. And by the autumn of 1526 he
+was one of that happy company which the
+genial soul of More drew around him in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+new home in "Chelsea Village," where Beaufort
+Row now has its north end. Here the
+master's love of every art, and aptitude in
+affairs, filled his hospitable mansion with wit
+and music and joyous strenuousness. Here
+he was the idol of his family, as well as the
+King's friend. Henry himself must surely have
+shuddered could he have pictured that face,
+over which thought and humour were ever
+chasing one another like sun and shadow on
+the lawn, black above London Bridge and
+flung at last from it into the Thames only a
+few years hence. Now it turned to his own
+all life and loyalty, as he laid his arm around
+More's shoulders while they wandered between
+the garden beds of Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1527, probably, Holbein had finished
+the fine portrait of his host, which is now in
+Mr. Huth's collection. The study for this
+oil painting is among the Windsor drawings
+(<a href="#hpl20">Plate 20</a>), as also one for the large family
+picture now lost, if indeed it was ever completed
+by Holbein; a matter of some doubt,
+notwithstanding Van Mander's account of it
+in the possession of the art-collector Van Loo.
+An outline sketch of it, or for it, he certainly
+made. And that precious pen-and-ink outline,&mdash;with
+the name of each written above or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+below the figure in More's hand, and notes as
+to alterations to be made in the final composition
+in Holbein's hand,&mdash;is now in the Basel
+Museum; having come into Amerbach's possession
+as the heir of Erasmus.<a name="hpl20" id="hpl20"></a><a name="himg20" id="himg20"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_20">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img20.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img20.jpg" height="400"
+      alt="PLATE_20" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 20.<br />
+			SIR THOMAS MORE<br />
+			<i>Chalks. Windsor Castle</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img20.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Mr. Huth's oil portrait More is wearing
+a dark-green coat trimmed with fur, and showing
+the purple sleeves of his doublet beneath.
+His eyes are grey-blue. He never wore a
+beard, made the fashion by Henry VIII. at
+the same time that the head was "polled,"&mdash;a
+singularly ugly combination,&mdash;until he was in
+the Tower and grew that beard which he
+smilingly swept away from the path of the
+executioner's axe. "It," he said with astonishing
+self-possession, could be "accused of no
+treason." In 1527, however, no shadow of
+tragedy seemed possible unless the suspicion
+of it slept in More's own heart when he said
+to his son-in-law, in answer to some flattering
+congratulation on the King's favour, "Son
+Roper, if my head could win him a castle in
+France, my head should fall."</p>
+
+<p>But for these superb drawings in the Royal
+Collection at Windsor, we should know nothing
+at all of many a portrait Holbein painted&mdash;all
+among the immediate friends of More and
+Erasmus on this first visit to England; nor, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+that matter, of many a portrait painted in later
+years. And how little these can be trusted to
+tell the whole tale of achievement is shown by
+the fact that they include no studies for a number
+of oil paintings that are still in existence.</p>
+
+<p>Of the drawings which represent a lost
+painting, there is a noble one of Bishop
+Fisher, whose execution preceded More's by
+only a few weeks. A literally venerable head
+it was (<a href="#hpl21">Plate 21</a>), to be the shuttlecock of papal
+defiance and royal determination not to be
+defied with impunity. For assuredly if the life
+of the Bishop of Rochester hung in the balance,
+as it did, in May, 1535, it was Paul III.'s mad
+effrontery in making him a Cardinal while he
+was actually in the Tower under his sovereign's
+displeasure which heated the King's anger to
+white-hot brutality. "Let the Pope send him
+a hat," he thundered, "but I will so provide
+that he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head
+he shall have none to set it on!" And on the
+17th of that June he made good the savage
+oath. Yet the painter, after all, has been more
+potent than the King. For here lives Fisher.
+Bishop or Cardinal this is the man, as More
+loved him.<a name="hpl21" id="hpl21"></a><a name="himg21" id="himg21"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_21">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img21.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img21.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_21" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 21.<br />
+			JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER<br />
+			<i>Chalks. Windsor Castle</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img21.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>A striking and richly painted oil portrait of
+Erasmus's <ins title="original has Mec&aelig;nas">"M&aelig;cenas,"</ins> Archbishop Warham,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+is in the Louvre; of which there are a number
+of copies, as well as a replica, at Lambeth
+Palace. The latter was exhibited at Manchester
+in 1857. The study for these portraits is
+among the Windsor drawings. The painting in
+the Louvre has more vividness in the carnations,
+and the impasto is thicker than at Lambeth;
+otherwise the two are identical. But for myself
+I find a more seizing quality in the chalk drawing
+than in either. There is something in its
+sunken fading eyes that speaks of the majesty
+of office as well as its burdens.</p>
+
+<p>Holbein painted a prelate of a very different
+sort in the oil portrait of John Stokesley,
+Bishop of London, which is preserved at
+Windsor Castle. And yet he dared to paint
+the Truth&mdash;now as always. The painting is a
+masterpiece of modelling and soft transparency
+of light and shade. But the truculent, lowering
+countenance leaves small doubt that the
+sitter was a gentleman pre-eminently "gey ill
+to live wi'."</p>
+
+<p>There is another oil painting at Windsor
+which has not escaped the injuries of time,
+but is none the less a splendid survival of
+1527. This is the portrait of Sir Henry Guildford,
+Master of the Horse to Henry VIII., and
+holder of many another office of trust (<a href="#hpl22">Plate 22</a>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+It has sometimes been thought that the yellow
+tone of the complexion was due to over-painting,
+but the chalk drawing shows that it was
+a personal peculiarity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Henry, a warm friend to both More and
+Erasmus, was forty-nine when he sat for this
+portrait. Under his black fur-trimmed surcoat
+he wears a doublet of gold brocade. In his
+hand is the wand of office as Chamberlain, and
+he is decorated with the collar and badge of
+the Garter.<a name="hpl22" id="hpl22"></a><a name="himg22" id="himg22"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_22">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img22.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img22.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_22" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 22.<br />
+			SIR HENRY GUILDFORD<br />
+			<i>Oils. Windsor Castle</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img22.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>He was always a great favourite with the
+King from the time when the latter came to the
+throne and young Guildford, then twenty, was
+one of the gayest, bravest, most loyal spirits
+about it. Always as ready for a real battle as
+a mimic one; as clever at writing plays for the
+King's amusement as at acting in them; as
+good in a revel as at a piece of diplomacy; it is
+not much wonder that his knighthood in 1512
+should but have been the prelude to a long
+series of promotions.</p>
+
+<p>The affection of master and man, too, was
+singularly sincere for a court. Sir Henry
+loyally supported the King's demand for a
+divorce, but he was by no means ready to
+support a second marriage without the papal
+preliminary. Hence he was not a persona<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+grata to Anne Boleyn. Nor would he stoop to
+curry favour at the expense of an honest conviction.
+When Anne warned him that he was
+likely to lose his office as soon as she became
+Queen, he promptly replied that he would spare
+her all concern about that, and went straight
+to the King to resign the office of Controller.
+The latter showed the depth of his affection by
+urging Sir Henry, twice, to reconsider his determination.
+But he wisely preferred to quit
+his apartments under the King's roof,&mdash;without,
+however, breaking the bond of mutual attachment.
+Five years after this picture was painted
+he died; in May, 1532. Holbein also painted
+Lady Guildford's portrait; an oil painting in Mr.
+Frewer's collection. And Sir Henry selected
+him as one of the chief artists commissioned
+to decorate the interior of the Banqueting
+Hall specially erected for the celebration of
+the French Alliance in 1527. By all of which
+it would seem that in securing a new patron
+the painter had once more made a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had asked &AElig;gidius to assist Holbein's
+success in any way he could. And it was
+probably owing to a letter from the Antwerp
+scholar that a friendship of many years sprang
+up between the painter and Nicholas Kratzer
+of Munich, then Astronomer-Royal at the Court<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+of Henry VIII. It began with what was once
+a fine portrait. But the oil painting, now in
+the Louvre (<a href="#hpl23">Plate 23</a>), has suffered such severe
+injuries as to be but a poor ghost of what it
+was originally. Only the composition, and the
+fidelity with which all his friend's scientific
+instruments are drawn attest Holbein. He
+never adds a detail for merely pictorial purposes;
+and never shuffles one that concerns the
+personality of a sitter. No biographer with
+his pen sets every straw to show the winds
+of character and circumstance more deliberately
+than does this historian with his brush.
+Something of Kratzer's shrewd wit,&mdash;for he was
+a "character"&mdash;can still be read in his half-destroyed
+picture. Years later we shall see the
+intimate friend of both him and his painter
+writing of the astronomer as a man "brim-full"
+of humour and fancy. And once, we may
+be sure, it sparkled in the eyes of Kratzer's
+portrait as brilliantly as in his own.<a name="hpl23" id="hpl23"></a><a name="himg23" id="himg23"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_23">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img23.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img23.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_23" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 23.<br />
+			NICHOLAS KRATZER<br />
+			<i>Oils. The Louvre</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img23.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Munich Gallery there is another portrait
+in oils which has undergone, if possible,
+still more atrocious treatment than Kratzer's;
+yet, like it, still keeps enough of its original
+charm to rivet attention in any company.
+This latter is one of the most striking of the
+half-dozen portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+all claim, with more or less of probability, to
+be paintings by Holbein. And certainly in the
+years when Sir Bryan was Treasurer of the
+King's Household it would be natural that the
+painter, whose salary he regularly disbursed,
+should gladly oblige him to his utmost.</p>
+
+<p>But the Munich portrait also shows a far
+deeper bond of interests than one of money.
+The undercurrent of their natures ran in a
+groove of more than common sympathy; and
+to an analyst, such as Holbein was, the reflections
+behind these inscrutable eyes were full of
+unusual attraction.</p>
+
+<p>Myself, I feel convinced, for more than one
+reason, that it is a work of some years later.
+But as a consensus of authorities places it
+during this visit, the picture is noticed here.
+It gains rather than loses by reproduction;&mdash;since
+the painting now shows a strange disagreeable
+colour most unlike the carnations of
+Holbein. But the composition is unmistakable
+(<a href="#hpl24">Plate 24</a>). Between the sitter and the green-curtained
+background stands perhaps the
+ghastliest of all Holbein's skeletons,&mdash;one hand
+on his scythe, the other grimly pointing at the
+nearly-spent sands of the hour-glass. Below
+the latter is a tablet on which, in Latin, are
+the words of Job: "My short life, does it not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+come to an end soon?" and the signature
+without the date. Sir Bryan wears a fur-trimmed
+doublet with gold buttons; the gold-patterned
+sleeves revealed by the black silk
+gown, also trimmed with fur. On a massive
+gold chain he wears a cross of great richness,
+enamelled with the pierced Hands and Feet.
+Fine lawn is at throat and wrists; and in one
+hand he holds his gloves.<a name="hpl24" id="hpl24"></a><a name="himg24" id="himg24"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_24">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img24.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img24.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_24" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 24.<br />
+			SIR BRYAN TUKE<br />
+			<i>Oils. Munich Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img24.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Before the researches of Eduard His, it used
+to be sometimes said that Holbein had virtually
+deserted his family when he left Basel in 1526.
+We know now, however, that whatever were
+the moral wrongs which he suffered or committed,
+he never forsook the duty of providing
+for his wife and children in no ungenerous proportion
+to his means.</p>
+
+<p>The records show that the fruit of his two
+years' industry was used to acquire a comfortable
+home which remained the property of his
+wife. And the inventory of its contents at
+Elsbeth's death, some six years after Holbein's
+death, proves that this home was to the full as
+well furnished and comfortable as was usual
+with people of similar condition.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1528 the painter bade farewell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+for ever to Sir Thomas More's gracious
+Chelsea home. He took with him the pen-and-ink
+sketch for a large picture of More in the
+midst of his family, which has been already referred
+to. This was for Erasmus, who had temporarily
+abandoned Basel,&mdash;now so utterly unlike
+the Basel of former years,&mdash;and had sought
+the more sympathetic atmosphere of Freiburg.
+Bonifacius Amerbach, from the same causes,
+was here with Erasmus for some time. So
+that something like the old Froben days must
+have seemed still about them as the three
+friends sat together and talked of all that had
+come and gone.</p>
+
+<p>But by the latter part of August Holbein was
+back in that now sadly-altered Basel whence
+his best friends were reft by trouble or death.
+And on the 29th of August, 1528, he bought
+the house next to Froben's <i>Buchhaus</i>, the deed
+attesting that he did so in person, in company
+with Elsbeth. The price, 300 guldens or
+florins, was by no means the small one it now
+seems, nor could the painter pay the whole
+sum at once. He paid down one-third, and
+secured the rest by a mortgage. The site of
+this house is now occupied by 22 St. Johann
+Vorstadt. Three years later, March 28th, 1531,
+Holbein bought out a disagreeable neighbour;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+and thus added to his two-storied house overlooking
+the Rhine the little one-storied cottage
+which cost him only seventy guldens. The
+factory at No. 20 now partially covers this
+latter site. Fifty years ago both of the original
+houses were still standing; quaint, crumbling,
+affecting monuments of days when Holbein's
+voice and Holbein's step rang through their
+rooms, when Frau Elsbeth swept and garnished
+them; and when four children added their links
+to the chain of a marriage which Holbein was
+now manfully trying to make the best of.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been in the year after the purchase
+of the larger house that he painted the
+group of his wife and the two children she had
+then borne him. This life-size group, done in
+oils on paper, is now in the Basel Museum
+(<a href="#hpl25">Plate 25</a>). The stoical sincerity with which
+they are represented, and the hard outline produced
+by cutting out the work to mount it on
+its wood panel, makes a somewhat repellent
+impression at the first glance. And this is in
+no way dispersed by studying Elsbeth's traits.
+But the painting itself is a tour-de-force. By
+sheer Quality Holbein has invested these portraits,&mdash;a
+middle-aged, coarse-figured, unamiable-looking
+woman, a very commonplace
+infant, and a bright-faced boy,&mdash;with the prestige<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+inseparable from an achievement of a high
+order.<a name="hpl25" id="hpl25"></a><a name="himg25" id="himg25"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_25">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img25.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img25.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_25" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 25.<br />
+			ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN<br />
+			<i>Oils. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img25.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Clearly Elsbeth Holbein was not one to give
+up the costume of her youth simply because
+she would have been well advised to do so;
+and the cut and fashion of her dress remains
+almost identical with the drawing in the Louvre.
+Her lustreless light-brown hair is covered with
+a gauzy veil and a reddish-brown cap. Her
+brown stuff upper garment, trimmed with thin
+fur, shows a dark-green dress beneath it. The
+baby wears a gown of undyed woollen material,
+and the boy a jacket of dark bluish green.</p>
+
+<p>Out of such unpromising materials has the
+painter made a picture that would challenge
+attention among any. If we knew nothing as
+to the identity of this woman, sitting oblivious
+of the children at her knee, wrapped in her own
+dark thoughts, we should certainly want to
+know something of her story and of the story
+of the little fellow whose eyes are breathlessly
+intent upon some purer, sweeter vision. There
+is at Cologne, in a private collection, a deeply
+interesting duplicate of this work; also on
+paper afterwards mounted on wood, but not
+cut out. Unfortunately this latter has suffered
+such irremediable injuries that it is quite impossible
+now to pronounce upon its claim to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+either the earlier example or a replica; but
+good judges have believed it to be by Holbein.
+Its chief interest, however, from a biographical
+point of view, may be said to lie in the sixteenth-century
+writing pasted on at the top. Literally
+translated, this runs&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+ <p class="noindent">
+  "Love towards God consists in Charity.<br />
+  Who hath this love can feel no hate."<a href="#fn5"><sup><small>5</small></sup></a><a name="fm5r" id="fn5r"></a>
+ </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is difficult to see on what grounds Woltmann,
+who was inclined to accept the picture
+as genuine, should hold the inscription to have
+been added by someone desirous of increasing
+the value of the work by representing it to be
+an allegorical picture of Charity. There was
+never a time when the allegory, if accepted,
+could have carried the same value as the portraits.
+And surely the second line is utterly
+inconsistent with the theory. Original or not,
+it has a very startling likeness to a plea which
+Holbein himself must have urged more than
+once, to soften a bitterness his own errors could
+not have tended to cure.</p>
+
+<p>When the Basel painting was cut out to be
+mounted, the last numeral was lost; so that it
+now stands dated 152-. But all the other facts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+put it beyond question that the picture could not
+have been done before 1529. The baby of 1522
+was now the boy of seven, and his successor
+would seem to have been born during the first
+months of its father's visit to England, and to
+be now some eighteen months old.</p>
+
+<p>It may be as well to say here, once for all, as
+much as need be said of Holbein's family. As
+already stated, his wife survived him by six
+years, dying at Basel in 1549. By her first
+marriage she had one son, Franz Schmidt&mdash;who
+seems to have been a worthy and successful
+man of trade. She was the mother of four
+children by her marriage with Holbein;&mdash;Philip,
+born 1522; Katharina, 1527; Jacob, about
+1530; and K&uuml;negoldt, about 1532.</p>
+
+<p>Some years before the painter's death he took
+Philip Holbein to Paris, and there apprenticed
+him to the eminent goldsmith, Jerome David,
+with whom he remained until a couple of years
+after Holbein's death. Later, he somehow drifted
+to Lisbon, where he followed his trade until he
+settled in the old home of his grandfather and
+great-grandfather, Augsburg. In 1611 his son,
+Philip Holbein, junior, then "Imperial Court
+Jeweller" at Augsburg, petitioned the Emperor
+Matthias for letters patent to "confirm" his right
+to certain noble arms. The claims put forward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+in this document are utterly at variance with
+the received belief in Holbein's humble Augsburg
+origin. Yet the most expert investigators
+who have carefully studied this subject agree
+in thinking that this grandson based the genealogical
+tree on mythical foundations, and therefore
+planted it remote from Augsburg itself.
+But be this as it may&mdash;and it seems hard to
+reconcile such discrepancies within a century
+of the time when both Hans Holbein the Elder
+and his son were well-known citizens of Augsburg,&mdash;the
+application was successful. Mechel
+says that this Philip, who claims descent from
+the renowned "painter of Basel," lived in Vienna
+during his later years; and that a descendant
+of his again got their patent "confirmed" in
+1756, with the right to carry the surname of
+<i>Holbeinsberg</i>; also that this latter descendant
+was made a Knight of the Empire in 1787, as
+the noble <i>von Holbeinsberg</i>. So much for the
+eldest branch, that of Philip Holbein.</p>
+
+<p>The younger boy, Jacob, was a goldsmith in
+London after Holbein's death. The evidence
+seems to show that he was never here previous
+to that event,&mdash;which of itself may have first
+occasioned his coming, though hardly at the
+time, as Jacob was not more than thirteen at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+his father's death. A document in existence
+proves that he also died in London, about 1552,
+and apparently unmarried; at which time his
+elder brother, Philip, was still in Lisbon.</p>
+
+<p>Katharina, the elder daughter, the baby of
+the Basel painting, seems to have left no
+descendants. She married a butcher of Basel
+and died in 1590. And in the same year, very
+likely from one of the frequent epidemics so
+fatal to Basel, died K&uuml;negoldt, Elsbeth's
+youngest child. The Merian family of Frankfurt-am-Main
+claims an hereditary right to the
+artistic gifts of its famous copper-engraver,
+Mathew Merian, as descendants of Holbein
+through this daughter K&uuml;negoldt, who, when
+she died, was the wife of Andreas Syff, a miller,
+of Basel. According to the greatest authority
+on this subject, Eduard His, to whose exhaustive
+researches we owe almost all that is known of
+Holbein's family, the Merian claims have not,
+so far, been proved by actual archives; but
+he is of opinion that there is considerable
+circumstantial evidence to support their claim
+to be lineal descendants of Holbein through
+the female line.</p>
+
+<p>But in 1529, when the family group was
+painted, neither Jacob nor K&uuml;negoldt were yet
+born; and the painter was much more concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+with the anxieties of a living father than with
+the shadowy cares of an ancestor.</p>
+
+<p>And dark enough was the outlook in Basel,
+where the Lutheran agitation had, as Erasmus
+said, "frozen the arts." Before Holbein came
+back from England many churches had abjured
+all pictures. The tide of religious antagonism
+had, as we know, driven both Erasmus and
+Bonifacius Amerbach for a time to a Catholic
+stronghold; and had driven their old friend
+Meyer to do literal battle on behalf of the
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>Altar paintings were out of the question.
+And Holbein could but devote himself to designs
+for the printers and for goldsmiths.
+Many beautiful compositions for both crafts
+remain to testify of his matured powers and
+constant industry. The exquisite designs for
+dagger-sheaths, in particular, are rightly counted
+among the treasures of art. But in the
+summer of 1530 came a commission for the
+painter's last great work in Basel. This was
+the long-delayed order for the decoration of
+that vacant wall in the Council Hall, which
+adjoined the house <i>zum Hasen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, this commission also came
+officially through a burgomaster, Jacob Meyer.
+But the Meyer of 1530, Meyer "of-the-Stag"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+(<i>zum Hirten</i>), had neither blood nor
+sentiments in common with the Meyer under
+whom Holbein had done his first work in the
+Rathaus. Each headed a party at deadly
+issue. For the past year Meyer-of-the-Hare
+had vainly tried to turn back the clock or to
+stay the iconoclastic fury of the hour. Religious
+fanaticism had wrecked him as well as every
+beautiful piece of art on which it could lay its
+hands. And now at last it mattered nothing
+any more so far as he was concerned. The
+dreadful harvests that had brought virtual
+famine, the earthquake shocks which had unsettled
+many a mental as well as material
+foundation, the flooding devastations of the
+Birsig, the rage of Canton against Canton,
+the Civil War ready to begin, Pope or Luther
+come by his own,&mdash;it was all one at last to
+Meyer zum Hasen, who died just as his prot&eacute;g&eacute;
+of earlier years was commissioned to paint the
+blank wall.</p>
+
+<p>But something of his spirit, something of
+what he himself had been preaching to Basel
+in warning and threat for years, seems to have
+passed on into the pictures Holbein set before
+the Council. The paintings, alas! are no more.
+But a fragment or two and the drawings for
+them show how truly grand the two works were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+which Holbein had probably already intended
+should be his swan-song as Holbein <i>Basiliensis</i>.
+He chose for his subjects Rehoboam's
+answer to the suffering Israelites: "My little
+finger shall be thicker than my father's loins;
+my father hath chastised you with whips, but
+I will chastise you with scorpions"; and
+Samuel prophesying to Saul how dearly he
+shall learn that "Rebellion is as the sin of
+witchcraft, and stubbornness as an iniquity and
+idolatry."</p>
+
+<p>Both subjects are treated in the Great
+manner. Rehoboam, leaning forward from his
+throned seat with flashing eyes, and his little
+finger seeming actually to quiver in the air,
+is wonderfully conceived. But the meeting
+of Samuel and Saul (<a href="#hpl26">Plate 26</a>) most splendidly
+demonstrates how far Holbein towered above
+mere portraiture when he had the opportunity.
+To picture this drawing in all the beauty of
+colour is to realise what we have lost, and
+what his just fame has lost, with the utter
+destruction of such works.<a name="hpl26" id="hpl26"></a><a name="himg26" id="himg26"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_26">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img26.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img26.jpg" height="230"
+      alt="PLATE_26" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 26.<br />
+			<i>Behold to obey is better than sacrifice</i><br />
+			SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL<br />
+			<i>Washed Drawing. Basel Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img26.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not the greatest of the Italians could have
+improved upon the distribution and balance
+of this composition. The blazing background,
+the sense of a densely crowded host beyond
+what the eye can grasp, of captives and captors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+&mdash;all the stupendous crackle and roar and shout
+and sudden strained silence of Saul's immediate
+followers&mdash;is amply matched by those two
+typical protagonists, just then repeating the
+old drama with varying fortunes on the world's
+new stage. The Secular Arm has been short
+in the service of God, as interpreted by his
+Vicar; it has thought, in Saul's person, to
+win the cause, yet spare its enemies. Vain
+is it for him to run with humility, to tell what
+he has won and what overcome and done. He
+has not destroyed All&mdash;root and branch. For
+reasons of personal policy, he has given quarter.
+And the Priest, for God, will have none
+of his well-meaning excuses, of his good intentions,
+his policy, his burnt offerings of half-way
+measures;&mdash;"Behold to obey is better than
+sacrifice," begins his fierce anathema, "and to
+hearken than the fat of rams."</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless the Protestant party read its own
+meanings into these texts, when once the pictures
+were painted and paid for with seventy-two
+good guldens. But two very significant
+facts form their own commentary. One is that
+the only employment he received from the Council
+afterward was to redecorate the old L&auml;llenk&ouml;nig
+monstrosity on the bridge!&mdash;and the other, that
+as soon as Holbein got his pay for this disgraceful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+commission, a pay he was now much too
+hard pressed to refuse, he quietly slipped away
+from Basel without taking the Council into his
+confidence. Judging from his after conduct
+to his family, he probably left the seventy-two
+guldens to support his wife and children&mdash;now
+four little ones&mdash;until such time as he
+could send them more from England; and
+took his way once more, in the late autumn
+of 1531, with knapsack and paint-brushes for
+the journey, to a city that might give him few
+walls to cover, but would certainly not set him
+to painting the town clock.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Things had changed in London also, and
+gravely, Holbein found, since he had quitted
+Sir Thomas More's home at Chelsea with the
+sketch for Erasmus, in the summer of 1528.
+He had barely settled himself, in the City this
+time, before the struggle between Henry VIII.
+and the English Clergy ended in that Convocation
+when the latter made its formal
+"Submission." And in the same month that
+this took place, Sir Henry Guildford died.
+Then the three great Acts of Parliament,
+which swept away the crying abuses of
+"Benefit of Clergy," resurrected the "dead"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+lands (so called because perpetually <i>aliened
+in mortmain</i>) by restoring them to the national
+circulation of the Sovereign-Will, and turned
+the rich stream of Annates or "First-Fruits" of
+the bishoprics from the Pope's coffers to the
+King's,&mdash;were passed in this year.</p>
+
+<p>This legislation was followed by the solemn
+protest and then the death of Archbishop
+Warham. So that now of that great and
+close quartet of friends,&mdash;Colet, Warham,
+More, and Erasmus,&mdash;there were two on either
+shore of the last crossing. And More could
+already see the dark river ahead. His eye
+marked the consequences of the Acts as keenly
+as his aged friend Warham had discerned
+them on his death-bed; and shortly after the
+"Submission," More resigned his great office
+as Chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>These seem matters too high to twist the
+threads of a poor painter's life. But in reality
+Holbein's career was shaped, from many a
+year back, by such events as rarely touch the
+humble individual directly. All his friends
+and all his patrons in this country were carried
+far out of reach by 1532; and he must sink
+or swim, as they in darker waters, according
+to his own powers. That under such unexpected
+ill-fortune he did not immediately sink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+was due to two things&mdash;the greatness of his
+powers, and the circumstance that a trading-company
+of Continentals, chiefly German, was
+seated in London with immense wealth and
+immense influence at its disposal, and that
+they were men who knew how to appreciate
+Holbein at his worth.</p>
+
+<p>The roots of the Steelyard (<i>Stahlhof</i>), or
+"Stilyard," as it is often called in early dramatists,
+go far back to the legendary centuries
+of English history. From before the time of
+Alfred the Great, traders from Germany had
+clustered together on the bank of the Thames,
+close to where Cannon Street Station now
+stands. Amalgamation with the Hanseatic
+League, and the necessities and gratitude of
+more than one king of England&mdash;but especially
+of Edward IV.&mdash;had made of the Steelyard
+a company such as only the East India
+Company of later centuries may be compared
+to. With the world's new geography and
+new commercial conditions in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, its methods and its
+monopoly of the seas were gradually superseded
+by the great seamen of the Elizabethan
+era. But in Holbein's time, though already
+some of the Hanseatic ships were too overgrown
+to pass London Bridge and cast anchor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+at their own docks just above it, there was
+scarce a cloud upon the colossal prosperity of
+the Steelyard.</p>
+
+<p>Its walled and turreted enclosure, able to
+withstand the fiercest assaults of Wat Tyler's
+men, stretched from the river northward to
+Thames Street, and from Allhallows Street on
+the east to Dowgate Street on the west; and
+it might well have been described as a German
+city and port situated in the heart of the City
+of London. Its massive front in Thames
+Street, where were its three portcullised and
+fortified gateways with German inscriptions
+above and the Imperial Double-Eagle high
+over all, was one of the sights of London.
+And the Steelyard Tavern was a famous resort.
+When Holbein knew it well the greatest prelates
+and nobles and all the Court crowd,&mdash;which
+stretched its gardens and great houses from
+the stream of the Fleet, just west of the City
+wall, to Westminster Abbey,&mdash;used to flock to
+this Thames Street corner of the Steelyard
+to drink Rhenish wine and eat smoked reindeer-tongue
+and caviar.</p>
+
+<p>Within the gates stood the big Guildhall,
+which answered both for its councils and its noted
+banquets. The high carved mantelpieces and
+wainscotting served admirably to display the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+glittering plate and strange souvenirs of every
+known land and sea. On the walls which
+Holbein's works were so to enrich hung portraits
+of eminent members of the Guild. The
+Hall was flanked by the huge stone kitchen
+and by a strong-tower for the safeguarding of
+special valuables. In the open space between
+the Hall and the west wall of the enclosure was
+the garden, where trees and flowers and a
+greenery of vines had been planted in exact
+imitation of the gardens of the Fatherland.
+And here sat Holbein among the Associates,
+many a time, over their good cheer,&mdash;as in
+the old Basel gardens of the Blume or the
+Stork in other years, and heard only the
+German tongue or the songs of home around
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Away down to the docks ran the lanes of
+warehouses; shops and booths where every
+German trader or craftsman in London had his
+place; and where the merchandise of the world&mdash;the
+greater part of it destined for L&uuml;beck as
+a centre of European distribution&mdash;might be
+sampled. Here were choicest specimens of
+the then costly spices of Cathay, or the famous
+falcons of Norway and Livonia, for which English
+sportsmen were willing to pay fabulous
+prices.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1418" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>As in other guilds, the government of this
+cosmopolitan beehive was that of a despotic
+democracy. All the inmates of the precincts
+were subjected to a rule little short of monastic
+in its strict discipline. The penalties for any
+infringement, for drunkenness or dicing or
+even for an abusive epithet, were very severe.
+The civic duties of the corporation, too, were
+sharply defined. In case of war every member
+had his appointed post in the defence of
+London. Every "master" had to keep the prescribed
+accoutrements and arms ready for immediate
+use, and the repairs and maintenance
+of the Bishop's Gate were at the sole cost of the
+Steelyard.</p>
+
+<p>No chapel was erected within its enclosure,
+the Guild preferring to be incorporated with
+the adjoining parish of Allhallows. Whether
+or not there is any truth at the bottom of the
+ancient tradition that this church had been
+originally founded by Germans, the Guild maintained
+its own altar in it in Holbein's time, where
+Masses were said on its own special days and
+festivals. So far are the facts from the common
+supposition that the doctrines of Luther would
+find natural favour in such a community, that
+the latter only gradually came into the "Church
+of England" by the same slow processes which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+transformed the whole parish around it. And
+when More, who was anything but <i>Utopian</i>
+himself in the practice of tolerating "heresy"
+during his chancellorship, headed a domiciliary
+visit in search of Lutheran writings, he could
+find nothing but orthodox German Prayer-books
+and the Scriptures, whose use among laymen
+he always strenuously advocated; while every
+member of the community was able to make
+honest and hearty oath at St. Paul's Cross
+that no heretic or heretical doctrine would be
+tolerated amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, in this staunch citadel of his
+own faith, Holbein naturally found a new circle
+of friends among whom it must have been
+strangely easy to fancy himself back in the
+Fischmarkt of his young years, with Froben and
+Erasmus and Amerbach and Meyer zum Hasen.</p>
+
+<p>The curtain rings up on his work for the
+Steelyard,&mdash;work which covered many years
+and more fine paintings than could even be
+enumerated here&mdash;with a superlative exhibition
+of all his powers. The oil portrait of
+Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often
+written, now in the Berlin Gallery (<a href="#hpl27">Plate 27</a>),
+inscribed 1532, has called forth the enthusiastic
+eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece
+of rare good fortune it is in perfect preservation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+The black of the surcoat alone has lost a little
+of its first lustre; all the rest is as though it
+had left the easel but the other day.<a name="hpl27" id="hpl27"></a><a name="himg27" id="himg27"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_27">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img27.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img27.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_27" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 27.<br />
+			J&Ouml;RG (OR GEORGE) GYZE<br />
+			<i>Oils. Berlin Museum</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img27.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The young merchant is seated among his
+daily surroundings in the Steelyard. He is in
+the act of leisurely opening a letter addressed,
+"To the hand of the honourable J&ouml;rg Gyze,
+my brother, in London, England" (<i>Dem
+ersamen herrn J&ouml;rg Gyzen zu Lunden in
+Engelant meinem broder to henden</i>). The merchant's
+motto, "No pleasure without care," is
+chalked up in Latin on the background, with
+his signature beneath it. Written on a paper
+stuck higher up is a Latin verse in praise of the
+portrait; also the date, and the sitter's age&mdash;thirty-four.
+On the racks and shelves are documents,
+books, keys, a watch and seals, and a pair
+of scales. A gold ball is hanging from above
+with a lovely chasing in blue enamel; a miracle
+of painting in itself, to say nothing of the
+exquisite Venetian glass, filled with water and
+carnation-pinks. This flower has its own meaning,
+and is introduced in more than one of
+Holbein's portraits. On the rich oriental table-cloth
+are writing materials also, with account-books,
+seal and scissors.</p>
+
+<p>Gyze himself is a fair-haired man, wearing
+a brilliant red silk doublet beneath his black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+cloak. And the amazing thing is that amidst
+this bewildering array of pictures&mdash;for every
+article is such in itself, owing to the perfection
+of its painting&mdash;Gyze is not lost or overridden
+for a moment. It is unmistakably <i>his</i> picture;
+and he dominates the accessories as much as
+he did in reality. The man, the whole man, is
+there; and the things are there around him;
+that is all. But that the eye recognises this is
+the demonstration of the painter's own mastership.
+It is as much Holbein's peculiar secret
+as are the cool shadows, the luminous glow,
+the astounding elaboration, all made to express
+the dignity of one, and but one, theme.</p>
+
+<p>As has been said, the Steelyard portraits are
+too many to even catalogue here, covering many
+years. But Gyze's may be taken as their high-water
+mark. For that matter it could not, in
+its own way, be surpassed by any portrait.
+Holbein himself greatly surpassed it in the
+matter of subtle and noble simplicity, in his
+two greatest extant pieces of portraiture&mdash;the
+Morett of Dresden and the Duchess of
+Milan, now in our National Gallery. But in
+technical powers, and the power of subordinating
+their very virtuosity to the requirement
+of a true picture, this was a superlative expression
+of his matured method.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>In the midst of all his fresh London successes
+came a summons from Basel, which
+must have made the painter smile a little
+grimly. It had slowly dawned on the Council
+that Holbein&mdash;whose renown they well knew
+was a feather in Basel's cap&mdash;was proposing to
+make a prolonged absence. The result was a
+decision which the Burgomaster officially conveyed
+to him. Jacob Meyer zum Hirten wrote
+to say that Holbein was desired to return immediately
+to resume the duties of a citizen-artist,
+and that the Council, anxious to assist
+him in the support of his family, had resolved
+to allow him an annuity of thirty guldens yearly
+"until something better" could be afforded.
+Whether he replied in evasive terms, or
+whether he let the L&auml;llenk&ouml;nig speak for him,
+is not on record.</p>
+
+<p>By the time Holbein received this letter,
+written late in the autumn of 1532, he was
+plunged into a year of almost incredible
+activity. The whole of it would hardly seem
+too long for one such painting as the life-size
+double portrait&mdash;his largest extant portrait-painting&mdash;that
+now belongs to the National
+Gallery: "The Ambassadors" (<a href="#hpl28">Plate 28</a>).</p>
+
+<p>At the extremities of a heavy table, something
+like a rude dinner-waggon, are two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+full-length figures which show a curious reflection
+of his early defect in their want of
+sufficient height. At the spectator's left stands
+a richly-costumed individual, whose stalwart
+proportions, ruddy complexion, and boldly ardent
+eye denote the perfection of vigorous
+health, and are in striking contrast to the
+physique, colouring, and expression of his
+companion. The former wears a black velvet
+doublet, which reveals an under-garment of
+gleaming rose-red satin. Over all is a black
+velvet mantle lined and trimmed with white
+fur. On his black cap is a silver brooch which
+displays a skull. He wears a gold badge
+exhibiting a mailed figure spearing a dragon
+suspended by a heavy gold chain. The hilt of
+his sword is seen at his left hand, and his right
+grasps a gold-sheathed dagger. On this latter
+is the inscription: <span class="small">&AElig;T. SV&AElig;. 29</span>; and from it
+depends a massive green-and-gold silk tassel,
+incomparably painted.<a name="hpl28" id="hpl28"></a><a name="himg28" id="himg28"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_28">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img28.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img28.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_28" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 28.<br />
+			"THE AMBASSADORS"<br />
+			<i>Oils. National Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img28.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>As has been noted, the complexion of the
+man at our right is singularly pallid; the eyes
+mournfully listless; the skin of his knuckles
+drawn into the wrinkles of wasting tissues.
+He wears a scholar's cap and gown; the latter
+of some chocolate-brown pile, richly patterned,
+and lined with brown fur. He holds his gloves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+in his right hand and leans this arm on a
+closed book, on the edges of which is the
+lettering: <span class="small">&AElig;TATIS SV&AElig; 25</span>.</p>
+
+<p>An oriental cover is spread on the table,
+and upon it are a number of the scientific
+instruments common to astrology and to the
+uses of astronomers like Kratzer, in whose
+portrait at the Louvre they are also to be seen.
+On the lower shelf are mathematical and
+musical instruments and books. The two
+latter are opened to display their text conspicuously.
+Near the man at our left, and
+kept open by a T-square, is the Arithmetic
+which Peter Apian, astronomer and globe-maker,
+published in 1527. It is opened at a
+page in Division, with its German text plainly
+legible and identical with the actual page, as
+seen in the British Museum's copy of this
+edition.</p>
+
+<p>The book nearest the man at our right,
+lying beneath the lute, has been also identified
+as Luther's Psalm-book with music,&mdash;in which
+the German text is by himself and the music
+by Johann Walther&mdash;first published in 1524.
+Mr. Barclay Squire has shown that the two
+hymns could not, however, have faced each
+other in reality, as they do in the painting,
+without the intervening leaves having been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+purposely suppressed to gain this end. These
+hymns are "Come Holy Ghost" (<i>Kom Heiliger
+Geyst Herregott</i>) and "Mortal, wouldst thou
+live blessedly?" (<i>Mensch wiltu leben seliglich</i>).
+In each case the entire verse is given.</p>
+
+<p>The background is a green-diapered damask
+curtain most significantly drawn aside to show
+a silver crucifix high up in the left-hand corner,
+above the man with the dagger and sword.
+On the beautiful mosaic pavement is an ugly
+object that looks like some dried fish. But
+experiments have shown that the French Sale-Catalogues
+in which this work first appears in
+the eighteenth century&mdash;first, that is, so far as
+we can trace it by any records now known&mdash;were
+right in calling this a "skull in perspective";
+<i>i.e.</i> a skull painted as seen distorted
+in a convex mirror. Some hint of its true
+character can be gathered, though not much,
+by looking at this object from the lower left-hand
+corner of the painting, when the exaggerated
+length will be seen to be reduced
+to something more nearly approaching the
+height of the usual "Death's Head."</p>
+
+<p>According to the views which are now
+officially accepted by the National Gallery,
+the persons of this picture are two French
+Catholics. The one at our left is Jean de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, Bailly of Troyes
+and Knight of the French Order of St. Michael,
+of which he wears the badge without the
+splendid collar&mdash;as was permitted, by a special
+statute, to persons in the field, on a journey,
+or in a privacy that would not require the full
+dress of a state occasion. Jean de Dinteville
+was French Ambassador at the Court of Henry
+VIII. in 1533; born in 1504, he was then
+twenty-nine. He died in 1555.</p>
+
+<p>The man in the scholar's cap and gown is
+George de Selve, privately associated with de
+Dinteville's mission for a few weeks in the
+spring of 1533. He was born in 1508, nominated
+Bishop of Lavaur in 1526, and confirmed
+in that office in 1529, in which year he was
+French Ambassador at the Court of Charles V.
+He was twenty-five in 1533, and died in 1541.</p>
+
+<p>For myself, holding convictions concerning
+these portraits utterly at variance with any published
+opinions&mdash;and that in more than one
+vital respect&mdash;I am compelled to limit my
+account to the bare record of its appearance
+and catalogued description, until prepared to
+submit other facts and conclusions to a verdict.</p>
+
+<p>Two portraits in the Hague Gallery, each
+with a falcon hooded on the wrist, show to how
+much purpose Holbein had studied these birds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+in the Steelyard. The one of Robert Cheseman,
+done in this year, is especially fine, with a
+strange, elusive suggestion of something kindred
+in the nature of man and bird.</p>
+
+<p>In 1533, also, the Steelyard placed its contribution
+to the celebration of Anne Boleyn's
+coronation in the painter's hands. And the
+result was, as Stowe tells us, "a costly and
+marvellous cunning pageant by the merchants
+of the Stilyard, wherein was the Mount
+Parnassus, with the Fountaine of Helicon,
+which was of white marble; and four streams
+without pipe did rise an ell high and mette
+together in a little cup above the fountaine;
+which fountaine ran abundantly with Rhenish
+wine till night. On the mountaine sat Apollo,
+and at his feet sat Calliope; and on every side
+of the mountaine sate four Muses, playing on
+severell sweet instruments."</p>
+
+<p>But of more importance to his living fame
+were the two large oil paintings&mdash;the Triumph
+of Riches and the Triumph of Poverty&mdash;which
+he executed for the Hall of the Steelyard. In
+their day they were renowned far and wide;
+but they also have slipped into some abyss of
+oblivion, perhaps to be yet recovered as miraculously
+as was the Solothurn Madonna.</p>
+
+<p>When the Guild was compelled to abandon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+the Steelyard, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, the
+Hall stood so long unguarded and uncared for
+that when it regained possession, under James
+I., everything was in a sad state of neglect.
+And when the association finally dissolved not
+long after, the Hanseatic League agreed to
+present these paintings to Henry Prince of
+Wales, known, like Charles I., to be a lover
+of Art.</p>
+
+<p>If they passed to the possession of the latter,
+he must have exchanged them with, or presented
+them to, the Earl of Arundel. For in
+1627 Sandrart saw them in the collection of the
+latter, like his father an enthusiastic admirer of
+Holbein's work. After this, one or two vague
+notices suggest that they somehow drifted to
+Flanders, and thence to Paris. But there every
+trace of them is lost. Federigo Zucchero
+thought they yielded to no work of the kind,
+even among Italian masters; and copied them
+from pure admiration. Holbein's drawing for
+the Triumph of Riches is in the Louvre Collection.</p>
+
+<p>That he ever painted Anne Boleyn, unless in
+miniature, seems doubtful. The portrait among
+the Windsor drawings which has been labelled
+with her name agrees with no description of
+her in any single respect. But in 1534 he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+painted one whose destiny was closely linked to
+hers&mdash;Thomas Cromwell, then Master of the
+Jewel House.</p>
+
+<p>And it was probably about this time that he
+painted what is in some respects the greatest
+of all his portraits&mdash;one of the galaxy of
+supreme works of all portraiture&mdash;the oil painting
+of Morett, or Morette, so long regarded as
+a triumph of Leonardo da Vinci's art. The
+world knows it well in the Dresden Gallery
+(<a href="#hpl29">Plate 29</a>).</p>
+
+<p>The figure is life-size. The pose, even the
+costume in its feasible essentials, strikingly
+repeats the Whitehall portrait of Henry VIII.,
+as copies show this to have been completed
+in the wall painting. The background is a
+green curtain.<a name="hpl29" id="hpl29"></a><a name="himg29" id="himg29"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_29">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img29.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img29.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_29" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 29.<br />
+			THE MORETT PORTRAIT<br />
+			<i>Oils. Dresden Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img29.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The sitter wears neither velvet nor cloth-of-gold,
+nor Order of any sort; but his costume
+is rich black satin, the sleeves puffed with
+white, the broad fur collar of sable. In his cap
+is a cameo brooch. His buttons are gold; and
+a gold locket hangs from a plain, heavy chain
+of the same metal. His right hand carries his
+gloves, his left rests on the gold sheath of the
+dagger that hangs from his waist. His auburn
+hair and beard is streaked with grey.</p>
+
+<p>No words, no reproduction, can hope to express<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+the qualities of such a painting. Neither
+can show the mastery or the spell by which the
+green background, the hair, the cool transparent
+flesh-tones, the fur, the satin, the gold,
+are all woven into a witchery as virile as it is
+penetrating.</p>
+
+<p>This is another work which has undergone
+more than one transformation in the course of
+its records. As late as 1657 it was correctly
+ascribed to Holbein in the Modena Collection.
+But the first syllable of the sitter's name has
+been its only constant. In time Morett slipped
+into Moretta, and then&mdash;like <i>Meier</i> in the
+Madonna picture&mdash;into Morus. So far it seems
+to have clung to some English tradition. But
+when Morus got changed to Moro it was but
+natural for an Italian to think of Ludovico
+Sforza, "Il Moro." Long before this Holbein
+had become Olbeno; and thereafter a puzzle.
+When the portrait was labelled Sforza, however,
+who could its obviously great painter be but
+Leonardo? <i>Et voil&agrave;!</i> Thus the work passed
+to the Gallery and Catalogue of the Royal
+Collection at Dresden. And thus it long remained,
+as if to attest the true level of Holbein's
+genius.</p>
+
+<p>But when the Gallery also acquired the drawing
+of the Arundel Collection, labelled "Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+Morett" in Hollar's engraving from it, the
+painting was held to be unquestionably identified
+by it as Hubert Morett, goldsmith to
+Henry VIII. Nor is there anything incongruous
+in this belief. Such a master goldsmith
+was no tradesman, in our sense of the
+word. He was often much more like one of
+our merchant princes. The merchants of the
+Steelyard were frequently the royal bankers,
+and many times were employed on high and
+delicate diplomatic missions to other courts.
+Neither is there anything in the sitter's dress
+to forbid it to a man of this stamp, even after
+the sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were
+passed; while there is much, very much, to
+suggest an English origin.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, M. Larpent has now
+shown that the Arundel drawing was down in a
+catalogue of 1746-7 as: "One Holbein, Sieur
+de Moret, one of the French hostage in England";
+and also that a "Chas. sieur de
+Morette" is recorded among the four French
+hostages sent to England in 1519. It would
+thus appear that the painting is a portrait of
+Charles de Solier, seigneur de Morette; an
+eminent soldier and diplomatist of France; born
+in 1480, Ambassador to England more than
+once, and finally, in 1534.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>Besides all the portraits of Holbein's English
+period, many of them scattered throughout the
+collections of all Europe, and many others now
+lost, it must not be forgotten that he was at
+the same time pouring forth miniature paintings,
+designs for engraving, designs for the
+goldsmith, and conceptions of every sort&mdash;from
+a carved chimney-piece to a woman's jewelled
+trinket; and all designed with the same exquisite
+precision and felicity. In the British
+Museum as on the Continent these drawings
+are an education in themselves. And besides
+the portrait studies in the Windsor Collection
+there is a sketch for a large painting which, if
+ever executed, is lost: "The Queen of Sheba
+visiting King Solomon."</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<div class="center">
+ <p class="noindent">PAINTER ROYAL<br />
+1536-1543</p></div>
+
+<table class ="j" summary="CHAPTER_4">
+<tr><td>Queen Jane Seymour&mdash;Death of Erasmus, and title-page
+portrait&mdash;The Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.&mdash;Munich
+drawing of Henry VIII.&mdash;Birth of an heir and the
+"Jane Seymour Cup"&mdash;Death of the Queen&mdash;Christina,
+Duchess of Milan&mdash;Secret service for the King&mdash;Flying
+visit to Basel and arrangements for a permanent return&mdash;Apprentices
+his son Philip at Paris&mdash;Portrait of the
+Prince of Wales and the King's return gift&mdash;Anne of
+Cleves&mdash;Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk&mdash;Catherine
+Howard&mdash;Lapse of Holbein's Basel citizenship&mdash;Irregularities&mdash;Provision
+for wife and children&mdash;Residence in
+London&mdash;Execution of Queen Catherine Howard&mdash;Marriage
+of Catherine Parr&mdash;Dr. Chamber&mdash;Unfinished
+work for the Barber-Surgeons' Hall&mdash;Death of Holbein&mdash;His
+will&mdash;Place of burial&mdash;Holbein's genius; its true
+character and greatness.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These were years of pleasant friendships,
+too, as well as work and cares. Nicholas
+Bourbon, scholar and poet, after his sojourn in
+London, writes back in 1536: "Greet in my
+name as heartily as you can all with whom you
+know me to be connected by intercourse and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+friendship." And after mentioning high dignitaries
+who had followed the King's example of
+showing special courtesies to Bourbon, he
+adds: "Mr. Cornelius Heyss, my host, the
+King's Goldsmith; Mr. Nicolaus Kratzer, the
+King's Astronomer, a man who is brimful of
+wit, jest, and humorous fancies; and Mr. Hans,
+the Royal Painter, the Apelles of our time. I
+wish them from my heart all joy and happiness."
+This little pen-picture of Holbein's intimate
+circle is a beautiful break in the mists of
+centuries&mdash;and shows us what manner of men
+they were among whom he had made for himself
+an honoured place. We could ill spare it
+from the few and meagre records of his life.
+It is also the very earliest documentary evidence
+of his being in the King's immediate service.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this very year, 1536, that he received
+his commission to paint Anne Boleyn's
+successor, Jane Seymour, then on the throne
+the block had left vacant. The Vienna Gallery
+possesses this painting, of which another version
+is at Woburn Abbey, and the chalk drawing
+at Windsor (Plate 30).<a name="hpl30" id="hpl30"></a><a name="himg30" id="himg30"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_30">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img30.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img30.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_30" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 30.<br />
+			QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR<br />
+			<i>Oils. Vienna Gallery</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img30.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Queen was noted for her milk-white
+fairness, and Holbein has borrowed the pearly
+shadows of the lily in rendering it. The figure
+is a little under life-size. Her head-dress and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+robes of silver brocade and royal velvet are
+studded with splendid rubies and pearls to
+match the jewels on her neck and breast. The
+hands are as full of character as of art.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen's portrait may properly be said
+to belong to the great wall painting which
+Holbein finished in 1537 for the Royal Palace at
+Whitehall. But before that date the painter's
+inner life had suffered one more great wrench.
+At midnight of July 12th, 1536, Erasmus died
+in the home that had been his own, except for
+the Freiburg interval, ever since John Froben's
+death in 1526; a death that had probably
+had much to do with Holbein's first departure
+from Basel. That event had uprooted the
+scholar from the old house <i>zum Sessel</i>, in the
+Fischmarkt, and transplanted him to the home of
+Froben's son, Hieronymus. The latter house,
+then known as <i>zum Luft</i>, is now No. 18, B&auml;umleingasse.
+And it was here that Erasmus passed
+away, his mind keeping to the last its humour
+and its interests in all around him. But no one,
+remembering how Fisher and More had died
+in the preceding year, can doubt but that the
+good old man was very willing to be gone, away
+from changed faces and changed ways&mdash;though
+Bonifacius Amerbach and young Froben were
+as sons to him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>Basel, for all her differences with him, buried
+Erasmus with great honours. But no tablet
+could so commemorate him as the noble monument
+which Holbein built to him in the title-page
+he designed for Hieronymus Froben's
+edition of Erasmus's <i>Works</i>, published in 1540.
+It is a woodcut of extraordinary beauty. The
+full-length figure of the scholar stands in cap
+and gown, with one hand resting lightly on the
+bust of the god Terminus (the god of immovable
+boundary lines, significantly conjoined to
+Erasmus's chosen motto: <i>Concedo nulli</i>) and the
+other calling attention to this significant emblem
+of fixed convictions. Not even the Louvre oil
+painting expresses the whole Erasmus quite so
+completely or so nobly as this little drawing of
+the man whom Holbein had loved and revered
+for twenty years; and to whom he owed, in
+the first place, the splendid opportunities of
+his career in England.</p>
+
+<p>And as he drew it, what ghosts of his own
+Past must have clustered around the lean little
+figure! What echoes and visions! The Rhine,
+the gardens, the clang of the press, the Fischmarkt,
+the friendly smiles at Froben's and
+Meyer's firesides; his marriage; the stars and
+dews and perfume of all his dreams in the years&mdash;those
+matchless years of a man's young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+manhood&mdash;when he had walked with angels as
+well as peasants, had seen the Way of the
+Cross, the Christ in the Grave, and the Risen
+Lord even more clearly than the faces of flesh
+and blood. <i>Eheu fugaces!</i> "God help thee,
+Elia, how art thou sophisticated."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Ah, well! Those years, and the darker,
+sadder years that had led far from them, were
+now like his oldest friends&mdash;dead and buried.
+The Holbein of 1537 was painting the King of
+England on the wall of his Privy Chamber.
+There was a place for honest pride as well as
+for honest regret in his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>This painting perished with the palace in the
+fire of 1698. Charles II., however, had a
+small copy of it made by Leemput. And a
+portion of Holbein's original cartoon (<a href="#hpl31">Plate 31</a>)
+in chalk and Indian ink, is in the possession of
+the Duke of Devonshire&mdash;the face much washed
+out by cleaning, and the outline pricked for
+transferring to the wall. The figures are life-size,
+but Walpole has already noticed how the
+massive proportions and solidly-planted pose
+of the King heighten the illusion of a Colossus.
+Behind him stands the admirably contrasted
+figure of Henry VII. The whole composition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+consisted of four portraits; Queen Jane Seymour
+opposite her husband, and the King's
+mother opposite to, and on a level with,
+Henry VII., who stands on the elevation of
+the background.<a name="hpl31" id="hpl31"></a><a name="himg31" id="himg31"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_31">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img31.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img31.jpg" height="550"
+      alt="PLATE_31" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 31.<br />
+			KING HENRY VIII AND HIS FATHER<br />
+			<i>(Fragment of Cartoon used for the Whitehall Wall-Painting)</i><br />
+			<i>Duke of Devonshire's Collection</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img31.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The pose and costume of Henry VIII. in
+the cartoon were, as Leemput's copy shows,
+faithfully carried out in the painting; but in
+the latter the face was afterwards turned
+to the full front view familiar to us in the
+many copies of the King's portrait which
+so long passed as works of Holbein, on the
+strength of reproducing his own painting.
+There is no evidence that he ever again painted
+Henry VIII. or that he executed any replica of
+this portrait. The old copy at Windsor Castle
+serves, however, to recall its details of costume;
+such as his brown doublet stiff with gold
+brocade and scintillating with the gleams of
+splendid jewels, his coat of royal red embroidered
+with gold thread and lined with ermine
+to match the wide collar; his plumed and
+jewelled cap; as also the huge gems on collar,
+pendant, rings, and the gold-hilted dagger in
+its blue velvet sheath.</p>
+
+<p>But Holbein's own portrait of Henry VIII.&mdash;as
+shown by the original chalk study from life
+now in the Munich Gallery (<a href="#hpl32">Plate 32</a>)&mdash;may in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+all sobriety of speech be called a stupendous
+work. Looking at this marvellous drawing
+and picturing to one's self those cheeks informed
+with pulsing blood, those lips with
+breath, those eyes with blue gleams,&mdash;it is easy
+to understand that Van Mander was using no
+hyperbole when he said that the painting
+on the wall of the Privy Chamber made the
+stoutest knees to tremble. It was literally, as
+he said, "a terrible painting," of which none
+of the stupidly-heavy copies that have for the
+most part travestied Holbein's work give any
+true conception. Many a man could paint
+cloth-of-gold and gems; but only once and
+again in the centuries comes a man who can
+thus paint, not alone the mane and stride of
+the lion, but the fires that light his glance, the
+roar rushing to his lips. To look long into
+these eyes that Holbein had the genius to read
+and the firmness to draw, is to feel one's self
+in the grip of an insatiable, implacable, yet
+leonine soul; a being who, to borrow the
+matchless description of Burke's political career,
+is "parted asunder in his works like some vast
+continent severed by a convulsion of nature;
+each portion peopled by its own giant race of
+opinions, differing altogether in features and
+language, and committed in eternal hostility<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+with one another." And so long as the great
+drama of Tudor England enthrals the minds
+of men, hard by Shakespeare's supreme name
+must be read the name of the painter in
+whose pages the actors in that drama have
+been compelled themselves to declare themselves.<a name="hpl32" id="hpl32"></a><a name="himg32" id="himg32"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_32">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img32.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img32.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_32" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 32.<br />
+			KING HENRY VIII<br />
+			<i>(Life-study; probably for the Whitehall Painting)</i><br />
+			<i>Chalks. Munich Collection</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img32.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>To crown the King's pride, and to the no less
+intense delight of the whole nation which saw
+in this event the rainbow of every promise,
+at Hampton Court, on the 12th of October,
+1537, Queen Jane Seymour gave birth to the
+son who was to reign so briefly as Edward VI.
+And it was doubtless in connection with this
+happy circumstance that the King commissioned
+Holbein's design for a truly royal piece of
+goldsmith's work. This drawing, generally
+known as "the Jane Seymour cup," is at
+Oxford, in the Bodleian Library (<a href="#hpl33">Plate 33</a>).</p>
+
+<p>No sketch of the artist's powers would
+be even barely complete without a realising
+sense of their versatility. And in this design
+Holbein has more than equalled the highest
+achievement of his great contemporary,
+Benvenuto Cellini, at this time in the service
+of the French Court. The initials of the King
+and Queen, H. and J., and the exceedingly
+judicious motto of the latter&mdash;"Bound to obey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+and to serve"&mdash;are recurring devices. But
+it is in the originality and unflawed beauty
+of the whole&mdash;the springing grace of outline,
+the taste and cunning with which flowers of
+gold naturally bloom into gems and pearls, the
+combination of freest, richest fancy with every
+restraint of a pure taste&mdash;that the perfection
+of this little masterpiece consists.<a name="hpl33" id="hpl33"></a><a name="himg33" id="himg33"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_33">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img33.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img33.jpg" height="550"
+      alt="PLATE_33" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 33.<br />
+			DESIGN FOR "THE JANE SEYMOUR CUP"<br />
+			<i>Bodleian Library</i><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img33.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the midst of all the public rejoicings, the
+Te Deums, feasts, and bonfires, came the
+thunderclap of the young mother's death.
+Some negligence had permitted her to take
+cold, and on the twelfth day after his coveted
+heir was born, Henry VIII. was once again a
+widower. The Court went into deepest mourning
+until the 3rd of February. But Thomas
+Cromwell was very shortly authorised to take
+secret steps to ascertain what Princess might
+most suitably fill the late Queen's vacant place
+and strengthen the assurance of an unbroken
+succession.</p>
+
+<p>Choice fell at first on a Roman Catholic&mdash;Christina,
+the sixteen-year-old widow of Francis
+Sforza Duke of Milan, who had died in the
+autumn of 1535. The upshot of private inquiries
+was that Holbein was sent over to Brussels in
+March, 1538, to bring back a portrait of this
+daughter of Christian of Denmark and niece<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+of Charles V. And although the painter had
+but three hours in which to do it, he did make
+what Hutton described as her "very perffight"
+image; besides which, said the envoy, the
+portrait previously despatched, though painted
+in all her state finery, "was but slobbered."</p>
+
+<p>From this "perffight" painting, which could
+not have been more than one of his portrait
+studies, he afterwards completed that full-length
+oil painting which is worthy to rank with his
+great Morett portrait. By the kindness of the
+Duke of Norfolk, who has lent it, this beautiful
+work is now in the National Gallery (<a href="#hpl34">Plate 34</a>).
+But unhappily for its best appreciation, to my
+thinking at least, it hangs at one side and in
+too close proximity to the bold colouring of
+"The Ambassadors"; so that its own subtle,
+yet reticent superiority is well-nigh shouted
+down by its lusty neighbour. It is a picture
+to be seen by itself; as it must stand by itself
+in the usual inane gallery of women's portraits.</p>
+
+<p>Hutton tells us that the painter who "slobbered"
+Christina's portrait had painted her in
+full dress. But Holbein's eye was quick to recognise
+the values of her everyday dress&mdash;the
+widow's costume of Italy&mdash;in enhancing the
+distinction of her face and the stately slenderness
+of her figure. And so he drew her as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+stood, with a hint of bending forward, her
+gloves being restlessly fingered in a shy yet
+proud embarrassment, in the first moments
+when he saw her.<a name="hpl34" id="hpl34"></a><a name="himg34" id="himg34"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_34">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img34.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img34.jpg" height="550"
+      alt="PLATE_34" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 34.<br />
+			CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN<br />
+			<i>Oils. National Gallery</i><br />
+			[<i>Lent by the Duke of Norfolk</i>]<br />
+      Click to <a href="images/img34.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>The portrait is nearly life-size. Over a plain
+black satin dress she wears a gown of the same
+material, lined with yellow sable. Her hair
+is entirely concealed by a black hood. At her
+throat and wrists are plain cambric frills. The
+ranging scale of tawny tones&mdash;in the floor, the
+gloves, the fur, the golden glint in her brown
+eyes&mdash;and the one ruby, on her hand, are the only
+colours, except those of her fresh young lips
+and skin and the black and white of her costume.
+"She is not so white as the late
+Queen," wrote Hutton, "but she hath a singular
+good countenance, and when she chanceth to
+smile there appeareth two pits in her cheeks
+and one in her chin, the which becometh her
+excellently well."</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to believe that they did, but her
+dimples did not chance for Henry VIII. Whether
+she really sent him, along with her picture, the
+witty refusal credited to her&mdash;that she had but
+one head; had she two, one should be at
+His Majesty's service&mdash;or whether it was the
+Emperor's doing entirely that his niece married
+the Duke of Lorraine instead of the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+whose first wife had been Charles V.'s aunt,
+there is, at all events, a soft lurking devil
+in the demure little face which seems to whisper
+that the answer was one which she could have
+made an' she would.</p>
+
+<p>Van Mander heard from Holbein's circle a
+story which modern pedantry is inclined to
+flout. This is, that when an irate nobleman
+wanted the painter punished for an affront, the
+King hotly exclaimed:&mdash;"Understand, my lord,
+that I can make seven earls out of as many
+hinds, any day; but out of seven earls I could
+not make one such painter as this Holbein."
+An eminently ben-trovato story, at all events.
+And certain it is that the painter stood sufficiently
+high in the royal favour to be despatched
+on some special private mission for the King
+in the summer of 1538, of which the secret was
+so well kept that nothing beyond the record of
+payment for it has ever transpired.</p>
+
+<p>From this date Holbein's name is regularly
+down in the Royal Accounts. The amounts
+drawn total, it has been computed, about
+&pound;360 in present value, and would make an
+agreeable annual addition to his other earnings.
+So that it is little wonder he was not tempted
+by the small sum offered by the Basel Council
+in 1532. But in 1538 the Council greatly increased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+the old offer, and was so anxious to
+have him among her citizens that the painter
+seized the opportunity of his secret mission to
+Upper Burgundy, whatever it was, to pay a
+flying visit to Basel in the interests of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>His old companions of the Guild of St.
+Johann Vorstadt made this visit&mdash;when Holbein
+was back among them, as was noted,
+"in silk and velvet"&mdash;the occasion of a grand
+banquet in his honour. But the real motive
+for his visit was to arrange upon what terms
+he could meet the Council's wishes. The terms
+were far from ungenerous, as is shown by the
+contract which followed him back to London.</p>
+
+<p>In this the Council bound itself, in consideration
+of the great honour of retaining in their
+city a painter "famous beyond all other painters
+on account of the riches of his art," and in
+further consideration of his promise to make
+no absence from Basel more prolonged than
+should be really necessary to carry his foreign
+commissions to their destination and receive
+his pay for them&mdash;to give him an annuity of
+fifty guldens, equally whether Holbein should
+be ill or well, but only during his own life. In
+addition to this, they granted him permission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+to make short visits to specified art-centres,
+of which Milan was one, "once, twice, or
+thrice, every year." And recognising the impossibility
+of his freeing himself from his
+English engagements in less than two years,
+they also granted him this interval before he
+need resume his residence at Basel; and engaged
+to pay forty guldens yearly to his wife,
+on his behalf, for each of these two years.</p>
+
+<p>There is every probability that Holbein himself
+took a goodly sum to Basel to invest for
+his family's permanent benefit in one way and
+another. For it could only have been as a
+part of this gleaning for them that he drew&mdash;as
+the Account Books show that he did just
+at this juncture&mdash;a whole year's salary in
+advance from the Royal Exchequer; seeing
+that the same books prove that he was liberally
+paid for all his own expenses on the King's
+service, in addition to his regular salary.</p>
+
+<p>Part of the sum he collected to take with
+him was doubtless used to apprentice his son
+Philip, now sixteen, to the goldsmith's trade.
+And that the father chose Paris for this purpose,
+where he left Philip on his return journey,
+might well be due either to his own estimation
+of Jerome David, to whom Philip was indentured,
+or to the fact that Benvenuto Cellini's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+presence at Paris afforded some advantage;
+or that his own promised return to Basel would
+make it preferable to have the lad on the same
+side of the Channel as all his family. And
+that Holbein fully intended to make the necessary
+and obvious sacrifice involved in exchanging
+London for Basel is also proved by a
+contemporary account. "His intention was,"
+says his fellow-townsman, "had God lengthened
+his life, to paint many of his pictures again at
+his own expense, as well as the hall in the
+Rathaus. The paintings on the <i>Haus zum
+Tanz</i> he pronounced 'pretty good.'" But it
+was not to be.</p>
+
+<p>His New Year's offering to the King on the
+opening of 1539 was a portrait, probably the
+oil painting in the Hague Gallery, of the infant
+Prince of Wales. It was a spirited picture
+of the royal baby with his gold rattle in his
+chubby little fist, such as might have delighted
+a father less doting than Henry VIII., whose
+return gift is recorded: "To Hans Holbyne,
+paynter, a gilte cruse with a cover, weighing
+x oz. 1 quarter." The cruse was made by a
+friend of the painter; that Cornelius Hayes,
+goldsmith, whom Bourbon's letter mentioned
+in connection with him in 1536.</p>
+
+<p>All these months the negotiations for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+hand of the Duchess of Milan had fluctuated
+with the varying fortunes of the King's relations
+with her uncle, Charles V. But at last
+they had altogether collapsed with what seemed
+to Henry VIII. the threatening attitude assumed
+by the Emperor and the Pope. Hereupon followed
+that historical chapter, so full of fatal
+consequences to Cromwell, and no less big
+with shame for the King's own story: the
+pitiful chapter of Anne of Cleves.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother, the Duke of Cleves, was at this
+time a troublesome foe to the Emperor; while
+the fact that she was a Protestant was a
+"Roland" for the Imperial and Papal "Oliver."
+So Holbein was again posted off to bring back
+a counterfeit of Anne, and to carry to her a
+miniature of the King. And by the 1st September
+he had acquitted himself of the new
+mission.</p>
+
+<p>There is not an iota of historical or other
+evidence for that "Flanders mare" anecdote,
+which seems to have had a gratuitous as well
+as spontaneous origin in Bishop Burnet's seventeenth-century
+brain, to the effect that the King
+was the victim of a flattering portrait by
+Holbein, and cruelly undeceived by the actual
+looks of his bride. In the first place his agents
+wrote to him frankly that the Princess was of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+no great beauty, though not uncomely, and
+"never from the ellebowe of the Ladye Duchesse
+her Mother," who was said to be most unwilling
+to part with her (as a mother might well
+be, for the husband in question). The King
+was also told that she was quite unskilled in
+languages or music, and held, with her mother,
+that it was "for a rebuke and an occasion of
+lightenesse that great Ladyes shuld be lernyd
+or have enye knowledge of musike." And in
+the next place even a superficial knowledge
+of Holbein would disprove any tradition of
+"flattery" from his unflinching, almost brutally
+truthful brush. It was hardly likely that the
+painter who would not stoop to flatter Bishop
+Stokesley, or Henry VIII. himself, would be
+swerved from his good faith by Anne of
+Cleves.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, the painting, in oils on
+vellum and mounted on a panel, now in the
+Louvre (<a href="#hpl35">Plate 35</a>), is the very embodiment of
+contemporary accounts of this Princess. Her
+fair-skinned, commonplace, yet "not uncomely"
+face looks out placidly at you from the quaint
+Flemish head-dress of fine gauze and jewelled
+cloth-of-gold. Her inert hands (Holbein's hands
+belong to his truth-telling revelations), jewelled
+even on the thumb, are listlessly clasped upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+each other; her crimson-velvet dress is heavily
+banded with gold and pearl embroidery.<a name="hpl35" id="hpl35"></a><a name="himg35" id="himg35"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_35">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img35.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img35.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_35" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 35.<br />
+			ANNE OF CLEVES<br />
+			<i>Oils. The Louvre</i><br />
+			 Click to <a href="images/img35.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>No Venus certainly, and perhaps somewhat
+heavily handicapped by the maternal "elbowe."
+But still perfectly in keeping with her descriptions
+and making no denial to the French
+Ambassador's statement that she was "the
+gentlest and kindest" of queens; or to an
+English eye-witness who writes that at her
+coronation the people all applauded her for
+being "so fayre a Ladye, of so goodly a stature
+and so womanly a countenance, and in especial
+of so good qualities."</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that the King's very cruelty to
+this poor girl&mdash;torn from her mother's side and
+her Protestant home in D&uuml;rren to be the pawn
+of an unscrupulous diplomacy&mdash;was based on
+grounds, at least, less infamous than that of a
+slave-buyer. After both Cromwell and Holbein
+had been well rewarded for their services, the
+former lost his head and the Queen her crown
+on considerations that took no more account of
+her looks than her feelings. The Catholic glass
+had risen; the King himself was not ashamed
+to avow it; and the Protestant alliance was
+therefore an incubus. After some two months
+of a queen's and wife's estate, poor Anne of
+Cleves was bid to pack her belongings and take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+up a separate establishment as an unmarried
+woman. No wonder she fainted when first informed
+of such an infamy.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no law in England save the
+<i>fiat</i> of Henry VIII. The marriage was pronounced
+"null and void," and Anne retired into
+private life, on the rigid condition that she
+would make no attempt to ever quit England,
+with an allowance of &pound;3,000 a year, and the
+formal title of the King's "sister." There was
+no help for her. Never again for her would
+there be the austere joys of D&uuml;rren&mdash;her
+mother's side, her own timid dreams of other
+companionship, and never the price at which
+she had lost them.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the triumphant anti-Protestant,
+anti-Cromwell party stood Thomas Howard,
+third Duke of Norfolk, whose portrait, in the
+Royal Collection at Windsor, Holbein painted
+about this time (<a href="#hpl36">Plate 36</a>). The lean face and
+the figure clothed in red stand out strikingly
+from the plain green background, although the
+painting has suffered not a little injury. The
+robe is lined and trimmed with ermine, and over
+it is the collar and badge of the Order of the
+Garter. In his right hand he holds the gold
+baton of his office as Earl Marshal, and in his
+left the White Staff of the Lord Chamberlain.<a name="hpl36" id="hpl36"></a><a name="himg36" id="himg36"></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_36">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img36.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img36.jpg" height="500"
+      alt="PLATE_36" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 36.<br />
+			THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK<br />
+			<i>Oils. Windsor Castle</i><br />
+			 Click to <a href="images/img36.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>According to Roper, Norfolk, then Earl of
+Surrey, was a great friend of Sir Thomas More.
+But it would be hard to imagine a greater
+contrast than the records of the two men. The
+latter a pattern of personal purity and lofty
+ideals; the former as venal as the King's
+Parliaments, and as unscrupulous in pursuit
+of his passions as the King himself.</p>
+
+<p>Norfolk's star of influence had already waxed
+and waned with the evil destinies of one niece,
+before it arose anew with the fortunes of
+another only to plunge sharply after them
+into the gulf of ruin. For the present he and
+Gardiner, restored to favour with him, were
+all-powerful. Their calculations seemed to
+prosper, too, beyond their most ambitious
+dreams, when, instead of ruling through a
+rival to Anne who should be the King's mistress,
+they were to rule through a legal
+successor. For the King was nothing if not
+technically correct; and from the moment when
+the fatal royal glance flamed on Catherine
+Howard when Gardiner was entertaining him,
+nothing would do but she should become his
+wife. And thus once more the wild wheel
+of Fortune was to make Norfolk uncle to a
+Queen of England.</p>
+
+<p>Anne was divorced on the 12th of July, 1540,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+and on the 28th of the same month, on the
+very day when Thomas Cromwell was beheaded,
+the King married Anne Boleyn's
+cousin, Catherine Howard. On the 8th of
+August she was proclaimed Queen, and on
+the 15th of that month she was publicly
+prayed for as such in all the churches of the
+realm. Well might she be! Dry your outraged
+tears, Anne of Cleves, and give thanks
+to God that you are well out of it!</p>
+
+<p>There is a miniature in the Windsor Collection
+now believed to be Holbein's portrait of
+Catherine Howard. Until recently it was held
+to be the portrait of Catherine Parr. But there
+is a larger portrait of the former among the
+Windsor drawings, a study evidently made for
+an oil painting (<a href="#hpl37">Plate 37</a>). By this it seems
+that she had auburn hair, hazel eyes, a fair
+complexion, and a piquant smile. There is a
+painting which accords with this drawing in
+the Duke of Buccleuch's collection, but it is
+said to be by a French artist.<a name="hpl37" id="hpl37"></a><a name="himg37" id="himg37"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_37">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img37.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img37.jpg" height="550"
+      alt="PLATE_37" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 37.<br />
+			CATHERINE HOWARD<br />
+			<i>Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle</i><br />
+			 Click to <a href="images/img37.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the autumn of this year, 1540, the two
+years of absence expired which had been
+granted to Holbein by his contract with the
+Basel Council. But he had now formed ties
+which were too powerful to yield to Basel's.
+Those plans of painting again the walls by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+which coming generations would judge him,
+the resolve to try again if he and Elsbeth
+might not manage to live in peace under one
+roof where the children, who were strangers to
+him, should come to know and be known by
+him in something more than name, were all
+relinquished. They must certainly have been
+relinquished on some definite mutual understanding,
+and at a "compensation" agreed
+upon between him and Elsbeth and his step-son,
+Franz Schmidt; because it must have been
+Holbein himself who enabled Franz, acting on
+his mother's behalf, to take over as he did the
+entire legacy&mdash;a snug little competency in itself&mdash;to
+which Holbein fell heir in this autumn by the
+bequest of his uncle, Sigmund Holbein, citizen of
+Berne. Philip having been launched by his father
+in the goldsmith's craft, there only remained the
+second son and two daughters at home. Thus
+so far as mere money went, Holbein might
+now think himself discharged from the support
+of his family, and free to divert his future earnings
+from them. And, as has been said, the
+Will and Inventory proved at Elsbeth's death,
+six years after her husband's, that he had
+made no bad provision for them in the matter of
+material comforts, however remiss his conduct
+in its moral aspects.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>The Royal Accounts break off in 1541, but
+the Subsidy Roll for the City of London has
+a very precious item for Holbein's biography
+in the October of this year. This announces
+that "Hanns Holbene" is among the "straungers"
+then residing in "the Parisshe of Saint
+Andrew Undershafte," and that he is assessed
+as such.</p>
+
+<p>Not only the Windsor chalk drawings, but
+the paintings at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+Continental galleries, show the pressure, as
+well as the high level of quality, at which he
+was now working. These portraits are among
+almost his very best, while the one shortly to
+be mentioned is quite among them.</p>
+
+<p>By the summer of 1542 the tragedy of
+Catherine Howard was over. That Royal
+Progress, like more than one of its forerunners,
+had become the royal shame. This time it was
+a shame so black and so wide that within two
+years, after madness and death had purged the
+complicity of many, there still remained so
+many more involved in the sins and follies of
+Norfolk's niece that the ordinary prisons were
+unable to contain all that were arraigned; a
+shame so bitter that when the proofs of it were
+first laid before Henry VIII. the Privy Council
+quaked to see him shed tears. It was, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+said with awe, "a strange thing in his
+courage!" The guilty woman had her own
+tears to shed in expiation; but in the dawn of
+February 12th, 1542, she walked to the block
+as full of wilful, cheerful audacity, and as careful
+of her toilet, as she had ever gone to meet
+her royal lover. And so the auburn head of
+the King's fifth wife rolled from the axe that
+had severed her guilty cousin's.</p>
+
+<p>On July 12th, 1543, the "next" year as it then
+began, the King married Catherine Parr. She
+had been twice widowed and was about to
+marry Sir Thomas Seymour when the King
+interfered, and she became his wife instead;
+though one can well credit the story that she
+tremblingly told him, "It were better to be his
+mistress." She was a good woman, a generous
+stepmother, and a good wife. But there is
+plenty of probability for the assertion that her
+own death had been debated with the King
+when her wit delayed it, and his death set her
+free to marry at last the man from whom the
+King had snatched her.</p>
+
+<p>It was formerly believed, as has been said,
+that Holbein had painted her miniature&mdash;the
+one at Windsor, now declared to be the portrait
+of Catherine Howard. About this time he
+must have painted the great portrait of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+mention has been made. This is the oil portrait
+of Dr. Chamber, the King's physician, now in
+the Vienna Gallery (<a href="#hpl38">Plate 38</a>). The sitter was,
+as the inscription shows, eighty-eight years
+old; and the strong, stern face is full of that
+"inward" look which comes to the faces of men
+whose meat and drink has been a lifetime of
+heavy responsibilities. He had been associated
+with the Charter of the College of Physicians
+in 1518, and was also instrumental in that
+of the Guild of "Barbers and Surgeons," in
+1541. And it was probably through him and
+Dr. Butts, another physician to the King whom
+Holbein had painted and who was likewise a
+Master of the new Guild, that he undertook
+to paint a large work for their hall&mdash;Henry
+VIII. granting their Charter to the Master-Surgeons
+kneeling before him.<a name="hpl38" id="hpl38"></a><a name="himg38" id="himg38"></a></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="PLATE_38">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/img38.jpg">
+      <img src="images/img38.jpg" height="450"
+      alt="PLATE_38" /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption">PLATE 38.<br />
+			DR. CHAMBER<br />
+			<i>Oils. Vienna Gallery</i><br />
+			 Click to <a href="images/img38.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>This work Holbein did not live to finish; and
+it is to-day exceedingly doubtful as to how
+much of the smoke-blackened painting is by
+him. The very drawing has a woodenness
+foreign to his compositions, and much of the
+painting is by an evidently inferior hand. But
+good judges hold some of the heads to be
+undoubtedly his work.</p>
+
+<p>However this may be, with the autumn of
+1543 Holbein's life came to a sudden close.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+Van Mander, wrong as to the date by eleven
+years which have fathered a host of spurious
+<i>Holbeins</i> on the Histories of Art, is apparently
+right as to the cause of death&mdash;"the Plague."
+By the great discovery of Hans Holbein's Will,
+found by Mr. Black in 1861 among the archives
+of St. Paul's Cathedral, it is proved that
+the painter made his Will on October 7th, and
+must have died between this and November
+29th, 1543, when administration was granted
+to one of his executors (the other would seem
+to have perished, meanwhile, from the same
+epidemic). This surviving executor was an
+old friend of the artist, whose portrait, in the
+Windsor Gallery, he had painted eleven years
+before&mdash;Hans of Antwerp, a master-goldsmith
+of the Steelyard.</p>
+
+<p>The Will bears about it evident signs of
+having been made in great haste and mental
+disturbance. But it accomplished all that Holbein
+probably had at heart; that is, the ensuring
+that whatsoever moneys could be collected from
+his accounts, or by the sale of "all my goodes
+and also my horse," should first be applied to
+clear a couple of specified debts, and the rest
+be managed for the sole benefit of "my two
+chylder which be at nurse." From the very
+fact that nothing as to the identity or whereabouts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+of these babies is mentioned, it is clear
+that Holbein relied on the verbal instructions
+which he had given to his trusted friends and
+to their complete understanding of all the circumstances
+as well as of his wishes. He was
+only concerned, apparently, that such small
+means as could thus be saved for them should
+not be permitted to pass to his legal heirs.</p>
+
+<p>No other heirs are mentioned; no other
+legacy is made. From the Will alone one who
+did not know otherwise would suppose that he
+had no other family or relatives in existence.
+The Plague left no man in its neighbourhood
+much leisure for explanations. Stowe records
+that the one of that autumn was such "a
+great death" that the Law Courts had to be
+transferred to St. Albans. But two things
+seem to speak in this curt document. First,
+that by the transference of his uncle Sigmund's
+little fortune to Franz Schmidt (as
+trustee for Elsbeth and the children of her
+marriage with Holbein), which the archives
+prove took place three years earlier, and by
+his other arrangements for his family at Basel
+and for Philip at Paris, Holbein held himself
+free of any further responsibility for their support,
+and, indeed, determined that they should
+not obtain possession of the residue in London.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Secondly, that if the mother of his two
+illegitimate children had lived with him in
+London as his wife, she must have just died&mdash;perhaps
+in childbed, perhaps of the Plague.
+She is not in any way referred to. And
+there is something in the very signs of confusion
+and distress throughout the wording of
+the Will which seems to exhale a far-away
+anguish&mdash;sudden parting, sad apprehensions,
+keenest anxiety for "my two chylder which be
+at nurse." There comes before the eye a picture
+of the five grave men&mdash;Holbein, his two
+executors, the one a goldsmith, the other an
+armourer, and his two witnesses, a "merchaunte"
+and a "paynter"&mdash;hurrying along the
+plague-infected streets to get this document
+legalised as some protection for two motherless
+babies, in the event of their father's death.
+No man knew whose turn would come within
+the hour.</p>
+
+<p>And by November 29th Holbein's had come,
+and one executor's also, apparently. The Latin
+record of administration on this date is that it
+has been consigned to John Anwarpe (Johann
+or Hans of Antwerp), and accepted by him in
+accordance with "the last will of John, alias
+Hans Holbein, recently deceased in the parish
+of Saint Andrew Undershaft."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>It would seem probable, then, that the
+painter was buried in this church rather than in
+the closely adjoining church of Saint Catharine-Cree
+to which tradition assigned his body. But
+the horrors of such an epidemic as that in
+which the painter was swept suddenly away
+make it easy to understand how even such
+a man as he had now become could die unnoticed
+and be buried in an unrecorded grave.
+When the Earl of Arundel, a few years later,
+sought to learn where he might set up a monument
+to one he so greatly admired, there was
+only this vague and uncorroborated rumour that
+the painter was buried in Saint Catharine-Cree.
+And so no monument was built to mark the
+spot where Holbein's "measure of sliding sand"
+had been spilled at last.</p>
+
+<p>But, as they ran, those sands had measured
+more than "<i>a great portrait-painter</i>." They
+had measured Greatness; greatness which is
+not to be delimited by the wanton outrages of
+man or the accidents of time. Both have had
+their share in the judgments of generations
+that have lost all his greatest and nearly all his
+imaginative creations. And what the Spoiler
+has spared, the self-styled Restorer has too
+often ruined. Self-love, on the other hand,
+and family pride have been engaged to preserve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+those portraits by which it is now the fashion
+to mulct him of his far larger dues.</p>
+
+<p>Of his mysticism, of the symbolism in which
+his "Journal Intime" is written in his own firm
+cipher, this little book is not the place to speak;
+though for those who have once come to know
+the true Holbein these have a spell, a stern,
+inexhaustible enchantment all their own.</p>
+
+<p>But study the few fortunate survivals of his
+imaginative works, study even more the wrecks
+and skeletons of his loftier conceptions, and ask
+yourself if it could be by only a quick eye and a
+clever hand (and he had both, assuredly) that
+Holbein caught up the dying ember of the Van
+Eycks' torch and fanned it by his originality, his
+fancy, his winged realism, until its light lit up
+the dim ways of Man with a clairvoyance far
+beyond theirs. This eye, this mind, flung its
+gleaming penetration into every covert of
+the soul and deep, deep, deep into the most
+shrouded, the most shuddering secrets of
+Mortality.</p>
+
+<p>Was it by virtue of a mere portrait-painter's
+powers that the son of the Augsburg Bohemian
+came to lay his finger upon the very core and
+composition of perhaps the haughtiest, the subtlest,
+the most dread despot since the C&aelig;sars?
+Henry VIII. and Fisher; the La&iuml;s Corinthiaca,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+the Duchess of Milan, his brooding wife;
+dancing children, and dancing Death; Christ
+on the Cross, Christ in the Grave, Christ Arisen;
+lambs in the fields, woods and hills, gaping
+peasants, wild battle;&mdash;put them side by side,
+the poor ghosts of them left to us, and compute
+the range of art&mdash;"the majestic range" that
+framed them all.</p>
+
+<p>Let us be just. Let us forget for a moment
+the chirp of the family housekeeper over her
+gods. Let us gather up the broken fragments
+that are more than the meal, and humbly own
+the Miracle that created them. It is idle to
+argue with the intelligence that can see "a
+want of imagination" in Holbein. But we can
+find proof and to spare that it is not so; that his
+so-called "limitations"&mdash;apart from method,
+which is a matter of Epoch&mdash;are due to a
+creed we may or may not agree with, but surely
+must respect. The creed that Beauty is the
+framework, the ornament, rather than the substance
+of things; the pleasure, not the purpose
+of "this mortal"; and that the sweetest flower
+that blows is but an exquisite moment of transfigured
+clay.</p>
+
+<p>He smells the mould above the rose; yet
+how he draws the rose! The brazen arrogance
+of pomp, the pearl on a woman's neck, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+shimmer of a breaking bubble, the wrinkles in
+a baby's foot, the beauty of life, the pathos
+of life, the irony and the lust of life,&mdash;he has
+painted them all, as he saw them all, in the
+phantasmagoric Procession of Being betwixt
+garret and throne.</p>
+
+<p>He has painted each, too, with that genius
+for seizing the essential quality which <i>is</i> the
+thing, that never forsook him from Augsburg
+to Saint Andrew's Undershaft; that singular,
+vivid, original genius which can well afford to
+let his grave be forgotten, whose works build
+for him, as Hans Holbein&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+ <p class="noindent">
+  <i>One of the few, the immortal names<br />
+      That were not born to die.
+	</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES.</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="fn1" id="fn1"></a><a href="#fn1r">1</a>:
+The name used thus, without further identification, is
+to be taken throughout these pages to mean Hans Holbein
+the <i>Younger</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="fn2" id="fn2"></a><a href="#fn2r">2</a>:
+Variously written Meyer, Meier, Mejer, Meiger, or
+Megger. B&auml;r is also written <i>Ber</i>, or <i>Berin</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="fn3" id="fn3"></a><a href="#fn3r">3</a>:
+I am deeply indebted to the personal kindness and
+trouble of Sir Martin Gosselin, <span class="smcap">K.C.M.G.</span>, British Minister
+at the Court of Portugal, for greatly facilitating my
+own study of this interesting picture.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="fn4" id="fn4"></a><a href="#fn4r">4</a>:
+I am indebted to the personal kindness of the discoverer's
+son, Herr Direktor Zetter-Collin of the Solothurn
+Museum, for these details. But the whole story, as
+well as Herr Zetter-Collin's contributions to the history
+of the work, should be read in his own absorbingly
+interesting monograph:&mdash;"<i>Die <ins title="original has zetter'schen">Zetter'sche</ins> Madonna
+<ins title="original has vow">von</ins> Solothurn. (&#8230;) Ihre Geschichte, etc.</i>" 1902.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="fn5" id="fn5"></a><a href="#fn5r">5</a>:
+<i><small>"Die Liebe zu Gott Heist charite.</small></i><br />
+<span class="ind1"><i><small>Wer Liebe hat der Tragt kein Hass."</small></i></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3><a name="CAT" id="CAT"></a>A CATALOGUE OF THE PRINCIPAL<br />
+EXISTING WORKS OF<br />
+HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER</h3>
+
+<h5>ARRANGED, SO FAR AS CAN BE KNOWN,<br />
+IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE</h5>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table class="sm" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="legend">
+<tr>
+ <td align="right" valign="top">**&nbsp;signifies</td>
+ <td align="left" valign="top"><i>&mdash;Superlative qualities</i>.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right" valign="top">*&nbsp;&nbsp;signifies</td>
+ <td align="left" valign="top"><i>&mdash;Of some particular importance</i>.</td>
+</tr>
+ <tr><td align="right" valign="top">?&nbsp;signifies</td>
+ <td align="left" valign="top">&mdash;<i>Authorities differ</i>. Held by some (and by the writer)<br />
+to have been, in its original condition, the work of<br />
+Holbein's own hand.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+<h4>EARLIEST INDIVIDUAL WORKS (BEFORE GOING TO BASEL)</h4>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="early_works">
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">?</td> <td align="left">St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Barbara. Oils.
+(Wings of the St. Sebastian altar-piece.) Munich
+Gallery.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Virgin and Child. Oils. Basel Museum. (Earliest
+signed work known. Dated 1514.)
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<h4>FIRST BASEL PERIOD<br />
+(1515, 1516, 1519-1526)</h4>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="FIRST_BASEL_PERIOD">
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Illustrations to Erasmus's <i>Praise of Folly</i>. Eighty-two
+pen-and-ink sketches on the margins. Original copy,
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of an unknown young man. Oils. Grand-Ducal
+Museum, Darmstadt.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Jacob Meyer <i>zum Hasen</i> and his second wife, Dorothea
+Kannegiesser. [Plates <a href="#hpl4">4</a> and <a href="#hpl5">5</a>.] Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Bonifacius Amerbach. [Plate <a href="#hpl6">6</a>.] Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of himself. [<a href="#himg1">Frontispiece.</a>] Coloured Chalks.
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">*</td>
+<td align="left">Studies from Nature. (A bat outspread and a lamb.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Drawings in water-colour and silver-point. Basel
+Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Designs for armorial windows. (More especially those
+with <i>Landsknechte</i> and one with three peasants gossiping.)
+Washed Drawings. Basel Museum and Print Cabinet, Berlin.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><i>Landsknechte</i> in a hand-to-hand fight. [Plate <a href="#hpl7">7</a>.] Washed
+Drawing. Basel Museum. Others in various collections.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Design for the wings of an organ-case. Washed Drawings.
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Head of St. John the Evangelist. Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Last Supper. (On wood; ruined fragment.) Oils.
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Nativity [Plate <a href="#hpl8">8</a>.] and The Adoration. Oils. Freiburg
+Cathedral. (Wings of a lost altar-piece.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Holy Family. Washed Drawing. Basel Museum. (Also
+other drawings of the Virgin and Child.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Passion. Eight-panelled altar-piece. [Plate <a href="#hpl9">9</a>.]
+Oils. Basel Museum. (Utterly ruined by over-painting.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">*</td>
+<td align="left">The Passion. A series of ten designs for glass-painting.
+Washed Drawings. Basel Museum. (A set of seven
+reversed impressions in the British Museum.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Man of Sorrows and the Mater Dolorosa. Oils, in
+tones of brown. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Christ borne to the ground by the weight of the cross.
+A Washed Drawing and a *&nbsp;Woodcut (unique impression).
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">*</td>
+<td align="left"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>Christ in the grave. [Plate <a href="#hpl10">10</a>.] Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">?</td>
+<td align="left">The risen Christ and Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre.
+[Plate <a href="#hpl11">11</a>.] Oils. Hampton Court Gallery. (Very
+much injured.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">St. George. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">St. Ursula. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">?</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of a young girl. [Plate <a href="#hpl13">13</a>.] Drawing in chalk
+and silver-point. Jabach Collection. The Louvre.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left"> The Solothurn Madonna. [Plate <a href="#hpl12">12</a>.] Oils. Solothurn
+Museum. ("Die Zetter'sche Madonna von
+Solothurn," of which the remarkable history is given
+in the text; together with the evident relationship of
+Plate <a href="#hpl13">13</a> and the hypothesis of the present writer in
+that connection.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of Erasmus. [Plate <a href="#hpl14">14</a>.] Oils. The Louvre.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">A Citizen's Wife, and others, in the dress of the time.
+Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Table of Cebes. Border for title-page. Woodcut.
+Royal Print Cabinet, Berlin.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">St. Peter and St. Paul; on the title-page of Adam Petri's
+reprint of Luther's translation of the New Testament.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Alphabet of "The Dance of Death." Woodcuts. Proof-impressions
+in the Basel Museum, the British Museum,
+and the Dresden Royal Collection.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Bible Pictures: illustrating Old Testament. Woodcuts.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left"> "Images of Death." [Two shown at Plates <a href="#hpl14">14</a> and
+<a href="#hpl15">15</a>.] Proof-impressions, some sets incomplete, in the
+Basel Museum, British Museum and the National
+Print Collections of Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden,
+Karlsruhe, and the Bodleian Library. (This is the
+immortal series of Woodcuts, often called "The Dance
+of Death," done for the Trechsel Brothers of Lyons,
+but not published there until many years later.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>Dorothea Offenburg as the Goddess of Love. [Plate
+<a href="#hpl16">16</a>.] Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The above as La&iuml;s Corinthiaca. Oils. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left"> The Meyer Madonna. [Plates <a href="#hpl18">18</a> and <a href="#hpl19">19</a>.] Oils.
+Grand-Ducal Collection, Darmstadt (superbly restored);
+and ?Dresden Gallery. (Notwithstanding
+the many and eminent authorities who hold this to be
+a copy, there still remain a sufficiency of no less
+eminent authorities to warrant the present writer in
+her unshaken opinion that, at any rate in its first
+estate and in the main, this Dresden version&mdash;revered
+for more than one century as such by the highest
+authorities&mdash;was the creation of Holbein's own hand.)</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<h4>FIRST LONDON PERIOD<br />
+(1526-1528)</h4>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="FIRST_LONDON_PERIOD">
+<tr>
+<td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of Sir Thomas More. Oils. Mr. Huth's Collection.
+Chalk Drawing at Windsor. [Plate <a href="#hpl20">20</a>.]
+(Also a drawing of Sir John More, father of the above.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. [Plate <a href="#hpl21">21</a>.] Chalk
+Drawing. Windsor Castle. (Another in the British
+Museum.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Archbishop Warham. Oils. The Louvre, and Lambeth
+Palace.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">?</td>
+<td align="left">John Stokesley, Bishop of London. Oils. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Henry Guildford. [Plate <a href="#hpl22">22</a>.] Oils. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Lady Guildford. Oils. Mr. Frewen's Collection.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Thomas Godsalve and his son John. Oils. Dresden
+Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Chalk Drawing of Sir John Godsalve. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Nicholas Kratzer, Astronomer Royal to King Henry VIII.
+[Plate <a href="#hpl23">23</a>.] Oils. The Louvre.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></td>
+<td align="left">Sir Henry Wyat. Oils. The Louvre.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Bryan Tuke, Treasurer of the Household to King
+Henry VIII. Oils. Munich Gallery. [Plate <a href="#hpl24">24</a>.]
+Also at Grosvenor House. (As stated in the text, the
+writer holds that the portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke
+should properly be classed with those of a later
+period. But they are given here in accordance with
+opinions which obtain at present.)</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>LAST BASEL PERIOD<br />
+(1528-1531)</h4>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="LAST_BASEL_PERIOD">
+<tr>
+<td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait group of Holbein's wife, Elsbeth, and his
+two eldest children. [Plate <a href="#hpl25">25</a>.] Oils, on paper.
+Basel Museum. (Outline hard from having been cut
+out and mounted.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">King Rehoboam replying to his people, and **&nbsp;Samuel
+denouncing Saul. [Plate <a href="#hpl26">26</a>.] Two Washed Drawings.
+Basel Museum. (These are the designs for "the back
+wall" of the Basel Council Chamber.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">"Portrait of an English Lady" (unknown). Chalk
+Drawing. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of an unknown young man in a broad-brimmed
+hat. Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum. (This is one
+of the most beautiful of Holbein's portrait studies.
+There is a soft, yet virile, witchery about it which
+haunts the memory.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Round Portrait of Erasmus. (Bust, &#190; view.) Oils.
+Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Designs for dagger-sheaths and other goldsmith's
+work. Washed Drawings. Basel Museum, British
+Museum, etc. (More especially the "Dance of Death";
+a chef-d'&oelig;uvre.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">A ship making sail. Washed Drawing. St&auml;del Institut.
+Frankfurt.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>V.</h3>
+
+<h4>LAST PERIOD; LONDON<br />
+(1531-43)</h4>
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="LAST_LONDON_PERIOD">
+<tr>
+<td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of J&ouml;rg Gyze. [Plate <a href="#hpl27">27</a>.] Oils. Berlin
+Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of an unknown man. Oils. Sch&ouml;nborn Gallery,
+Vienna.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Johann or Hans of Antwerp. Oils. Windsor Castle.
+(Holbein's friend and executor.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Derich Tybis of Duisburg. Oils. Imperial Gallery,
+Vienna.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Derich Born. Oils. Munich Gallery, and Windsor
+Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Derich Berck. Oils. Petworth.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Unknown Man. Oils. Prado Gallery, Madrid.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Triumph of Riches. Drawing. The Louvre.
+(Copies of this and the pendant design, The Triumph
+of Poverty, in the British Museum and in the Collection
+of Lady Eastlake.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">The Queen of Sheba before Solomon. Washed Drawing,
+heightened with gold and colours. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Robert Cheseman, with falcon. Oils. Hague Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">*</td>
+<td align="left">"The Ambassadors." [Plate <a href="#hpl28">28</a>.] Oils. National
+Gallery. (A double portrait, life size. Formerly
+supposed to be Sir Thomas Wyatt and a scholar;
+now officially held to be Jean de Dinteville, Bailli de
+Troyes, and George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. As
+stated in the text, the present writer differs from any
+identification of either figure yet published, but is not
+prepared to put forward her own views for the present.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Nicholas Bourbon de Vand&oelig;uvre, scholar and poet.
+Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle. (An intimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+friend of Holbein, Kratzer, and their circle. Recently
+identified as the man in the scholar's gown, in "The
+Ambassadors," and so given by Mr. Lionel Cust, in
+the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, in his article
+upon Holbein.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">The Morett Portrait. [Plate <a href="#hpl29">29</a>.] Oils. Dresden
+Gallery. (Long believed to be a triumph of Leonardo
+da Vinci's art, and the portrait of Ludovico Sforza,
+"Il Moro." At one time held to be Henry Brandon,
+Duke of Suffolk. Afterwards "established" and
+catalogued as Hubert Morett, goldsmith to King
+Henry VIII. Following M. Larpent's suggestion,
+however, it is now supposed to be the portrait of Charles
+Solier, Sieur de Morette. But as to this the last word
+may yet remain to be said. The drawing which the
+majority of authorities hold to be the study for this
+painting now hangs near it.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Thomas Cromwell. Oils. Tittenhanger.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Miniature portrait of Henry Brandon, son of the Duke
+of Suffolk. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Title-page used in Coverdale's Bible. Woodcut.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Q. Jane Seymour. [Plate <a href="#hpl30">30</a>.] Oils. Imperial Gallery,
+Vienna.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait of Erasmus, full length, in scholar's robes,
+with his hand on the head of the god Terminus.
+Woodcut. Frontispiece to Hieronymus Froben's
+edition of Erasmus's Works, published in 1540.
+(Commonly known as "Erasmus in a surround," or
+niche.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Fragment of the Cartoon [Plate <a href="#hpl31">31</a>] used for the four
+royal portraits in the wall-painting at Whitehall. The
+fragment shows only the figures of King Henry VIII.
+and his father. Hardwick Hall. (Remigius van<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+Leemput's copy of the wall-painting shows that the
+position of the King's head was changed, in the completed
+work, to the full-face view so familiar in the
+oil-painting at Windsor Castle. The latter is one of
+the many copies of Holbein's original portrait of
+Henry VIII. which long passed muster as genuine
+<i>Holbeins</i>.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Portrait study of the face of King Henry VIII.
+[Plate <a href="#hpl32">32</a>.] Chalk Drawing. Royal Print Cabinet,
+Munich. (Probably the Life-study for the Whitehall
+painting. If nothing else remained, this mask alone
+would incontestably rank Holbein among the Masters
+of all time. To the writer's thinking, at any rate, it
+stands among the very few works of art which it
+would be difficult to match, and impossible to surpass
+in its own colossal qualities.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Design for "the Jane Seymour Cup." [Plate <a href="#hpl33">33</a>.]
+Bodleian Library.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">**</td>
+<td align="left">Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan. [Plate <a href="#hpl34">34</a>.]
+Oils. National Gallery; lent from Arundel Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Edward VI., when infant Prince of Wales. Oils.
+Hanover Gallery, and Lord Yarborough's Collection.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Anne of Cleves. [Plate <a href="#hpl35">35</a>.] Oils on Vellum. The Louvre.
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk. [Plate <a href="#hpl36">36</a>.] Oils. Windsor Castle, and Arundel Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Catherine Howard. [Plate <a href="#hpl37">37</a>.] Chalk Drawing.
+Windsor Castle. (The Miniature at Windsor Castle,
+formerly said to be Holbein's portrait of Catherine
+Parr, is now said to be Catherine Howard. If so, it
+is somewhat difficult to reconcile it with the drawing,
+which latter seems much more in keeping with the
+descriptions of her traits.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>Title-page used in Cranmer's Bible. Woodcut. (This
+is the title-page from which Cromwell's Arms are
+erased in the second edition.)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Nicholas Carew. Oils. Dalkeith Palace. Chalk
+Drawing. Basel Museum.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Simon George of Cornwall. Oils. St&auml;del Institut,
+Frankfurt.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Miniature portrait of Charles Brandon, son of the Duke
+of Suffolk. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Lady; unknown. Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+Also a fine portrait of an unknown man. Oils. Same
+Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir Richard Southwell. Oils. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
+Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">John Reskymeer. Oils. Hampton Court Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Nicholas Poyntz. Oils. De la Rosi&egrave;re Collection, Paris.
+Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Sir John Russell. Oils. Woburn Abbey. Chalk Drawing.
+Windsor Castle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Three portraits; men unknown. Oils. Berlin Gallery.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Designs for jewelry, ornamental panels, clocks, chimney-piece,
+etc., etc. Washed Drawings. British Museum,
+Basel Museum, etc.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Many fine portraits of which no versions in oils are known.
+Chalk Drawings. Windsor Castle. Among these
+one of Edward VI. as boy Prince of Wales, the
+Duchess of Suffolk, Sir Thomas Wyatt, etc., etc.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Dr. John Chamber, or Chambers. Oils. Imperial
+Gallery, Vienna.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">Also many other oil-portraits, more or less genuine, in
+various Collections.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3><a name="REFERENCES" id="REFERENCES"></a>REFERENCES</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Literature of Holbein's Life, much more
+of his Works, is far too extensive to admit of
+a Bibliography in a volume of this sort. But
+the following List will be found to contain (or
+themselves refer the reader to) all that is of
+essential importance to even the most complete
+study of this Master.</p>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Carel van Mander, <i>Het Schilder-Boeck</i>, etc., 1604.</dt>
+<dd>The above translated into French, and admirably
+edited by M. Henri Hyman. 2 tom., 1884.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Alfred Woltmann, <i>Holbein und seine Zeit. Zweite umgearbeitete
+Auflage</i>, 1874. 2 Bde.</dt>
+<dd>There is an English translation of the First
+Edition of 1871, by F. E. Bunn&egrave;tt;
+but unfortunately its views on many vital points are reversed
+by Woltmann himself in his latest edition.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>R. N. Wornum, <i>Some Account of the Life and Works of
+Hans Holbein</i>, 1867.</dt>
+<dd>Corrected in many respects by the author in a
+monograph on "The Meier Madonna," 1891.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Paul Mantz, <i>Hans Holbein</i>. Paris, 1879.</dt>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>H. Knackfuss, <i>Holbein</i>. Leipzig, 1899.</dt>
+<dd>English translation of the above by Mr. Campbell
+Dodgson.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Eduard His, <i>Die Basler Archive &uuml;ber Hans Holbein den
+Jungern</i>.</dt>
+<dd>In Zahn's <i>Jahrb&uuml;cher f&uuml;r Kunstwissenschaft</i>,
+1870.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Francis Douce, <i>The Dance of Death</i>, 1833.</dt>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>J. R. Smith, <i>Holbein's Dance of Death</i>, 1849.</dt>
+<dd>(Especially fine reproductions.)</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>H. N. Humphreys, <i>Holbein's Dance of Death</i>, 1868.</dt>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>G. Th. Fechner, <i>&Uuml;ber die Deutungsfrage der Holbein'schen
+Madonna. Die &auml;lteste historische Quelle &uuml;ber
+die Holbein'sche Madonna</i>.</dt>
+<dd>Both in <i>Archiv f&uuml;r die zeichnenden K&uuml;nste</i>, 1866,
+I., 4. These give all the known facts of the
+history of the Meyer Madonnas of Darmstadt and
+Dresden.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>S. Larpent, <i>Sur le portrait de Morett</i>. Christiania, 1881.</dt>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Mary F. S. Hervey, <i>Holbein's "Ambassadors,"</i> 1900.</dt>
+<dd>This volume also embodies, and gives the references
+to, the original identifications of Professor
+Sidney Colvin, and the suggested identifications of
+Mr. C. L. Eastlake; as well as to the contribution
+concerning the hymn-book by Mr. Barclay Squire.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>W. F. Dickes, <i>Holbein's "Ambassadors" Unriddled</i>, 1903.</dt>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>F. A. Zetter-Collin, <i>Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn.
+Ihre Geschichte aus Originalquellen</i>, etc.</dt>
+<dd>In <i>Festschrift des Kunst-Vereins der Stadt Solothurn</i>, 1902.
+</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>Artur Seeman, <i>Der Brunnen des Lebens, von H. Holbein</i>.</dt>
+<dd>In <i>Zeitschrift f&uuml;r bildende Kunst</i>. Mai, 1903.
+With a superb illustration in colour.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h3>
+
+<div class="index"><p class="noindent">
+<small>"Adoration," painting, <a href="#Page_71">71</a><br />
+"Ambassadors, The," painting, <a href="#Page_145">145-9</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+Amerbach, Basilius, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Bonifacius, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-50</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Johann, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></span><br />
+Anne, of Cleves, Queen, <a href="#Page_171">171-4</a><br />
+Antwerp, Johann or Hans of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br />
+Arundel, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Thomas Howard, Earl of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">William Fitzalan, Earl of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></span><br />
+Augsburg, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+<br />
+B&auml;r, Hans, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Magdalena, first wife of Meyer zum Hasen, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></span><br />
+Barber-Surgeons, Guild of, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+Basel, description of, <a href="#Page_58">58-64</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">decoration of the Rathhaus by Holbein, <a href="#Page_83">83-5</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">decoration of the L&auml;llenk&ouml;nig by Holbein, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">offers of an annuity to Holbein, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+Basel, banquet to Holbein, <a href="#Page_168">168</a><br />
+Beatus Rhenanus, <a href="#Page_168">68</a><br />
+Berne, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+Bible, translations before the Reformation, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br />
+Boleyn, Anne, Queen, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br />
+Bourbon, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+Bourges, <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br />
+Burgkmair, Hans, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+Butts, Sir William, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+<br />
+Cellini, Benvenuto, <a href="#Page_160">169-70</a><br />
+Chamber, John, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+Cheseman, Robert, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+"Christ in the Grave," painting, <a href="#Page_78">78-80</a><br />
+Christ in Holbein's Art, <a href="#Page_77">77-83</a><br />
+Christina, Duchess of Milan, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164-7</a><br />
+Colet, John, Dean of St. Paul's, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br />
+Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br />
+<br />
+"Dance of Death," <a href="#Page_100">100-103</a><br />
+Darmstadt, "Meyer-Madonna" at, <a href="#Page_108">108-13</a><br />
+David, Gerard, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br />
+David, Jerome, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br />
+Diesbach, Nicholas von, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+Dinteville, Jean de, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br />
+Dresden, "Meyer-Madonna" at, <a href="#Page_108">108-13</a><br />
+D&uuml;rer, Albrecht, <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br />
+<br />
+Edward VI., King, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+Elizabeth of York, Queen, <a href="#Page_161">161</a><br />
+Erasmus, Desiderius, <a href="#Page_17">17-21</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Portraits of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br />
+Eyck, H. and J. van, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br />
+<br />
+F&auml;sch, Remigius, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br />
+Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, <a href="#Page_118">118</a><br />
+"Fountain of Life," painting, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br />
+Froben, Hieronymus, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+Froben, Johann, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br />
+<br />
+Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br />
+Gerster, Hans, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+Glass-painting, designs for, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br />
+"Goddess of Love," painting, <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+Gold-work, designs for, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br />
+Graf, Urs, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br />
+Guildford, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_119">119-21</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Lady, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></span><br />
+Gyze, Georg, <a href="#Page_142">142-43</a><br />
+<br />
+Hayes, Cornelius, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+Henry VII., King, portrait, <a href="#Page_161">161</a><br />
+Henry VIII., King, portrait, <a href="#Page_160">160-63</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">New Year present to Holbein, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></span><br />
+Henry, Prince of Wales, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br />
+Hertenstein, Jacob von, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br />
+Holbein, Ambrose, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>,
+<a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Bruno, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Elsbeth, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94-7</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>,
+<a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>,
+<a href="#Page_126">126-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177-82</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Hans, the Elder, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>,
+<a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind2">the Younger, birth (1497), <a href="#Page_16">16</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">at Basel <ins title="original has 1515-77">(1515-17)</ins>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">at Lucerne (1517-18), <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">a citizen of Basel (1519-26), <a href="#Page_58">58-113</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">marriage, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">wife and children, <a href="#Page_104">104-7</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>,
+<a href="#Page_129">129-31</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">first visit to England (1526-8), <a href="#Page_115">115-25</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">last years in Basel (1528-31), <a href="#Page_125">125-36</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">purchase of Basel House (1528), <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">final return to London (1531), <a href="#Page_136">136</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">mention of, by Nicholas Bourbon, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">official income, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">will and death, <a href="#Page_180">180-83</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">place of interment, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">illegitimate children, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">as a designer and engraver, <a href="#Page_35">35-7</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">greatness of, <a href="#Page_184">184-7</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind3">religious ideals and sympathies, <a href="#Page_21">21-4</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77-83</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Jacob, <a href="#Page_128">128-30</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Katharina, <a href="#Page_128">128-31</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">K&uuml;negoldt, wife of Andreas Syff, <a href="#Page_129">129-31</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Michael, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Philip, son of Hans the Younger, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>,
+<a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Philip, grandson of Hans the Younger, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Sigmund, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+Howard, Catherine, Queen, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></span><br />
+Hutten, Ulrich von, <a href="#Page_71">71</a><br />
+Hyss, Cornelius, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+"Jane Seymour Cup," <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br />
+<br />
+Kratzer, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+La&iuml;s Corinthiaca, painting, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br />
+Landsknechte, drawings, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a><br />
+"Last Supper," paintings, <a href="#Page_50">50-52</a><br />
+Leemput, Remi von, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+Leonardo da Vinci, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br />
+Lisbon, painting, the "Fountain of Life" at, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br />
+Lucerne, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br />
+L&uuml;tzelburger, Hans, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br />
+Lystrius, Gerard, <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Mantegna, Andrea, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br />
+"Mary Magdalen at the Sepulchre," painting, <a href="#Page_80">80-83</a><br />
+Merian, family of, at Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+Meyer, Anna, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">Dorothea, n&eacute;e Kannegiesser, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Jacob zum Hasen, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a>,
+<a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Jacob zum Hirten, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></span><br />
+<span class="ind1">Magdalena, n&eacute;e B&auml;r, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></span><br />
+"Meyer-Madonna" (Darmstadt and Dresden), <a href="#Page_108">108-13</a><br />
+Milan, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br />
+Monasticism and Art, <a href="#Page_5">5-8</a><br />
+More, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114-17</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br />
+Morett, Hubert, or Morette, Charles de Solier, portrait, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>,
+<a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br />
+<br />
+"Nativity," paintings, <a href="#Page_71">71-4</a><br />
+<br />
+Oberriedt, Hans, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br />
+Oporinus, Joannes, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Paracelsus, <a href="#Page_67">67</a><br />
+Parr, Catherine, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br />
+Passion, eight-panelled altar-piece, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">drawings, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></span><br />
+Plague (in 1543), <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br />
+<br />
+Saint Andrew Undershaft, London, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+Saint Catharine Cree, London, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+Schmidt, Franz, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br />
+Schoolmaster's Sign-board, paintings, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+Selve, Georges de, Bishop of Lavaur, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br />
+Seymour, Jane, Queen, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>,
+<a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br />
+"Sheba, Queen of, visiting Solomon," drawing, <a href="#Page_155">155</a><br />
+Solier, Charles de, Seigneur de Morette, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br />
+Solothurn Madonna, painting and its history, <a href="#Page_86">86-97</a><br />
+Steelyard, the, London, <a href="#Page_138">138-42</a><br />
+Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br />
+Sultz, Dorothea von, n&eacute;e Offenburg, <a href="#Page_104">104-6</a><br />
+<br />
+Title-pages, woodcuts, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>,
+<a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+"Triumph of Riches and of Poverty," drawings, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+Tuke, Sir Bryan, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br />
+<br />
+Ulm, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+Utopia, woodcut title-page, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+<br />
+"Virgin and Child," drawings, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br />
+<span class="ind1">paintings by Holbein, <a href="#Page_86">86-97</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108-13</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br />
+Wilhelm Meister, School of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br />
+Windsor, portrait, drawings at, <a href="#Page_117">117</a><br />
+<br />
+Zetter, "Madonna" at Solothurn, <a href="#Page_86">86-97</a><br /></small>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h4>LITTLE BOOKS ON ART</h4>
+<h6>Demy 16mo. 2s. 6d. net.</h6>
+
+<div class="center"><p class="noindent">
+<small><b>SUBJECTS</b><br />
+<br />
+MINIATURES. <span class="smallcaps">Alice Corkran</span><br />
+BOOKPLATES. <span class="smallcaps">Edward Almack</span><br />
+GREEK ART. <span class="smallcaps">H. B. Walters</span><br />
+ROMAN ART. <span class="smallcaps">H. B. Walters</span><br />
+THE ARTS OF JAPAN. <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. C. M. Salwey</span><br />
+JEWELLERY. <span class="smallcaps">C. Davenport</span><br />
+CHRIST IN ART. <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. H. Jenner</span><br />
+OUR LADY IN ART. <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. H. Jenner</span><br />
+CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. <span class="smallcaps">H. Jenner</span><br />
+ILLUMINATED MSS. <span class="smallcaps">J. W. Bradley</span><br />
+ENAMELS. <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. Nelson Dawson</span><br />
+FURNITURE. <span class="smallcaps">Egan Mew</span><br />
+<br />
+<b>ARTISTS</b><br />
+<br />
+ROMNEY. <span class="smallcaps">George Paston</span><br />
+D&Uuml;RER. L. <span class="smallcaps">Jessie Allen</span><br />
+REYNOLDS. <span class="smallcaps">J. Sime</span><br />
+WATTS. <span class="smallcaps">Miss R. E. D. Sketchley</span><br />
+HOPPNER. <span class="smallcaps">H. P. K. Skipton</span><br />
+TURNER. <span class="smallcaps">Frances Tyrrell-Gill</span><br />
+HOGARTH. <span class="smallcaps">Egan Mew</span><br />
+BURNE-JONES. <span class="smallcaps">Fortun&eacute;e De Lisle</span><br />
+LEIGHTON. <span class="smallcaps">Alice Corkran</span><br />
+REMBRANDT. <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. E. A. Sharp</span><br />
+VELASQUEZ. <span class="smallcaps">Wilfrid Wilberforce</span> and <span class="smallcaps">A. R. Gilbert</span><br />
+VANDYCK. <span class="smallcaps">M. G. Smallwood</span><br />
+DAVID COX. <span class="smallcaps">Arthur Tomson</span><br />
+HOLBEIN. <span class="smallcaps">Beatrice Fortescue</span><br />
+COROT. <span class="smallcaps">Ethel Birnstingl</span> and <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. A. Pollard</span><br />
+MILLET. <span class="smallcaps">Netta Peacock</span><br />
+CLAUDE. <span class="smallcaps">E. Dillon</span><br />
+GREUZE AND BOUCHER. <span class="smallcaps">Eliza F. Pollard</span><br />
+RAPHAEL. A. R. <span class="smallcaps">Dryhurst</span><br /></small>
+</p>
+<h6>PLYMOUTH<br />
+WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON<br />
+PRINTERS</h6>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #E6F6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10" summary="NOTES">
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">
+		<div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</div>
+
+<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA">
+Contemporary spellings have generally been retained even
+when inconsistent. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been
+corrected and some names regularised; missing punctuation has been silently added.
+Advertising material has been moved to the end.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA">
+The following additional changes have been made; they can be identified
+in the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:
+</p></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+ <td valign="top">to away with him</td>
+<td valign="top">to <i>do</i> away with him</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+ <td valign="top">and in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet</td>
+<td valign="top">and <i>would remain</i> in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+ <td valign="top">Die zetter'schen Madonna vow Solothurn</td>
+ <td valign="top">Die <i>Zetter'sche</i> Madonna <i>von</i> Solothurn</td>
+</tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">and that I imagine it to have</td>
+ <td valign="top">and that I imagine to have</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td valign="top">Mec&aelig;nas</td>
+ <td valign="top">M&aelig;cenas</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+ <td valign="top">at Basel (1515-77)</td>
+ <td valign="top">at Basel (1515-<i>17</i>)</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,5307 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Holbein
+
+Author: Beatrice Fortescue
+
+Release Date: June 17, 2009 [EBook #29150]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLBEIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Janine Lettau, Paul Dring,
+Clive Pickton, Joseph E. Loewenstein M.D. and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Illustration: _Hans Holbein the Younger_
+ _Coloured Chalks. Basel Museum_
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BOOKS ON ART
+GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT
+
+
+
+
+HOLBEIN
+
+BY
+BEATRICE FORTESCUE
+
+WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+METHUEN & CO.
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+
+_First published in 1904_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY WORK
+
+  Historical epoch and antecedents--Special conditions and character
+  of early Christian art--Ideals and influence of the monk--Holbein's
+  relation to mediaeval schools--His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+  home--Probable dates for his birth and his father's death--Troubles
+  and dispersion of the Augsburg household--From Augsburg to Basel--His
+  brother Ambrose--Erasmus and the _Praise of Folly_; some erroneous
+  impressions of both--Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+  heart--Holbein and the Bible--Illustrated Vernacular Bibles in
+  circulation before Luther and Holbein were born--Holbein's earliest
+  Basel oil-paintings--Direct and indirect education--Historical,
+  geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day--Beginning of
+  his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel--Jacob Meyer zum
+  Hasen--Holbein's woodcuts--His studies from nature--Sudden visit
+  to Lucerne--Italian influence on his art--Work for the Burgomaster
+  of Lucerne                                                           1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS (1519-1526)
+
+  _Holbein Basiliensis_--Enters the Painters' Guild--Bonifacius
+  Amerbach and his portrait--The Last Supper and its Judas--The so-called
+  "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon--Genius for design and symbolism in
+  architecture--Versatility, humour, fighting scenes--Holbein becomes a
+  citizen and marries--Basel in 1519--Froben's circle--Tremendous events
+  and issues of the time--Holbein's religious works--The Nativity and
+  Adoration at Freiburg--Hans Oberriedt--The Basel Passion in eight
+  panels--Passion Drawings--Christ in the tomb--Christ and Mary Magdalen
+  at the door of the sepulchre--Rathaus wall-paintings--Birth of
+  Holbein's eldest child--The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and
+  rescue--Holbein's wife and her portraits--Suggested solutions of
+  some biographical enigmas--Title pages--Portraits of Erasmus--Journey
+  to France, probably to Lyons and Avignon--Publishers and pictures of
+  the so-called "Dance of Death"--Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and Lais
+  Corinthiaca--Triumph of the Protestant party--Holbein decides to
+  leave Basel for a time--The Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden,
+  and its portraits                                                     45
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHANCES AND CHANGES (1526-1530)
+
+ First visit to England--Sir Thomas More: his home and portraits--The
+ Windsor drawings--Bishop Fisher--Archbishop Warham--Bishop
+ Stokesley--Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait--Nicholas Kratzer--Sir
+ Bryan Tuke--Holbein's return to Basel--Portrait-group of his wife and
+ two eldest children; two versions--Holbein's children, and families
+ claiming descent from him--Iconoclastic fury--Ruined arts--Death of
+ Meyer zum Hasen--Another Meyer commissions the last paintings for
+ Basel--Return to England--Description of the Steelyard--Portraits of
+ its  members--George Gysze--Basel Council summons Holbein home--"The
+ Ambassadors" at the National Gallery; accepted identification--Coronation
+ of Queen Anne Boleyn--Lost paintings for the Guildhall of the Steelyard;
+ the Triumphs of Riches and Poverty--The great Morett portrait;
+ identifications--Holbein's industry and fertility--Designs for
+ metal-work and other drawings--Solomon and the Queen of Sheba         114
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PAINTER ROYAL (1536-1543)
+
+ Queen Jane Seymour--Death of Erasmus, and title-page portrait--The
+ Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.--Munich drawing of Henry VIII.--Birth
+ of an heir and the "Jane Seymour Cup"--Death of the Queen--Christina,
+ Duchess of Milan--Secret service for the King--Flying visit to Basel and
+ arrangements for a permanent return--Apprentices his son Philip at
+ Paris--Portrait of the Prince of Wales and the King's return gift--Anne
+ of Cleves--Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk--Catherine Howard--Lapse
+ of Holbein's Basel citizenship--Irregularities--Provision for wife
+ and children--Residence in London--Execution of Queen Catherine
+ Howard--Marriage of Catherine Parr--Dr. Chamber--Unfinished work
+ for the Barber-Surgeons' Hall--Death of Holbein--His will--Place of
+ burial--Holbein's genius: its true character and greatness            156
+
+CATALOGUE OF PRINCIPAL EXISTING WORKS                                  188
+
+REFERENCES                                                             189
+
+INDEX                                                                  199
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ 1. HOLBEIN      _Frontispiece_
+    Self Portrait. From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 2. "PROSY" AND "HANS" HOLBEIN                                          16
+    Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder. Silver-point.
+    (Berlin Cabinet.)
+
+ 3. SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD                                            26
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+ 4. JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)                                             31
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 5. DOROTHEA MEYER (nee KANNEGIESSER)                                   31
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 6. BONIFACIUS AMERBACH                                                 46
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+ 7. FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE                                               58
+    Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the
+    Rischgitz Collection.
+
+ 8. THE NATIVITY                                                        72
+    Oils. (University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral.)
+    From a photograph by G. Roebke, Freiburg.
+
+ 9. THE PASSION                                                         74
+      I. GETHSEMANE.                    II. THE KISS OF JUDAS.
+    III. BEFORE PONTIUS PILATE.         IV. THE SCOURGING.
+      V. THE MOCKING.                   VI. THE WAY TO CALVARY.
+    VII. "IT IS FINISHED."            VIII. THE ENTOMBMENT.
+    Eight-panelled Altar-piece. (Basel Museum.)
+
+10. CHRIST IN THE GRAVE                                                 78
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.)
+
+11. THE RISEN CHRIST                                                    82
+    Oils. (Hampton Court Gallery.)
+
+12. THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA                              86
+    Oils. (Solothurn Museum.) From a photograph by
+    Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.
+
+13. UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY; NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S                 94
+    Silver-point and Indian ink. (Louvre Collection. Believed
+    by the writer to be Holbein's drawing of his wife before
+    her first marriage, and the model for the Solothurn Madonna.)
+    From a photograph by Braun, Clement, and Cie., Paris.
+
+14. ERASMUS                                                             98
+    Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.
+
+15. THE PLOUGHMAN; THE PRIEST                                          102
+    "Images of Death." Woodcut series.
+
+16. DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE                          104
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+17. DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LAIS CORINTHIACA                             106
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+18. THE MEYER-MADONNA                                                  109
+    Oils. (Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt.)
+    From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+19. THE MEYER-MADONNA                                                  109
+    (Later Version. Held by many to be a copy.) Oils.
+    (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+20. SIR THOMAS MORE                                                    116
+    Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+21. JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER                                   118
+    Chalks. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+22. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD                                                120
+    Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+23. NICHOLAS KRATZER                                                   122
+    Oils. (The Louvre.)
+
+24. SIR BRYAN TUKE                                                     124
+    Oils. (Munich Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+25. ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN            126
+    Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+26. "BEHOLD TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE." SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL  134
+    Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.)
+    From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection.
+
+27. JOeRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE                                              142
+    Oils. (Berlin Museum.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+28. "THE AMBASSADORS"                                                  146
+    Oils. (National Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+29. THE MORETT PORTRAIT                                                152
+    Oils. (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+30. QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR                                                 158
+    Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+31. KING HENRY VIII. AND HIS FATHER                                    160
+    Fragment of cartoon used for the Whitehall wall-painting.
+    (Duke of Devonshire's Collection.)
+
+32. KING HENRY VIII.                                                   162
+    (Life Study; probably for the Whitehall Painting.)
+    Chalks. (Munich Collection.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+33. DESIGN FOR THE "JANE SEYMOUR CUP"                                  164
+    (Bodleian Library.)
+
+34. CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN                             166
+    Oils. (National Gallery.) Lent by the Duke of Norfolk.
+
+35. ANNE OF CLEVES                                                     172
+    Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris.
+
+36. THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK                               174
+    Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+37. CATHERINE HOWARD                                                   176
+    Chalk drawing. (Windsor Castle.)
+
+38. DR. CHAMBER                                                        180
+    Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.
+
+
+
+
+HOLBEIN[1]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOLBEIN'S PERIOD, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY WORK
+
+  Historical epoch and antecedents--Special conditions and character
+  of early Christian art--Ideals and influence of the monk--Holbein's
+  relation to mediaeval schools--His father, uncle, and Augsburg
+  home--Probable dates for his birth and his father's death--Troubles
+  and dispersion of the Augsburg household--From Augsburg to Basel--His
+  brother Ambrose--Erasmus and the _Praise of Folly_; some erroneous
+  impressions of both--Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at
+  heart--Holbein and the Bible--Illustrated vernacular Bibles in
+  circulation before Luther and Holbein were born--Holbein's earliest
+  Basel oil paintings--Direct and indirect education--Historical,
+  geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day--Beginning of
+  his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel--Jacob Meyer zum
+  Hasen--Holbein's woodcuts--His studies from nature--Sudden visit to
+  Lucerne--Italian influence on his art--Work for the Burgomaster
+  of Lucerne.
+
+
+The eighty-three years stretching from 1461 to 1543--between the
+probable year of the elder Hans Holbein's birth and that in which the
+younger, the great Holbein, died--constitute one of those periods which
+rightly deserve the much-abused name of an Epoch. The Christian era of
+itself had known many: the Yellow-Danger of the fifth century making one
+hideous smear across Europe; the _Hic Jacet_ with which this same
+century entombed an Empire three continents could not content; the new
+impulse which Charlemagne and Alfred had given to Progress in the ninth
+century; the triumphant establishment of Papal Supremacy, that Napoleonic
+idea of Gregory VII.--_Sanctus Satanas_, of the eleventh, and grand
+architect in a vaster Roman Empire which still "humanly contends for
+glory"; and lastly, at the very threshold of the Holbeins, the invention
+of movable printing types about 1440, and the fall of Constantinople in
+1453, which combined to drive the prodigies and potencies of Greek
+genius through the world.
+
+Each of these had done its own special work for the advancement
+of man--as for that matter all things must, whether by help or
+helplessness. Not less than Elijah did the wretched priests of Baal
+serve those slow, sure, eternal Purposes, which include an Ahab and all
+the futile fury of his little life as the sun includes its "spots."
+
+But although the stream of History is one, and its every succeeding
+curve only an expansion of the first, there has probably been no century
+of our era when this stream has been so suddenly enlarged, or bent so
+sharply toward fresh constellations as in that of the Holbeins,--when
+Religion and Art, as well as Science, saw a New World upon its astonished
+horizon. So that we properly call it a transition period, and its
+representative men "transitional."
+
+Yet we shall never get near to these real men, to their real world, unless
+we can forget all about the pose of this or the other Zeitgeist--that tale
+
+  _Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+   Signifying nothing._
+
+For we must keep constantly in mind that what we call the Middle Ages
+or--worse yet--the Dark Ages, made up the Yesterday of the Holbeins and
+was the flesh and blood transmitted to them as their own flesh and blood
+with all its living bonds toward the Old and all its living impulses
+toward the New.
+
+A now famous New Zealander is, we know, to sketch our own "mediaevalism"
+with contemptuous pity for its darkness. But until his day comes, our
+farthing-dips seem to make a gaudy illumination. And, meantime, we are
+alive; we walk about; we, too, can swell the chorus which the Initiated
+chant in every century with the same fond confidence: "We alone enjoy
+the Holy Light."
+
+The New is ever becoming old; the old ever changing into New. And if we
+ask why each waxes or wanes just when it does and as it does, there is,
+in the last analysis, no better answer than Aurora's explanation for
+chancing on the poets--
+
+  _Because the time was ripe._
+
+And the Holbein century is one of stupendous Transitions because the
+time was ripe; and not simply because printing was invented, or Greek
+scholars were driven from Constantinople to scatter abroad in Europe, or
+Ferdinand and Isabella wanted a direct route to Cathay, or Friar Martin
+nailed ninety-five Theses to the door of Wittenberg's church, and built
+himself thereby an everlasting name as Luther.
+
+And because the time was ripe for a new Art, even more than because this
+or that great painter entrained it, it also had its transition period,
+and Holbein is set down in manuals as a transitional painter. Teutonic,
+too; because all Christian art is either Byzantine or Italian or
+Teutonic in its type.
+
+When it first crept from the catacombs under the protection of the
+Constantinople Court it could but be Byzantine; that strange composite
+obtained by stripping the Greek "beast" of every pagan beauty and then
+decking it out with crude Oriental ornament. But who that prizes the
+peculiar product of that fanaticism would have had its cradle without
+this sleepless terror, lest for the whole world of classic heathendom
+it should lose the dear-bought soul of purely Christian ideals? Or who,
+remembering that in thus relentlessly sacrificing its entire heritage of
+pagan accumulation it put back the clock of Art to the Stone Age, and
+had to begin all over again in the helpless bewilderment of untaught
+childish effort,--could find twice ten centuries too long for the
+astounding feat it achieved? Ten centuries, after all, make but a
+marvellous short course betwixt the archaic compositions of the third
+century and the compositions of Giotto or Wilhelm Meister.
+
+A great deal of nonsense is talked about the "tyrannies" which the
+Monastic Age inflicted on Art. Of course, monasticism fostered fanaticism.
+It does not need the luminous genius that said it, to teach us that
+"whatever is necessary to what we make our sole object is sure, in some
+way or in some time or other, to become our master." And with the monk,
+the true monk in his day of usefulness, every knowledge and every art
+was good or bad according as it served monastic ideals. But it is absurd
+to say that the monk--_qua_ monk--"put the intellect in chains." The
+whole body of his oppression was not so paralysing as the iron little
+finger of Malherbe and his school of "classic" despots. To charge upon
+the monk the limitations of his crude thought and cruder methods is
+about as intelligent as it would be to fall foul of Shakespeare because
+boys played his women's parts.
+
+The springs of Helicon were the monk's also, as witness Tuotilo and
+Bernard of Clairvaux; but it was by the waters of Jordan that his
+miracles were wrought. As Johnson somewhere says of Watts, "every kind
+of knowledge was by the piety of his mind converted into theology." And
+for the rest,--by the labour of his hands, by his fasting from the
+things of the flesh, by his lofty faith--however erring or forgotten or
+betrayed, in individual cases,--by every impressive lesson of a hard
+life lived unto others and a hard death died unto himself, century
+after century it was the monk who taught and helped the barbarian of
+every land to turn the desolate freedom of the wild ass into a smiling
+homestead and the savage Africa of his own heart into at least a better
+place. The marvel is that he could at the same time find room or energy
+to make his monastery also a laboratory, a library, and a studio. And
+yet he did.
+
+To say that he abhorred Greek ideals is to say that the shepherd abhors
+the wolf. His life was one long fight with the insidious poison of the
+Greek. He did not,--at any rate in his best days--believe at all in Art
+for Art's sake; and had far too intimate an acquaintance with the
+"natural man" to do him even justice. What he wanted was to do away with
+him.
+
+Yet with all its repellent features, it is to this unflinching
+exclusiveness of the monkish ideal that we owe one of the most exquisite
+blossoms on the stock of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,--their
+innocent and appealing art; an art as original and as worthy of reverence,
+within its own peculiar province, as the masterpieces of Greece or
+Italy. You must turn from the beauty of Antinous to the beauty of, say,
+the Saint Veronica, among the works of the Cologne school at Munich,
+before you can estimate the Gulf of many things besides time which for
+ever divides the world of the one from the world of the other. And
+then you must essay to embody the visions of Patmos with a child's
+colour-box and brushes, before you can compare the achievements--the
+amazing achievements--of the monkish ideal with the achievements of
+classic paganism.
+
+With the school of Wilhelm Meister this tremendous revolution had
+accomplished itself; and solely through the indomitable will of the
+monk. The ideal of Greece had been to show how gods walk the earth. This
+Christian ideal was to show how devout men and women walk with God.
+Their ineffable heavenly faces look out from their golden world--
+
+  _Inviolate, unwearied,
+   Divinest, sweetest, best,_
+
+upon this far-off, far other world, where nothing is inviolate, and
+divinest things must come at last to tears and ashes.
+
+But the monk had had his day as well as his way. The so-called Gothic
+architecture had expressed its uttermost of aspiration and tenuity; and
+painting had fulfilled its utmost accommodation to the ever more slender
+wall-spaces and forms which this architecture necessitated. And once
+again, in the fifteenth century, the time was ripe for a new transition.
+Art was now to reveal the realities of this world, and to concern itself
+with Man among them. And just as the law of reaction flung the mind
+into religious revolt from the outworn dogmas and overgrown pretensions
+of the monkish ideal, so did it drive the healthy reaction of art into
+its own extravagances of protest. And we shall see how even a genius
+like Holbein's was unable to entirely free itself from this reactionary
+defect. For with all his astonishing powers, imaginative and technical,
+he never wholly overcame that defect of making his figures too short and
+too thick-set for grace, which amounted to a deformity in the full-length
+figures of his early work, and was due to his fierce revolt from the
+unnaturally elongated forms of an earlier period.
+
+Yet we should make a grave mistake if we were to regard Holbein as cut
+off by this reaction from all affinities with the monkish ideals of
+the Cologne school. On the contrary. We shall see, especially in his
+religious pictures, how many of those ideals had fed the very springs of
+his imagination and sunk deep into his art; only expressing themselves
+in his own symbolism and in forms unlike theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Augsburg Gallery there is a painting by Holbein's father, the
+"Basilica of St. Paul," in which there is a group introduced after the
+fashion of the period, which has a special biographical interest. This
+group, in the Baptism of St. Paul, is believed by many authorities to be
+a portrait-group of the painter himself,--Hans Holbein the Elder, and
+his two young sons, Ambrose (or Amprosy, as it was often written) and
+Johannes, or "Hanns." The portrait of the father is certainly like
+Holbein's own drawing of him in the Duke d'Aumale's Collection, which
+Sandrart engraved in his account of the younger Holbein; while the heads
+of the two boys are very like those which we shall find later in a
+drawing in the Berlin Gallery. From the pronounced way in which his
+father's hand rests on little Hans' head, while the left points him
+out,--and even his elder brother "Prosy" shows by his attitude the
+special notice to be taken of Hans,--it is clear that if this is a
+portrait-group either it was painted when the boys were actually older,
+or the younger had already given some astonishing proof of that precocity
+which his early works display; for in this group the younger boy cannot
+be more than eight or nine years old.
+
+Hans Holbein the Elder, who stands here with his long brown hair and
+beard falling over his fur gown, was a citizen of Augsburg, living for
+a while in the same street with the honoured Augsburg painter, Hans
+Burgkmair, and occasionally working with him on large commissions. That
+he was a native of Augsburg, and the son--as is generally believed--of
+"Michel Holbain" (Augsburg commonly spelt _Holbein_ with an _a_),
+leather-dresser--I myself cannot feel so sure as others do. There is no
+documentary evidence to prove that the Michael Holbein of Augsburg ever
+had a son, and there is both documentary and circumstantial evidence to
+prove that the descendants of Hans Holbein the Elder claimed a different
+origin. That a man was a "citizen," or burgher, of any town, of course
+proves nothing. It was a period when painters especially learned their
+trades and practised it in many centres. And this, when guilds were
+all-powerful and no one could either join one without taking citizenship
+with it, or pursue its calling in any given place without association
+with the guild of that place, often involved a series of citizenships.
+The elder Holbein was himself a burgher of Ulm at one time, if not of
+other cities in which he worked.
+
+But that Augsburg was his fixed home for the greater part of his life is
+certain; and the rate-books show that after the leather-dresser had
+disappeared from their register of residents in the retail business
+quarter of the city, in the neighbourhood of the Lech canals, Hans
+Holbein the Elder was, in 1494, a householder in this very place. For
+some years the name of "Sigmund, his brother," is bracketed with his;
+but about 1517 Sigmund Holbein established himself in Berne, where he
+accumulated a very respectable competence, which, at his death in 1540,
+he bequeathed to his "dear nephew, Hans Holbein, the painter," at that
+time a citizen of Basel. Sigmund also was a painter, but no unquestioned
+work of his is known.
+
+There is nothing to show who was the wife of Sigmund Holbein's elder
+brother, Hans. But by 1499 this elder Hans had either a child or
+children mentioned with him (_sein kind_, applying equally to one or
+more). In all probability this is the earliest discoverable record
+of Hans Holbein the Younger, and his elder brother Ambrose. In all
+probability, too, Hans was then about two years old, and "Prosy" a year
+or two older. At one time it was vaguely thought that the elder Hans had
+three sons; and Prosy, or "Brosie," as it was sometimes written, got
+converted into a "Bruno" Holbein. But no vestige of an actual Bruno is
+to be found. And as Ambrose Holbein's trail, whether in rate-books or
+art-records, utterly vanishes after 1519, it will be seen that for the
+most part of the younger Holbein's life he had no brother. Hence it is
+easy to understand how his uncle Sigmund's Will speaks only of "my dear
+nephew."
+
+Hans the elder lived far on in his younger son's life. His works attest
+that he had talents and ideals of no mean order. But I do not propose
+to enter here upon the vexed question as to how far the "Renaissance"
+characteristics of the later works attributed to his hand are his own or
+his son's. Learned and exhaustive arguments have by turns consigned the
+best of these works to the father, to the son, and back again to the
+father. In at least one instance of high authority the same writer has,
+at different periods, held a brief for both sides and for opposite
+opinions! In this connection, as on the battlefield of some of the
+son's greatest paintings, the single-minded student of Holbein may not
+unprofitably draw three conclusions from the copious literature on the
+subject:--First, that a working hypothesis is not of necessity the right
+one; secondly, that in the matter of his pronouncements the critical
+expert also may occasionally be regarded as
+
+   _Un animal qui s'habille, deshabille et babille toujours;_
+
+and thirdly, that in default of incontestable documentary proofs the
+modest "so far as I have been able to discover" of Holbein's first
+biographer, Van Mander, is a capital anchor to windward, and is at
+any rate preferable to driving forth upon the howling waters of
+Classification, like Constance upon the Sea of Greece, "Alle sterelesse,
+God wot."
+
+But my chief reason for not pursuing the Protean phantom of Holbein's
+Augsburg period is that,--apart from my own disagreement with many
+accepted views about the works it includes, and the utter lack of
+data or determining any position irrefutably,--it is comparatively
+unimportant to the purpose of this little book. For wherever the younger
+painter was born,--whether at Augsburg or Ulm or elsewhere,--and
+whatever I believe to be his rightful claim to such paintings as the St.
+Elizabeth and St. Barbara of the St. Sebastian altar-piece at Munich,
+Fame, like Van Mander, has rightly written him down Holbein
+_Basiliensis_.
+
+It is true that his father's brushes were his alphabet. It may be true,
+though I doubt it, that his father's teaching was his only technical
+school. But if he was, as to the last he gloried in being, the child of
+the Old Period, he was much more truly the immediate pupil of the Van
+Eycks than of his father's irresolute ideals; while Basel was his
+university. And whatever may have been his debt to those childish years
+when the little Iulus followed his father with trembling steps, his
+debt to Basel was immensely greater. The door-sill of Johann Froben's
+printing-house was the threshold of his earthly immortality.
+
+When he turned his back on the low-vaulted years of Augsburg, it was
+because for him also the time was ripe. The Old Period had cast his
+genius; the New was to expand it to new powers and purposes.
+
+               _Still, as the spiral grew,
+   He left the past year's dwelling for the new;
+   Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
+                Built up its idle door,
+   Stretch'd in his last-found home and knew the old no more._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It may easily have been the elder Hans' continuous troubles, whether due
+to his fault or his misfortune it is idle now to inquire, which made his
+sons leave Augsburg. Certain it is that he but escaped from the clutches
+of one suit for debt after another in order to tumble into some fresh
+disaster of the sort, until his own brother Sigmund appears among his
+exasperated creditors. After 1524 Hans Holbein the Elder vanishes from
+the records. Probably, therefore, it was at about this date that he
+paid,--Heaven and himself only knowing how willingly,--the one debt
+which every man pays at the last.
+
+At all events his sons did leave Augsburg about 1514; or, at any rate,
+Hans did, since there is a naive little Virgin and Child in the Basel
+Museum, dated 1514, which must have been painted in the neighbourhood of
+Constance in this year,--probably for the village church where it was
+discovered. As everything points to the conclusion that Holbein was born
+in 1497, he would have been some seventeen years old at this time, and
+"Prosy" eighteen or nineteen. Substantially, therefore, they must have
+looked pretty much as in the drawing which their father had made of them
+three years before; that precious drawing in silver-point which is now
+in the Berlin Collection (Plate 2). Over the elder, still with the curly
+locks of the group in the "St. Paul Basilica," is written _Prosy_; over
+the younger, _Hanns_. The age of the latter, fourteen, may still be
+deciphered above his portrait, but that of Ambrose has quite vanished.
+Between the two is the family name, written in Augsburg fashion,
+Holbain. At the top of the sheet stands the year of the drawing, almost
+illegible, but believed to be 1511.
+
+ Illustration: PLATE 2
+
+ "PROSY" AND "HANNS" _HOLBAIN_
+ [_Drawn by their father, Hans Holbein the elder_]
+ _Silver-point. Berlin Cabinet_
+
+Of the elder brother all that is certainly known may be said here once
+for all. In 1517 he entered the Painters' Guild at Basel, where he is
+called "Ambrosius Holbein, citizen of Augsburg." He made a number of
+designs for wood-engraving, title-pages, and ornaments, for the printers
+of Basel--all of fair merit. He may also have worked in the studio of
+Hans Herbster, a Basel painter of considerable note. Herbster's portrait
+in oils, long held to be a fine work of the younger brother,--now that
+it has passed from the Earl of Northbrook's collection to that of the
+Basel Museum, is attributed to Ambrose Holbein. But little else is known
+of him; and after 1519, as has been said, the absence of any record of
+him among the living suggests that he died in that year.
+
+In the late summer of 1515 came that momentous trifle which has for ever
+linked the name of young Hans Holbein with that of Erasmus. Whether, as
+some say, the scholar gave him the order, or, as seems more likely, some
+friend of both had the copy, now in the Basel Museum, on the margins of
+which the lad drew his spirited pen-and-ink sketches,--it is on record
+that they were made before the end of December, and that Erasmus himself
+was delighted with their wit and vigour. And, in truth, they are
+exceedingly clever, both in the art with which a few strokes suggest a
+picture, and in that by which the picture emphasises every telling point
+in the satire. But a great deal too much has been built upon both the
+satire and the sketches; a great deal, also, falsely built upon them.
+
+They have been made to do duty, in default of all genuine proofs, as
+supports to the theory by which Protestant writers have claimed both
+Erasmus and Holbein as followers of Luther in their hearts, without
+sufficient courage or zeal to declare themselves such. I confess that,
+though myself no less ardent as a Protestant than as an admirer of
+Holbein, I cannot, for the life of me, see any justification for either
+the claim or its implied charge of timorousness.
+
+Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_--like so many a paradox started as a
+joke,--had no notion of being serious at all until it was seriously
+attacked. Some four years before its illustrations riveted the name of a
+stripling artist to that of the world-renowned scholar, Erasmus had
+fallen ill while a guest in the sunny Bucklersbury home where three tiny
+daughters and a baby son were the darlings of Sir Thomas More and his
+wife. To beguile the tedium of convalescence the invalid had scribbled
+off a jeu d'esprit, with its punning play on More's name, _Encomium
+Moriae_, in which every theme for laughter, in a far from squeamish day,
+was collected under that title. Read aloud to More and his friends, it
+was declared much too good to be limited to private circulation; and
+accordingly, with some revision and expansion, it was printed. That it
+scourged with its mockery those things in both Church and State which
+Erasmus and More and many another fervent Churchman hated,--such as the
+crying evils which called aloud for reformation in the highest places,
+and above all, that it lashed the detested friars whom the best churchmen
+most loathed,--these things were foregone conclusions in such a
+composition. But a laugh, even a satirical laugh, at the expense of
+excrescences or follies in one's camp, is a very far cry from going over
+to its foes. As a huge joke Erasmus wrote the _Praise of Folly_; as such
+More and all his circle lauded it; as such Froben reprinted it; and as
+such young Holbein pointed all its laughing gibes.
+
+And it was part and parcel of the joke that he launched his own sly
+arrow at the author himself. Erasmus could but laugh at the adroitness
+with which the young man from Augsburg had drawn a reverend scholar
+writing away at his desk, among the votaries of Folly, and written
+_Erasmus_ over his head. But it was hardly to be expected that he should
+altogether relish the witty implication, or the presumption of the
+unknown painter who had ventured to make it. Nor did he. Turning over a
+page he also contrived to turn the laugh yet once again, this time
+against the too-presuming artist. Finding, perhaps, the coarsest of the
+sketches, one in keeping with the "fat and splendid pig from the drove
+of Epicurus," he in his turn wrote the name of _Holbein_ above the
+wanton boor at his carousals. It was a reprisal not more delicate than
+the spirit with which subjects too sacred to have been named in the same
+breath with Folly,--the very words of our Lord Himself,--had been
+dragged into such company. But though it, too, was a joke, this little
+slap of wounded amour propre has found writers to draw from it an entire
+theory that Holbein led a life of debauchery!
+
+Yet even this feat of deduction is surpassed by that which argues that
+because Erasmus and Holbein lashed bad prelates and vicious monks with
+satire, therefore they detested the whole hierarchy of Rome and loathed
+all monks, good or bad. "Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched" is
+the oft-repeated cry; forgetting or ignoring the plain fact that Erasmus
+eyed the Lutheran egg with no little mistrust in its shell and with
+unequivocal disgust in its full-feathered development. "What connection
+have I with Luther," he writes some three years after Holbein illustrated
+Stultitia's worshippers, "or what recompense have I to expect from him
+that I should join with him to oppose the Church of Rome, which I take
+to be the true part of the Church Catholic, or to oppose the Roman
+Pontiff who is the head of the Catholic Church? I am not so impious as
+to dissent from the Church nor so ungrateful as to dissent from Leo,
+from whom I have received uncommon favour and indulgence."
+
+As to Holbein's "Protestant sympathies"--using the name for the whole
+Lutheran movement in which Protestantism had its rise,--the assertions
+are even less grounded in fact, if that be possible. If he had it not
+already in his heart, through Erasmus and Amerbach and Froben and More
+and every other great influence to which he yielded himself at all, he
+early acquired a deep and devout sense of the need of reform _within_
+the Church. Like all these lifelong friends, he wanted to see the Church
+of Rome return to her purer days and cast off the corruptions of a
+profligate idleness. Like them he couched his lance against the unworthy
+priest, the gluttonous or licentious monk, the wolves in sheep's clothing
+that were destroying the fold from within. Like them, as they re-echoed
+Colet--the saintly Dean of St. Paul's,--he passionately favoured the
+translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular and placing them in
+the hands, or at any rate bringing them to the familiar knowledge, of
+peasant as well as prelate. But surely one must know very little of the
+teachings of the stoutest Churchmen of Holbein's day and acquaintance
+not to know also that they encouraged if they did not plant these
+opinions in his mind.
+
+"Duerer's woodcuts and engravings, especially his various scenes from the
+Passion," writes even Woltmann, the biographer to whom every student of
+Holbein owes so grateful a debt, "had prepared the soil among the people
+for Luther's translation of the Bible. Holbein's pictures from the Old
+Testament followed in their wake, and helped forward the work." Yet it
+seems difficult to suppose that Woltmann could have been ignorant of
+the facts of the case. So far were Holbein's, or any other artist's,
+Bible illustrations or Bible pictures from arguing a "Lutheran" monopoly
+in the vernacular Bible, that in Germany alone there were fifteen
+translated and illustrated editions of the Bible before Luther's
+appeared; and of these fifteen some half-dozen were published before
+Luther was born. Quentell, at Cologne, for instance, published a famous
+translation with exceedingly good woodcuts in 1480,--three years before
+Luther's birth. While some nine years before Quentell's German
+translation, the Abbot Niccolo Malermi published his _Biblia Vulgare_ in
+the Italian vernacular, which went through twenty editions in less than
+a century: one of which,--brought out at Venice in 1490 by the Giunta
+Brothers,--was illustrated by woodcuts of the greatest beauty. So
+widespread was the demand for this "Malermi Bible" that another edition,
+with new illustrations of almost equal merit, was produced at Venice in
+1493, by the printer known as _Anima Mia_. All of these were vernacular
+Bibles; all illustrated; all widely known throughout Italy and Germany
+before Holbein was born or Luther was in his tenth year. And certainly
+it has not yet been suggested by the most rabid Protestantism that
+either these or any of the many other illustrated vernacular Bibles
+printed long before Luther's great translation,--a translation with a
+special claim to immortality because it may be said to have set the
+standard for modern German,--were anything but Roman Catholic Bibles.
+They were translated and illustrated in behalf of no doctrine which
+Protestantism does not hold in common with the Church of Rome.
+
+To lose hold of these things, to lose sight of the true attitude of
+Holbein in his Bible woodcuts and his "Images of Death," or of either
+Erasmus or Holbein in their satires on the flagrant abuses within their
+Church, and their unwavering devotion to that Church,--is to deliberately
+throw away the clue to the most vital qualities in the work of either,
+and to the whole course and character of Holbein himself, no less than
+to that of his lifelong friend and benefactor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1515 the young painter who had come to Basel to better his fortunes
+painted a table for Hans Baer's wedding. The bridegroom marched away,
+carrying the Basel colours, to the bloody field of Marignano (or
+Melegnano) in this same year, and never came back to sit with his
+smiling bride around Holbein's most amusing conceits--where "Saint
+Nobody" was depicted among all the catastrophes of which he is the
+scapegoat, and a few ordinary trifles--a letter, a pair of spectacles,
+etc.--were marvellously represented, as if dropped by chance above the
+painted decorations, so that people were always attempting to pick them
+up. But Hans Baer's sister had been the first wife of a certain brave
+comrade--Meyer "of the Hare," who did come back and played an important
+part in young Holbein's career. Long lost among forgotten rubbish, Hans
+Baer's table has been unearthed, and is now preserved in the town library
+at Zurich.
+
+But although Holbein had got his foot on the ladder of fame in this
+year's beginning of his connection with Froben, he was as yet very
+thankful to accept any commission, however humble. And as a human
+document there is a touch of peculiar, almost pathetic interest about
+the Schoolmaster's Signboard preserved by Bonifacius Amerbach, and now
+with his collection in the Basel Museum (Plate 3). It is a simple thing,
+with no pretension to a place among "works of art"--this bit of flotsam
+from 1516, when it was painted. Originally the two views, the Infant
+Class and the Adult Class, were on opposite sides of the sign; but they
+have been carefully split apart so as to be seen side by side. In the
+one is the quaint but usual Dame's School of the period; in the other
+the public is informed how the adults of Basel may retrieve the lack of
+such early opportunities. The inscription above each sets forth how
+whosoever wishes to do so can be taught to read and write correctly, and
+be furnished with all the essentials of a decent education at a very
+moderate cost; "children on the usual terms." And there is a delightful
+clause to say that "if anyone is too dull-witted to learn at all, no
+payment will be accepted, be it Burger or Apprentice, Wife or Maid."
+
+Somehow, looking at the young fellow at the right of the table, in the
+Adult Class, sitting facing the anxious schoolmaster, with his own brow
+all furrowed by the effort to follow him and his mouth doggedly set to
+succeed,--while the late, low sun of a summer afternoon streams in
+through the leaded window,--one muses on the chance that so may the young
+painter from Augsburg, now but nineteen, himself have sat upon this very
+bench and leaned across this very table, in a like determination to
+widen out his small store of book-learning. He could have had little
+opportunity to do so in the ever-shifting, bailiff-haunted home of his
+boyhood. And somewhere he certainly learned to write quite as well as
+even the average gentleman of his day; witness the notes on his
+drawings.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 3
+  SCHOOLMASTER'S SIGNBOARD
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Somewhere, too, and no later than these first Basel years, he acquired
+the power to read and appreciate even the niceties of Latin, though
+he probably could not have done more than make these out to his own
+satisfaction. All his work of illustration is too original, too
+spontaneous, too full of flashes of subtle personal sympathy with the
+text, to have emanated from an interpreter, or been dictated by another
+mind than his own. And this very Signboard may have paid for lessons
+which he could not otherwise afford. For if there is any force in
+circumstantial evidence it is certain that Holbein not only wrote,
+but read and pondered and thought for himself in these years when
+he doubtless had many more hours of leisure than he desired, from a
+financial standpoint.
+
+And the greatest pages of his autobiography, written with his brush,
+will be only so many childish rebuses if we forget what astounding pages
+of History and Argument were turned before him. In Augsburg he had seen
+the Emperor Maximilian riding in state more than once, and heard much
+talk about that Emperor's interests and schemes and fears; and of
+thrones and battlefields engaged with or against these. Augsburg was in
+closest ties of commerce with Venice; and the tides of many a tremendous
+issue of civilisation rolled to and fro through the gates of the Free
+Swabian City.
+
+Child and lad, his was a precocious intelligence; and it had been fed
+upon meat for strong men. He had heard of Alexander VI.'s colossal
+infamies, and those of Caesar Borgia as well; and of the kingdoms ranging
+to this or that standard after the death of Pope and Prince. He was nine
+years old then. Old enough, too, to drink in the wonderful hero-tales
+of one Christopher Columbus of Genoa, whose fame was running through
+the Whispering Gallery of Europe, while he himself lay dying at
+Valladolid--ill, heartbroken, poor, disgraced,--yet proudly confident
+that he had demonstrated, past all denial, the truth of his own
+conviction, and touched the shores of Cathay, sailing westward from
+Spain. Da Gama, Vespucci, Balboa, Magellan,--theirs were indeed names
+and deeds to set the heart of youth leaping, between its cradle and its
+twenty-fifth year.
+
+Holbein was twelve when Augsburg heard that England had a young king,
+whom it crowned as Henry VIII. He was setting out from his home, such as
+it was, to fight his own boyish battle of Life, when the news spread of
+Flodden's Field. None of these things would let such an one as he was
+rest content to apprehend them as a yokel. From either the honest dominie
+of the Signboard or some other, we may be sure he sought the means to
+read and digest them for himself. And if he learnt some smattering of
+the geography of the earth and the heavens after the crude notions of
+an older day, he could have done no other, at that time, in the most
+enlightened Universities. Ptolemy's _Geographia_ was still the text-book,
+and the so-called "Ptolemaic Theory" still the astronomical creed of
+scholars. Copernicus was, indeed, a man of forty when Holbein was
+painting this Signboard in 1516. But Copernicus was still interluding
+the active duties of Frauenburg's highly successful governor,
+tax-collector, judge, and vicar-general,--to say nothing of his
+brilliant essays on finance,--with those studies in his watch-tower
+which were to revolutionise the astronomical conceptions of twenty
+centuries and wheel the Earth around the Sun instead of the Sun around
+the Earth. But his system was not actually published until its author
+was on his death-bed, in the year of Holbein's own death. So that these
+stupendous new ideas were only the unpublished rumours and discussions
+of circles like that of Froben and Erasmus, when Holbein first entered
+it.
+
+But it is no insignificant sidelight on the history of this circle and
+this period to recall that the subversive theories of Copernicus,--far
+as even he was from anticipating how a Kepler and a Newton should one
+day shatter the "Crystalline Spheres," and relegate to the dustheap of
+antiquity the "Epicycles," to which he still clung,--had their only
+generous hearing from influential churchmen of Rome. Luther recoiled
+from them as the blasphemies of "an arrogant fool"; and even Melanchthon
+urged that they should be "suppressed by the secular arm." Nor let it be
+forgotten that these matters were never a far cry from those Basel
+printing-presses where the greatest master-printers were themselves
+thorough and eager scholars; "Men of Letters," in the noblest sense of
+the word. And the discussion of all these high concerns of history and
+letters was as much a part of the daily life surging around their
+printing-presses as the roar of the Rhine was in the air of Basel.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 4
+  JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 5
+  DOROTHEA MEYER (_nee_ KANNEGIESSER)
+  _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+As has been said, the sister of that Hans Baer for whom Holbein painted
+the "St. Nobody" table had been the first wife, Magdalena Baer--a widow
+with one daughter, when she married him--of Jacob Meyer,[2] "of the
+Hare" (_zum Hasen_). Magdalena died in 1511, and about 1512 Meyer zum
+Hasen married Dorothea Kannegiesser. And now in 1516, a memorable year
+to Holbein on account of this influential patron, the young stranger was
+commissioned to paint the portraits of Meyer (Plate 4) and his second
+wife, Dorothea (Plate 5). These oil paintings, and the drawings for
+them, are now in the Basel Museum. And no one can examine them,
+remembering that the painter was but nineteen, without echoing the
+exclamation of a brilliant French writer: "Holbein ira beaucoup plus
+loin dans son art, mais deja il est superbe." These warm translucent
+browns are instinct with life and beauty.
+
+Against the rich Renaissance architecture and the blue of the sky-vista
+the massive head of Meyer and the blonde one of his young wife,--the
+latter so expressive of half-proud, half-shy consciousness,--stand out
+in wonderful vigour. From the scarlet cap on his thickly curling
+brown hair to the piece of money between his thumb and finger, the
+Burgomaster's picture is a virile and masterly portrait. And just as
+forcefully is the charm of his pretty wife,--with all her bravery
+of scarlet frock, gold embroidery, head-dress and chains,--her own
+individual charm. They are both as much themselves in this fine
+architectural setting as in their own good house "of the Hare" which
+adjoined the rising glories of the new Renaissance "Council Hall"
+(_Rathaus_) in which Meyer was to preside so often.
+
+In 1516 he had just been elected Mayor for the first time; but after
+this he had many consecutive re-elections in the alternate years which
+permitted this. For no burgomaster could hold office for two years in
+actual succession. Previous to being Mayor he had been an eminent
+personage as master of the guilds. And both before and after his
+mayoralty he was a distinguished soldier,--rising from ensign to captain
+in the Basel contingent which served at different times among the
+Auxiliaries of France and of the Pope.
+
+But what made this election of 1516 a civic epoch was that Meyer zum
+Hasen (there were many unrelated Meyers in Basel, and two among
+Holbein's patrons, who must be carefully distinguished according to the
+name of the house each occupied) was the first Burgomaster ever elected
+in this city from below the knightly rank. While the piece of money in his
+hand, far from fulfilling the absurd purpose sometimes suggested,--that
+of showing his claim to wealth!--marks another civic event of this year.
+For it was on the 10th of January, 1516, that the Emperor Maximilian had
+just issued the Charter which gave to Basel the right to mint her own
+gold coins. In the painting the pose of Meyer's right hand has been
+altered, and the position which Holbein originally gave it can still be
+made out. The monogram and date are on the background.
+
+In accordance with his invariable rule for portraits in oils, Holbein
+first made a careful drawing of each head on the same scale as the
+finished picture, carrying it out with great freedom but at the same
+time with astonishing care and finish. So that his studies for portraits
+are themselves works of art, sometimes invested with even more spirit
+than the oil painting, which was never made direct from the living
+model,--at any rate, until ready for the finishing touches. Drawn with
+a point which could give a line as bold or as almost impalpable as he
+wished, and modelled to the very texture of the surfaces, the carnations
+are so sufficiently indicated or rendered with red chalk as to serve
+every purpose. Sometimes notes are also added. Thus in the upper corner
+of the drawing for Meyer's head the artist has noted "eyebrows lighter
+than the hair" in his microscopic yet firm writing.
+
+With these fine portraits, painted as if united by the same architectural
+background, Holbein began a friendship of many years. After some four
+centuries it is not possible to produce written records of such ties
+except in occasional corroborative details. But neither is it possible
+to mistake the painted records of repeated commissions. While as the
+lifelong leader of the Catholic party in Basel, it was natural that
+Meyer zum Hasen should have much in common with a painter who all his
+life held firmly to his friendships with the most conspicuous champions
+of that party.
+
+Johann Froben was another of these; and from 1515 until Froben's death
+eleven years later Holbein had more and more to do for this printer.
+Occasionally, too, he drew for other Basel printers; but not often. The
+eighty-two sketches on the margins of that priceless copy of the _Praise
+of Folly_, which Basel preserves in her Museum, had been suited to their
+company. Admirable, though unequal, as are their merits, they _are_
+sketches, whose chief beauty is their happy spontaneity. Such things are
+among the trifles of art, and are not to be put into the scales at all
+with the finished perfection of his serious designs for wood engraving.
+These were drawn on the block; and even these cannot properly represent
+the drawing itself except when cut by some such master hand as his own.
+Since in preparing the design for printing the background is cut away,
+leaving the composition itself in lines of relief,--it follows that
+everything, so far as the reproduction is concerned, must depend upon
+the cleanness and delicacy of the actual cutting. A clouded eye, a
+fumbling touch, and the most ethereal idea becomes its travesty--the
+purest line debased. Hence the necessity for taking the knife into
+consideration in judging such work.
+
+This is not the place for any fraction of that hot debate which Kugler
+ironically styles "the great question of the sixteenth century"; the
+debate as to whether Holbein himself did or did not cut any of his own
+blocks. Assuredly he could do so. The exquisite adjustment of every
+line to its final purpose, the masterly understanding of the proper
+limitations and field of every effect, all prove that he had an unerring
+knowledge of the craft no less than of the art of Illustration. But in
+his day that craft, like every other, had its own guild; and it would
+not have been likely to tolerate any intrusion on its rights.
+
+We know, too, that those woodcuts which most attest Holbein's genius
+were engraved by that mysterious "Hans Luetzelburger, form-cutter, called
+Franck" (_Hans Luetzelburger, Formschnider, genannt Franck_), who still
+remains, after all the researches of enthusiastic admirers, a hand and a
+name, and beyond this--nothing. But it is when Holbein's designs are
+engraved with Luetzelburger's astonishingly beautiful cutting that we can
+appreciate how wonderful was the design itself. To compare these fairy
+pictures with the painter's large cartoons is to get some conception of
+the arc his powers described. It seems incredible that the same hand
+could hang an equal majesty on the wall of a tiny shell and on that of a
+king's palace, and with equal justness of eye. Yet it is done. He will
+ride a donkey or an elephant with the like mastery; but you will never
+find Holbein saddling the donkey with a howdah.
+
+It is not always possible to subscribe to Ruskin's flowing judgments;
+but I gratefully borrow the one with which he sums up thus, in a lecture
+on wood-engraving: Holbein does not give many gradations of light, the
+speaker says, "but not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he
+chooses. He is twenty times a stronger master of it than Rembrandt; but
+therefore he knows exactly when and how to use it, and that wood-engraving
+is not the proper means for it. The quantity of it which is needful for
+his story he will give, and that with an unrivalled subtlety."
+
+And the student of Holbein's art can but feel that Ruskin has here
+touched upon a characteristic of the painter's peculiar power in every
+phase of it;--the power to be Caesar within himself; to say to his hand,
+"thus far," to say to his fancy, "no farther." Those who have come to
+know Holbein something more than superficially, or as a mere maker of
+portraits, will smile at the dictum of some very recent "authority"
+which pronounces him wanting in imagination; or at the hasty conclusion
+that what he _would_ not, that he could not.
+
+He has given us, for instance, no animal paintings or landscapes pure
+and simple, or, at least, none such have come down to us. And yet what
+gems of landscape he has touched into his backgrounds here and there!
+And what drawings of animal life he made! There are two, for instance,
+in the Basel Museum which could not be surpassed; studies in silver-point
+and water-colours of lambs and a bat outstretched. No reproduction could
+give the exquisite texture of the bat's wings, the wandering red veins,
+the almost diaphanous membrane, the furry body,--a miracle of patience
+and softness. It is all purest Nature. Like Topsy one can but "'spec' it
+growed" rather than was created.
+
+And they are not only beautiful in themselves but full of living
+meanings. Many an hour the young painter enjoyed while he made such
+studies as his lambs on the pleasant slopes about Basel; the mountains
+scalloping the horizon, and all the sweet fresh winds vocal with
+tinkling bells or the chant of the deep-throated Rhine. Many of "the
+long, long thoughts" of youth,--those thoughts that ring like happy
+bells or sweep like rushing rivers, kept him company as he laid these
+delicate strokes and washes that seem to exhale the very breath of
+morning across four hundred years.
+
+In the next year after painting the portraits of Meyer and his wife
+there is a sudden break in the painter's story which has always puzzled
+his biographers. After such a brilliant start in Basel it is perplexing
+to find the young man, instead of proceeding to join the Painters' Guild
+and take the necessary citizenship, suddenly turn his back on all these
+encouragements and leave the town for a long absence and remote journeys.
+As will be seen when we come to consider the story of Holbein's married
+life, however, I have a theory that the influence which sent him south
+in such an unexpected fashion was apart from professional affairs.
+
+Whether this is a good shot or no, certain it is that he did now go far
+south,--as distances were in those days; and that, paying his way as he
+went by his brush, he went first to Lucerne, where the evidence goes to
+show that he apparently thought of settling instead of at Basel,--and
+then on beyond it. And it seems highly probable that at this time he
+pushed on over the Alps and made his way into Italy,--already the Mecca
+of every artist.
+
+Here he could not now, in 1517, have hoped to see either Bramante or
+Leonardo da Vinci in person. The former had died at Rome two years
+before; but, without getting even as far as Pavia, Milan could show some
+splendid monuments to his sojourn within her walls; characteristic
+examples of that architecture of the closing fifteenth century which
+Holbein loved as Bramante himself. Leonardo was now in France; but in
+the refectory of the Santa Maria Monastery was his immortal, though,
+alas! not imperishable, masterpiece--"The Last Supper." Time had not
+yet taught Leonardo, much less Holbein, the fleeting nature of mural
+oil-painting; the only so-called "fresco" painting which the latter ever
+attempted, so far as is known. But the great Supper was still glowing in
+all the splendour of its original painting, and would impress itself
+indelibly on an eye such as Holbein's. In more than one cathedral, too,
+as he wandered in such a holiday, he would have noted how Mantegna had
+made its architecture the background for his own individual genius.
+
+At any rate each of these, somehow and somewhere, set its own seal upon
+the reverent heart of Holbein at about this time. Whether through their
+original works or copies of them,--already familiar to Augsburg as
+well as Lucerne,--the lad sat humbly at the feet of both Leonardo and
+Mantegna. By the first, beside many a loftier lesson, he was confirmed
+and strengthened in his native respect for accurate studies of the living
+world around him. From the second he learned a still deeper scorn of
+"pretty" art. Yet though he sat at their feet, it was as no servile
+disciple. He would fain be taught by them; fain follow them in all
+humility and frankness. But it was in order to expand his own powers,
+not to surrender them; to speak his own thoughts the better, not theirs,
+nor another's.
+
+And, in any event, on such a journey Lucerne must come first. And that
+he thought of making some long stay here when he returned is shown
+by his having joined in this year 1517, the Guild of St. Luke, the
+Painters' Guild of Lucerne, then but newly organised. "Master Hans
+Holbein has given one Gulden," reads the old entry. Two other items of
+this visit give us glimpses of its flesh-and-blood realities, perhaps of
+its unrest. The first, that he also joined a local company of Archers,
+the Militia of his day, seems to bring his living footfall very close.
+A resonant, manly, wholesome footfall it is, too! This broad-shouldered
+young fellow is as ready to draw a good stout bow among mountain-marksmen
+as a lamb among its daffodils. The second item makes it still clearer
+that he had other elements as well as the pastoral in his blood. On the
+10th of December he got himself fined for his share in a street-scrimmage,
+where he would seem to have decidedly preferred the livelier to the
+"better part" of valour.
+
+And then he would appear to have shaken the dust, or more likely the
+snows, of Lucerne off his feet for the road to Italy, if not for Italy
+itself. Whatever his objective, he got, at any rate, well on toward the
+Pass of the St. Gothard. The scanty clues of such works as have remained
+on record prove that he reached Altdorf. But there the actual trail is
+altogether lost. If he spent the entire interval brush in hand, or
+if--as I believe--he treated himself to a bit of a holiday beyond the
+Alps, can be but a guess in the dark.
+
+By this time the New Year of 1518, then falling in March, could not have
+been far off, before or behind him. And in 1518 Holbein executed the
+commission which must have been the envy of every local artist. Jacob
+von Hertenstein, Burgomaster of Lucerne, had now got his fine new house
+ready for decoration; and it was to Holbein that he gave the splendid
+commission to decorate it to his fancy,--the interior as well as the
+facade.
+
+And a renowned triumph the painter made of it; a triumph such as,
+perhaps, no other artist north of Italy could then have equalled. It is
+idle now to dwell upon the religious subjects of one room, the genre
+paintings in another, the battle scenes of a third, and so on through
+those five famous rooms which were still in existence and fair
+preservation so late as 1824, but are now for ever lost; to say nothing
+of the painted Renaissance architecture and the historic legends which
+looked like solid realities when the facade was studied. But "Mizraim is
+become merchandise"; and all that is now left of what should have been a
+treasured and priceless heirloom is but a monument to the shame of that
+citizen, a banker, who could condemn such a thing to destruction as
+indifferently as if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame of the
+municipality which, at any cost, did not prevent it. Some hasty
+sketches--due to individual enterprise and a sense of the dignity of
+Holbein's fame--an original drawing for one of the facade-paintings,
+and a few fragments of the interior paintings, which still show
+themselves, by chance, in the banker's _stable wall_--these are all that
+remain to speak of what must have been the enthusiastic labour of the
+greater part of Holbein's twenty-first year!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS
+
+1519-1526
+
+  _Holbein Basiliensis_--Enters the Painters' Guild--Bonifacius Amerbach
+  and his portrait--The Last Supper and its Judas--The so-called
+  "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon--Genius for design and symbolism in
+  architecture--Versatility, humour, fighting scenes--Holbein becomes a
+  citizen and marries--Basel in 1519--Froben's circle--Tremendous events
+  and issues of the time--Holbein's religious works--The Nativity and
+  Adoration at Freiburg--Hans Oberriedt--The Basel Passion in eight
+  panels--Passion Drawings--Christ in the tomb--Christ and Mary Magdalen
+  at the door of the sepulchre--Rathaus wall-paintings--Birth of Holbein's
+  eldest child--The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and rescue--Holbein's
+  wife and her portraits--Suggested solutions of some biographical
+  enigmas--Title pages--Portraits of Erasmus--Journey to France, probably
+  to Lyons and Avignon--Publishers and pictures of the so-called "Dance
+  of Death"--Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and Lais Corinthiaca--Triumph of
+  the Protestant party--Holbein decides to leave Basel for a time--The
+  Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden, and its portraits.
+
+
+And now it is 1519, and with it the true Hour of Holbein's destiny is
+striking. Take away the coming seven years and you will still have what
+Holbein is too often thought to be only--a great portrait-painter. No
+greater ever etched the soul of a man on his mask. His previous and his
+after achievements would still amply justify the honour of centuries.
+But add these seven years, from 1519 to 1526, and dull indeed must be
+the intelligence that cannot recognise the great Master, without
+qualification and in the light of any thoughtful comparison with the
+very greatest.
+
+His Basel career may be said to begin here; his earlier work furnishing
+the Prologue. On the 25th September, 1519, when he was about
+two-and-twenty, he joined the Basel Guild of Painters; that same "Guild
+of Heaven" (_Zunft zum Himmel_) which his brother Ambrose had joined two
+years earlier and from which he seems to have passed to the veritable
+guild of Heaven at about this latter date.
+
+And hardly is the ink dry upon the record of his membership than Holbein
+painted one of the most beautiful of his portraits--that of Bonifacius
+Amerbach (Plate 6). He stands beside a tree on which is hung an
+inscription. Behind him is Holbein's favourite early background,--the
+blue of the sky, here broken by the warm brown and green of the branch,
+and the faint glimpse of far-away mountains. Under his soft cap, with
+a cross for badge, his intensely gleaming blue eyes look out beneath
+grave brows. The lips are softly yet firmly set; the mouth framed by the
+sunny beard which repeats the red-brown of his hair. The black scholar's
+gown, with its trimming of black fur, discloses his rich damask doublet
+and white collar.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 6
+  BONIFACIUS AMERBACH
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Well may the inscription assert--above the signature, the name of the
+sitter and the date 14th October, 1519--
+
+  _"Though but a painted face I am not far removed from Life; but rather,
+   By truthful lines, the noble image of my Possessor.
+   As he accomplishes eight times three years, so faithfully in me also
+   Is Nature's work proclaimed by the work of Art."_
+
+For here in truth is a work of Nature which is no less a work of Art.
+
+This is the Amerbach who began and inspired his son Basilius (so named
+after Bonifacius's brother) to complete the Holbein Collection, which
+the Basel Museum bought long afterwards. And such was the love of
+both that they included, perhaps deliberately, much that has small
+probability of claim to be Holbein's work. They would reject nothing
+attributed to him; thinking a bushel of chaff well worth housing if it
+might yield one genuine grain. And in view of these expressive facts, it
+is hardly necessary to argue in behalf of the tradition that more than a
+conventional friendship bound the two young men together,--printer's son
+and painter's son, musician-scholar and scholar-painter, Churchman and
+Churchman; the one twenty-four, the other twenty-two.
+
+Bonifacius was the youngest of Johann Amerbach's three gifted sons. As
+all the world knows, Johann had been also a scholar as well as a printer,
+and great in both capacities. The most eminent scholars of his day
+gravitated as naturally to this noble personality as they afterwards did
+to that of his protege and successor, Johann Froben. He had educated his
+sons, too, to worthily continue his life-work and maintain his devout
+principles. Bonifacius was the darling of more than one heart not given
+to softness. He had been more the friend than the pupil of Ulrich Zasius
+at the University of Freiburg, before he went to Avignon to complete his
+legal studies under Alciat. Five years after this portrait was painted
+he became Professor of Law in the Basel University. "I am ready to die,"
+writes Erasmus of him, "when I shall have seen any young man purer or
+kinder or more sincere than this one."
+
+Very possibly it was for Bonifacius himself that Holbein painted his own
+portrait about this time (Plate 1, frontispiece). It is a worthy mate,
+at all events. In the Amerbach Catalogue it was simply called "Holbein's
+counterfeit, in dry colour" (_ein conterfehung Holbein's mit trocken
+farben_); the frame, too, was catalogued, though the painting was kept
+in a cabinet separately when the Basel Museum acquired it with the
+Collection.
+
+The vigour and finish of this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or
+body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in
+black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or
+given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has
+the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad,
+soft, red hat, though so fine a bit of colour, is clearly worn as part
+of a simple everyday habit. There is no suggestion of studying for
+effect, or even caring at all about it. He wears his hat pulled soberly
+down over his brown hair exactly as when he wore it thus about the
+business of the day. The plastic modelling of the puckered brow and
+the mobile mouth is beautifully indicated. The bluish tone left by the
+razor is just hinted. In his drab coat with its black velvet bands, with
+his shirt, on which the high lights have been applied, slightly open at
+the throat, Holbein himself seems to stand before one as in life.
+
+Among the "early works" of the Amerbach Catalogue there is one which
+shows strong traces of Leonardo's and even more of Mantegna's influence
+on him at this time. It is a Last Supper, painted in oils on wood. But
+it was so mutilated in the iconoclastic fury of 1529, and has been so
+cobbled, re-broken, re-set, and "restored" generally, that it can no
+longer be called Holbein's work without many reservations. There is also
+another Last Supper, one of a coarsely painted set on canvas, which
+is attributed to him on much more doubtful grounds, to judge by the
+composition and colouring. Myself I should be inclined to see the
+inferior hand of Ambrose, Hans the elder, or perhaps even Sigmund
+Holbein in these, if they are genuine Holbein works at all.
+
+But there are still to be seen the traces of his own hand and mind in
+the Last Supper in oils on wood. St. John's head must originally have
+been very beautiful; very manly, too,--dark with sudden anguish and
+recoil. There is a separate head of St. John, in oils, in the same
+collection, which shows how fixed was this noble originality of type in
+Holbein's conception of "the beloved apostle." But it is in Judas that
+the patient student will find, perhaps, most of Holbein's peculiar cast
+of thought, when once the initial repulsion is overcome.
+
+By a very natural arrangement he is brought into the immediate foreground
+and sits there, already isolated, already damned, in such a torment
+of body and soul as haunts the spectator who has had the courage to
+reconsider the dictum of authorities who call him "a Jew of frightful
+vulgarity." Frightful he may be; but it is a strange judgment which can
+find him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no longer in a condition
+to justify reproduction; but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated,
+shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture to assert, find food for
+thought in it even under all the injuries the work has undergone.
+
+It is a demon-driven soul if ever there was one. He is in the very act
+of springing to his feet and rushing away anywhere, anywhere out of this
+Presence;--no more concerned about his money-bag than about the food he
+loathes. Thirty pieces of silver! If the priests have lied, if this is
+in very truth the Messiah his heart still half believes Him, will thirty
+pieces of silver buy his soul from the Avenger? Is there time still to
+escape? What if he break the promise given when he was over-persuaded in
+the market-place the other day? But did not the High Priest himself
+declare that this is Beelzebub in person,--this fair, false, dear,--oh!
+still too dear Illusion? Up! Let him be gone out of this!--from the
+sound of that Voice, from the sight of that Face, get the thing over and
+done, done--done one way or another! If God's work, as the priests
+swear, well and good. He will have earned the pity of God Himself. If
+the devil's, as his heart whispers, well, too! Let him take his price
+and buy himself a rope long enough to house his soul in any Hell, rather
+than sit on in this one! It is all painted, or was once; all written on
+that sunken cheek, that matted hair and clammy brow; in that cavernous
+socket, that eye of lurid despair; on the whole anatomy of a lost soul.
+The hand that did it was very young, very immature; but it had the youth
+and the immaturity of a Master.
+
+There is another and a very different work, an oil painting, in the
+Royal Collection at Lisbon, signed IOANNES HOLBEIN FECIT 1519, which,
+if by the younger Hans, would almost put the question as to whether
+the painter knew the landscapes of Italy, beyond doubt; so southern is
+the type of its background. The work, however, has been rejected by
+Woltmann, on the strength of an old photograph not quite perfect. He
+held the signature to be spurious, and attributed the picture to the
+school of Gerard David. And he gave to the work the name by which it is
+now generally styled in English works: "The Fountain of Life" (_Der
+Brunnen des Lebens_[3]). He did so from the inscription within the rim
+of the well immediately in the foreground; but a literal translation of
+this inscription, PVTEVS AQVARVM VIVENCIVM, is, I think, to be
+preferred: _The Well of Living Waters_.
+
+The majority of those competent to form a judgment in such matters are
+inclined to attribute the work to Hans Holbein the Elder, who did not
+die until some years later, and who made use of a very similar form of
+signature. And for myself I find it hard to see how anyone familiar
+with Hans the Younger could accept it as his work at any period of
+his career; least of all at the date given in the signature. So that
+equally whether Woltmann is right in believing the signature itself
+spurious, or those are right who hold it to be the genuine signature of
+Hans the Elder,--a more detailed description of the composition does not
+fall within the scope of this little volume. But the whole matter is
+most clearly set forth, and a very beautiful reproduction in colours
+given of the painting itself, in Herr Seeman's article upon it, which
+will be found in the appended List of References.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Considerably before 1519, as has been said, Holbein had begun to
+develop his special genius for Design, and to apply it to glass or
+window-paintings, as well as to metal and wood-engravings. The beautiful
+drawings, whether washed, or etched with the point, in chalks or Indian
+ink, of which examples may be seen in almost every great collection,
+private as well as public, that year after year were created by that
+fertile brain and ever more masterly hand, constitute an Art in
+themselves. And since so many (perhaps the greater number as well as the
+greater in subject) of his paintings have perished, it is chiefly in his
+drawings that the progression of his powers can be followed, or the
+plane and scope of his imagination recognised at all. There is seldom
+a date on them; but they will be found to date themselves pretty
+accurately by certain features. In his earliest, for instance, that
+defect of which mention has been made,--the short thick figures due
+to the energy of his rebound from Gothic attenuation is a grave fault.
+There is a Virgin and Child among his washed drawings for glass-paintings
+in the Basel Museum, for example, which, when you cut it off at the
+knees, is one of the most charming pictures of Mother and Child to be
+found in any painter's treatment of this subject. And behind them is a
+gem of landscape. Yet the whole, as it stands, is utterly marred by the
+Virgin's dwarfed limbs. But although Holbein never entirely overcame
+this fault, he did very greatly do so, as the years passed.
+
+His architectural settings, too, tended to greater simplicity in his
+later years. Yet this is not a safe guide. Some early designs have
+simple forms; some comparatively late ones, a very ornate architecture.
+For the truth is that these architectural backgrounds and settings
+remained, so long as his fancy had any free field for disporting itself,
+an integral part of his conception. But only as inseparable from the
+Symbolism, the under-tow, of his imagination. To my thinking, at any
+rate, they make a gravid mistake who look for "realism" in these things.
+
+His stately pillars and arches, his fluid forms of ornament, are not his
+idea of the actual surroundings of the characters he portrays, any more
+than they are your idea, or mine, of those surroundings. Is it to be
+supposed that he thought the dwellings of our Lord were palaces? Or
+that he could not paint a stable? Those who maintain that Holbein was a
+Realist in the modern sense of the word must reconcile as best they can
+the theory with the facts. But when we see the stage set with every
+stately circumstance,--the Babe amid the fading splendours of earthly
+palaces, our Lord mocked by matter as well as man,--I dare to think that
+we shall do well to cease from insisting on an adobe wall, and to study
+those "incongruous" circumstances to which the will and not the poverty
+of Holbein consents. We shall, at least, no longer be dull to "the tears
+of things" as he saw them.
+
+But it would be no less a mistake to think of Holbein as one without a
+sense of laughter as well. His drawings of open-mouthed peasants
+gossiping in a summer's nooning, or dancing in some uncouth frolic,--and
+still more his romping children, dancing children, and the chase of the
+fox running off with the goose,--all of these are full of boyish fun.
+Would that they could be given here without usurping the place of
+more important works! But that is impossible. And so, too, with the
+costume-figures of Basel, among which is the charming back view of a
+citizen's wife, with all the women bent far backward in the odd carriage
+that was then "the latest fashion" among them.
+
+He was particularly happy, also, in his drawings of the _Landsknechte_,
+those famous Mercenaries of "Blut und Eisen"; always ready to drink a
+good glass, and a-many; to love a good lass after the same liberal
+fashion; to troll a good song or fight a good fight; and all with equal
+zest. He had not mixed with these masterful gentry for nothing; nor they
+with him to wholly die. There are a number of drawings where they are
+engaged in combat, too, which show that Holbein's heart leapt to the
+music of sword and spear as blithely as does Scott's or Dumas's--as
+blithely as did the hearts of the _Reislaeufer_ themselves. Look at
+the mad rush, the hand-to-hand grapple, in a drawing of the Basel
+Collection, for instance (Plate 7). The blood-lust, the heroism, the
+savagery, the thrust, the oath, the dust-choked prayer, the forgotten
+breathing clay under the bloodstained foot; the very clash and din of
+the fray;--all is told with the brush. And yet not one unnecessary
+detail squandered. It is as if one watched it from some palpitating
+refuge, just near enough to see the forefront figures distinctly and
+to make out the interlocked hubbub and fury where the ranks have been
+broken through. It would be a great day for Art could we but chance
+upon some lost painting for which such a study had served its completed
+purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 3rd of July, 1520, Holbein fulfilled what was then the
+requirement of almost every guild, and purchased his citizenship; a
+citizenship to reflect unfading honour on Basel, and of which she has
+ever been justly proud. And somewhere about the same time he married
+Elsbeth Schmidt, a tanner's widow, who had one child, Franz.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 7
+  FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE
+ _Washed Drawing. Basel Museum_
+
+For the past four or five years Basel had been steadily becoming more
+and more democratic. And at a period when its _elite_ were scholars and
+printers and civic officials of every origin,--when the illegitimate son
+of a Rotterdam doctor was the true prince, and Beatus Rhenanus, the
+grandson of a butcher, was his worthy second in the reverence of
+Basel,--the widow and son of a reputable tanner and a rising young
+artist, who had already the suffrages of the most influential citizens,
+would find no doors closed to them on the score of social disabilities.
+The friendship of such men as Erasmus, Froben, Bonifacius Amerbach,
+and the Mayor,--all conspicuous stars in the Church party,--would
+have ennobled a man of less genius than Holbein in the eyes of his
+fellow-citizens; and rightly. But as to the exact locality in which
+Holbein set up his first married roof-tree--that Bethel of sacred
+or saddest dreams--no documentary evidence has yet come to light.
+Circumstantial evidence, however, amounts to a strong probability in
+favour of the _Rheinhalde_ of Great-Basel.
+
+If there was an emblem peculiarly abhorrent to the Basilisk (the Device
+of Basel) it was the Crescent-and-star. But nothing could better serve
+to recall the rough outline of Basel in Holbein's day than this very
+emblem. As the Rhine suddenly swerves from its first wild rush westward
+and races away, northerly, to the German Ocean, it shapes the hollow of
+the crescent in which Little-Basel (_Klein-Basel_) nestled as the star;
+and, appropriately enough, since it was here that the Catholic's Star of
+Faith rallied when overcome across the river, where curved the crescent
+of Great-Basel (_Gross-Basel_). And the relative proportions of the two
+would be fairly enough represented by the symbols respectively used.
+
+Great-Basel's northern face was protected by the Rhine, while the stout
+city wall secured its convex curve. Of this wall the eastern horn was
+St. Alban's Gate; its north-west was St. John's Gate (_St. Johann
+Thor_); beside which stood the decaying Commandery of the Knights of
+Malta, which had contributed a large sum toward the expanded wall, in
+order to be included within it. And just as these spots still mark the
+horns of the old crescent, the _Spalen Thor_ shows where it had its
+greatest depth, midway between the other two.
+
+A straight line running due north-east from this Spalen-Thor would cross
+the big square of the Fish-market (_Fischmarktplatz_) pretty nearly as
+the uncovered stream of the Birsig, or "Little Birs," did before the
+quaint little bridge, which then united the two halves of the Fischmarkt,
+was absorbed in the paving over of stream and square before Holbein's
+day. This same straight line would of itself draw the "Old Bridge"
+(_Alte Bruecke_) with approximate exactness, the even then ancient bridge
+which centred the star of Klein-Basel to its crescent. And in the
+Historical Museum, where the Barefooted Friars worshipped then, we may
+still see the grotesque piece of clockwork, the wooden "Stammering King"
+(_Laellenkoenig_), that for centuries used hourly to roll great eyes and
+stick out its tongue a foot long across the river from the Gross-Basel
+end of the bridge. It is often said that this monster was set up as a
+public token of the hatred which the triumphant Protestantism of the
+south bank felt for the stubborn Catholicism of Klein-Basel. But the
+thing was a famous ancient joke before party feeling turned it into a
+gibe.
+
+Bonifacius Amerbach's home, the "Emperor's Seat" (_Kaiserstuhl_, now 23,
+Rheingasse), was in Klein-Basel. Johann Amerbach had bought it, near to
+his beloved friends, the Carthusians. In 1520 the good old man had slept
+for six years in the cloisters of the monastery; where to-day the
+children of the Orphan Asylum play above his grave.
+
+But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life would lead him to prefer
+Basel proper, and to choose the quarter in which he bought a home eight
+years later. This was then the western quarter of Gross-Basel, along the
+river-face of which ran the high southern and western bank of the Rhine,
+the _Rheinhalde_, now _St. Johann Vorstadt_. About where the present
+_Blumenrain_ ends stood the arch, or _Schwibbogen_. Further on still
+stood the "Gate of the Cross" (_Kreuzthor_), by the House of the Brothers
+of St. Anthony, the ancient _Kloesterli_ of Basel. Before the Commandery
+of St. John got themselves included within the city wall the Kreuzthor
+was its western gate. The whole district of _ze Crueze_, so called
+because its boundaries were crosses before towers replaced them, has
+however become absorbed in the St. Johann Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor
+has disappeared altogether. The quarter was a favourite one with members
+of the Fishers' Guild and with decent folk of small mean
+s.
+
+As early as 1517 the Fishers' Company had extended itself so greatly as
+to become a notable institution of the Vorstadt, including many members
+from Klein-Basel also; while its military record was a proud one. But
+it was in this year, while Holbein was making his visit to Lucerne
+and beyond, that this guild took the more truly descriptive name
+which it bears to this day, that of the "Vorstadt Association"
+(_Vorstadtgesellschaft_). And to this association, which in after years
+gave him a famous banquet, Holbein, we know, belonged later on, if not
+now.
+
+Every day would take him to the Fischmarkt,--the great square humming
+with activity, crowded with inns, public-houses, shops, booths,
+dwelling-houses,--the trade mart of every nationality. The Cornmarkt
+near by, now the _Marktplatz_, with its almost finished Rathaus, was
+the centre of official civic life. When the great bell clanged on the
+Rathaus, and its flag was flung out, not only every professional
+soldier, but every guild and every male above fourteen, knew his
+appointed place at the wall, and took it. But every day, and all day,
+the Fischmarkt flung out its peaceful standards, or rallied men to
+this side or to that with the tocsin of its presses,--the old Amerbach
+printing-house "of the Settle" (_zum Sessel_), which was Johann Froben's
+home and printing-house in 1520.
+
+Morning after morning, and year upon year, Holbein turned his back upon
+St. Johannthor, and walked eastward along the Rheinhalde;--the river
+racing toward him on his left hand, the University rising in front of
+him beyond the bridge, and the delicate Cathedral towers beyond the
+University. For the Basel Minster was still the Cathedral of the great
+See of Basel. Passing the wall of the Dominican Cemetery, on which was
+painted the ancient Dance of Death with which his own after-creations
+were so often to be confused, Holbein must many a time have studied the
+famous old copy. For though the Dominican painting was then nearly a
+century old, it was a copy of a still older original in the Klein-Basel
+nunnery of _Klingenthal_, a community under Dominican direction.
+
+But he would pass another spot--one day to be of far more living
+importance to him. In 1520 it was a corn warehouse, known by the name of
+_ze Cruez_, which belonged to Adam Petri, the printer, who had inherited
+it from his uncle, the famous printer Johann Petri, by whose ingenious
+improvements the art of printing was so greatly facilitated. Two years
+later, in 1522, Froben bought this granary, ze Cruez, and converted it
+into the book-magazine which was known all over Europe as "Froben's
+Book-house." And in this latter year Adam Petri, greatly to Luther's
+disgust, pirated Luther's translation of the New Testament, which had
+appeared three months before.
+
+Holbein drew a superb title-page, ante-dated 1523, for this "enterprise"
+of Petri--the New Testament "now right faithfully rendered into
+German,"--with the symbols of the Evangelists at the four corners, the
+arms of Basel at the top, the device of the printer at the foot, and the
+noble figures of St. Paul and St. Peter on either side; figures which
+will bear comparison with Duerer's "Four Temperaments" of a later date.
+Later still he designed another striking title-page for Thomas Wolff's
+translation; and his beautiful title-pages and ornaments for Froben,
+with whom his connection was not a temporary matter such as these
+others, would need a volume to themselves.
+
+Holbein's only rival, if he could be called such, in work of this sort
+was the talented goldsmith, Urs Graf, who, as an exceedingly loose fish,
+lived most appropriately in the Fischmarkt in his own house near the old
+Birsig Bridge, when he was not in the lock-up for one or another of his
+constant brawls and scandals. But to compare the best work of both
+is to recognise a difference in kind as well as degree: the essential
+difference between even negligent genius and the most elaborate talent.
+High talent Urs Graf had unquestionably; though stamped,--I think,--with
+the lawless caprices of his own character. Holbein's every design has
+not only what Urs Graf lacked--that ordered imagination which is
+Style--but over and above all, the subtle expression of Power.
+
+Many a time, too, just where he would turn away from the Rhine for the
+business centre of Gross-Basel, the artist would make some little pause
+at the old "Flower" Inn (_zur Blume_), which gave its name to the
+Blumenplatz, and is still commemorated in the greatly extended Blumenrain
+of to-day. All the world now knows the famous hotel of "The Three
+Kings"; and where it reaches nearest to the Old Bridge stood the "Blume"
+of Holbein's time, even then the oldest of the Basel inns. This Blume,
+not to be confused with later inns of the same name, shared with its no
+less famous contemporary,--"The Stork," in the Fischmarkt,--the special
+patronage of the chief printers. Basilius Amerbach, for instance, the
+brother of Holbein's friend Bonifacius, lived at the Blume; and often
+the painter must have turned in for a friendly glass with him and a chat
+about Bonifacius, away at his law studies in Avignon.
+
+As for the Stork, its very rooms were named in remembrance of the envoys
+and merchant traders who flocked to it on all great occasions. There
+was a "Cologne Room," for instance, and a "Venetian Room," among many
+others. The men of Venice, indeed, had a particular affection for it.
+Here Holbein met with all nationalities, and learned much of the great
+centres of other countries. Here came all the Basel magnates and
+printers. And here, a few years later on, came that bizarre personage
+who was for a very brief time Basel's "town physician," the Paracelsus
+Theophrastus Bombastus to whom we owe our word _bombastic_. Holbein
+was on a visit to England during the latter's short tenure of office,
+when the combined scholarship and poverty of Oporinus made him the
+hack of Paracelsus and the victim of many a petty tyranny. At that time
+Oporinus,--the son of that Hans Herbster, painter, whose portrait is
+now attributed to Ambrose Holbein,--was glad to place his remarkable
+knowledge of Greek at Froben's service. He was not yet a printer, as
+later when Holbein drew a clever device for him. And neither he nor the
+painter could know that one day the daughter of Bonifacius Amerbach
+should marry him out of sheer pity for his unhappy old age,--somewhat as
+he himself, when but a lad of twenty, married an aged Xantippe from
+gratitude.
+
+But in 1520, when Holbein was just married, Oporinus was still a
+student and Bonifacius unmarried. Erasmus, too, did not permanently
+take up his home with Froben until the following year, and was now at
+Louvain. Yet what a true university was that little house _zum Sessel_
+(now 3, Todtengaesslein, the little lane where the old post-office stood)
+to an intelligence such as Holbein's! And what a circle was that of
+Froben's staff! From Froben himself, above whom Erasmus alone could
+tower in scholarship, down through every member to the youngest, and
+from such men as Gerard Lystrius on the one hand and the literally
+"Beatus" Rhenanus on the other, what things were not to be learned!
+
+And what discussions those were that drew each man to give of his best
+in the common talk! Venice sent news of the "unspeakable" Turk, whom she
+had such good cause to watch and dread. For fifty years his name had
+ceased to blanch the cheek of other nations; but now it was said, and
+said truly, that the dying Selim, "the Grim," had forged a thunderbolt
+which Suleyman II. would not be slow to hurl. No man could know the
+worst or dared predict the end, as to that Yellow Terror of Holbein's
+time. And closer still, to keen eyes, were the threats of the coming
+Peasant Terror. Wurtemberg had battened down the flames, it is true;
+but the deck of Europe was hot under foot with the passions that were
+soon to make the Turks' atrocities seem gentle in comparison.
+
+The death of Maximilian and the election of Charles V. were a year old
+now. But none knew better than the Basel printers how much the League
+of Swabia and the Swiss Confederation had weighed in the close contest
+of claims between those three strangely youthful competitors for the
+Emperor's crown;--Charles, but nineteen; Francis I., one-and-twenty;
+and Henry VIII., not twenty-five. Basel also knew that Charles had only
+bought his triumph by swearing to summon the Diet of Worms. All the
+more, therefore, was she intensely alive to the possible issues of the
+Arabian-Nights-Entertainment which had but just concluded on the dreary
+Calais flats when Holbein became one of Basel's citizens. Erasmus had
+come back full of it. Marco Polo's best wonders made but a dingy show
+beside the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," where in this June the two
+defeated candidates for imperial honours had kissed each other midway
+between the ruined moat of Guisnes and the rased battlements of Arde.
+
+Then, on top of this, came the rumours of the English King's undertaking
+to answer Luther's most formidable attack on Rome. It was in 1520, the
+year after his great disputation with Eck at Leipzig, that Luther
+published his cataclysmic addresses: "To the Christian Nobles of
+Germany" and "On the Babylonian Captivity,"--the latter of which itself
+contains the whole Protestant Reformation in embryo. "Would to God,"
+exclaimed Erasmus of it, "that he had followed my counsel and abstained
+from odious and seditious proceedings!" Bishop Tunstall, then in Worms,
+had also written of it:--"I pray God keep that book out of England!" But
+before the year was out "that book" had reached England, and Henry VIII.
+had sworn to annihilate its arguments and to triumphantly defend the
+dogmas of Rome. The eagerly-awaited "Defence" did not get printed,
+and would remain in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet. But Basel knew,
+through More and Erasmus,--whose canny smile probably discounted its
+critical quality,--pretty much its line of defence. Nor was Froben's
+circle one whit more surprised than its royal author when its immediate
+reward was that formal style and title--_Defender of the Faith_,--to
+which a few years more were to lend so different a significance.
+
+By this latter date Ulrich von Hutten had fled to Basel, only to find
+that his violent "heresies" had completely estranged Erasmus, and closed
+Froben's door, as well as all other Roman Catholic doors, against him
+for ever. He lodged, therefore, at the Blume until the Basel Council
+requested him to leave the town, a little before his death, in 1523. But
+in 1520 Hutten was still at Sickingen's fortress, digging with fierce
+ardour the impassable gulf between him and the band of friends and
+Churchmen among whom Holbein ever ranged himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the five lost works which Patin says Holbein painted, there was a
+"Nativity" and an "Adoration of the Kings." It is impossible now to say
+what resemblances, if any, existed between these and the same subjects,
+executed not much later, which are now in the University Chapel, Freiburg
+Minster. These latter are the only known works of Holbein that still
+hang in a sacred edifice. They were evidently designed to fold in upon a
+central altar-piece with an arched top, thus making, when open, the
+usual triptych; but the central painting has vanished. This large work
+was a gift to the Carthusian monastery in Klein-Basel; and the arms of
+the donor, Hans Oberriedt, are displayed below the Nativity, as well as
+the portraits of himself and his six sons. Below the corresponding right
+wing, the Adoration, are the arms of his wife and her portrait, with her
+four daughters.
+
+In both wings what I can only describe as the atmosphere of Infancy,--and
+a touching atmosphere it is too--is strengthened by keeping all the
+figures small and heightening this suggestion by contrast with a grandiose
+architecture. In both, too, the sacred scenes reveal themselves like
+visions unseen by the Oberriedt family, who face outward toward the
+altar and are supposed to be lighted by the actual lights of the church.
+The whole work must once have been a glorious creation, with its rich
+colours, its beautiful architectural forms, and its mingling of purest
+imagination with realism. What would one not give to see the lost work
+these wings covered?
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 8
+  THE NATIVITY
+ _Oils. University Chapel, Freiburg Cathedral_
+
+In the left wing, the Nativity (Plate 8), Holbein has remarkably
+anticipated the lighting of Correggio's famous masterpiece, not finished
+until years after this must have been painted, by the conditions of
+Oberriedt's history and Basel's as well. The Light that is to light the
+world lights up the scene with an exquisite enchanting softness,--yet
+so brilliantly that the very lights of heaven seem dimmed in comparison.
+The moon, in Holbein's deliberate audacity, seems but a disc as she bows
+her face, too, in worship. Shining by some compulsion of purest Nature,
+the divine radiance glows on the ecstatic Mother; and away above and
+beyond her--"How far that little candle shines," and shines, and shines
+again amid the shadows! It illumines the beautiful face of the Virgin,
+touches the reverent awe of St. Joseph, plays over marble arch and
+pillar, discovers the wondering shepherd peering from behind the pillar
+on the left, and irradiates the angel in the distance, hastening to
+carry the "glad tidings." The happy cherubs behind the Child rejoice
+in it; and as they spring forward one notices how Holbein has boldly
+discarded the conventional, and attached their pinions as if these were
+a natural development of the arm instead of a separate member.
+
+The same union of unfettered fancy symbolism and realism displays itself
+throughout the right wing,--where the Virgin is enthroned in front of
+crumbling palaces. The sun's rays form a great star, of such dazzling
+light that one of the attendants shades his eyes to look upward, and
+an old man with a noble head, wearing an ermine cape, presents his
+offering as the chief of the three kings; while a Moorish sovereign,
+dressed in white, makes a splendid figure as he waits to kneel with
+his gift, and his greyhound stands beside him. The colouring of both
+paintings must have had an extraordinary beauty when the painter laid
+down his brush.
+
+To carp at such conceptions because their architecture is as imaginative
+and as deeply symbolical as the action, is to demand that Holbein shall
+be someone else. These pictures, beyond the portraits below them, are
+the farthest possible from aiming at what we demand of Realism, though
+their own realism is astonishing. Holbein all too seldom sounds them,
+but when he does choose to stir only a joyous elation in the heart he
+rings a peal of silver bells. Here all is glad thanksgiving. The Divine
+has come into a sick and sorry world; and, behold, all is changed!
+Nothing sordid, nothing shabby, consists with the _meaning_ of this
+miracle. Therefore it is not here. All is transformed; all is a New
+Jerusalem--splendour, peace, ineffable and mysterious Beauty.
+
+With the dominance of the anti-Catholic party, which unseated Meyer
+zum Hasen in 1521, his friend Oberriedt also fell into trouble. And
+soon after Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach,--disgusted with the
+iconoclast fanaticism of 1528 and 1529,--took refuge in Catholic
+Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau, Oberriedt also left Basel for that city. He
+took these wings with him to save them from the destruction which
+probably overtook the central work. The latter was, perhaps, too large
+to conceal or get away. During the Thirty Years' War they were again
+removed, and safeguarded at Schaffhausen. And so great was their
+fame that they were twice expressly commanded to be brought before a
+sovereign; once to Munich, to be seen by Maximilian of Bavaria; and
+again to Ratisbon for the Emperor Ferdinand III. In 1798 they were
+looted by the French, and were only restored to Freiburg in 1808.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 9
+  THE PASSION
+ _Eight-panelled Altar-piece Oils. Basel Museum_
+     I _Gethsemane_
+    II _The Kiss of Judas_
+   III _Before Pontius Pilate_
+    IV _The Scourging_
+     V _The Mocking_
+    VI _The Way to Calvary_
+   VII _"It is finished"_
+  VIII _The Entombment_
+
+Another great religious picture, once no less renowned than Oberriedt's
+altar-paintings, has suffered a worse fate. This is the eight-panelled
+altar-piece of the Passion, now in the Basel Museum (Plate 9). So far
+back as is known it was preserved, probably after being hidden from the
+fury that attacked all church pictures, in the Rathaus. Maximilian I.,
+of Bavaria, the zealous collector of Duerer's works, offered almost any
+price for this altar-piece by Duerer's great contemporary. But Basel,
+unlike Nueremberg, was not to be bribed; and the world-famous painting
+remained to draw art-lovers from every country in Europe. Nor did the
+most competent judges fail to envy Basel her jewel, and to eulogise its
+perfections. Painters such as Sandrart, looking at it after it had
+survived a hundred and fifty years of vicissitude, could exclaim: "It is
+a work in which the utmost that our art is capable of may be found;
+yielding the palm to none, whether of Germany or Italy, and justly
+wearing the laurel-wreath among the works of former times."
+
+Alas! this laurel, too, has been filched from Holbein's fame. In 1771
+the altar-piece was consigned to the collection where it now is; and it
+was then decided to gild the gold and paint the lily. The work was
+subjected to one of those crude "restorations" which respect nothing
+save the frame. And no monarch will ever again compete for its possession.
+Red is over red and blue over blue, doubtless; but in place of Holbein's
+rich harmony a jangle of gaudy conflicting colours now sets one's teeth
+on edge. So that only in a photograph can one even enjoy the
+composition--all that is left of the Master.
+
+But here it can be seen with what art the painter has so combined
+eight separate and distinct pictures, each a gem, into one, by such a
+distribution and balance that the whole is as integral as a pearl. The
+scene on the Mount of Olives, which a great critic once pronounced
+worthy to compare with Correggio's work, is only to be surpassed by the
+Entombment. And in every scene--what freedom, action, verve! From the
+first to the last all passes with the swift step of Calamity, yet all
+with noble dignity.
+
+The Basel Museum possesses also a set of ten washed drawings in Indian
+ink,--scenes of the Passion designed for glass-painting,--which must be
+conned and conned again before one can "know" Holbein at all in his
+deepest moods. They are a great Testament, though they seem unbearably
+harsh at a superficial glance. But put aside your own ideas and humbly
+study the ideas of Holbein,--sure that they must be well worth the
+reverence of yours or mine,--and little by little you will be made free
+of that Underworld where Holbein's true self has its home; you will
+pierce its gloom and find its clue and understand its tongue. It is a
+small matter whether you and I find ourselves in sympathy with that
+world, or can never be acclimatised. The great matter, the only matter,
+is to understand it; to see in its skeletons something more than lively
+bones, in its graves something besides Horror.
+
+Without mastering the logical sequence of these ten drawings,--where
+scene by scene the Divine recedes before our eyes, and the Son of Man
+assumes more and more the whole burden of Sin and Death,--it is
+inevitable that the life-size painting of Christ in the Grave, also in
+the Basel Museum (Plate 10), should seem just a ghastly and "unpardonable"
+piece of realism. Realism of the most ghastly truthfulness, as to a
+corpse in the grave, it certainly is. But although it may be questioned
+whether such a picture should ever be painted, no one who looks through
+the form to the thought that shapes it would pronounce even this awful
+utterance "unpardonable."
+
+There have been those who could see in this dead Christ,--lying rigid in
+a green sarcophagus that throws over the waxen flesh the ghastly threat
+of that decay which would follow if no miracle intervened,--there have
+been those, I say, who could see in it only superb technique. And others
+see only the negation of all idealism, if not of all faith.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 10
+  CHRIST IN THE GRAVE
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Yet put this painting,--the acme of technical beauty as well as of
+ruthless realism,--at the close of the ten Passion drawings, and I
+venture to believe that the one coherent conception that runs through
+them all will legitimately find its conclusion here.
+
+Here He lies that surrendered Himself to the punishment of Sin and the
+penalty of Death--for all men and all time. His pale lips are set with
+the superhuman agony of the cry with which He paid the uttermost
+farthing of that bond. Man has died for man, martyrs for faith; here God
+has died unto Himself, for us. There has been no playing at death. All
+the pitiless terrors of the grave are here, with Him who for love of us
+has chosen to know Mortality "like at all points" with mortal men. What
+He bore for us, shall we shrink from so much as realising? The great
+eyes are fixed in a look whose penetrating, almost liquid sweetness
+not even the rigor of the final anguish could obliterate. Divine
+devotion,--devotion more than mortal,--still lingers in those sockets.
+The heart may well dilate before this sight; the soul fall on its knees.
+By each of those bloodstained steps, by the sting of this death, we have
+been paid for. Here, here only,--as Holbein saw it,--is the leverage the
+heathen philosopher vainly sighed for to move the world; God's
+leverage, Infinite Love.
+
+This is anything but a theological tangent. A great artist has
+bequeathed us his beliefs,--drawn and painted in many works, with every
+patient, virile, expressive power at his command. There has been enough
+and to spare of shrieks or scoffs. A little humility and a little study
+is in place, too. For the rest, let us not forget that this large
+painting was made for some altar; and that many a weeping penitent, many
+a devout heart, has been pierced with its message. On the edge of the
+stone coffin, which is tinted a warm green within, and lit by some
+opening at the foot, is the inscription in gold letters: "JESUS
+NAZARENUS REX JUDAEORUM." The stigmata are painted with unsparing truth.
+The work is dated 1521.
+
+There is in the Hampton Court Gallery a little painting which has only
+comparatively recently been recognised as Holbein's, but which forms the
+beautiful and fitting close of this set of religious pictures. As is the
+case with so many of his works, the critics are not unanimous upon it.
+But the authorities who have no doubts as to its being a genuine Holbein
+of this period are so weighty that I need not argue the point in
+support of my own convictions.
+
+In the Hampton Court Catalogue it is styled "Mary Magdalen at our Lord's
+Sepulchre," but I prefer to call it the Risen Christ (Plate 11). It must
+once have been supremely beautiful; for even now its ideal loveliness
+shines through all the evil fortunes which have once again defaced
+the handiwork of Holbein. The type of Christ, and indeed the work
+throughout, bears a marked resemblance to the eight-panelled Basel
+altar-piece.
+
+The painter has chosen the moment recorded in the twentieth chapter of
+St. John. In that early dawn, "when it was yet dark," Mary has brought
+spikenard in a marble cup, if not to anoint the sacred Dead at least to
+pour it on the threshold of the sealed tomb, with tears and prayers. She
+has fled to tell St. John and St. Peter of the sacrilege of the open
+tomb,--has followed them back, still mechanically clasping her useless
+spikenard,--has seen them go in where her trembling knees refused to
+follow, and then go homeward, as we can see them in the distance,
+arguing the almost incredible fact.
+
+Poor Mary has had no heart for discussion. She has stayed weeping by the
+empty grave until two pitying angels have appeared to recall her from
+despair, and she has "turned herself back,"--too frightened to stay for
+comfort. And then she has seen near her a Face, a Form, she was too
+dazed to recognise until the unforgettable Voice has thrilled through
+her, and she has flung herself forward with the old, instinctive cry,
+"Master!" to touch, to clasp that Hand, so dear, so familiar, so
+all-protecting, and find it a reality.
+
+It is this tremendous moment that Holbein has seized. And with what
+exquisite feeling for every detail of the scene, every great emotion!
+Had the painting been preserved, as it deserved to be, surely it too
+could claim a part of that laurel wreath which Sandrart averred could
+not be torn from the Basel altar-piece by any rival, whether Italian or
+German.
+
+  Illustration: Plate 11
+  THE RISEN CHRIST
+ _Oils. Hampton Court Gallery_
+
+The misty landscape, with the crosses of Golgotha and the eastern hills
+catching the first brightness of the new Day dawning over mortality; the
+broken clouds of night, scattered like the conquered horrors of the
+grave, and the illuminated tomb where Hope and Faith henceforth ask
+us why we weep; the hurrying agitation of St. Peter and the trusting
+serenity of St. John, expressed in every gesture; the dusky trees;
+Mary's quivering doubt and rapture, touched with some new awe; and
+the simple majesty with which our Lord stays that unconscious innocent
+presumption, _Touch me not_.
+
+What forbidding tenderness in that Face lighted by the grave He has
+passed through! What a subtle yet eloquent suggestion of the eternal
+difference, henceforth, between Love and love is in these mortal
+lineaments that have evermore resumed their divinity! No face, no type,
+no art, can ever realise Christ; yet when this little painting was first
+added to the great roll of Holbein _Basiliensis_, it must have gone as
+near to realising its subject as the colours of earth can go.
+
+But every man, happily for himself, has a material as well as an
+immaterial world with which he must be concerned. To transpose Bagehot's
+profound little saying,--Each man dines in a room apart, but we all go
+down to dinner together. And though Holbein knew the pinch of narrow
+means, he had no lack of good cheer as well as austere food in his art.
+
+On March 12th, 1521, the Great Council held its first meeting in the new
+Rathaus; and Meyer zum Hasen, who presided over it as Burgomaster,
+entrusted to his protege the enviable task of decorating the Council
+Chamber. Fifty-six years after Holbein's work was completed these
+wall-paintings were described as "representations of the noblest
+subjects--done by the German Apelles." By this title the painter was
+everywhere recognised throughout the greater part of his lifetime.
+
+In all, there would seem to have been six large pictures or set pieces;
+but two were not done until years later. One wall being too broken up by
+windows to be suitable, there remained three,--of which "the back wall"
+adjoining Meyer's house was not touched at this time. Ostensibly the
+reason was want of funds; but as a matter of fact the Protestant party
+(to anticipate this name), which grew strong enough to unseat Meyer
+before the year was out, was at this time indifferent to art when not
+positively inimical to it.
+
+Whether treating a facade or an interior it was Holbein's custom to make
+a flat wall-space assume the most solid-looking forms of Renaissance
+architecture. Iselin once said of a facade of Holbein's, that there was
+a dog painted on it so naturally that the dogs in the street would run
+up and bark at it. And so astounding was the realism with which he threw
+out balconies, and added windows, cornices, and statues, and the richest
+carvings, pillars, arches, and vistas of every sort, that no eye could
+credit them with illusion. Horses neighed in the courtyards, flowers
+bloomed in the gardens, dogs leaped beside master or mistress, and
+children played in the spacious balconies, or moved to and fro between
+the splendid marble pillars and the distant wall. To study the copies
+that remain of such works is to be astounded by their feats of
+perspective.
+
+Inside would be kindred illusions. Large pictures would seem to be
+actually taking place without, and beheld through beautifully carved
+archways or windows; while the apparent walls would have niches filled
+with superb marble statues and the ceiling be supported by pillars,
+behind which people walked and talked or leaned out to watch the chief
+scenes.
+
+And so it was with the Council Chamber. But nothing now remains of these
+works except fragments and a few drawings for the principal features. So
+far as can be judged, each wall had two large scenes; the four pictures
+of this period being chosen from the heroic legends of the _Gesta
+Romanorum_; the two painted later, from the Old Testament.
+
+But while these large works were going forward Holbein was busy with
+many others; private commissions for Froben, occasionally for other
+printers, and for altar-pieces or portraits. All through his life his
+industry and accomplishment left him small time for leisure or the
+dissipations of leisure. Nor is there any year of his life when his work
+does not attest a clear eye and a firm hand. These things are their own
+certificate of conduct; at any rate, of "worldly" conduct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1522 occurred two important events in his life. His first child, the
+son he called Philip, was born; and he painted an altar-piece which is
+in some respects the most beautiful of his extant works. The latter--now
+in the Solothurn Museum, and therefore called the "Solothurn Madonna"
+(Plate 12)--has had one of the most extraordinary histories to be found
+in the records of art.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 12
+  THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA
+ _Oils. Solothurn Museum_
+
+The background of this picture,--a massive arch of grey sandstone
+supported by iron stanchions,--was evidently designed to suit the
+surrounding architecture of some grey-walled ancient structure. On a
+dais covered with a green carpet, patterned in white and red and
+emblazoned with the arms of the donor and his wife, sits the lovely
+Madonna with the Child held freely yet firmly in two of the most
+exquisite hands which even Holbein ever painted. Her dress is a rich
+rose-red; her symbolical mantle of universal Motherhood, or "Grace," is
+a most beautiful ultramarine, loaded in the shadows and like a sapphire
+in its lights. The flowing gold of her hair shimmers under its filmy
+veil, and the jewels in her gold crown flash below the great white
+pearls that tip its points. Where the sky-background approaches Mother
+and Child, its azure tone is lost in a pure effulgence of light; as if
+the very ether were suffused with the sense of the Divine.
+
+The Child is drawn and painted superbly. The carnations are exquisite;
+the gravity of infancy is not exaggerated, yet fittingly enforces the
+gesture of benediction. The left hand is turned outward in a movement so
+peculiar to happy, vigorous babyhood that it is a marvel of observation
+and nature. The little foot is admirably foreshortened, and the wrinkled
+sole a bit of inimitable painting. But perhaps most wonderful of all is
+the art with which, amid so many splendid details, the Child is the
+centre of interest as well as of the picture. How it is so, is Holbein's
+own secret.
+
+To right and left of the Virgin stand two fine types of spiritual and
+temporal authority. Behind and at her right, almost hidden by the
+amplitude of her mantle, kneels a poor wretch who is introduced here by
+some necessity of the commission itself, but is skilfully prevented from
+obtruding his needs on the serene beauty of the scene. Dropping gold
+into his alms-bowl with a hand effectively contrasted with his brown
+thumb, stands "the sinner's saint"--the good Bishop of Tours; while some
+other condition of the work has embroidered St. Martin's red mitre with
+the figure of St. Nicholas. There is one other striking circumstance
+about St. Martin; and that is that, although he is in the Virgin's
+presence, he wears the violet chasuble of an Intercessor. The chasuble
+is lined with red, and it and the rich vestments, on which scenes of
+the Passion are displayed, are the patient verisimilitude of ancient
+vestments. In St. Martin's gloved left hand is his crozier and the right
+glove, which he has drawn off to bestow his alms.
+
+Opposite to him stands the patron-saint of Solothurn,--St. Ursus, a
+hero of the Theban legend,--dressed from head to foot in a suit of
+magnificently painted armour. His left hand grasps his sword-hilt; his
+right supports the great red flag with its white cross. Nor is that flag
+of the year 1522 the least interesting detail of this work. With the
+crimson reflections of the flag streaking the cold gleams of his
+glittering armour, his stern dark face and the white plumes tossing
+to his shoulder, St. Ursus is a figure that may well leave historical
+accuracy to pedants. Below his foot are the initials H.H., and the date,
+1522; as if cut into the stone.
+
+This work was commissioned by Hans Gerster, for many years Town
+Archivist of Basel, in which capacity he had to convey important state
+papers to other councils with which that of Basel had negotiations. From
+this it came about that from the year when Basel entered the Swiss
+Confederation, in 1501, Gerster was almost as much at home in the "City
+of Ambassadors" as in his own, and the Dean or _Probst_ of the Solothurn
+Cathedral--the "Cathedral of St. Ursus and St. Victor"--became not only
+his spiritual director, but one of his most intimate friends. Many
+circumstances which cannot be given here make it pretty evident that in
+1522 Gerster, probably under the advice of the Probst, the Coadjutor
+Nicholas von Diesbach, made this picture an _expiatory_ offering for
+some secret sin of grave proportions. There are hints that point to
+treachery to the Basel troops, in the Imperial interests, sympathy with
+which finally cost him, as well as his friend Meyer zum Hasen, his
+official position. Gerster himself was not a native of Basel, although
+his wife, Barbara Guldenknopf, was.
+
+Be this as it may, it is apparently in direct connection with this
+confessed sin that "the sinner's saint," St. Martin of Tours, is chosen
+as Intercessor for Gerster, wearing the prescribed chasuble for this
+office. And it seems likely that the addition to his mitre of the figure
+of St. Nicholas was Gerster's wish, in order to specially associate the
+name-saint of his friend--Nicholas von Diesbach--with this intercession.
+It is assumed by those who have patiently unearthed these details of
+circumstantial evidence, that the beggar is introduced to mark the
+identity of the boundlessly charitable Bishop of Tours. But I venture to
+suggest still another reason: this is, that in the uplifted, pleading
+face of the mendicant, whose expression of appeal and humility is a
+striking bit of realism in these ideal surroundings, we may have the
+actual portrait of the donor, Hans Gerster himself. That this should be
+so would be in strict accord with the methods of the period. There is a
+striking parallel which will occur to all who are familiar with the St.
+Elizabeth in the St. Sebastian altar-piece at Munich. Here the undoubted
+portrait of Hans Holbein the elder is seen as the beggar in the
+background.
+
+It is, as has been said, a marvellous story by which this glorious
+painting,--in which the introduction of the patron-saint of Solothurn
+proves that it was created for one of her own altars,--was completely
+lost to her, and to the very histories of Art, and then returned to the
+city for which it was originally destined; all by a chain of seemingly
+unrelated accidents. But only the skeleton of that story can be given
+here.[4]
+
+In all probability this Madonna was executed for the altar of the ancient
+Lady Chapel of the Solothurn Cathedral. A hundred and twenty-six years
+after it was painted, this chapel was pulled down, to be replaced by a
+totally different style of architecture; and as the picture was then
+smoke-stained and "old-fashioned" it would in all likelihood drop into
+some lumber-room. At all events, it must have become the property of the
+Cathedral choirmaster,--one Hartmann,--after another five-and-thirty
+years. For at this time he built, and soon after endowed, the little
+village church of Allerheiligen, on the outskirts of the industrial town
+of Grenchen, which lies at the southern foot of the Jura.
+
+_Facilis descensus!_ Another turn of the centuries' wheel and the gift
+of this chapel's founder was once again thought unworthy of the altar to
+which it had been presented. When Herr Zetter of Solothurn first saw it
+in the queer little Allerheiligen chapel, it hung high up on the choir
+wall; blackened, worm-eaten, without a frame, suspended by a string
+passed through two holes which had been bored through the painted panel
+itself. Yet his acute eye was greatly interested by it. And when, during
+an official visit in 1864, he heard that the chapel was undergoing a
+drastic renovation, he was concerned for the fate of the discoloured old
+painting. At first it could not be discovered at all. Finally he found
+it, face downward, spotted all over with whitewash, under the rough
+boards that served for the workmen's platform. A few hours later and it,
+too, would have been irrevocably gone; carted away with the "old
+rubbish"!
+
+He examined it, made out the signature, knew that this might mean either
+any one of a number of painters who used it, or a clumsy copy or
+forgery, yet had the courage of his conviction that it was Holbein's
+genuine work. He bought it of the responsible authority, who was glad
+to be rid of four despised paintings, for the cost of all the new
+decorations. He had expert opinion, which utterly discouraged his
+belief; but stuck to it, took the risks of having it three long years
+(so rotten was its whole condition) under repairs which might at any
+moment collapse with it, yet leave their tremendous expenses behind to
+be settled just the same; and finally found himself the possessor of a
+perfectly restored chef-d'oeuvre of Holbein's brush, which, from the
+first, Herr Zetter devoted to the Museum (now a fine new one) of
+Solothurn.
+
+To-day this work, which some forty years ago no one dreamed had ever
+existed, smiles in all the beauty of its first painting; a monument to
+the insight and generous enthusiasm of the gentleman whose name is rightly
+connected with its own in its official title--"The Zetter-Madonna of
+Solothurn." And it smiles with Holbein's own undebased handiwork
+throughout. _Pace_ Woltmann's blunder,--its network of fine cracks, even
+over the Virgin's face, attests that it has suffered no over-painting.
+The work has been mounted on a solid back, the greatest fissures and the
+holes filled up to match their surroundings, the stains and defacements
+of neglect cleared away, and the triumph is complete. It might well be
+the "swan song" of a veteran artist at such work. Whatever the mistakes
+of Eigener's career, the restoration of the Solothurn Madonna was a
+flawless achievement for himself and his associates.
+
+This work, too, is the most precious of all that have come down to us of
+Holbein's imaginative compositions, from the fact that his first-born,
+Philip, who was born about 1522, was the model for the Child, and that a
+portrait of Elsbeth, his wife, served as a study for the Virgin. This
+portrait is an unnamed and unsigned drawing in silver-point and Indian
+ink, heightened with touches of red chalk, now in the Louvre Collection.
+(Plate 13.)
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 13
+  UNNAMED PORTRAIT-STUDY: NOT CATALOGUED AS HOLBEIN'S
+ _Silver-point and Indian-ink. Louvre Collection_
+ _Believed by the writer to be Holbein's drawing of
+  his wife before her first marriage, and the model
+  for the Solothurn Madonna_
+
+That this is a portrait of Holbein's wife any careful comparison with
+her portrait at Basel must establish. Feature for feature, allowing for
+the changes of sufficient years, the two faces are one and the same. The
+very line of the shoulder, setting of the head, and even the outline of
+the fashion in which the low dress is cut, is alike in both. And equally
+unmistakable is the relation between this Louvre drawing and the
+Madonna of Solothurn.
+
+Yet I am unable to accept Woltmann's theory that the drawing was made in
+1522 "for" the Virgin. He assumes that the lettering which borders the
+bodice in this drawing--ALS. IN. ERN. ALS. IN....--and the braids in
+which the hair is worn are simply some "fancy" dress. But surely if ever
+hair bore the stamp of unstudied, even ugly custom, it does so here.
+Then, too, Woltmann himself, as are all who adopt this explanation, is
+unable to reconcile the oldest age which can be assigned to this sitter
+with the youngest that can be assumed for the Basel painting of 1529
+upon a hypothesis of only seven years' interval. Temperament and trouble
+can do much in seven years; but not so much as this. I say _temperament_
+advisedly; because all the evidence of Holbein's life substantiates
+the assertion of Van Mander, who had it from Holbein's own circle of
+contemporaries,--that the painter's life was made wretched by her
+violent temper. We shall find him far from blameless in later years; but
+though it may not excuse him, his unhappy home must largely explain his
+alienation.
+
+Yet that it can explain such an alteration as that between the Louvre
+drawing and the Basel portrait I do not believe. Nor could I persuade
+myself either that any married woman of the sixteenth century wore her
+hair in that most exclusive and invariable of Teuton symbols--"maiden"
+plaits;--or that any husband ever thought it necessary to advertise upon
+a picture of his wife that he held her "in all honour."
+
+Myself, I must believe, then, that this portrait was made years before
+1522; probably in the young painter's first months in Basel, in 1515;
+and thus some fourteen years before the Basel group of 1529 was painted.
+It may well have been that some serious misunderstanding between them
+was at the bottom of that otherwise inexplicable departure in 1517, and
+the two years' absence in Lucerne and still more southern cities. Of
+course this is mere guesswork; so is every hypothesis until it is proved.
+But all the simple commonplaces of first love, estrangement, separation,
+and a renewed betrothal after Elsbeth's early widowhood with one child,
+could easily have run a natural course between 1515 and their marriage,
+somewhere about 1520.
+
+As for the inscription,--it is a detail that Woltmann thinks represents
+a repetition of the one phrase, and that I imagine to have suggested
+what for some reason Holbein did not wish to proclaim:--"In all honour.
+[In all love.]" But nothing can shake my conviction that in it we hear
+the faint far-off echoes from some belfry in Holbein's own city of Is.
+The realities of that chime are buried,--whether well or ill,--four
+hundred years deep in the seas that roll over that submerged world of
+his youth and passion. But living emotion, we may be sure, went to the
+writing and the treasuring of this pledge to Elsbeth or himself; a
+pledge redeemed when she became his wife.
+
+Thus for the altar-piece of 1522 there would be this portrait of Elsbeth
+in her girlhood ready to his hand. But even so, see how he has idealised
+it, made a new creature of it, all compact of exquisite ideals! He has
+eliminated the subtle sensuousness which has its own allure in the
+drawing. Every trait is refined, purified, vivified, raised to another
+plane of character. Genius has put the inferior elements into its
+retort, and transmuted them to some heavenly metal far enough from
+Holbein's home-life.
+
+Throughout all these years, as has been said, he was busy for the
+printers also. In 1522 he drew the noble title-page for Petri's edition
+of Luther's New Testament, with the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul
+at either side, of which mention has been made. And in Thomas Wolff's
+edition of 1523 there is a series of his designs. His alphabets, borders,
+illustrations of all sorts, continued to enrich the Basel press from
+this date, and were often borrowed by printers in other cities. In 1523
+there came to Basel that masterly wood-cutter who has been already
+referred to,--Hans Luetzelburger. And from this time on, therefore,
+Holbein's designs may be seen in their true beauty.
+
+He had painted, besides portraits of Froben and others, at least three
+portraits of Erasmus by 1524. For in June of this year the latter writes
+to his friend Pirkheimer, at Nuernberg, to say that he has sent two of
+these portraits by the "most accomplished painter" to England; while the
+artist himself, he adds, has conveyed still a third to France.
+
+The smaller of the two sent to England, two-thirds the size of life, is
+probably the one now in the Louvre (Plate 14). It is a masterpiece of
+penetration and technique. Erasmus is here seen in the most unaffected
+simplicity of dress and pose; in profile against a dark-green tapestry
+patterned with light green, and red and white flowers. The usual
+scholar's cap covers his grey hair. The blue-grey eyes are glancing down
+at his writing. Studies for the marvellously painted hands are among the
+Louvre drawings. The very Self of the man--the lean, strong, _thinking_
+countenance,--the elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly, stealing
+out on his lips,--is alive here by some necromancy of art.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 14
+  ERASMUS
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+The portrait now in the Basel Museum, in oils on paper, afterwards
+fastened to the panel, is in all likelihood that third portrait which
+Erasmus told Pirkheimer the painter himself had taken to France. So
+that Holbein must have painted it for, and carried it to, Bonifacius
+Amerbach, who was then, in 1524, finishing a renewed course of study at
+Avignon. Probably it was during this visit to France, too, that he made
+the spirited sketches of monuments at Bourges. In that case it would
+seem that he struck across by way of Dijon to the Cathedral City, in
+connection with some matter not now to be discovered, and from there
+took the great highway to Avignon by way of Lyons; carrying with him the
+gift of his sketches from the monuments of Duke Jehan of Berri and his
+wife. These were treasured in Amerbach's collection.
+
+Whatever the reason that sent him abroad on this journey,--whether
+unhappiness at home or the troubled state of public affairs during the
+Peasants' War of 1524 and 1525,--or whether he simply had business in
+France which delayed him there for a year or two--at all events, all
+records fail as to his wanderings or work in this long interval. And
+many circumstances go to show that it was at this time that he entered
+upon the immortal work which was published at Lyons, by the Trechsel
+Brothers, many years later;--those "Images of Death" which have borrowed
+the old name in popular parlance, and are generally called Holbein's
+"Dance" of Death.
+
+Just why the Trechsels did not issue the publication until 1538 it is
+impossible to say. As one of the largest Catholic publishing-houses of
+France, they would be governed by circumstances entirely outside of
+Holbein's history or control. But more than one circumstance presses the
+conclusion that the designs were made between 1523 and 1526. And there
+is a certain amount of evidence for the belief that they may have been
+first struck off in Germany, possibly by some one of the multifarious
+connections of the Trechsels, as early as 1527. But this is a large
+subject, not to be dealt with as an aside.
+
+All the world knows these wonderful designs; their beauty of line, power
+of expression, and sparkling fancy. Among them all there are only two
+where Death is a figure of violence; and but one,--the knight, transfixed
+by one fell, malignant stroke from behind--where Death exhibits positive
+ferocity. In both of these,--the Count, beaten down by his own great
+coat-of-arms, is the other,--it is easy to read a reflection of the
+actualities of the Peasants' War then raging.
+
+For the rest, the grim skeleton wears no unkind smile; though that he
+_is_ Death makes it look a ghastly-enough pleasantry. But toward the
+poor and the aged he is better than merry; he is kind. His fleshless
+hand is raised in benediction over the aged woman; and the bent
+patriarch leans on his arm, listening to Death's attendant playing the
+sweet old melodies of Long-Ago as he stands on the verge of the great
+Silence.
+
+But where a selection must be made, there are two drawings with their
+own special claim to consideration. These are the Ploughman and the
+Priest (Plates 14 and 15). The former has been cited by Ruskin as an
+example of a perfect design for wood-engraving; but even higher than its
+art, to my thinking, is its feeling. To the labourer of this sort,--poor,
+patient, toilworn,--Holbein's heart is very gentle. And so is Death--who
+muffles up his harsh features and speeds the heavy plough with a step
+like that of Hope. And at the end of the long, last uphill furrow, see
+how the setting sun shines on "God's Acre!"
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 15
+  THE PLOUGHMAN
+ _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_
+
+  THE PRIEST
+ _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_
+
+The second selection, the Priest, is its own proof, if any were needed,
+of how sharply Holbein distinguished cloth from cloth. In it, nearly a
+decade after he had pointed Erasmus's satire on the unworthy prelate or
+the unclean friar, may plainly be read that reverence for the true
+priest which Holbein shared with all his best friends. In the quaint,
+quiet street this solemn procession is too familiar a sight to draw any
+spectator from the hearth where the fire of the Living is blazing
+so cheerily. The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts his kind
+glance around as he passes on his Office with the veiled Pyx carried
+reverently. Before him goes Death, his Server, hastening the last mercy
+with eager steps. Under his arm is the tiny glass that has measured the
+whole of a mortality; the sands have lost their moving charm, and all
+their dazzle makes but a little shadow now. In his hand is the bell that
+sounds Take heed, Take heed, to the careless; and Pardon, Peace, to
+dying ears that strain to hear it. But largest of all his symbols is the
+lamp in his right hand; his own lamp, the lamp that dissipates Earth's
+last shadows--the Light of Death.
+
+Holbein must have had his own solemn memories of the Last Office as he
+drew this picture of the good parish priest. For it was just about this
+time that the Viaticum must have been administered to his father. In
+1526 the then Burgomaster of Basel wrote to the monastery at Issenheim,
+where Hans Holbein the Elder had left his painting implements behind him
+years before, in which he recalls to the Fathers how vainly and how
+often "our citizen," Hans the Younger, had applied to get these costly
+materials restored to their owner during his life; or to himself as his
+father's heir afterwards. This application was no more successful than
+Holbein's own, apparently; and the painter was told to seek his father's
+gold and pigments among the peasants who had pillaged the monastery.
+
+By 1526 Holbein was back in Basel; but two works of this year would go
+to show that he was little less separated from his wife in Basel than
+when away. The first of these, about one-third life-size, is a portrait
+of a woman with a child beside her who grasps an arrow to suggest the
+Goddess of Love attended by a wingless Cupid (Plate 16). The little
+red-haired child does not do much to realise the ideal; but the woman,
+though not an ideal Venus, might nevertheless well pose as a man's
+goddess. A "fair" woman in more senses than her colouring. Her dark-red
+velvet dress slashed with white; wide sleeves of dusky gold-coloured
+silk; her close-fitting black head-dress embroidered with gold; the soft
+seduction of her look; the welcoming gesture of that pretty palm flung
+outward as if to embrace; these are all in keeping.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 16
+  DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS THE GODDESS OF LOVE
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+This was a lady whose past career might have warned a lover that
+whatever she might prove as a goddess, she could play but a fallen
+angel's part. The annals of Basel knew her only too well. This was
+Dorothea, the daughter of a knight of good old lineage,--Hans von
+Offenburg. But the knight died while she was quite young, and her
+mother, better famed for looks than conduct, married the girl to a
+debauched young aristocrat,--Joachim von Sultz. His own record is
+hardly less shameless than Dorothea's soon became,--though the latter
+is chiefly in archives of the "unspeakable" sort. At the time when this
+picture was painted she must have been about two-and-twenty.
+
+Unhappy Holbein, indeed! The temper of Xantippe herself, if she be but
+the decent mother of one's children, might work less havoc with a life
+than this embroidered cestus. But "the German Apelles" was no Greek
+voluptuary, ambitious in heathen vices, such as that other Apelles
+whose painting of Venus was said to be his masterpiece. And when
+Holbein inscribed his second portrait of Dorothea with the words LAIS
+CORINTHIACA, the midsummer madness must have been already a matter of
+scorn and wonder to himself. His whole life and the works of his life
+are the negation of the groves of Corinth.
+
+The paint was not long dry on the Goddess of Love--at any rate, her
+dress was not worn out--before he had seen her in her true colours; "the
+daughter of the horse-leech, crying Give, Give."
+
+And so he painted her in 1526 (Plate 17); to scourge himself, surely,
+since she was too notoriously infamous to be affected by it. As if in
+stern scorn of every beauty, every allure, he set himself to record
+them in detail: something in the spirit with which Macaulay set himself,
+"by the blessing of God," to do "full justice" to the poems of Montgomery.
+Lais is far more beautiful, and far more beautifully painted, than
+Venus. No emotion has hurried the painter's hand or confused his eye
+this time. In vain she wears such sadness in her eyes, such pensive
+dignity of attitude, such a wistful smile on her lips. He knows them,
+now, for false lights on the wrecker's coast. No faltering; no turning
+back. He can even fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and add the
+puffed sleeves below the short ones. He is a painter now; not a lover.
+And lest there should be one doubt as to his purpose, he flings a heap
+of gold where "Cupid's" little hand would now seem desecrated, and
+inscribes beneath it the name that fits her beauty and his contempt.
+The plague was raging in Basel all through that spring and summer,
+but I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact as at the loveliness he
+painted. The brand he placed upon it is proof of that--Lais Corinthiaca,
+the infamous mistress of the Greek Apelles.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 17
+  DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LAIS CORINTHIACA
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+But in 1526 men sat among the ashes of far goodlier palaces and larger
+interests than personal ones. The party in power was not friendlier to
+Art than to the Church of Rome. In January the Painters' Guild had
+presented a petition to the Council,--humbly praying that its members,
+"who had wives and children depending on their work," might be allowed
+to pursue it in Basel! And so hard was Holbein himself hit by the
+fanatical excitement of the time that the Council's account-books show
+the paltry wage he was glad to earn for painting a few shields on some
+official building "in the borough of Waldenburg."
+
+Small wonder that an artist such as Holbein should feel his heart grow
+sick within him, and should turn his thoughts with increasing
+determination to some fresh field. Even without the bitterness that now
+must have edged the tongue of a wronged wife, or the bitterer taste of
+Dead Sea fruit in his own mouth,--he must have been driven to try his
+luck elsewhere. And of all the invitations urged upon him, the chances
+which Erasmus's introductions could give him in England would probably
+offer the greatest promise.
+
+But before he set out with these letters, in the late summer of 1526, he
+executed yet one more great commission for his old friend, Jacob Meyer
+zum Hasen, now leader of the Catholic party in opposition. This was the
+work known now to all the civilised world as "The Meyer Madonna." For
+centuries the beautiful picture which bears this name in the Dresden
+Gallery has been cited by every expert authority and critic as this
+work. But since the mysterious appearance of the Darmstadt painting,
+which suddenly turned up in a Paris art collector's possession, from no
+one knows where in 1822, the tide of belief has slowly receded from the
+Dresden painting. Until now there are only a few judges who do not
+hold--especially since the public comparison of the two works at Dresden
+in 1871--that the Dresden picture is "a copy by an inferior hand."
+
+Unquestionably the painting now in the Schloss at Darmstadt is the
+earlier version. And unquestionably, too, the changes introduced in the
+Dresden copy,--the elevated architecture, slenderer figures, and less
+happy Child,--are so great as to lend weight to the arguments of those
+who still claim that no copyist would ever have made them. But, as has
+been said, the contention that the Dresden work is a replica by Holbein
+of the older Darmstadt altar-piece, is now maintained by only a very
+small minority of judges. The painting of the Darmstadt work is admitted
+by all to be more uniformly admirable, more completely carried out;
+the details more finished (except in the case of the Virgin), and the
+colours richer and more harmonious. Yet both works should be studied to
+appreciate fully their claims and differences (Plates 18 and 19).
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 18
+  THE MEYER-MADONNA
+ _Oils. Grand Ducal Collection, Darmstadt_
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 19
+  THE MEYER-MADONNA
+  [_Later Version. Held by many to be a copy_]
+ _Oils. Dresden Gallery_
+
+In the Darmstadt work the Virgin's dress is wholly different in tone
+from her robe at Dresden; otherwise the colouring aims to be the same
+in each. Here, in the original altar-piece, it is a greenish-blue. The
+lower sleeves are golden, a line of white at the wrist, and a filmier
+one within the bodice. Her girdle is a rich red; her mantle a
+greenish-grey. Over this latter her fair hair streams like softest
+sunshine. Above her noble, pity-full face sits her crown of fine gold
+and pearls.
+
+The woman kneeling nearest to the Madonna is commonly believed to be
+Meyer's first wife, who had died in 1511, the mother of one child--a
+daughter--by a previous husband. Between this stepdaughter and Meyer
+there was considerable litigation over her property. The younger woman,
+whose chin-cloth is dropped in the painting though worn like the others
+in the drawing for her portrait, is Meyer's second wife, Dorothea
+Kannegiesser, whom he married about 1512, and with whom he was painted
+by Holbein in 1516. The sombre garments of both women are echoed by the
+black of Meyer's hair and coat, the latter lined with light-brown fur.
+Meyer's face, in its manly intensity of devotional feeling, is a
+wonderful piece of psychology in the Darmstadt picture.
+
+In the drawing for the young girl, Anna Meyer, who kneels beside her
+mother with a red rosary in her hands, she has her golden-brown hair
+hanging loose down her back, as befits a girl of thirteen. But in
+the painting it is coiled in glossy braids beneath some ceremonial
+head-dress; this is richly embroidered with pearls, with red silk tassel
+and a wreath of red and white flowers above it. This head-dress is
+painted with much more beautiful precision in the older work, and the
+expression of the girl's face is much more deeply devout; her hands,
+too, are decidedly superior to those of the Dresden work.
+
+This is true also of the carpet, patterned in red and green, with
+touches of white and black, on a ground of deep yellow. The Dresden
+carpet is conspicuously inferior in finish and colour to that of
+Darmstadt, so much so that Waagen and others, who believe the former a
+replica, think a pupil or assistant may have been responsible for this
+and other details, which for some reason Holbein himself was unable to
+finish.
+
+The elder boy, with the tumbled brown hair, dressed in a light-brown
+coat trimmed with red-brown velvet, and hose of cinnabar-red, with
+decorations of gold clasps and tags on fine blue cords, has a
+yellowish-green portemonnaie, with tassels of dull blue hanging from his
+girdle. All the carnations are superb, and in the Darmstadt picture the
+infant Christ wears a sweet and happy smile. In that of Dresden He looks
+sad and ill; a fact which has given rise to the theory Ruskin
+adopted--that the Virgin had put down the divine Child and taken up
+Meyer's ailing one. But the absence of wonder on the faces of Meyer's
+family, and, indeed, the familiar affection of the elder boy, would of
+itself negative this theory. I have my own ideas as to this point, but
+it would serve no useful purpose to go into them in this place. Of these
+two sons of Meyer there is no other record. Anna alone survived her
+mother, who married again after Meyer's death. Anna's daughter married
+Burgomaster Remigius Faesch, or Fesch, whose grandson--Remigius Faesch,
+counsellor-at-law--was the well-known art collector whose collection and
+manuscript are also in the Basel Museum, where there is an oil-copy of
+the Dresden Meyer-Madonna.
+
+Even the cool eye of Walpole was warmed by this great work of 1526, as
+he saw it in the Dresden painting then hanging in the Palazzo Delfino
+at Venice. "For the colouring," he exclaims, "it is beautiful beyond
+description; and the carnations have that enamelled bloom so peculiar to
+Holbein, who touched his works till not a touch remained discernible."
+Twenty years earlier Edward Wright had written of Meyer's youngest
+boy--"The little naked boy could hardly have been outdone, if I may
+dare to say such a word, by Raphael himself." And in our own day that
+fine and measured critic, Mrs. Jameson, has spoken for generation upon
+generation who have thought the same thought before the Meyer-Madonna
+of Dresden, when she says of it: "In purity, dignity, humility and
+intellectual grace this exquisite Madonna has never been surpassed; not
+even by Raphael. The face, once seen, haunts the memory."
+
+When Wright and Walpole saw this Dresden work at Venice, it was supposed
+to be "the family of Sir Thomas More"--_Meier_ having slipped into
+"More" in the course of centuries, which had retained only the vivid
+impression of Holbein's association with the latter, and knew that
+the painter had drawn him in the midst of his family. That living
+association was now, late in the summer of this year, about to begin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHANCES AND CHANGES
+
+1526-1530
+
+  First visit to England--Sir Thomas More; his home and portraits--The
+  Windsor drawings--Bishop Fisher--Archbishop Warham--Bishop
+  Stokesley--Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait--Nicholas
+  Kratzer--Sir Bryan Tuke--Holbein's return to Basel--Portrait-group of
+  his wife and two eldest children; two versions--Holbein's children,
+  and families claiming descent from him--Iconoclastic fury--Ruined
+  arts--Death of Meyer zum Hasen--Another Meyer commissions the
+  last paintings for Basel--Return to England--Description of the
+  Steelyard--Portraits of its members--George Gysze--Basel Council
+  summons Holbein home--"The Ambassadors" at the National Gallery;
+  accepted identification--Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn--Lost paintings
+  for the Guildhall of the Steelyard; the Triumphs of Riches and
+  Poverty--The great Morett portrait; identifications--Holbein's industry
+  and fertility--Designs for metal-work and other drawings--Solomon and
+  the Queen of Sheba.
+
+
+Two years earlier Erasmus had evidently thought that London was the
+true stage for such a genius as Holbein's, and More had written that
+he would gladly do all he could to further the painter's success if
+he should decide to visit England. More himself called Holbein "a
+marvellous artist" for his portrait of Erasmus, and could not but be
+delighted with the beautiful little woodcut which opened Froben's
+edition of his own _Utopia_.
+
+This illustration represents More and his only son seated with AEgidius,
+or Peter Gillis, in the latter's own garden at Antwerp, listening to the
+tale of _Utopia_ from the ancient comrade of Amerigo Vespucci. And very
+likely Holbein himself sat in this garden, in the late summer of 1526,
+when he was passing through Antwerp to England. He had a letter of
+introduction from Erasmus to AEgidius, as also to the host who was
+expecting him in England--Sir Thomas More.
+
+Van Mander says that long before this the Earl of Arundel, when pausing
+at Basel, had been so much pleased with Holbein's works in that city
+that he had urged the painter to forsake it for London. But it would
+pretty surely have been the promise of More's influence which actually
+induced him to try his fortune so far afield. And by the autumn of 1526
+he was one of that happy company which the genial soul of More drew
+around him in his new home in "Chelsea Village," where Beaufort Row now
+has its north end. Here the master's love of every art, and aptitude in
+affairs, filled his hospitable mansion with wit and music and joyous
+strenuousness. Here he was the idol of his family, as well as the King's
+friend. Henry himself must surely have shuddered could he have pictured
+that face, over which thought and humour were ever chasing one another
+like sun and shadow on the lawn, black above London Bridge and flung at
+last from it into the Thames only a few years hence. Now it turned to
+his own all life and loyalty, as he laid his arm around More's shoulders
+while they wandered between the garden beds of Chelsea.
+
+Early in 1527, probably, Holbein had finished the fine portrait of his
+host, which is now in Mr. Huth's collection. The study for this oil
+painting is among the Windsor drawings (Plate 20), as also one for
+the large family picture now lost, if indeed it was ever completed by
+Holbein; a matter of some doubt, notwithstanding Van Mander's account
+of it in the possession of the art-collector Van Loo. An outline sketch
+of it, or for it, he certainly made. And that precious pen-and-ink
+outline,--with the name of each written above or below the figure
+in More's hand, and notes as to alterations to be made in the final
+composition in Holbein's hand,--is now in the Basel Museum; having come
+into Amerbach's possession as the heir of Erasmus.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 20
+  SIR THOMAS MORE
+ _Chalks. Windsor Castle_
+
+In Mr. Huth's oil portrait More is wearing a dark-green coat trimmed
+with fur, and showing the purple sleeves of his doublet beneath. His
+eyes are grey-blue. He never wore a beard, made the fashion by Henry
+VIII. at the same time that the head was "polled,"--a singularly ugly
+combination,--until he was in the Tower and grew that beard which he
+smilingly swept away from the path of the executioner's axe. "It," he
+said with astonishing self-possession, could be "accused of no treason."
+In 1527, however, no shadow of tragedy seemed possible unless the
+suspicion of it slept in More's own heart when he said to his son-in-law,
+in answer to some flattering congratulation on the King's favour, "Son
+Roper, if my head could win him a castle in France, my head should
+fall."
+
+But for these superb drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, we
+should know nothing at all of many a portrait Holbein painted--all
+among the immediate friends of More and Erasmus on this first visit
+to England; nor, for that matter, of many a portrait painted in later
+years. And how little these can be trusted to tell the whole tale of
+achievement is shown by the fact that they include no studies for a
+number of oil paintings that are still in existence.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 21
+  JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER
+ _Chalks. Windsor Castle_
+
+Of the drawings which represent a lost painting, there is a noble one of
+Bishop Fisher, whose execution preceded More's by only a few weeks. A
+literally venerable head it was (Plate 21), to be the shuttlecock of
+papal defiance and royal determination not to be defied with impunity.
+For assuredly if the life of the Bishop of Rochester hung in the
+balance, as it did, in May, 1535, it was Paul III.'s mad effrontery
+in making him a Cardinal while he was actually in the Tower under his
+sovereign's displeasure which heated the King's anger to white-hot
+brutality. "Let the Pope send him a hat," he thundered, "but I will so
+provide that he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head he shall have
+none to set it on!" And on the 17th of that June he made good the savage
+oath. Yet the painter, after all, has been more potent than the King.
+For here lives Fisher. Bishop or Cardinal this is the man, as More loved
+him.
+
+A striking and richly painted oil portrait of Erasmus's "Maecenas,"
+Archbishop Warham, is in the Louvre; of which there are a number of
+copies, as well as a replica, at Lambeth Palace. The latter was
+exhibited at Manchester in 1857. The study for these portraits is among
+the Windsor drawings. The painting in the Louvre has more vividness in
+the carnations, and the impasto is thicker than at Lambeth; otherwise
+the two are identical. But for myself I find a more seizing quality in
+the chalk drawing than in either. There is something in its sunken
+fading eyes that speaks of the majesty of office as well as its burdens.
+
+Holbein painted a prelate of a very different sort in the oil portrait
+of John Stokesley, Bishop of London, which is preserved at Windsor
+Castle. And yet he dared to paint the Truth--now as always. The painting
+is a masterpiece of modelling and soft transparency of light and shade.
+But the truculent, lowering countenance leaves small doubt that the
+sitter was a gentleman pre-eminently "gey ill to live wi'."
+
+There is another oil painting at Windsor which has not escaped the
+injuries of time, but is none the less a splendid survival of 1527. This
+is the portrait of Sir Henry Guildford, Master of the Horse to Henry
+VIII., and holder of many another office of trust (Plate 22). It has
+sometimes been thought that the yellow tone of the complexion was due to
+over-painting, but the chalk drawing shows that it was a personal
+peculiarity.
+
+Sir Henry, a warm friend to both More and Erasmus, was forty-nine when
+he sat for this portrait. Under his black fur-trimmed surcoat he wears
+a doublet of gold brocade. In his hand is the wand of office as
+Chamberlain, and he is decorated with the collar and badge of the
+Garter.
+
+He was always a great favourite with the King from the time when the
+latter came to the throne and young Guildford, then twenty, was one of
+the gayest, bravest, most loyal spirits about it. Always as ready for a
+real battle as a mimic one; as clever at writing plays for the King's
+amusement as at acting in them; as good in a revel as at a piece of
+diplomacy; it is not much wonder that his knighthood in 1512 should but
+have been the prelude to a long series of promotions.
+
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 22
+  SIR HENRY GUILDFORD
+ _Oils. Windsor Castle_
+
+The affection of master and man, too, was singularly sincere for a
+court. Sir Henry loyally supported the King's demand for a divorce, but
+he was by no means ready to support a second marriage without the papal
+preliminary. Hence he was not a persona grata to Anne Boleyn. Nor
+would he stoop to curry favour at the expense of an honest conviction.
+When Anne warned him that he was likely to lose his office as soon as
+she became Queen, he promptly replied that he would spare her all
+concern about that, and went straight to the King to resign the office
+of Controller. The latter showed the depth of his affection by urging
+Sir Henry, twice, to reconsider his determination. But he wisely
+preferred to quit his apartments under the King's roof,--without,
+however, breaking the bond of mutual attachment. Five years after this
+picture was painted he died; in May, 1532. Holbein also painted Lady
+Guildford's portrait; an oil painting in Mr. Frewer's collection. And
+Sir Henry selected him as one of the chief artists commissioned to
+decorate the interior of the Banqueting Hall specially erected for the
+celebration of the French Alliance in 1527. By all of which it would
+seem that in securing a new patron the painter had once more made a
+friend.
+
+Erasmus had asked AEgidius to assist Holbein's success in any way he
+could. And it was probably owing to a letter from the Antwerp scholar
+that a friendship of many years sprang up between the painter and
+Nicholas Kratzer of Munich, then Astronomer-Royal at the Court of Henry
+VIII. It began with what was once a fine portrait. But the oil painting,
+now in the Louvre (Plate 23), has suffered such severe injuries as to be
+but a poor ghost of what it was originally. Only the composition, and
+the fidelity with which all his friend's scientific instruments are drawn
+attest Holbein. He never adds a detail for merely pictorial purposes;
+and never shuffles one that concerns the personality of a sitter. No
+biographer with his pen sets every straw to show the winds of character
+and circumstance more deliberately than does this historian with his
+brush. Something of Kratzer's shrewd wit,--for he was a "character"--can
+still be read in his half-destroyed picture. Years later we shall
+see the intimate friend of both him and his painter writing of the
+astronomer as a man "brim-full" of humour and fancy. And once, we may be
+sure, it sparkled in the eyes of Kratzer's portrait as brilliantly as in
+his own.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 23
+  NICHOLAS KRATZER
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+In the Munich Gallery there is another portrait in oils which has
+undergone, if possible, still more atrocious treatment than Kratzer's;
+yet, like it, still keeps enough of its original charm to rivet attention
+in any company. This latter is one of the most striking of the
+half-dozen portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke, which all claim, with more or
+less of probability, to be paintings by Holbein. And certainly in the
+years when Sir Bryan was Treasurer of the King's Household it would be
+natural that the painter, whose salary he regularly disbursed, should
+gladly oblige him to his utmost.
+
+But the Munich portrait also shows a far deeper bond of interests than
+one of money. The undercurrent of their natures ran in a groove of more
+than common sympathy; and to an analyst, such as Holbein was, the
+reflections behind these inscrutable eyes were full of unusual
+attraction.
+
+Myself, I feel convinced, for more than one reason, that it is a work of
+some years later. But as a consensus of authorities places it during
+this visit, the picture is noticed here. It gains rather than loses by
+reproduction;--since the painting now shows a strange disagreeable
+colour most unlike the carnations of Holbein. But the composition is
+unmistakable (Plate 24). Between the sitter and the green-curtained
+background stands perhaps the ghastliest of all Holbein's skeletons,--one
+hand on his scythe, the other grimly pointing at the nearly-spent sands
+of the hour-glass. Below the latter is a tablet on which, in Latin, are
+the words of Job: "My short life, does it not come to an end soon?" and
+the signature without the date. Sir Bryan wears a fur-trimmed doublet
+with gold buttons; the gold-patterned sleeves revealed by the black silk
+gown, also trimmed with fur. On a massive gold chain he wears a cross of
+great richness, enamelled with the pierced Hands and Feet. Fine lawn is
+at throat and wrists; and in one hand he holds his gloves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 24
+  SIR BRYAN TUKE
+ _Oils. Munich Gallery_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the researches of Eduard His, it used to be sometimes said that
+Holbein had virtually deserted his family when he left Basel in 1526. We
+know now, however, that whatever were the moral wrongs which he suffered
+or committed, he never forsook the duty of providing for his wife and
+children in no ungenerous proportion to his means.
+
+The records show that the fruit of his two years' industry was used to
+acquire a comfortable home which remained the property of his wife. And
+the inventory of its contents at Elsbeth's death, some six years after
+Holbein's death, proves that this home was to the full as well furnished
+and comfortable as was usual with people of similar condition.
+
+In the summer of 1528 the painter bade farewell for ever to Sir Thomas
+More's gracious Chelsea home. He took with him the pen-and-ink sketch
+for a large picture of More in the midst of his family, which has been
+already referred to. This was for Erasmus, who had temporarily abandoned
+Basel,--now so utterly unlike the Basel of former years,--and had sought
+the more sympathetic atmosphere of Freiburg. Bonifacius Amerbach, from
+the same causes, was here with Erasmus for some time. So that something
+like the old Froben days must have seemed still about them as the three
+friends sat together and talked of all that had come and gone.
+
+But by the latter part of August Holbein was back in that now
+sadly-altered Basel whence his best friends were reft by trouble or
+death. And on the 29th of August, 1528, he bought the house next to
+Froben's _Buchhaus_, the deed attesting that he did so in person, in
+company with Elsbeth. The price, 300 guldens or florins, was by no means
+the small one it now seems, nor could the painter pay the whole sum at
+once. He paid down one-third, and secured the rest by a mortgage. The
+site of this house is now occupied by 22 St. Johann Vorstadt. Three
+years later, March 28th, 1531, Holbein bought out a disagreeable
+neighbour; and thus added to his two-storied house overlooking the
+Rhine the little one-storied cottage which cost him only seventy
+guldens. The factory at No. 20 now partially covers this latter site.
+Fifty years ago both of the original houses were still standing; quaint,
+crumbling, affecting monuments of days when Holbein's voice and
+Holbein's step rang through their rooms, when Frau Elsbeth swept and
+garnished them; and when four children added their links to the chain of
+a marriage which Holbein was now manfully trying to make the best of.
+
+It must have been in the year after the purchase of the larger house
+that he painted the group of his wife and the two children she had then
+borne him. This life-size group, done in oils on paper, is now in the
+Basel Museum (Plate 25). The stoical sincerity with which they are
+represented, and the hard outline produced by cutting out the work to
+mount it on its wood panel, makes a somewhat repellent impression at the
+first glance. And this is in no way dispersed by studying Elsbeth's
+traits. But the painting itself is a tour-de-force. By sheer Quality
+Holbein has invested these portraits,--a middle-aged, coarse-figured,
+unamiable-looking woman, a very commonplace infant, and a bright-faced
+boy,--with the prestige inseparable from an achievement of a high
+order.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 25
+  ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN
+ _Oils. Basel Museum_
+
+Clearly Elsbeth Holbein was not one to give up the costume of her youth
+simply because she would have been well advised to do so; and the cut
+and fashion of her dress remains almost identical with the drawing in
+the Louvre. Her lustreless light-brown hair is covered with a gauzy veil
+and a reddish-brown cap. Her brown stuff upper garment, trimmed with
+thin fur, shows a dark-green dress beneath it. The baby wears a gown of
+undyed woollen material, and the boy a jacket of dark bluish green.
+
+Out of such unpromising materials has the painter made a picture that
+would challenge attention among any. If we knew nothing as to the
+identity of this woman, sitting oblivious of the children at her knee,
+wrapped in her own dark thoughts, we should certainly want to know
+something of her story and of the story of the little fellow whose eyes
+are breathlessly intent upon some purer, sweeter vision. There is at
+Cologne, in a private collection, a deeply interesting duplicate of
+this work; also on paper afterwards mounted on wood, but not cut out.
+Unfortunately this latter has suffered such irremediable injuries that
+it is quite impossible now to pronounce upon its claim to be either the
+earlier example or a replica; but good judges have believed it to be by
+Holbein. Its chief interest, however, from a biographical point of view,
+may be said to lie in the sixteenth-century writing pasted on at the
+top. Literally translated, this runs--
+
+  "Love towards God consists in Charity.
+  Who hath this love can feel no hate."[5]
+
+It is difficult to see on what grounds Woltmann, who was inclined to
+accept the picture as genuine, should hold the inscription to have
+been added by someone desirous of increasing the value of the work by
+representing it to be an allegorical picture of Charity. There was never
+a time when the allegory, if accepted, could have carried the same value
+as the portraits. And surely the second line is utterly inconsistent
+with the theory. Original or not, it has a very startling likeness to a
+plea which Holbein himself must have urged more than once, to soften a
+bitterness his own errors could not have tended to cure.
+
+When the Basel painting was cut out to be mounted, the last numeral was
+lost; so that it now stands dated 152-. But all the other facts put it
+beyond question that the picture could not have been done before 1529.
+The baby of 1522 was now the boy of seven, and his successor would seem
+to have been born during the first months of its father's visit to
+England, and to be now some eighteen months old.
+
+It may be as well to say here, once for all, as much as need be said of
+Holbein's family. As already stated, his wife survived him by six years,
+dying at Basel in 1549. By her first marriage she had one son, Franz
+Schmidt--who seems to have been a worthy and successful man of trade.
+She was the mother of four children by her marriage with Holbein;--Philip,
+born 1522; Katharina, 1527; Jacob, about 1530; and Kuenegoldt, about
+1532.
+
+Some years before the painter's death he took Philip Holbein to Paris,
+and there apprenticed him to the eminent goldsmith, Jerome David, with
+whom he remained until a couple of years after Holbein's death. Later,
+he somehow drifted to Lisbon, where he followed his trade until he
+settled in the old home of his grandfather and great-grandfather,
+Augsburg. In 1611 his son, Philip Holbein, junior, then "Imperial Court
+Jeweller" at Augsburg, petitioned the Emperor Matthias for letters
+patent to "confirm" his right to certain noble arms. The claims put
+forward in this document are utterly at variance with the received
+belief in Holbein's humble Augsburg origin. Yet the most expert
+investigators who have carefully studied this subject agree in thinking
+that this grandson based the genealogical tree on mythical foundations,
+and therefore planted it remote from Augsburg itself. But be this as it
+may--and it seems hard to reconcile such discrepancies within a century
+of the time when both Hans Holbein the Elder and his son were well-known
+citizens of Augsburg,--the application was successful. Mechel says that
+this Philip, who claims descent from the renowned "painter of Basel,"
+lived in Vienna during his later years; and that a descendant of his
+again got their patent "confirmed" in 1756, with the right to carry the
+surname of _Holbeinsberg_; also that this latter descendant was made a
+Knight of the Empire in 1787, as the noble _von Holbeinsberg_. So much
+for the eldest branch, that of Philip Holbein.
+
+The younger boy, Jacob, was a goldsmith in London after Holbein's death.
+The evidence seems to show that he was never here previous to that
+event,--which of itself may have first occasioned his coming, though
+hardly at the time, as Jacob was not more than thirteen at his father's
+death. A document in existence proves that he also died in London, about
+1552, and apparently unmarried; at which time his elder brother, Philip,
+was still in Lisbon.
+
+Katharina, the elder daughter, the baby of the Basel painting, seems to
+have left no descendants. She married a butcher of Basel and died in
+1590. And in the same year, very likely from one of the frequent
+epidemics so fatal to Basel, died Kuenegoldt, Elsbeth's youngest child.
+The Merian family of Frankfurt-am-Main claims an hereditary right to
+the artistic gifts of its famous copper-engraver, Mathew Merian, as
+descendants of Holbein through this daughter Kuenegoldt, who, when she
+died, was the wife of Andreas Syff, a miller, of Basel. According to
+the greatest authority on this subject, Eduard His, to whose exhaustive
+researches we owe almost all that is known of Holbein's family, the
+Merian claims have not, so far, been proved by actual archives; but he
+is of opinion that there is considerable circumstantial evidence to
+support their claim to be lineal descendants of Holbein through the
+female line.
+
+But in 1529, when the family group was painted, neither Jacob nor
+Kuenegoldt were yet born; and the painter was much more concerned with
+the anxieties of a living father than with the shadowy cares of an
+ancestor.
+
+And dark enough was the outlook in Basel, where the Lutheran agitation
+had, as Erasmus said, "frozen the arts." Before Holbein came back from
+England many churches had abjured all pictures. The tide of religious
+antagonism had, as we know, driven both Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach
+for a time to a Catholic stronghold; and had driven their old friend
+Meyer to do literal battle on behalf of the Church.
+
+Altar paintings were out of the question. And Holbein could but devote
+himself to designs for the printers and for goldsmiths. Many beautiful
+compositions for both crafts remain to testify of his matured powers
+and constant industry. The exquisite designs for dagger-sheaths, in
+particular, are rightly counted among the treasures of art. But in the
+summer of 1530 came a commission for the painter's last great work in
+Basel. This was the long-delayed order for the decoration of that vacant
+wall in the Council Hall, which adjoined the house _zum Hasen_.
+
+Oddly enough, this commission also came officially through a
+burgomaster, Jacob Meyer. But the Meyer of 1530, Meyer "of-the-Stag"
+(_zum Hirten_), had neither blood nor sentiments in common with the
+Meyer under whom Holbein had done his first work in the Rathaus. Each
+headed a party at deadly issue. For the past year Meyer-of-the-Hare had
+vainly tried to turn back the clock or to stay the iconoclastic fury
+of the hour. Religious fanaticism had wrecked him as well as every
+beautiful piece of art on which it could lay its hands. And now at last
+it mattered nothing any more so far as he was concerned. The dreadful
+harvests that had brought virtual famine, the earthquake shocks which
+had unsettled many a mental as well as material foundation, the flooding
+devastations of the Birsig, the rage of Canton against Canton, the Civil
+War ready to begin, Pope or Luther come by his own,--it was all one at
+last to Meyer zum Hasen, who died just as his protege of earlier years
+was commissioned to paint the blank wall.
+
+But something of his spirit, something of what he himself had been
+preaching to Basel in warning and threat for years, seems to have passed
+on into the pictures Holbein set before the Council. The paintings,
+alas! are no more. But a fragment or two and the drawings for them show
+how truly grand the two works were which Holbein had probably already
+intended should be his swan-song as Holbein _Basiliensis_. He chose for
+his subjects Rehoboam's answer to the suffering Israelites: "My little
+finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; my father hath chastised
+you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions"; and Samuel
+prophesying to Saul how dearly he shall learn that "Rebellion is as the
+sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness as an iniquity and idolatry."
+
+Both subjects are treated in the Great manner. Rehoboam, leaning forward
+from his throned seat with flashing eyes, and his little finger seeming
+actually to quiver in the air, is wonderfully conceived. But the meeting
+of Samuel and Saul (Plate 26) most splendidly demonstrates how far
+Holbein towered above mere portraiture when he had the opportunity. To
+picture this drawing in all the beauty of colour is to realise what we
+have lost, and what his just fame has lost, with the utter destruction
+of such works.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 26
+ _Behold to obey is better than sacrifice_
+  SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL
+ _Washed Drawing. Basel Museum_
+
+Not the greatest of the Italians could have improved upon the
+distribution and balance of this composition. The blazing background,
+the sense of a densely crowded host beyond what the eye can grasp, of
+captives and captors--all the stupendous crackle and roar and shout
+and sudden strained silence of Saul's immediate followers--is amply
+matched by those two typical protagonists, just then repeating the old
+drama with varying fortunes on the world's new stage. The Secular Arm
+has been short in the service of God, as interpreted by his Vicar; it
+has thought, in Saul's person, to win the cause, yet spare its enemies.
+Vain is it for him to run with humility, to tell what he has won and
+what overcome and done. He has not destroyed All--root and branch. For
+reasons of personal policy, he has given quarter. And the Priest, for
+God, will have none of his well-meaning excuses, of his good intentions,
+his policy, his burnt offerings of half-way measures;--"Behold to obey
+is better than sacrifice," begins his fierce anathema, "and to hearken
+than the fat of rams."
+
+Doubtless the Protestant party read its own meanings into these texts,
+when once the pictures were painted and paid for with seventy-two good
+guldens. But two very significant facts form their own commentary. One
+is that the only employment he received from the Council afterward was
+to redecorate the old Laellenkoenig monstrosity on the bridge!--and the
+other, that as soon as Holbein got his pay for this disgraceful
+commission, a pay he was now much too hard pressed to refuse, he quietly
+slipped away from Basel without taking the Council into his confidence.
+Judging from his after conduct to his family, he probably left the
+seventy-two guldens to support his wife and children--now four little
+ones--until such time as he could send them more from England; and took
+his way once more, in the late autumn of 1531, with knapsack and
+paint-brushes for the journey, to a city that might give him few walls
+to cover, but would certainly not set him to painting the town clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Things had changed in London also, and gravely, Holbein found, since
+he had quitted Sir Thomas More's home at Chelsea with the sketch for
+Erasmus, in the summer of 1528. He had barely settled himself, in the
+City this time, before the struggle between Henry VIII. and the English
+Clergy ended in that Convocation when the latter made its formal
+"Submission." And in the same month that this took place, Sir Henry
+Guildford died. Then the three great Acts of Parliament, which swept
+away the crying abuses of "Benefit of Clergy," resurrected the "dead"
+lands (so called because perpetually _aliened in mortmain_) by restoring
+them to the national circulation of the Sovereign-Will, and turned the
+rich stream of Annates or "First-Fruits" of the bishoprics from the
+Pope's coffers to the King's,--were passed in this year.
+
+This legislation was followed by the solemn protest and then the death
+of Archbishop Warham. So that now of that great and close quartet of
+friends,--Colet, Warham, More, and Erasmus,--there were two on either
+shore of the last crossing. And More could already see the dark river
+ahead. His eye marked the consequences of the Acts as keenly as his aged
+friend Warham had discerned them on his death-bed; and shortly after the
+"Submission," More resigned his great office as Chancellor.
+
+These seem matters too high to twist the threads of a poor painter's
+life. But in reality Holbein's career was shaped, from many a year back,
+by such events as rarely touch the humble individual directly. All his
+friends and all his patrons in this country were carried far out of
+reach by 1532; and he must sink or swim, as they in darker waters,
+according to his own powers. That under such unexpected ill-fortune he
+did not immediately sink was due to two things--the greatness of his
+powers, and the circumstance that a trading-company of Continentals,
+chiefly German, was seated in London with immense wealth and immense
+influence at its disposal, and that they were men who knew how to
+appreciate Holbein at his worth.
+
+The roots of the Steelyard (_Stahlhof_), or "Stilyard," as it is often
+called in early dramatists, go far back to the legendary centuries of
+English history. From before the time of Alfred the Great, traders from
+Germany had clustered together on the bank of the Thames, close to where
+Cannon Street Station now stands. Amalgamation with the Hanseatic
+League, and the necessities and gratitude of more than one king of
+England--but especially of Edward IV.--had made of the Steelyard a
+company such as only the East India Company of later centuries may
+be compared to. With the world's new geography and new commercial
+conditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its methods and
+its monopoly of the seas were gradually superseded by the great seamen
+of the Elizabethan era. But in Holbein's time, though already some of
+the Hanseatic ships were too overgrown to pass London Bridge and cast
+anchor at their own docks just above it, there was scarce a cloud upon
+the colossal prosperity of the Steelyard.
+
+Its walled and turreted enclosure, able to withstand the fiercest
+assaults of Wat Tyler's men, stretched from the river northward to
+Thames Street, and from Allhallows Street on the east to Dowgate Street
+on the west; and it might well have been described as a German city and
+port situated in the heart of the City of London. Its massive front in
+Thames Street, where were its three portcullised and fortified gateways
+with German inscriptions above and the Imperial Double-Eagle high over
+all, was one of the sights of London. And the Steelyard Tavern was a
+famous resort. When Holbein knew it well the greatest prelates and
+nobles and all the Court crowd,--which stretched its gardens and great
+houses from the stream of the Fleet, just west of the City wall, to
+Westminster Abbey,--used to flock to this Thames Street corner of the
+Steelyard to drink Rhenish wine and eat smoked reindeer-tongue and
+caviar.
+
+Within the gates stood the big Guildhall, which answered both for its
+councils and its noted banquets. The high carved mantelpieces and
+wainscotting served admirably to display the glittering plate and
+strange souvenirs of every known land and sea. On the walls which
+Holbein's works were so to enrich hung portraits of eminent members of
+the Guild. The Hall was flanked by the huge stone kitchen and by a
+strong-tower for the safeguarding of special valuables. In the open
+space between the Hall and the west wall of the enclosure was the
+garden, where trees and flowers and a greenery of vines had been planted
+in exact imitation of the gardens of the Fatherland. And here sat
+Holbein among the Associates, many a time, over their good cheer,--as in
+the old Basel gardens of the Blume or the Stork in other years, and
+heard only the German tongue or the songs of home around him.
+
+Away down to the docks ran the lanes of warehouses; shops and booths
+where every German trader or craftsman in London had his place; and
+where the merchandise of the world--the greater part of it destined for
+Luebeck as a centre of European distribution--might be sampled. Here were
+choicest specimens of the then costly spices of Cathay, or the famous
+falcons of Norway and Livonia, for which English sportsmen were willing
+to pay fabulous prices.
+
+As in other guilds, the government of this cosmopolitan beehive was that
+of a despotic democracy. All the inmates of the precincts were subjected
+to a rule little short of monastic in its strict discipline. The penalties
+for any infringement, for drunkenness or dicing or even for an abusive
+epithet, were very severe. The civic duties of the corporation, too,
+were sharply defined. In case of war every member had his appointed post
+in the defence of London. Every "master" had to keep the prescribed
+accoutrements and arms ready for immediate use, and the repairs and
+maintenance of the Bishop's Gate were at the sole cost of the Steelyard.
+
+No chapel was erected within its enclosure, the Guild preferring to be
+incorporated with the adjoining parish of Allhallows. Whether or not
+there is any truth at the bottom of the ancient tradition that this
+church had been originally founded by Germans, the Guild maintained its
+own altar in it in Holbein's time, where Masses were said on its own
+special days and festivals. So far are the facts from the common
+supposition that the doctrines of Luther would find natural favour in
+such a community, that the latter only gradually came into the "Church
+of England" by the same slow processes which transformed the whole
+parish around it. And when More, who was anything but _Utopian_ himself
+in the practice of tolerating "heresy" during his chancellorship, headed
+a domiciliary visit in search of Lutheran writings, he could find
+nothing but orthodox German Prayer-books and the Scriptures, whose use
+among laymen he always strenuously advocated; while every member of the
+community was able to make honest and hearty oath at St. Paul's Cross
+that no heretic or heretical doctrine would be tolerated amongst them.
+
+Here, then, in this staunch citadel of his own faith, Holbein naturally
+found a new circle of friends among whom it must have been strangely
+easy to fancy himself back in the Fischmarkt of his young years, with
+Froben and Erasmus and Amerbach and Meyer zum Hasen.
+
+The curtain rings up on his work for the Steelyard,--work which covered
+many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated
+here--with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait
+of Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often written, now in the
+Berlin Gallery (Plate 27), inscribed 1532, has called forth the
+enthusiastic eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece of rare good
+fortune it is in perfect preservation. The black of the surcoat alone
+has lost a little of its first lustre; all the rest is as though it had
+left the easel but the other day.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 27
+  JOeRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE
+ _Oils. Berlin Museum_
+
+The young merchant is seated among his daily surroundings in the
+Steelyard. He is in the act of leisurely opening a letter addressed, "To
+the hand of the honourable Joerg Gyze, my brother, in London, England"
+(_Dem ersamen herrn Joerg Gyzen zu Lunden in Engelant meinem broder to
+henden_). The merchant's motto, "No pleasure without care," is chalked
+up in Latin on the background, with his signature beneath it. Written on
+a paper stuck higher up is a Latin verse in praise of the portrait; also
+the date, and the sitter's age--thirty-four. On the racks and shelves
+are documents, books, keys, a watch and seals, and a pair of scales. A
+gold ball is hanging from above with a lovely chasing in blue enamel; a
+miracle of painting in itself, to say nothing of the exquisite Venetian
+glass, filled with water and carnation-pinks. This flower has its own
+meaning, and is introduced in more than one of Holbein's portraits. On
+the rich oriental table-cloth are writing materials also, with
+account-books, seal and scissors.
+
+Gyze himself is a fair-haired man, wearing a brilliant red silk doublet
+beneath his black cloak. And the amazing thing is that amidst this
+bewildering array of pictures--for every article is such in itself,
+owing to the perfection of its painting--Gyze is not lost or overridden
+for a moment. It is unmistakably _his_ picture; and he dominates the
+accessories as much as he did in reality. The man, the whole man, is
+there; and the things are there around him; that is all. But that
+the eye recognises this is the demonstration of the painter's own
+mastership. It is as much Holbein's peculiar secret as are the cool
+shadows, the luminous glow, the astounding elaboration, all made to
+express the dignity of one, and but one, theme.
+
+As has been said, the Steelyard portraits are too many to even catalogue
+here, covering many years. But Gyze's may be taken as their high-water
+mark. For that matter it could not, in its own way, be surpassed by
+any portrait. Holbein himself greatly surpassed it in the matter of
+subtle and noble simplicity, in his two greatest extant pieces of
+portraiture--the Morett of Dresden and the Duchess of Milan, now
+in our National Gallery. But in technical powers, and the power of
+subordinating their very virtuosity to the requirement of a true
+picture, this was a superlative expression of his matured method.
+
+In the midst of all his fresh London successes came a summons from
+Basel, which must have made the painter smile a little grimly. It had
+slowly dawned on the Council that Holbein--whose renown they well knew
+was a feather in Basel's cap--was proposing to make a prolonged absence.
+The result was a decision which the Burgomaster officially conveyed to
+him. Jacob Meyer zum Hirten wrote to say that Holbein was desired to
+return immediately to resume the duties of a citizen-artist, and that
+the Council, anxious to assist him in the support of his family, had
+resolved to allow him an annuity of thirty guldens yearly "until
+something better" could be afforded. Whether he replied in evasive
+terms, or whether he let the Laellenkoenig speak for him, is not on
+record.
+
+By the time Holbein received this letter, written late in the autumn of
+1532, he was plunged into a year of almost incredible activity. The
+whole of it would hardly seem too long for one such painting as the
+life-size double portrait--his largest extant portrait-painting--that
+now belongs to the National Gallery: "The Ambassadors" (Plate 28).
+
+At the extremities of a heavy table, something like a rude dinner-waggon,
+are two full-length figures which show a curious reflection of his
+early defect in their want of sufficient height. At the spectator's left
+stands a richly-costumed individual, whose stalwart proportions, ruddy
+complexion, and boldly ardent eye denote the perfection of vigorous
+health, and are in striking contrast to the physique, colouring, and
+expression of his companion. The former wears a black velvet doublet,
+which reveals an under-garment of gleaming rose-red satin. Over all
+is a black velvet mantle lined and trimmed with white fur. On his black
+cap is a silver brooch which displays a skull. He wears a gold badge
+exhibiting a mailed figure spearing a dragon suspended by a heavy gold
+chain. The hilt of his sword is seen at his left hand, and his right
+grasps a gold-sheathed dagger. On this latter is the inscription: AET.
+SVAE. 29; and from it depends a massive green-and-gold silk tassel,
+incomparably painted.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 28
+  "THE AMBASSADORS"
+ _Oils. National Gallery_
+
+As has been noted, the complexion of the man at our right is singularly
+pallid; the eyes mournfully listless; the skin of his knuckles drawn
+into the wrinkles of wasting tissues. He wears a scholar's cap and gown;
+the latter of some chocolate-brown pile, richly patterned, and lined
+with brown fur. He holds his gloves in his right hand and leans this
+arm on a closed book, on the edges of which is the lettering: AETATIS SVAE
+25.
+
+An oriental cover is spread on the table, and upon it are a number of
+the scientific instruments common to astrology and to the uses of
+astronomers like Kratzer, in whose portrait at the Louvre they are also
+to be seen. On the lower shelf are mathematical and musical instruments
+and books. The two latter are opened to display their text conspicuously.
+Near the man at our left, and kept open by a T-square, is the Arithmetic
+which Peter Apian, astronomer and globe-maker, published in 1527. It is
+opened at a page in Division, with its German text plainly legible and
+identical with the actual page, as seen in the British Museum's copy of
+this edition.
+
+The book nearest the man at our right, lying beneath the lute, has been
+also identified as Luther's Psalm-book with music,--in which the German
+text is by himself and the music by Johann Walther--first published in
+1524. Mr. Barclay Squire has shown that the two hymns could not, however,
+have faced each other in reality, as they do in the painting, without
+the intervening leaves having been purposely suppressed to gain this
+end. These hymns are "Come Holy Ghost" (_Kom Heiliger Geyst Herregott_)
+and "Mortal, wouldst thou live blessedly?" (_Mensch wiltu leben
+seliglich_). In each case the entire verse is given.
+
+The background is a green-diapered damask curtain most significantly
+drawn aside to show a silver crucifix high up in the left-hand corner,
+above the man with the dagger and sword. On the beautiful mosaic
+pavement is an ugly object that looks like some dried fish. But
+experiments have shown that the French Sale-Catalogues in which this
+work first appears in the eighteenth century--first, that is, so far as
+we can trace it by any records now known--were right in calling this a
+"skull in perspective"; _i.e._ a skull painted as seen distorted in a
+convex mirror. Some hint of its true character can be gathered, though
+not much, by looking at this object from the lower left-hand corner of
+the painting, when the exaggerated length will be seen to be reduced to
+something more nearly approaching the height of the usual "Death's
+Head."
+
+According to the views which are now officially accepted by the National
+Gallery, the persons of this picture are two French Catholics. The one
+at our left is Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, Bailly of Troyes
+and Knight of the French Order of St. Michael, of which he wears the
+badge without the splendid collar--as was permitted, by a special
+statute, to persons in the field, on a journey, or in a privacy that
+would not require the full dress of a state occasion. Jean de Dinteville
+was French Ambassador at the Court of Henry VIII. in 1533; born in 1504,
+he was then twenty-nine. He died in 1555.
+
+The man in the scholar's cap and gown is George de Selve, privately
+associated with de Dinteville's mission for a few weeks in the spring of
+1533. He was born in 1508, nominated Bishop of Lavaur in 1526, and
+confirmed in that office in 1529, in which year he was French Ambassador
+at the Court of Charles V. He was twenty-five in 1533, and died in 1541.
+
+For myself, holding convictions concerning these portraits utterly at
+variance with any published opinions--and that in more than one vital
+respect--I am compelled to limit my account to the bare record of its
+appearance and catalogued description, until prepared to submit other
+facts and conclusions to a verdict.
+
+Two portraits in the Hague Gallery, each with a falcon hooded on the
+wrist, show to how much purpose Holbein had studied these birds in the
+Steelyard. The one of Robert Cheseman, done in this year, is especially
+fine, with a strange, elusive suggestion of something kindred in the
+nature of man and bird.
+
+In 1533, also, the Steelyard placed its contribution to the celebration
+of Anne Boleyn's coronation in the painter's hands. And the result was,
+as Stow tells us, "a costly and marvellous cunning pageant by the
+merchants of the Stilyard, wherein was the Mount Parnassus, with the
+Fountaine of Helicon, which was of white marble; and four streams
+without pipe did rise an ell high and mette together in a little cup
+above the fountaine; which fountaine ran abundantly with Rhenish wine
+till night. On the mountaine sat Apollo, and at his feet sat Calliope;
+and on every side of the mountaine sate four Muses, playing on severell
+sweet instruments."
+
+But of more importance to his living fame were the two large oil
+paintings--the Triumph of Riches and the Triumph of Poverty--which he
+executed for the Hall of the Steelyard. In their day they were renowned
+far and wide; but they also have slipped into some abyss of oblivion,
+perhaps to be yet recovered as miraculously as was the Solothurn
+Madonna.
+
+When the Guild was compelled to abandon the Steelyard, in Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, the Hall stood so long unguarded and uncared for that
+when it regained possession, under James I., everything was in a sad
+state of neglect. And when the association finally dissolved not long
+after, the Hanseatic League agreed to present these paintings to Henry
+Prince of Wales, known, like Charles I., to be a lover of Art.
+
+If they passed to the possession of the latter, he must have exchanged
+them with, or presented them to, the Earl of Arundel. For in 1627
+Sandrart saw them in the collection of the latter, like his father an
+enthusiastic admirer of Holbein's work. After this, one or two vague
+notices suggest that they somehow drifted to Flanders, and thence to
+Paris. But there every trace of them is lost. Federigo Zucchero thought
+they yielded to no work of the kind, even among Italian masters; and
+copied them from pure admiration. Holbein's drawing for the Triumph of
+Riches is in the Louvre Collection.
+
+That he ever painted Anne Boleyn, unless in miniature, seems doubtful.
+The portrait among the Windsor drawings which has been labelled with her
+name agrees with no description of her in any single respect. But in
+1534 he painted one whose destiny was closely linked to hers--Thomas
+Cromwell, then Master of the Jewel House.
+
+And it was probably about this time that he painted what is in some
+respects the greatest of all his portraits--one of the galaxy of supreme
+works of all portraiture--the oil painting of Morett, or Morette, so
+long regarded as a triumph of Leonardo da Vinci's art. The world knows
+it well in the Dresden Gallery (Plate 29).
+
+The figure is life-size. The pose, even the costume in its feasible
+essentials, strikingly repeats the Whitehall portrait of Henry VIII., as
+copies show this to have been completed in the wall painting. The
+background is a green curtain.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 29
+  THE MORETT PORTRAIT
+ _Oils. Dresden Gallery_
+
+The sitter wears neither velvet nor cloth-of-gold, nor Order of any
+sort; but his costume is rich black satin, the sleeves puffed with
+white, the broad fur collar of sable. In his cap is a cameo brooch. His
+buttons are gold; and a gold locket hangs from a plain, heavy chain of
+the same metal. His right hand carries his gloves, his left rests on the
+gold sheath of the dagger that hangs from his waist. His auburn hair and
+beard is streaked with grey.
+
+No words, no reproduction, can hope to express the qualities of such
+a painting. Neither can show the mastery or the spell by which the green
+background, the hair, the cool transparent flesh-tones, the fur, the
+satin, the gold, are all woven into a witchery as virile as it is
+penetrating.
+
+This is another work which has undergone more than one transformation in
+the course of its records. As late as 1657 it was correctly ascribed to
+Holbein in the Modena Collection. But the first syllable of the sitter's
+name has been its only constant. In time Morett slipped into Moretta,
+and then--like _Meier_ in the Madonna picture--into Morus. So far it
+seems to have clung to some English tradition. But when Morus got
+changed to Moro it was but natural for an Italian to think of Ludovico
+Sforza, "Il Moro." Long before this Holbein had become Olbeno; and
+thereafter a puzzle. When the portrait was labelled Sforza, however, who
+could its obviously great painter be but Leonardo? _Et voila!_ Thus the
+work passed to the Gallery and Catalogue of the Royal Collection at
+Dresden. And thus it long remained, as if to attest the true level of
+Holbein's genius.
+
+But when the Gallery also acquired the drawing of the Arundel
+Collection, labelled "Mr. Morett" in Hollar's engraving from it, the
+painting was held to be unquestionably identified by it as Hubert
+Morett, goldsmith to Henry VIII. Nor is there anything incongruous in
+this belief. Such a master goldsmith was no tradesman, in our sense of
+the word. He was often much more like one of our merchant princes. The
+merchants of the Steelyard were frequently the royal bankers, and many
+times were employed on high and delicate diplomatic missions to other
+courts. Neither is there anything in the sitter's dress to forbid it to
+a man of this stamp, even after the sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were
+passed; while there is much, very much, to suggest an English origin.
+
+On the other hand, M. Larpent has now shown that the Arundel drawing was
+down in a catalogue of 1746-7 as: "One Holbein, Sieur de Moret, one of
+the French hostage in England"; and also that a "Chas. sieur de Morette"
+is recorded among the four French hostages sent to England in 1519. It
+would thus appear that the painting is a portrait of Charles de Solier,
+seigneur de Morette; an eminent soldier and diplomatist of France; born
+in 1480, Ambassador to England more than once, and finally, in 1534.
+
+Besides all the portraits of Holbein's English period, many of them
+scattered throughout the collections of all Europe, and many others now
+lost, it must not be forgotten that he was at the same time pouring
+forth miniature paintings, designs for engraving, designs for the
+goldsmith, and conceptions of every sort--from a carved chimney-piece to
+a woman's jewelled trinket; and all designed with the same exquisite
+precision and felicity. In the British Museum as on the Continent these
+drawings are an education in themselves. And besides the portrait
+studies in the Windsor Collection there is a sketch for a large painting
+which, if ever executed, is lost: "The Queen of Sheba visiting King
+Solomon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PAINTER ROYAL
+
+1536-1543
+
+  Queen Jane Seymour--Death of Erasmus, and title-page portrait--The
+  Whitehall painting of Henry VIII.--Munich drawing of Henry VIII.--Birth
+  of an heir and the "Jane Seymour Cup"--Death of the Queen--Christina,
+  Duchess of Milan--Secret service for the King--Flying visit to Basel
+  and arrangements for a permanent return--Apprentices his son Philip at
+  Paris--Portrait of the Prince of Wales and the King's return gift--Anne
+  of Cleves--Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk--Catherine Howard--Lapse
+  of Holbein's Basel citizenship--Irregularities--Provision for wife
+  and children--Residence in London--Execution of Queen Catherine
+  Howard--Marriage of Catherine Parr--Dr. Chamber--Unfinished work for
+  the Barber-Surgeons' Hall--Death of Holbein--His will--Place of
+  burial--Holbein's genius; its true character and greatness.
+
+
+These were years of pleasant friendships, too, as well as work and
+cares. Nicholas Bourbon, scholar and poet, after his sojourn in London,
+writes back in 1536: "Greet in my name as heartily as you can all with
+whom you know me to be connected by intercourse and friendship." And
+after mentioning high dignitaries who had followed the King's example of
+showing special courtesies to Bourbon, he adds: "Mr. Cornelius Heyss, my
+host, the King's Goldsmith; Mr. Nicolaus Kratzer, the King's Astronomer,
+a man who is brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies; and Mr. Hans,
+the Royal Painter, the Apelles of our time. I wish them from my heart
+all joy and happiness." This little pen-picture of Holbein's intimate
+circle is a beautiful break in the mists of centuries--and shows us what
+manner of men they were among whom he had made for himself an honoured
+place. We could ill spare it from the few and meagre records of his
+life. It is also the very earliest documentary evidence of his being in
+the King's immediate service.
+
+It was in this very year, 1536, that he received his commission to paint
+Anne Boleyn's successor, Jane Seymour, then on the throne the block
+had left vacant. The Vienna Gallery possesses this painting, of which
+another version is at Woburn Abbey, and the chalk drawing at Windsor
+(Plate 30).
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 30
+  QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR
+ _Oils. Vienna Gallery_
+
+The Queen was noted for her milk-white fairness, and Holbein has
+borrowed the pearly shadows of the lily in rendering it. The figure is a
+little under life-size. Her head-dress and robes of silver brocade and
+royal velvet are studded with splendid rubies and pearls to match the
+jewels on her neck and breast. The hands are as full of character as of
+art.
+
+The Queen's portrait may properly be said to belong to the great wall
+painting which Holbein finished in 1537 for the Royal Palace at Whitehall.
+But before that date the painter's inner life had suffered one more
+great wrench. At midnight of July 12th, 1536, Erasmus died in the home
+that had been his own, except for the Freiburg interval, ever since John
+Froben's death in 1526; a death that had probably had much to do with
+Holbein's first departure from Basel. That event had uprooted the
+scholar from the old house _zum Sessel_, in the Fischmarkt, and
+transplanted him to the home of Froben's son, Hieronymus. The latter
+house, then known as _zum Luft_, is now No. 18, Baeumleingasse. And it
+was here that Erasmus passed away, his mind keeping to the last its
+humour and its interests in all around him. But no one, remembering how
+Fisher and More had died in the preceding year, can doubt but that the
+good old man was very willing to be gone, away from changed faces and
+changed ways--though Bonifacius Amerbach and young Froben were as sons
+to him.
+
+Basel, for all her differences with him, buried Erasmus with great
+honours. But no tablet could so commemorate him as the noble monument
+which Holbein built to him in the title-page he designed for Hieronymus
+Froben's edition of Erasmus's _Works_, published in 1540. It is a
+woodcut of extraordinary beauty. The full-length figure of the scholar
+stands in cap and gown, with one hand resting lightly on the bust of
+the god Terminus (the god of immovable boundary lines, significantly
+conjoined to Erasmus's chosen motto: _Concedo nulli_) and the other
+calling attention to this significant emblem of fixed convictions. Not
+even the Louvre oil painting expresses the whole Erasmus quite so
+completely or so nobly as this little drawing of the man whom Holbein
+had loved and revered for twenty years; and to whom he owed, in the
+first place, the splendid opportunities of his career in England.
+
+And as he drew it, what ghosts of his own Past must have clustered
+around the lean little figure! What echoes and visions! The Rhine, the
+gardens, the clang of the press, the Fischmarkt, the friendly smiles at
+Froben's and Meyer's firesides; his marriage; the stars and dews and
+perfume of all his dreams in the years--those matchless years of a man's
+young manhood--when he had walked with angels as well as peasants, had
+seen the Way of the Cross, the Christ in the Grave, and the Risen Lord
+even more clearly than the faces of flesh and blood. _Eheu fugaces!_
+"God help thee, Elia, how art thou sophisticated."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ah, well! Those years, and the darker, sadder years that had led far
+from them, were now like his oldest friends--dead and buried. The
+Holbein of 1537 was painting the King of England on the wall of his
+Privy Chamber. There was a place for honest pride as well as for honest
+regret in his thoughts.
+
+This painting perished with the palace in the fire of 1698. Charles
+II., however, had a small copy of it made by Leemput. And a portion of
+Holbein's original cartoon (Plate 31) in chalk and Indian ink, is in
+the possession of the Duke of Devonshire--the face much washed out by
+cleaning, and the outline pricked for transferring to the wall. The
+figures are life-size, but Walpole has already noticed how the massive
+proportions and solidly-planted pose of the King heighten the illusion
+of a Colossus. Behind him stands the admirably contrasted figure of
+Henry VII. The whole composition consisted of four portraits; Queen
+Jane Seymour opposite her husband, and the King's mother opposite to,
+and on a level with, Henry VII., who stands on the elevation of the
+background.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 31
+  KING HENRY VIII AND HIS FATHER
+  (_Fragment of Cartoon used for the Whitehall Wall-Painting_)
+ _Duke of Devonshire's Collection_
+
+The pose and costume of Henry VIII. in the cartoon were, as Leemput's
+copy shows, faithfully carried out in the painting; but in the latter
+the face was afterwards turned to the full front view familiar to us in
+the many copies of the King's portrait which so long passed as works of
+Holbein, on the strength of reproducing his own painting. There is no
+evidence that he ever again painted Henry VIII. or that he executed
+any replica of this portrait. The old copy at Windsor Castle serves,
+however, to recall its details of costume; such as his brown doublet
+stiff with gold brocade and scintillating with the gleams of splendid
+jewels, his coat of royal red embroidered with gold thread and lined
+with ermine to match the wide collar; his plumed and jewelled cap; as
+also the huge gems on collar, pendant, rings, and the gold-hilted dagger
+in its blue velvet sheath.
+
+But Holbein's own portrait of Henry VIII.--as shown by the original
+chalk study from life now in the Munich Gallery (Plate 32)--may in
+all sobriety of speech be called a stupendous work. Looking at this
+marvellous drawing and picturing to one's self those cheeks informed
+with pulsing blood, those lips with breath, those eyes with blue
+gleams,--it is easy to understand that Van Mander was using no hyperbole
+when he said that the painting on the wall of the Privy Chamber made the
+stoutest knees to tremble. It was literally, as he said, "a terrible
+painting," of which none of the stupidly-heavy copies that have for the
+most part travestied Holbein's work give any true conception. Many a man
+could paint cloth-of-gold and gems; but only once and again in the
+centuries comes a man who can thus paint, not alone the mane and stride
+of the lion, but the fires that light his glance, the roar rushing to
+his lips. To look long into these eyes that Holbein had the genius to
+read and the firmness to draw, is to feel one's self in the grip of an
+insatiable, implacable, yet leonine soul; a being who, to borrow the
+matchless description of Burke's political career, is "parted asunder in
+his works like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature;
+each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing
+altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility
+with one another." And so long as the great drama of Tudor England
+enthrals the minds of men, hard by Shakespeare's supreme name must be
+read the name of the painter in whose pages the actors in that drama
+have been compelled themselves to declare themselves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 32
+  KING HENRY VIII
+  (_Life-study; probably for the Whitehall Painting_)
+ _Chalks. Munich Collection_
+
+To crown the King's pride, and to the no less intense delight of the
+whole nation which saw in this event the rainbow of every promise, at
+Hampton Court, on the 12th of October, 1537, Queen Jane Seymour gave
+birth to the son who was to reign so briefly as Edward VI. And it was
+doubtless in connection with this happy circumstance that the King
+commissioned Holbein's design for a truly royal piece of goldsmith's
+work. This drawing, generally known as "the Jane Seymour cup," is at
+Oxford, in the Bodleian Library (Plate 33).
+
+No sketch of the artist's powers would be even barely complete without a
+realising sense of their versatility. And in this design Holbein has more
+than equalled the highest achievement of his great contemporary, Benvenuto
+Cellini, at this time in the service of the French Court. The initials
+of the King and Queen, H. and J., and the exceedingly judicious motto of
+the latter--"Bound to obey and to serve"--are recurring devices. But it
+is in the originality and unflawed beauty of the whole--the springing
+grace of outline, the taste and cunning with which flowers of gold
+naturally bloom into gems and pearls, the combination of freest, richest
+fancy with every restraint of a pure taste--that the perfection of this
+little masterpiece consists.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 33
+  DESIGN FOR "THE JANE SEYMOUR CUP"
+ _Bodleian Library_
+
+In the midst of all the public rejoicings, the Te Deums, feasts, and
+bonfires, came the thunderclap of the young mother's death. Some
+negligence had permitted her to take cold, and on the twelfth day after
+his coveted heir was born, Henry VIII. was once again a widower. The
+Court went into deepest mourning until the 3rd of February. But Thomas
+Cromwell was very shortly authorised to take secret steps to ascertain
+what Princess might most suitably fill the late Queen's vacant place and
+strengthen the assurance of an unbroken succession.
+
+Choice fell at first on a Roman Catholic--Christina, the sixteen-year-old
+widow of Francis Sforza Duke of Milan, who had died in the autumn of
+1535. The upshot of private inquiries was that Holbein was sent over to
+Brussels in March, 1538, to bring back a portrait of this daughter of
+Christian of Denmark and niece of Charles V. And although the painter
+had but three hours in which to do it, he did make what Hutton described
+as her "very perffight" image; besides which, said the envoy, the
+portrait previously despatched, though painted in all her state finery,
+"was but slobbered."
+
+From this "perffight" painting, which could not have been more than one
+of his portrait studies, he afterwards completed that full-length oil
+painting which is worthy to rank with his great Morett portrait. By the
+kindness of the Duke of Norfolk, who has lent it, this beautiful work
+is now in the National Gallery (Plate 34). But unhappily for its best
+appreciation, to my thinking at least, it hangs at one side and in too
+close proximity to the bold colouring of "The Ambassadors"; so that its
+own subtle, yet reticent superiority is well-nigh shouted down by its
+lusty neighbour. It is a picture to be seen by itself; as it must stand
+by itself in the usual inane gallery of women's portraits.
+
+Hutton tells us that the painter who "slobbered" Christina's portrait
+had painted her in full dress. But Holbein's eye was quick to recognise
+the values of her everyday dress--the widow's costume of Italy--in
+enhancing the distinction of her face and the stately slenderness of her
+figure. And so he drew her as she stood, with a hint of bending
+forward, her gloves being restlessly fingered in a shy yet proud
+embarrassment, in the first moments when he saw her.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 34
+  CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN
+ _Oils. National Gallery_
+  [_Lent by the Duke of Norfolk_]
+
+The portrait is nearly life-size. Over a plain black satin dress she
+wears a gown of the same material, lined with yellow sable. Her hair is
+entirely concealed by a black hood. At her throat and wrists are plain
+cambric frills. The ranging scale of tawny tones--in the floor, the
+gloves, the fur, the golden glint in her brown eyes--and the one ruby,
+on her hand, are the only colours, except those of her fresh young lips
+and skin and the black and white of her costume. "She is not so white as
+the late Queen," wrote Hutton, "but she hath a singular good countenance,
+and when she chanceth to smile there appeareth two pits in her cheeks
+and one in her chin, the which becometh her excellently well."
+
+It is easy to believe that they did, but her dimples did not chance for
+Henry VIII. Whether she really sent him, along with her picture, the
+witty refusal credited to her--that she had but one head; had she two,
+one should be at His Majesty's service--or whether it was the Emperor's
+doing entirely that his niece married the Duke of Lorraine instead of
+the man whose first wife had been Charles V.'s aunt, there is, at all
+events, a soft lurking devil in the demure little face which seems to
+whisper that the answer was one which she could have made an' she would.
+
+Van Mander heard from Holbein's circle a story which modern pedantry
+is inclined to flout. This is, that when an irate nobleman wanted the
+painter punished for an affront, the King hotly exclaimed:--"Understand,
+my lord, that I can make seven earls out of as many hinds, any day; but
+out of seven earls I could not make one such painter as this Holbein."
+An eminently ben-trovato story, at all events. And certain it is that
+the painter stood sufficiently high in the royal favour to be despatched
+on some special private mission for the King in the summer of 1538, of
+which the secret was so well kept that nothing beyond the record of
+payment for it has ever transpired.
+
+From this date Holbein's name is regularly down in the Royal Accounts.
+The amounts drawn total, it has been computed, about L360 in present
+value, and would make an agreeable annual addition to his other
+earnings. So that it is little wonder he was not tempted by the small
+sum offered by the Basel Council in 1532. But in 1538 the Council
+greatly increased the old offer, and was so anxious to have him among
+her citizens that the painter seized the opportunity of his secret
+mission to Upper Burgundy, whatever it was, to pay a flying visit to
+Basel in the interests of his family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His old companions of the Guild of St. Johann Vorstadt made this
+visit--when Holbein was back among them, as was noted, "in silk and
+velvet"--the occasion of a grand banquet in his honour. But the real
+motive for his visit was to arrange upon what terms he could meet the
+Council's wishes. The terms were far from ungenerous, as is shown by the
+contract which followed him back to London.
+
+In this the Council bound itself, in consideration of the great honour
+of retaining in their city a painter "famous beyond all other painters
+on account of the riches of his art," and in further consideration of
+his promise to make no absence from Basel more prolonged than should be
+really necessary to carry his foreign commissions to their destination
+and receive his pay for them--to give him an annuity of fifty guldens,
+equally whether Holbein should be ill or well, but only during his own
+life. In addition to this, they granted him permission to make short
+visits to specified art-centres, of which Milan was one, "once, twice,
+or thrice, every year." And recognising the impossibility of his freeing
+himself from his English engagements in less than two years, they also
+granted him this interval before he need resume his residence at Basel;
+and engaged to pay forty guldens yearly to his wife, on his behalf, for
+each of these two years.
+
+There is every probability that Holbein himself took a goodly sum to
+Basel to invest for his family's permanent benefit in one way and
+another. For it could only have been as a part of this gleaning for
+them that he drew--as the Account Books show that he did just at this
+juncture--a whole year's salary in advance from the Royal Exchequer;
+seeing that the same books prove that he was liberally paid for all his
+own expenses on the King's service, in addition to his regular salary.
+
+Part of the sum he collected to take with him was doubtless used to
+apprentice his son Philip, now sixteen, to the goldsmith's trade. And
+that the father chose Paris for this purpose, where he left Philip on
+his return journey, might well be due either to his own estimation
+of Jerome David, to whom Philip was indentured, or to the fact that
+Benvenuto Cellini's presence at Paris afforded some advantage; or that
+his own promised return to Basel would make it preferable to have the
+lad on the same side of the Channel as all his family. And that Holbein
+fully intended to make the necessary and obvious sacrifice involved in
+exchanging London for Basel is also proved by a contemporary account.
+"His intention was," says his fellow-townsman, "had God lengthened his
+life, to paint many of his pictures again at his own expense, as well as
+the hall in the Rathaus. The paintings on the _Haus zum Tanz_ he
+pronounced 'pretty good.'" But it was not to be.
+
+His New Year's offering to the King on the opening of 1539 was a
+portrait, probably the oil painting in the Hague Gallery, of the infant
+Prince of Wales. It was a spirited picture of the royal baby with his
+gold rattle in his chubby little fist, such as might have delighted a
+father less doting than Henry VIII., whose return gift is recorded: "To
+Hans Holbyne, paynter, a gilte cruse with a cover, weighing x oz. 1
+quarter." The cruse was made by a friend of the painter; that Cornelius
+Hayes, goldsmith, whom Bourbon's letter mentioned in connection with him
+in 1536.
+
+All these months the negotiations for the hand of the Duchess of Milan
+had fluctuated with the varying fortunes of the King's relations with
+her uncle, Charles V. But at last they had altogether collapsed with
+what seemed to Henry VIII. the threatening attitude assumed by the
+Emperor and the Pope. Hereupon followed that historical chapter, so full
+of fatal consequences to Cromwell, and no less big with shame for the
+King's own story: the pitiful chapter of Anne of Cleves.
+
+Her brother, the Duke of Cleves, was at this time a troublesome foe to
+the Emperor; while the fact that she was a Protestant was a "Roland"
+for the Imperial and Papal "Oliver." So Holbein was again posted off to
+bring back a counterfeit of Anne, and to carry to her a miniature of the
+King. And by the 1st September he had acquitted himself of the new
+mission.
+
+There is not an iota of historical or other evidence for that "Flanders
+mare" anecdote, which seems to have had a gratuitous as well as
+spontaneous origin in Bishop Burnet's seventeenth-century brain, to the
+effect that the King was the victim of a flattering portrait by Holbein,
+and cruelly undeceived by the actual looks of his bride. In the first
+place his agents wrote to him frankly that the Princess was of no great
+beauty, though not uncomely, and "never from the ellebowe of the Ladye
+Duchesse her Mother," who was said to be most unwilling to part with her
+(as a mother might well be, for the husband in question). The King was
+also told that she was quite unskilled in languages or music, and
+held, with her mother, that it was "for a rebuke and an occasion of
+lightenesse that great Ladyes shuld be lernyd or have enye knowledge of
+musike." And in the next place even a superficial knowledge of Holbein
+would disprove any tradition of "flattery" from his unflinching, almost
+brutally truthful brush. It was hardly likely that the painter who would
+not stoop to flatter Bishop Stokesley, or Henry VIII. himself, would be
+swerved from his good faith by Anne of Cleves.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 35
+  ANNE OF CLEVES
+ _Oils. The Louvre_
+
+On the contrary, the painting, in oils on vellum and mounted on a panel,
+now in the Louvre (Plate 35), is the very embodiment of contemporary
+accounts of this Princess. Her fair-skinned, commonplace, yet "not
+uncomely" face looks out placidly at you from the quaint Flemish
+head-dress of fine gauze and jewelled cloth-of-gold. Her inert hands
+(Holbein's hands belong to his truth-telling revelations), jewelled
+even on the thumb, are listlessly clasped upon each other; her
+crimson-velvet dress is heavily banded with gold and pearl embroidery.
+
+No Venus certainly, and perhaps somewhat heavily handicapped by the
+maternal "elbowe." But still perfectly in keeping with her descriptions
+and making no denial to the French Ambassador's statement that she was
+"the gentlest and kindest" of queens; or to an English eye-witness who
+writes that at her coronation the people all applauded her for being "so
+fayre a Ladye, of so goodly a stature and so womanly a countenance, and
+in especial of so good qualities."
+
+The fact is that the King's very cruelty to this poor girl--torn from
+her mother's side and her Protestant home in Duerren to be the pawn of an
+unscrupulous diplomacy--was based on grounds, at least, less infamous
+than that of a slave-buyer. After both Cromwell and Holbein had been
+well rewarded for their services, the former lost his head and the Queen
+her crown on considerations that took no more account of her looks than
+her feelings. The Catholic glass had risen; the King himself was not
+ashamed to avow it; and the Protestant alliance was therefore an
+incubus. After some two months of a queen's and wife's estate, poor
+Anne of Cleves was bid to pack her belongings and take up a separate
+establishment as an unmarried woman. No wonder she fainted when first
+informed of such an infamy.
+
+But there was no law in England save the _fiat_ of Henry VIII. The
+marriage was pronounced "null and void," and Anne retired into private
+life, on the rigid condition that she would make no attempt to ever quit
+England, with an allowance of L3,000 a year, and the formal title of the
+King's "sister." There was no help for her. Never again for her would
+there be the austere joys of Duerren--her mother's side, her own timid
+dreams of other companionship, and never the price at which she had lost
+them.
+
+At the head of the triumphant anti-Protestant, anti-Cromwell party stood
+Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, whose portrait, in the Royal
+Collection at Windsor, Holbein painted about this time (Plate 36). The
+lean face and the figure clothed in red stand out strikingly from the
+plain green background, although the painting has suffered not a little
+injury. The robe is lined and trimmed with ermine, and over it is the
+collar and badge of the Order of the Garter. In his right hand he holds
+the gold baton of his office as Earl Marshal, and in his left the White
+Staff of the Lord Chamberlain.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 36
+  THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK
+ _Oils. Windsor Castle_
+
+According to Roper, Norfolk, then Earl of Surrey, was a great friend of
+Sir Thomas More. But it would be hard to imagine a greater contrast than
+the records of the two men. The latter a pattern of personal purity and
+lofty ideals; the former as venal as the King's Parliaments, and as
+unscrupulous in pursuit of his passions as the King himself.
+
+Norfolk's star of influence had already waxed and waned with the evil
+destinies of one niece, before it arose anew with the fortunes of
+another only to plunge sharply after them into the gulf of ruin. For the
+present he and Gardiner, restored to favour with him, were all-powerful.
+Their calculations seemed to prosper, too, beyond their most ambitious
+dreams, when, instead of ruling through a rival to Anne who should be
+the King's mistress, they were to rule through a legal successor. For
+the King was nothing if not technically correct; and from the moment
+when the fatal royal glance flamed on Catherine Howard when Gardiner was
+entertaining him, nothing would do but she should become his wife. And
+thus once more the wild wheel of Fortune was to make Norfolk uncle to a
+Queen of England.
+
+Anne was divorced on the 12th of July, 1540, and on the 28th of the
+same month, on the very day when Thomas Cromwell was beheaded, the King
+married Anne Boleyn's cousin, Catherine Howard. On the 8th of August she
+was proclaimed Queen, and on the 15th of that month she was publicly
+prayed for as such in all the churches of the realm. Well might she be!
+Dry your outraged tears, Anne of Cleves, and give thanks to God that you
+are well out of it!
+
+There is a miniature in the Windsor Collection now believed to be
+Holbein's portrait of Catherine Howard. Until recently it was held to be
+the portrait of Catherine Parr. But there is a larger portrait of the
+former among the Windsor drawings, a study evidently made for an oil
+painting (Plate 37). By this it seems that she had auburn hair, hazel
+eyes, a fair complexion, and a piquant smile. There is a painting which
+accords with this drawing in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection, but it
+is said to be by a French artist.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 37
+  CATHERINE HOWARD
+ _Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle_
+
+In the autumn of this year, 1540, the two years of absence expired which
+had been granted to Holbein by his contract with the Basel Council. But
+he had now formed ties which were too powerful to yield to Basel's.
+Those plans of painting again the walls by which coming generations
+would judge him, the resolve to try again if he and Elsbeth might not
+manage to live in peace under one roof where the children, who were
+strangers to him, should come to know and be known by him in something
+more than name, were all relinquished. They must certainly have
+been relinquished on some definite mutual understanding, and at a
+"compensation" agreed upon between him and Elsbeth and his step-son,
+Franz Schmidt; because it must have been Holbein himself who enabled
+Franz, acting on his mother's behalf, to take over as he did the entire
+legacy--a snug little competency in itself--to which Holbein fell heir
+in this autumn by the bequest of his uncle, Sigmund Holbein, citizen of
+Berne. Philip having been launched by his father in the goldsmith's
+craft, there only remained the second son and two daughters at home.
+Thus so far as mere money went, Holbein might now think himself
+discharged from the support of his family, and free to divert his future
+earnings from them. And, as has been said, the Will and Inventory proved
+at Elsbeth's death, six years after her husband's, that he had made no
+bad provision for them in the matter of material comforts, however
+remiss his conduct in its moral aspects.
+
+The Royal Accounts break off in 1541, but the Subsidy Roll for the City
+of London has a very precious item for Holbein's biography in the
+October of this year. This announces that "Hanns Holbene" is among the
+"straungers" then residing in "the Parisshe of Saint Andrew Undershafte,"
+and that he is assessed as such.
+
+Not only the Windsor chalk drawings, but the paintings at Vienna,
+Berlin, and other Continental galleries, show the pressure, as well as
+the high level of quality, at which he was now working. These portraits
+are among almost his very best, while the one shortly to be mentioned is
+quite among them.
+
+By the summer of 1542 the tragedy of Catherine Howard was over. That
+Royal Progress, like more than one of its forerunners, had become the
+royal shame. This time it was a shame so black and so wide that within
+two years, after madness and death had purged the complicity of many,
+there still remained so many more involved in the sins and follies of
+Norfolk's niece that the ordinary prisons were unable to contain all
+that were arraigned; a shame so bitter that when the proofs of it were
+first laid before Henry VIII. the Privy Council quaked to see him shed
+tears. It was, they said with awe, "a strange thing in his courage!"
+The guilty woman had her own tears to shed in expiation; but in the
+dawn of February 12th, 1542, she walked to the block as full of wilful,
+cheerful audacity, and as careful of her toilet, as she had ever gone to
+meet her royal lover. And so the auburn head of the King's fifth wife
+rolled from the axe that had severed her guilty cousin's.
+
+On July 12th, 1543, the "next" year as it then began, the King married
+Catherine Parr. She had been twice widowed and was about to marry Sir
+Thomas Seymour when the King interfered, and she became his wife
+instead; though one can well credit the story that she tremblingly
+told him, "It were better to be his mistress." She was a good woman, a
+generous stepmother, and a good wife. But there is plenty of probability
+for the assertion that her own death had been debated with the King when
+her wit delayed it, and his death set her free to marry at last the man
+from whom the King had snatched her.
+
+It was formerly believed, as has been said, that Holbein had painted
+her miniature--the one at Windsor, now declared to be the portrait
+of Catherine Howard. About this time he must have painted the great
+portrait of which mention has been made. This is the oil portrait of
+Dr. Chamber, the King's physician, now in the Vienna Gallery (Plate 38).
+The sitter was, as the inscription shows, eighty-eight years old; and
+the strong, stern face is full of that "inward" look which comes to
+the faces of men whose meat and drink has been a lifetime of heavy
+responsibilities. He had been associated with the Charter of the College
+of Physicians in 1518, and was also instrumental in that of the Guild of
+"Barbers and Surgeons," in 1541. And it was probably through him and Dr.
+Butts, another physician to the King whom Holbein had painted and who
+was likewise a Master of the new Guild, that he undertook to paint a
+large work for their hall--Henry VIII. granting their Charter to the
+Master-Surgeons kneeling before him.
+
+  Illustration: PLATE 38
+  DR. CHAMBER
+ _Oils. Vienna Gallery_
+
+This work Holbein did not live to finish; and it is to-day exceedingly
+doubtful as to how much of the smoke-blackened painting is by him. The
+very drawing has a woodenness foreign to his compositions, and much of
+the painting is by an evidently inferior hand. But good judges hold some
+of the heads to be undoubtedly his work.
+
+However this may be, with the autumn of 1543 Holbein's life came to a
+sudden close. Van Mander, wrong as to the date by eleven years which
+have fathered a host of spurious _Holbeins_ on the Histories of Art, is
+apparently right as to the cause of death--"the Plague." By the great
+discovery of Hans Holbein's Will, found by Mr. Black in 1861 among the
+archives of St. Paul's Cathedral, it is proved that the painter made his
+Will on October 7th, and must have died between this and November 29th,
+1543, when administration was granted to one of his executors (the other
+would seem to have perished, meanwhile, from the same epidemic). This
+surviving executor was an old friend of the artist, whose portrait,
+in the Windsor Gallery, he had painted eleven years before--Hans of
+Antwerp, a master-goldsmith of the Steelyard.
+
+The Will bears about it evident signs of having been made in great haste
+and mental disturbance. But it accomplished all that Holbein probably
+had at heart; that is, the ensuring that whatsoever moneys could be
+collected from his accounts, or by the sale of "all my goodes and also
+my horse," should first be applied to clear a couple of specified debts,
+and the rest be managed for the sole benefit of "my two chylder which
+be at nurse." From the very fact that nothing as to the identity or
+whereabouts of these babies is mentioned, it is clear that Holbein
+relied on the verbal instructions which he had given to his trusted
+friends and to their complete understanding of all the circumstances as
+well as of his wishes. He was only concerned, apparently, that such
+small means as could thus be saved for them should not be permitted to
+pass to his legal heirs.
+
+No other heirs are mentioned; no other legacy is made. From the Will
+alone one who did not know otherwise would suppose that he had no
+other family or relatives in existence. The Plague left no man in its
+neighbourhood much leisure for explanations. Stowe records that the one
+of that autumn was such "a great death" that the Law Courts had to be
+transferred to St. Albans. But two things seem to speak in this curt
+document. First, that by the transference of his uncle Sigmund's little
+fortune to Franz Schmidt (as trustee for Elsbeth and the children of her
+marriage with Holbein), which the archives prove took place three years
+earlier, and by his other arrangements for his family at Basel and for
+Philip at Paris, Holbein held himself free of any further responsibility
+for their support, and, indeed, determined that they should not obtain
+possession of the residue in London.
+
+Secondly, that if the mother of his two illegitimate children had lived
+with him in London as his wife, she must have just died--perhaps in
+childbed, perhaps of the Plague. She is not in any way referred to.
+And there is something in the very signs of confusion and distress
+throughout the wording of the Will which seems to exhale a far-away
+anguish--sudden parting, sad apprehensions, keenest anxiety for "my two
+chylder which be at nurse." There comes before the eye a picture of
+the five grave men--Holbein, his two executors, the one a goldsmith,
+the other an armourer, and his two witnesses, a "merchaunte" and a
+"paynter"--hurrying along the plague-infected streets to get this
+document legalised as some protection for two motherless babies, in the
+event of their father's death. No man knew whose turn would come within
+the hour.
+
+And by November 29th Holbein's had come, and one executor's also,
+apparently. The Latin record of administration on this date is that it
+has been consigned to John Anwarpe (Johann or Hans of Antwerp), and
+accepted by him in accordance with "the last will of John, alias Hans
+Holbein, recently deceased in the parish of Saint Andrew Undershaft."
+
+It would seem probable, then, that the painter was buried in this church
+rather than in the closely adjoining church of Saint Catharine-Cree to
+which tradition assigned his body. But the horrors of such an epidemic
+as that in which the painter was swept suddenly away make it easy to
+understand how even such a man as he had now become could die unnoticed
+and be buried in an unrecorded grave. When the Earl of Arundel, a few
+years later, sought to learn where he might set up a monument to one he
+so greatly admired, there was only this vague and uncorroborated rumour
+that the painter was buried in Saint Catharine-Cree. And so no monument
+was built to mark the spot where Holbein's "measure of sliding sand" had
+been spilled at last.
+
+But, as they ran, those sands had measured more than "_a great
+portrait-painter_." They had measured Greatness; greatness which is not
+to be delimited by the wanton outrages of man or the accidents of time.
+Both have had their share in the judgments of generations that have lost
+all his greatest and nearly all his imaginative creations. And what
+the Spoiler has spared, the self-styled Restorer has too often ruined.
+Self-love, on the other hand, and family pride have been engaged to
+preserve those portraits by which it is now the fashion to mulct him of
+his far larger dues.
+
+Of his mysticism, of the symbolism in which his "Journal Intime" is
+written in his own firm cipher, this little book is not the place to
+speak; though for those who have once come to know the true Holbein
+these have a spell, a stern, inexhaustible enchantment all their own.
+
+But study the few fortunate survivals of his imaginative works, study
+even more the wrecks and skeletons of his loftier conceptions, and ask
+yourself if it could be by only a quick eye and a clever hand (and he
+had both, assuredly) that Holbein caught up the dying ember of the Van
+Eycks' torch and fanned it by his originality, his fancy, his winged
+realism, until its light lit up the dim ways of Man with a clairvoyance
+far beyond theirs. This eye, this mind, flung its gleaming penetration
+into every covert of the soul and deep, deep, deep into the most
+shrouded, the most shuddering secrets of Mortality.
+
+Was it by virtue of a mere portrait-painter's powers that the son of
+the Augsburg Bohemian came to lay his finger upon the very core and
+composition of perhaps the haughtiest, the subtlest, the most dread
+despot since the Caesars? Henry VIII. and Fisher; the Lais Corinthiaca,
+the Duchess of Milan, his brooding wife; dancing children, and dancing
+Death; Christ on the Cross, Christ in the Grave, Christ Arisen; lambs in
+the fields, woods and hills, gaping peasants, wild battle;--put them
+side by side, the poor ghosts of them left to us, and compute the range
+of art--"the majestic range" that framed them all.
+
+Let us be just. Let us forget for a moment the chirp of the family
+housekeeper over her gods. Let us gather up the broken fragments that
+are more than the meal, and humbly own the Miracle that created them.
+It is idle to argue with the intelligence that can see "a want of
+imagination" in Holbein. But we can find proof and to spare that it
+is not so; that his so-called "limitations"--apart from method, which
+is a matter of Epoch--are due to a creed we may or may not agree with,
+but surely must respect. The creed that Beauty is the framework, the
+ornament, rather than the substance of things; the pleasure, not the
+purpose of "this mortal"; and that the sweetest flower that blows is but
+an exquisite moment of transfigured clay.
+
+He smells the mould above the rose; yet how he draws the rose! The
+brazen arrogance of pomp, the pearl on a woman's neck, the shimmer of a
+breaking bubble, the wrinkles in a baby's foot, the beauty of life, the
+pathos of life, the irony and the lust of life,--he has painted them
+all, as he saw them all, in the phantasmagoric Procession of Being
+betwixt garret and throne.
+
+He has painted each, too, with that genius for seizing the essential
+quality which _is_ the thing, that never forsook him from Augsburg to
+Saint Andrew's Undershaft; that singular, vivid, original genius which
+can well afford to let his grave be forgotten, whose works build for
+him, as Hans Holbein--
+
+   _One of the few, the immortal names
+    That were not born to die._
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+ 1: The name used thus, without further identification, is to be taken
+ throughout these pages to mean Hans Holbein the _Younger_.
+
+ 2: Variously written Meyer, Meier, Mejer, Meiger, or Megger. Baer is also
+ written _Ber_, or _Berin_.
+
+ 3: I am deeply indebted to the personal kindness and trouble of Sir
+ Martin Gosselin, K.C.M.G., British Minister at the Court of Portugal,
+ for greatly facilitating my own study of this interesting picture.
+
+ 4: I am indebted to the personal kindness of the discoverer's son, Herr
+ Direktor Zetter-Collin of the Solothurn Museum, for these details. But
+ the whole story, as well as Herr Zetter-Collin's contributions to the
+ history of the work, should be read in his own absorbingly interesting
+ monograph:--"_Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn. (...) Ihre
+ Geschichte, etc._" 1902.
+
+ 5:
+   _"Die Liebe zu Gott Heist charite.
+     Wer Liebe hat der Tragt kein Hass."_
+
+
+
+
+A CATALOGUE OF THE PRINCIPAL
+EXISTING WORKS OF
+HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
+
+ARRANGED, SO FAR AS CAN BE KNOWN,
+IN CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE
+
+ ** signifies--_Superlative qualities._
+
+  * signifies--_Of some particular importance._
+
+  ? signifies--_Authorities differ._ Held by some (and by the writer)
+                to have been, in its original condition, the work of
+                Holbein's own hand.
+
+
+I.
+
+EARLIEST INDIVIDUAL WORKS (BEFORE GOING TO BASEL)
+
+ ? St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Barbara. Oils. (Wings of the St.
+   Sebastian altar-piece.) Munich Gallery.
+
+   Virgin and Child. Oils. Basel Museum. (Earliest signed work known.
+   Dated 1514.)
+
+
+II.
+
+ FIRST BASEL PERIOD
+ (1515, 1516, 1519-1526)
+
+   Illustrations to Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_.
+   Eighty-two pen-and-ink sketches on the margins.
+   Original copy, Basel Museum.
+
+   Portrait of an unknown young man.
+   Oils. Grand-Ducal Museum, Darmstadt.
+
+   Jacob Meyer _zum Hasen_ and his second wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser.
+   [Plates 4 and 5.] Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Bonifacius Amerbach. [Plate 6.] Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Portrait of himself. [Frontispiece.] Coloured Chalks. Basel Museum.
+
+ * Studies from Nature. (A bat outspread and a lamb.)
+   Drawings in water-colour and silver-point. Basel Museum.
+
+   Designs for armorial windows. (More especially those
+   with _Landsknechte_ and one with three peasants gossiping.)
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum and Print Cabinet, Berlin.
+
+  _Landsknechte_ in a hand-to-hand fight. [Plate 7.]
+   Washed Drawing. Basel Museum. Others in various collections.
+
+   Design for the wings of an organ-case.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+
+   Head of St. John the Evangelist.
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Last Supper. (On wood; ruined fragment.)
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Nativity [Plate 8.] and The Adoration. Oils.
+   Freiburg Cathedral. (Wings of a lost altar-piece.)
+
+   Holy Family. Washed Drawing. Basel Museum.
+   (Also other drawings of the Virgin and Child.)
+
+   The Passion. Eight-panelled altar-piece. [Plate 9.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum. (Utterly ruined by over-painting.)
+
+ * The Passion. A series of ten designs for glass-painting.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+   (A set of seven reversed impressions in the British Museum.)
+
+   The Man of Sorrows and the Mater Dolorosa.
+   Oils, in tones of brown. Basel Museum.
+
+   Christ borne to the ground by the weight of the cross.
+   A Washed Drawing and a * Woodcut (unique impression).
+   Basel Museum.
+
+ * Christ in the grave. [Plate 10.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+ ? The risen Christ and Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre. [Plate 11.]
+   Oils. Hampton Court Gallery. (Very much injured.)
+
+   St. George. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
+
+   St. Ursula. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
+
+ ? Portrait of a young girl. [Plate 13.]
+   Drawing in chalk and silver-point. Jabach Collection. The Louvre.
+
+** The Solothurn Madonna. [Plate 12.]
+   Oils. Solothurn Museum. ("Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn,"
+   of which the remarkable history is given in the text; together
+   with the evident relationship of Plate 13 and the hypothesis of
+   the present writer in that connection.)
+
+** Portrait of Erasmus. [Plate 14.]
+   Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   A Citizen's Wife, and others, in the dress of the time.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum.
+
+   The Table of Cebes. Border for title-page.
+   Woodcut. Royal Print Cabinet, Berlin.
+
+   St. Peter and St. Paul; on the title-page of Adam Petri's
+   reprint of Luther's translation of the New Testament.
+
+   Alphabet of "The Dance of Death." Woodcuts.
+   Proof-impressions in the Basel Museum, the British Museum,
+   and the Dresden Royal Collection.
+
+   Bible Pictures: illustrating Old Testament. Woodcuts.
+
+** "Images of Death." [Two shown at Plates 14 and 15.]
+   Proof-impressions, some sets incomplete, in the Basel Museum,
+   British Museum and the National Print Collections of Paris,
+   Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Karlsruhe, and the Bodleian Library.
+   (This is the immortal series of Woodcuts, often called
+   "The Dance of Death," done for the Trechsel Brothers of Lyons,
+   but not published there until many years later.)
+
+   Dorothea Offenburg as the Goddess of Love. [Plate 16.]
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   The above as Lais Corinthiaca.
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+** The Meyer Madonna. [Plates 18 and 19.]
+   Oils. Grand-Ducal Collection, Darmstadt (superbly restored);
+   and ?Dresden Gallery. (Notwithstanding the many and eminent
+   authorities who hold this to be a copy, there still remain
+   a sufficiency of no less eminent authorities to warrant the
+   present writer in her unshaken opinion that, at any rate in
+   its first estate and in the main, this Dresden version--revered
+   for more than one century as such by the highest authorities--was
+   the creation of Holbein's own hand.)
+
+
+III.
+
+FIRST LONDON PERIOD
+(1526-1528)
+
+   Portrait of Sir Thomas More.
+   Oils. Mr. Huth's Collection.
+   Chalk Drawing at Windsor. [Plate 20.]
+   (Also a drawing of Sir John More, father of the above.)
+
+** John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. [Plate 21.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle. (Another in the British Museum.)
+
+   Archbishop Warham.
+   Oils. The Louvre, and Lambeth Palace.
+
+ ? John Stokesley, Bishop of London.
+   Oils. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Sir Henry Guildford. [Plate 22.]
+   Oils. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Lady Guildford.
+   Oils. Mr. Frewen's Collection.
+
+   Sir Thomas Godsalve and his son John.
+   Oils. Dresden Gallery.
+
+   Chalk Drawing of Sir John Godsalve.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Nicholas Kratzer, Astronomer Royal to King Henry VIII. [Plate 23.]
+   Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   Sir Henry Wyat. Oils. The Louvre.
+
+   Sir Bryan Tuke, Treasurer of the Household to King Henry VIII.
+   Oils. Munich Gallery. [Plate 24.]
+   Also at Grosvenor House. (As stated in the text, the writer holds
+   that the portraits of Sir Bryan Tuke should properly be classed
+   with those of a later period. But they are given here in accordance
+   with opinions which obtain at present.)
+
+
+IV.
+
+LAST BASEL PERIOD
+(1528-1531)
+
+** Portrait group of Holbein's wife, Elsbeth, and his two eldest children.
+   [Plate 25.] Oils, on paper.
+   Basel Museum. (Outline hard from having been cut out and mounted.)
+
+   King Rehoboam replying to his people, and
+** Samuel denouncing Saul. [Plate 26.]
+   Two Washed Drawings. Basel Museum. (These are the designs for "the
+   back wall" of the Basel Council Chamber.)
+
+  "Portrait of an English Lady" (unknown).
+   Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+
+** Portrait of an unknown young man in a broad-brimmed hat.
+   Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+   (This is one of the most beautiful of Holbein's portrait studies. There
+   is a soft, yet virile, witchery about it which haunts the memory.)
+
+   Round Portrait of Erasmus. (Bust, 3/4 view.)
+   Oils. Basel Museum.
+
+   Designs for dagger-sheaths and other goldsmith's work.
+   Washed Drawings. Basel Museum, British Museum, etc.
+   (More especially the "Dance of Death"; a chef-d'oeuvre.)
+
+   A ship making sail.
+   Washed Drawing. Staedel Institut. Frankfurt.
+
+
+V.
+
+LAST PERIOD; LONDON
+(1531-43)
+
+** Portrait of Joerg Gyze. [Plate 27.]
+   Oils. Berlin Gallery.
+
+   Portrait of an unknown man.
+   Oils. Schoenborn Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Johann or Hans of Antwerp.
+   Oils. Windsor Castle. (Holbein's friend and executor.)
+
+   Derich Tybis of Duisburg.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Derich Born.
+   Oils. Munich Gallery, and Windsor Castle.
+
+   Derich Berck.
+   Oils. Petworth.
+
+   Unknown Man.
+   Oils. Prado Gallery, Madrid.
+
+   The Triumph of Riches.
+   Drawing. The Louvre.
+   (Copies of this and the pendant design, The Triumph of Poverty,
+   in the British Museum and in the Collection of Lady Eastlake.)
+
+   The Queen of Sheba before Solomon.
+   Washed Drawing, heightened with gold and colours. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Robert Cheseman, with falcon.
+   Oils. Hague Gallery.
+
+ * "The Ambassadors." [Plate 28.]
+   Oils. National Gallery.
+   (A double portrait, life size. Formerly supposed to be Sir Thomas
+   Wyatt and a scholar; now officially held to be Jean de Dinteville,
+   Bailli de Troyes, and George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. As stated
+   in the text, the present writer differs from any identification of
+   either figure yet published, but is not prepared to put forward her
+   own views for the present.)
+
+   Nicholas Bourbon de Vandoeuvre, scholar and poet.
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+   (An intimate friend of Holbein, Kratzer, and their circle. Recently
+   identified as the man in the scholar's gown, in "The Ambassadors,"
+   and so given by Mr. Lionel Cust, in the _Dictionary of National
+   Biography_, in his article upon Holbein.)
+
+**The Morett Portrait. [Plate 29.]
+   Oils. Dresden Gallery.
+   (Long believed to be a triumph of Leonardo da Vinci's art, and the
+   portrait of Ludovico Sforza, "Il Moro." At one time held to be Henry
+   Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Afterwards "established" and catalogued as
+   Hubert Morett, goldsmith to King Henry VIII. Following M. Larpent's
+   suggestion, however, it is now supposed to be the portrait of Charles
+   Solier, Sieur de Morette. But as to this the last word may yet remain
+   to be said. The drawing which the majority of authorities hold to be
+   the study for this painting now hangs near it.)
+
+   Thomas Cromwell.
+   Oils. Tittenhanger.
+
+** Miniature portrait of Henry Brandon, son of the Duke of Suffolk.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Title-page used in Coverdale's Bible. Woodcut.
+
+   Q. Jane Seymour. [Plate 30.]
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+** Portrait of Erasmus, full length, in scholar's robes, with his hand
+   on the head of the god Terminus. Woodcut.
+   Frontispiece to Hieronymus Froben's edition of Erasmus's
+   Works, published in 1540.
+   (Commonly known as "Erasmus in a surround," or niche.)
+
+   Fragment of the Cartoon [Plate 31] used for the four royal portraits
+   in the wall-painting at Whitehall. The fragment shows only the figures
+   of King Henry VIII. and his father. Hardwick Hall.
+   (Remigius van Leemput's copy of the wall-painting shows that the
+   position of the King's head was changed, in the completed work, to the
+   full-face view so familiar in the oil-painting at Windsor Castle. The
+   latter is one of the many copies of Holbein's original portrait of
+   Henry VIII. which long passed muster as genuine _Holbeins_.)
+
+** Portrait study of the face of King Henry VIII. [Plate 32.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Royal Print Cabinet, Munich.
+   (Probably the Life-study for the Whitehall painting. If nothing
+   else remained, this mask alone would incontestably rank Holbein
+   among the Masters of all time. To the writer's thinking, at any
+   rate, it stands among the very few works of art which it would be
+   difficult to match, and impossible to surpass in its own colossal
+   qualities.)
+
+** Design for "the Jane Seymour Cup." [Plate 33.]
+   Bodleian Library.
+
+** Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan. [Plate 34.]
+   Oils. National Gallery; lent from Arundel Castle.
+
+   Edward VI., when infant Prince of Wales.
+   Oils. Hanover Gallery, and Lord Yarborough's Collection.
+
+   Anne of Cleves. [Plate 35.]
+   Oils on Vellum. The Louvre.
+
+   Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk. [Plate 36.]
+   Oils. Windsor Castle, and Arundel Castle.
+
+   Catherine Howard. [Plate 37.]
+   Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+   (The Miniature at Windsor Castle, formerly said to be Holbein's
+   portrait of Catherine Parr, is now said to be Catherine Howard. If
+   so, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile it with the drawing,
+   which latter seems much more in keeping with the descriptions of
+   her traits.)
+
+   Title-page used in Cranmer's Bible. Woodcut.
+   (This is the title-page from which Cromwell's Arms are erased in
+   the second edition.)
+
+   Sir Nicholas Carew.
+   Oils. Dalkeith Palace. Chalk Drawing. Basel Museum.
+
+   Simon George of Cornwall.
+   Oils. Staedel Institut, Frankfurt.
+
+   Miniature portrait of Charles Brandon, son of the Duke of Suffolk.
+   Windsor Castle.
+
+   Lady; unknown.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+   Also a fine portrait of an unknown man.
+   Oils. Same Gallery.
+
+   Sir Richard Southwell.
+   Oils. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   John Reskymeer.
+   Oils. Hampton Court Gallery.
+
+   Nicholas Poyntz.
+   Oils. De la Rosiere Collection, Paris. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Sir John Russell.
+   Oils. Woburn Abbey. Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.
+
+   Three portraits; men unknown.
+   Oils. Berlin Gallery.
+
+   Designs for jewelry, ornamental panels, clocks, chimney-piece,
+   etc., etc. Washed Drawings. British Museum, Basel Museum, etc.
+
+   Many fine portraits of which no versions in oils are known.
+   Chalk Drawings. Windsor Castle.
+   Among these one of Edward VI. as boy Prince of Wales, the Duchess of
+   Suffolk, Sir Thomas Wyatt, etc., etc.
+
+   Dr. John Chamber, or Chambers.
+   Oils. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
+
+   Also many other oil-portraits, more or less genuine, in various
+   Collections.
+
+
+
+
+REFERENCES
+
+
+ The Literature of Holbein's Life, much more of his Works, is far too
+ extensive to admit of a Bibliography in a volume of this sort. But the
+ following List will be found to contain (or themselves refer the reader
+ to) all that is of essential importance to even the most complete study
+ of this Master.
+
+ Carel van Mander, _Het Schilder-Boeck_, etc., 1604.
+   The above translated into French, and admirably edited by
+   M. Henri Hyman. 2 tom., 1884.
+
+ Alfred Woltmann, _Holbein und seine Zeit. Zweite umgearbeitete
+   Auflage_, 1874. 2 Bde.
+   There is an English translation of the First Edition of 1871, by
+   F. E. Bunnett; but unfortunately its views on many vital points are
+   reversed by Woltmann himself in his latest edition.
+
+ R. N. Wornum, _Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein_, 1867.
+   Corrected in many respects by the author in a monograph on
+   "The Meier Madonna," 1891.
+
+ Paul Mantz, _Hans Holbein_. Paris, 1879.
+
+ H. Knackfuss, _Holbein_. Leipzig, 1899.
+   English translation of the above by Mr. Campbell Dodgson.
+
+ Eduard His, _Die Basler Archive ueber Hans Holbein den
+   Jungern_. In Zahn's _Jahrbuecher fuer Kunstwissenschaft_,
+   1870.
+
+ Francis Douce, _The Dance of Death_, 1833.
+
+ J. R. Smith, _Holbein's Dance of Death_, 1849.
+   (Especially fine reproductions.)
+
+ H. N. Humphreys, _Holbein's Dance of Death_, 1868.
+
+ G. Th. Fechner, _Ueber die Deutungsfrage der Holbein'schen Madonna._
+   _Die aelteste historische Quelle ueber die Holbein'sche Madonna_.
+   Both in _Archiv fuer die zeichnenden Kuenste_, 1866, I., 4.
+   These give all the known facts of the history of the Meyer Madonnas
+   of Darmstadt and Dresden.
+
+ S. Larpent, _Sur le portrait de Morett_. Christiania, 1881.
+
+ Mary F. S. Hervey, _Holbein's "Ambassadors,"_ 1900.
+   This volume also embodies, and gives the references to, the original
+   identifications of Professor Sidney Colvin, and the suggested
+   identifications of Mr. C. L. Eastlake; as well as to the contribution
+   concerning the hymn-book by Mr. Barclay Squire.
+
+ W. F. Dickes, _Holbein's "Ambassadors" Unriddled_, 1903.
+
+ F. A. Zetter-Collin, _Die Zetter'sche Madonna von Solothurn.
+   Ihre Geschichte aus Originalquellen_, etc.
+   In _Festschrift des Kunst-Vereins der Stadt Solothurn_, 1902.
+
+ Artur Seeman, _Der Brunnen des Lebens, von H. Holbein_.
+   In _Zeitschrift fuer bildende Kunst_. Mai, 1903.
+   With a superb illustration in colour.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+ "Adoration," painting, 71
+ "Ambassadors, The," painting, 145-9, 193
+ Amerbach, Basilius, 66
+   Bonifacius, 25, 46-50, 99, 125
+   Johann, 48, 61
+ Anne, of Cleves, Queen, 171-4
+ Antwerp, Johann or Hans of, 183
+ Arundel, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of, 184
+   Thomas Howard, Earl of, 151
+   William Fitzalan, Earl of, 115
+ Augsburg, 10, 11, 16
+
+ Baer, Hans, 24, 25
+   Magdalena, first wife of Meyer zum Hasen, 31
+ Barber-Surgeons, Guild of, 180
+ Basel, description of, 58-64
+   decoration of the Rathhaus by Holbein, 83-5, 132, 135, 170
+   decoration of the Laellenkoenig by Holbein, 135
+   offers of an annuity to Holbein, 145, 168, 169, 176, 177
+ Basel, banquet to Holbein, 168
+ Beatus Rhenanus, 68
+ Berne, 12
+ Bible, translations before the Reformation, 23, 24
+ Boleyn, Anne, Queen, 150, 151
+ Bourbon, Nicholas, 156, 157, 193
+ Bourges, 99
+ Burgkmair, Hans, 11
+ Butts, Sir William, 180
+
+ Cellini, Benvenuto, 169-70
+ Chamber, John, 180
+ Cheseman, Robert, 150
+ "Christ in the Grave," painting, 78-80
+ Christ in Holbein's Art, 77-83
+ Christina, Duchess of Milan, 144, 164-7
+ Colet, John, Dean of St. Paul's, 22, 137
+ Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 152
+
+ "Dance of Death," 100-103
+ Darmstadt, "Meyer-Madonna" at, 108-13
+ David, Gerard, 53
+ David, Jerome, 169
+ Diesbach, Nicholas von, 89, 90
+ Dinteville, Jean de, 149
+ Dresden, "Meyer-Madonna" at, 108-13
+ Duerer, Albrecht, 22
+
+ Edward VI., King, 163, 170
+ Elizabeth of York, Queen, 161
+ Erasmus, Desiderius, 17-21, 125, 137, 158
+   Portraits of, 98, 99, 159
+ Eyck, H. and J. van, 15, 185
+
+ Faesch, Remigius, 111
+ Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 118
+ "Fountain of Life," painting, 53, 54
+ Froben, Hieronymus, 158
+ Froben, Johann, 15, 34, 35, 63, 64, 68, 98
+
+ Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 175
+ Gerster, Hans, 89, 90
+ Glass-painting, designs for, 54, 55
+ "Goddess of Love," painting, 104
+ Gold-work, designs for, 163
+ Graf, Urs, 65, 66
+ Guildford, Sir Henry, 119-21
+   Lady, 121
+ Gyze, Georg, 142-43
+
+ Hayes, Cornelius, 170
+ Henry VII., King, portrait, 161
+ Henry VIII., King, portrait, 160-63, 195
+   New Year present to Holbein, 170
+ Henry, Prince of Wales, 151
+ Hertenstein, Jacob von, 43
+ Holbein, Ambrose, 10, 12, 13, 17
+   Bruno, 12
+   Elsbeth, 58, 94-7, 104, 105, 107, 126-9, 177-82
+   Hans, the Elder, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 91
+     the Younger, birth (1497), 16
+       at Basel (1515-17), 24
+       at Lucerne (1517-18), 41, 42
+       a citizen of Basel (1519-26), 58-113
+       marriage, 58
+       wife and children, 104-7, 124, 129-31, 169, 170, 182
+       first visit to England (1526-8), 115-25
+       last years in Basel (1528-31), 125-36
+       purchase of Basel House (1528), 125, 126
+       final return to London (1531), 136
+       mention of, by Nicholas Bourbon, 157
+       official income, 167
+       will and death, 180-83
+       place of interment, 184
+       illegitimate children, 183
+       as a designer and engraver, 35-7
+       greatness of, 184-7
+       religious ideals and sympathies, 21-4, 77-83
+   Jacob, 128-30
+   Katharina, 128-31
+   Kuenegoldt, wife of Andreas Syff, 129-31
+   Michael, 11
+   Philip, son of Hans the Younger, 86, 94, 129, 169, 170
+   Philip, grandson of Hans the Younger, 130
+   Sigmund, 12, 177
+ Howard, Catherine, Queen, 175
+   Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 175
+ Hutten, Ulrich von, 71
+ Hyss, Cornelius, 157
+
+ "Jane Seymour Cup," 163
+
+ Kratzer, Nicholas, 121, 122, 157
+
+ Lais Corinthiaca, painting, 105, 106
+ Landsknechte, drawings, 57, 58
+ "Last Supper," paintings, 50-52
+ Leemput, Remi von, 160
+ Leonardo da Vinci, 40, 50
+ Lisbon, painting, the "Fountain of Life" at, 53, 54
+ Lucerne, 41, 42
+ Luetzelburger, Hans, 36, 98
+ Lystrius, Gerard, 68
+
+ Mantegna, Andrea, 40, 41, 50
+ "Mary Magdalen at the Sepulchre," painting, 80-83
+ Merian, family of, at Frankfurt, 131
+ Meyer, Anna, 110, 111
+   Dorothea, nee Kannegiesser, 31-4, 109
+   Jacob zum Hasen, 31-4, 75, 89, 107
+   Jacob zum Hirten, 132, 133
+   Magdalena, nee Baer, 31
+ "Meyer-Madonna" (Darmstadt and Dresden), 108-13
+ Milan, 40
+ Monasticism and Art, 5-8
+ More, Sir Thomas, 112, 114-17, 137
+ Morett, Hubert, or Morette, Charles de Solier, portrait, 144, 154, 194
+
+ "Nativity," paintings, 71-4
+
+ Oberriedt, Hans, 72, 75
+ Oporinus, Joannes, 67, 68
+
+ Paracelsus, 67
+ Parr, Catherine, 176, 179
+ Passion, eight-panelled altar-piece, 75-77
+   drawings, 77, 78
+ Plague (in 1543), 182
+
+ Saint Andrew Undershaft, London, 178, 183, 184
+ Saint Catharine Cree, London, 184
+ Schmidt, Franz, 177, 182
+ Schoolmaster's Sign-board, paintings, 25, 26
+ Selve, Georges de, Bishop of Lavaur, 149
+ Seymour, Jane, Queen, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164
+ "Sheba, Queen of, visiting Solomon," drawing, 155
+ Solier, Charles de, Seigneur de Morette, 154
+ Solothurn Madonna, painting and its history, 86-97
+ Steelyard, the, London, 138-42
+ Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, 119
+ Sultz, Dorothea von, nee Offenburg, 104-6
+
+ Title-pages, woodcuts, 65, 98, 115, 159
+ "Triumph of Riches and of Poverty," drawings, 150
+ Tuke, Sir Bryan, 122, 123
+
+ Ulm, 11
+ Utopia, woodcut title-page, 115
+
+ "Virgin and Child," drawings, 55
+   paintings by Holbein, 86-97, 108-13
+
+ Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 118, 119, 137
+ Wilhelm Meister, School of, 8
+ Windsor, portrait, drawings at, 117
+
+ Zetter, "Madonna" at Solothurn, 86-97
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BOOKS ON ART
+
+_Demy 16mo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+
+=SUBJECTS=
+
+MINIATURES. Alice Corkran
+BOOKPLATES. Edward Almack
+GREEK ART. H. B. Walters
+ROMAN ART. H. B. Walters
+THE ARTS OF JAPAN. Mrs. C. M. Salwey
+JEWELLERY. C. Davenport
+CHRIST IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner
+OUR LADY IN ART. Mrs. H. Jenner
+CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. H. Jenner
+ILLUMINATED MSS. J. W. Bradley
+ENAMELS. Mrs. Nelson Dawson
+FURNITURE. Egan Mew
+
+
+=ARTISTS=
+
+ROMNEY. George Paston
+DUeRER. L. Jessie Allen
+REYNOLDS. J. Sime
+WATTS. Miss R. E. D. Sketchley
+HOPPNER. H. P. K. Skipton
+TURNER. Frances Tyrrell-Gill
+HOGARTH. Egan Mew
+BURNE-JONES. Fortunee De Lisle
+LEIGHTON. Alice Corkran
+REMBRANDT. Mrs. E. A. Sharp
+VELASQUEZ. Wilfrid Wilberforce and A. R. Gilbert
+VANDYCK. M. G. Smallwood
+DAVID COX. Arthur Tomson
+HOLBEIN. Beatrice Fortescue
+COROT. Ethel Birnstingl and Mrs. A. Pollard
+MILLET. Netta Peacock
+CLAUDE. E. Dillon
+GREUZE AND BOUCHER. Eliza F. Pollard
+RAPHAEL. A. R. Dryhurst
+
+
+PLYMOUTH
+WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
+PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+Contemporary spellings have generally been retained even when
+inconsistent. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been
+corrected and some names regularised; missing punctuation has been
+silently added. Advertising material has been moved to the end.
+
+
+The following additional changes have been made:
+
+ to away with him                        to _do_ away with him
+
+ and in Pope Leo's hands for a           and _would remain_ in Pope Leo's
+ year yet                                for a year yet
+
+ Die zetter'schen Madonna                Die _Zetter'sche_ Madonna
+ vow Solothurn                           _von_ Solothurn
+
+ that I imagine it to have               that I imagine to have
+
+ Mecaenas                                 Maecenas
+
+ at Basel (1515-77)                      at Basel (1515-_17_)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #29150 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29150)