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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:47:00 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:47:00 -0700 |
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diff --git a/29150-h/29150-h.htm b/29150-h/29150-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e0ecf5 --- /dev/null +++ b/29150-h/29150-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8174 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Holbein, by Beatrice Fortescue.</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-size: large; + margin-top:100px; + margin-left:15%; + margin-right:15%; + text-align:justify; } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; } + hr.narrow { width: 40%; + text-align: center; } + hr { width: 100%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 3px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + blockquote { font-size: large; margin-left: 4%; margin-right: 4% } + blockquote.med { font-size: medium; } + table {font-size: large; } + table.sm {font-size: medium; } + table.j {font-size: small; + text-align: justify; } + td.j {text-align: justify; } + td.w50 { width: 50%; } + p {text-indent: 3%; } + p.noindent { text-indent: 0%; } + p.noline { margin-top: 0px; + margin-bottom: 1px; } + .big { font-size: 130%} + .caption { font-size: small; + font-weight: bold; } + .center { text-align: center; } + img { border: 0; } + .ind1 { margin-left: 1em; } + .ind2 { margin-left: 2em; } + .ind3 { margin-left: 3em; } + .ind6 { margin-left: 6em; } + .index { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 8% font-size: 90% } + ins { text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .nowrap { white-space: nowrap; } + .pagenum { visibility: hidden; position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: 70%; text-align: right;} + .poem {margin-left: 22%; margin-right: 8%; text-align: left; font-size: 95%} + .right { text-align: right; } + .small { font-size: 70%; } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps; } + .toctitle { font-weight: bold; + font-size: 90%; } + .u { text-decoration: underline; } + .wide { letter-spacing: .15em; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red; + text-decoration: underline; } + pre {font-size: 70%; } +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +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 + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><a name="hpl1" id="hpl1"> </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> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<h4><span class="wide">LITTLE BOOKS ON ART</span></h4> +<h5>GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT</h5> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>HOLBEIN</h1> + +<p> </p> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>BEATRICE FORTESCUE</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h5>WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS</h5> +<p> </p> +<h3>METHUEN & CO.<br /> +36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br /> +LONDON</h3> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"><p class="noindent"><i>First published in 1904</i></p></div> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<p> </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—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 <i>Praise of Folly</i>; 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</td></tr></table> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </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>—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</td></tr></table> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </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—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</td></tr></table> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </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—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</td></tr></table> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </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"> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#REFERENCES">REFERENCES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"></td><td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p> </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>née</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. Röbke, 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. </span></td><td>GETHSEMANE.</td><td align="right">II. </td><td>THE KISS OF JUDAS.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">III. </span></td><td>BEFORE PONTIUS PILATE. </td><td align="right">IV. </td><td>THE SCOURGING.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">V. </span></td><td>THE MOCKING.</td><td align="right">VI. </td><td>THE WAY TO CALVARY.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span class="ind2">VII. </span></td><td>"IT IS FINISHED."</td><td align="right">VIII. </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 LAÏS 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">JÖRG (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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>HOLBEIN <a href="#fn1"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a><a name="fn1r" id="fn1r"></a></h2> + +<p> </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—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 <i>Praise of Folly</i>; 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.</td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>The eighty-three years stretching from +1461 to 1543—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—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.—<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—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,—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—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—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.</p> + +<p>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<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—</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,—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—<i>qua</i> 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.</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,—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<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,—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 <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,—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—the amazing +achievements—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—</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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.</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—as is generally believed—of +"Michel Holbain" (Augsburg commonly +spelt <i>Holbein</i> with an <i>a</i>), 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.</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:—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, déshabille 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,—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,—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 <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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—Heaven and himself only knowing +how willingly,—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 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 +(<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—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.</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,—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>—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<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 Moriæ</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,—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 <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,—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!</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"—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<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—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.</p> + +<p>"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<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,—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,—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 <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,—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.</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,—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<p>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)<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—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.</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"—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,—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<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 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.</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,—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<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,—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<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 +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,<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 déjà 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>née</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>—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" (<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,—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,—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.</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,—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,—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.</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 Lützelburger, form-cutter, +called Franck" (<i>Hans Lützelburger, +Formschnider, genannt Franck</i>), 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<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;—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<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,—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,—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,—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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +way into Italy,—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—"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,—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.</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—as I believe—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,—the +interior as well as the façade.</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 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +one of the façade-paintings, and a few fragments +of the interior paintings, which still show +themselves, by chance, in the banker's <i>stable +wall</i>—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> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> <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>—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.</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—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—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,—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—above the +signature, the name of the sitter and the date +14th October, 1519—</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,—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 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<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>—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;—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,—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.</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,—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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,—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.</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,—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.</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—as blithely as did +the hearts of the <i>Reisläufer</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;—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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>élite</i> were +scholars and printers and civic officials of every +origin,—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,—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 <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 Brücke</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>Lällenkönig</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>Klösterli</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 Crüze</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,—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 <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,—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;—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—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 Crüz</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 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.</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—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.</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,—I +think,—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—that ordered imagination +which is Style—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,—"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.</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,—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.</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, 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!</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;—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,"—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 <ins title="lacking in original">would remain</ins> 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—<i>Defender of the Faith</i>,—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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?</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,—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.<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,—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—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,—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.</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 Dürer'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 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."<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—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—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,—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<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,—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 (<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,—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.<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,—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.</p> + +<p>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<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,—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 Judæorum</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,—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.<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,"—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,—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 protégé 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—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,—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 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<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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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—now in the Solothurn +Museum, and therefore called the "Solothurn +Madonna" (<a href="#hpl12">Plate 12</a>)—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,—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<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"—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,—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<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—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 +<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—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<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,—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.<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,—one +Hartmann,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>—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'œuvre 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—"The +Zetter-Madonna of Solothurn." And it smiles +with Holbein's own undebased handiwork +throughout. <i>Pace</i> Woltmann's blunder,—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—<span class="small">ALS. +IN. ERN. ALS. IN....</span>—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,—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—"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."</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,—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:—"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.</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,—Hans Lützelburger. +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 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.</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—the +lean, strong, <i>thinking</i> countenance,—the +elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly, +stealing out on his lips,—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,—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.</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,—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.</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,—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!"<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—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,—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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +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.</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">Laïs 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—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."</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. 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.<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 LAÏS 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,—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,—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—especially since +the public comparison of the two works at +Dresden in 1871—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,—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<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—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<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—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,<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—"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"—<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> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> <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—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.</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 Ægidius, 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 Ægidius, as also to the host +who was expecting him in England—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,—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,—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,"—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."</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—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 Mecænas">"Mæcenas,"</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—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,—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 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<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,—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.<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;—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,—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,—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.</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,—a +middle-aged, coarse-figured, unamiable-looking +woman, a very commonplace +infant, and a bright-faced boy,—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—</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—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.</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—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 +<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,—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 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.</p> + +<p>But in 1529, when the family group was +painted, neither Jacob nor Künegoldt 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,—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.</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> +—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."</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 Lällenkönig +monstrosity on the bridge!—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—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.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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,—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.</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—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—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<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,—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.</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,—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—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.</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,—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 (<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 /> + JÖRG (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 Jörg Gyze, +my brother, in London, England" (<i>Dem +ersamen herrn Jörg 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—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—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 <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—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—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.</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—his largest extant portrait-painting—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">ÆT. SVÆ. 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">ÆTATIS SVÆ 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,—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<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—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>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—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—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.</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—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.</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—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—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 +(<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—like <i>Meier</i> 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? <i>Et voilà!</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—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> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> <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—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.</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—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, 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.</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—those +matchless years of a man's young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +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. <i>Eheu fugaces!</i> "God help thee, +Elia, how art thou sophisticated."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<p>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.</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—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.—as +shown by the original chalk study from life +now in the Munich Gallery (<a href="#hpl32">Plate 32</a>)—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,—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—"Bound to obey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +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.<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—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—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<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—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."</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—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<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:—"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 +£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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<p>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.</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—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—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.</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—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<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 £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.</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—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.</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—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—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—"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.</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—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.</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 Cæsars? +Henry VIII. and Fisher; the Laïs 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;—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.</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"—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.</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,—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—</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </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. Bär 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:—"<i>Die <ins title="original has zetter'schen">Zetter'sche</ins> Madonna +<ins title="original has vow">von</ins> Solothurn. (…) 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> <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">** signifies</td> + <td align="left" valign="top"><i>—Superlative qualities</i>.</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right" valign="top">* signifies</td> + <td align="left" valign="top"><i>—Of some particular importance</i>.</td> +</tr> + <tr><td align="right" valign="top">? signifies</td> + <td align="left" valign="top">—<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> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Virgin and Child. Oils. Basel Museum. (Earliest +signed work known. Dated 1514.) +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Portrait of an unknown young man. Oils. Grand-Ducal +Museum, Darmstadt.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Bonifacius Amerbach. [Plate <a href="#hpl6">6</a>.] Oils. Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Drawings in water-colour and silver-point. Basel +Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Design for the wings of an organ-case. Washed Drawings. +Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Head of St. John the Evangelist. Oils. Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">The Last Supper. (On wood; ruined fragment.) Oils. +Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Christ borne to the ground by the weight of the cross. +A Washed Drawing and a * 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"> </td> +<td align="left">St. George. Oils. Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">The above as Laïs 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—revered +for more than one century as such by the highest +authorities—was the creation of Holbein's own hand.)</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </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"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Sir Henry Guildford. [Plate <a href="#hpl22">22</a>.] Oils. Windsor Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Lady Guildford. Oils. Mr. Frewen's Collection.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Sir Thomas Godsalve and his son John. Oils. Dresden +Gallery.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Chalk Drawing of Sir John Godsalve. Windsor Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> <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"> </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> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">King Rehoboam replying to his people, and ** 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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Round Portrait of Erasmus. (Bust, ¾ view.) Oils. +Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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'œuvre.)</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">A ship making sail. Washed Drawing. Städel Institut. +Frankfurt.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> </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 Jörg Gyze. [Plate <a href="#hpl27">27</a>.] Oils. Berlin +Gallery.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Portrait of an unknown man. Oils. Schönborn Gallery, +Vienna.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Derich Tybis of Duisburg. Oils. Imperial Gallery, +Vienna.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Derich Born. Oils. Munich Gallery, and Windsor +Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Derich Berck. Oils. Petworth.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Unknown Man. Oils. Prado Gallery, Madrid.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Nicholas Bourbon de Vandœuvre, 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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Title-page used in Coverdale's Bible. Woodcut.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Sir Nicholas Carew. Oils. Dalkeith Palace. Chalk +Drawing. Basel Museum.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Simon George of Cornwall. Oils. Städel Institut, +Frankfurt.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Sir Richard Southwell. Oils. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. +Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">John Reskymeer. Oils. Hampton Court Gallery.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Nicholas Poyntz. Oils. De la Rosière Collection, Paris. +Chalk Drawing. Windsor Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Sir John Russell. Oils. Woburn Abbey. Chalk Drawing. +Windsor Castle.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Three portraits; men unknown. Oils. Berlin Gallery.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </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"> </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"> </td> +<td align="left">Dr. John Chamber, or Chambers. Oils. Imperial +Gallery, Vienna.</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> +<td align="left">Also many other oil-portraits, more or less genuine, in +various Collections.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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. Bunnètt; +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 über Hans Holbein den +Jungern</i>.</dt> +<dd>In Zahn's <i>Jahrbücher für 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>Über die Deutungsfrage der Holbein'schen +Madonna. Die älteste historische Quelle über +die Holbein'sche Madonna</i>.</dt> +<dd>Both in <i>Archiv für die zeichnenden Künste</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 für bildende Kunst</i>. Mai, 1903. +With a superb illustration in colour.</dd> +</dl> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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 /> +Bär, 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 Lällenkönig 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 /> +Dürer, 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 /> +Fäsch, 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">Künegoldt, 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 /> +Laïs 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 /> +Lützelburger, 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, née 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, née Bär, <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, née 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> </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 /> +DÜRER. 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">Fortunée 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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">Mecænas</td> + <td valign="top">Mæcenas</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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLBEIN *** + +***** This file should be named 29150-h.htm or 29150-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/5/29150/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau, Janine Lettau, Paul Dring, +Clive Pickton, Joseph E. 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