THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. LONDON: PRINTED BY 'WILLTAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAJIIFORT) STREET AND CHARING CROSS. HANS HOLBEIN SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORKS HANS HOLBEIN, WITK NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIOm. RALPH NICHOLSON WORNUM, KKF.PRR AND SKCRETARY NATIONAL GALLERY. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1867. • {The Right of Tramlation is reserved.) PEEFACE. rjIHE accompanying volume, as I have perhaps fully explained in the text, is not called a " Life of Holbein " because I feel that we have not as yet materials sufficient to justify such a title. Neither does it constitute a " Catalogue Raisonne'* of the painter's works, real or reputed : such an undertaking presents two difficulties of some magnitude ; it would involve an amount of physical work that is not only beyond my means and opportunities, but is in itself a compilation requiring too much of the mechanical system and patience of an appraiser not to be repulsive to a literary or historical taste : as all the pretended works, as well as the real, demand an examination, if not a notice^ if one is to speak with any authority or absolute decision as to quantity as well as quality. I have endeavoured only to give an adequate conception of Holbein's career and qualities as an artist, by a succinct rela- tion of all the known biographical events of his life, and by a detailed and chronological review, as far as possible, of all his characteristic or capital works. I have attempted to present to the mind of the reader, a definite and true image of my hero, both as an artist and as a man ; and to do this as compactly, and in a form as agreeable 4 PEEFACE. and as little fatiguing to the reader, as lay within my powers to compass. That I have omitted to notice some good genuine works is not only possible, but very probable ; and I shall feel grateful for any corrections, and for any new information concerning any undoubted works by the painter, that have escaped my knowledge. In the illustrations of this volume I have, with one excep- tion, adopted nothing but what is by common consent or tradition, ascribed to the painter's own hand : the reader may therefore consider this Essay as an Account of the Life and Works of Holbein, illustrated by himself. The exception is the shield on the title-page, which is a free copy of that published by Chr. von Mechel in his Oeuvre de Jean Holbein,'^ from the Painters' Gruild-book at Basel. I have selected the illustrations with a view to showing the vast range of Holbein's art, and the comprehensive character of his capacity or genius, as an historical painter and designer. He was very far from being a mere portrait painter ; he had, evidently, dramatic powers of composition of the highest class. He is unsurpassed in his best efforts at ornamental design ; and is, I think, quite unequalled in his faculty of drawing the human face, in lines or in light and shade with the mere point, whether soft or hard. His own hand is shown in the two photographs in this volume ; one, the portrait of a young man, the other that of an old man.. The woodcuts executed by Messrs Dalziel have been care- fully drawn, under my direction, by Mr. Andrew Eeid : they are from pictures, drawings, designs for silver work, jewellery, typographical embellishments^ and other ornamental manu- factures. PREFACE. 5 For the readiest mode of attaining to an adequate idea of Holbein's taste, style of composition, and powers in drawing the human figure, I strongly recommend the reader to consult the fine series of photographs, from his designs in the Basel Museum now in course of execution in Germany by Adolph Braun of Dornach ; they are printed the size of the originals, by Swan's carbon process, and are supposed to be permanent : they are very forcible, and constitute a magnificent series of designs.* October, 1866. * They are, or shortly will be, published in this country by Messrs. Charles Haulf and Co., No. 4, St. Benet's Place, Gracechurcii Street, London. CONTENTS. THE FIRST BOOK. INTEODUCTOEY— OLD BIOGEAPHIES AND NEW DISCOYEEIES— A FAMILY OF PAINTEES AT AUGSBURG. CHAPTEE I. Old Biographies . . . . . .17 Introductory . . . . . .17 Carel van Mander. 1604 . . . . .18 Joachim von Sandrart. 1675 . . . .23 Charles Patin. 1676 . . . . .26 CHAPTER II. New Discoveries . . . . . .29 Eecent confusion. 1 861 . . . . . 29 New light . . . . . .33 False attributions. 186 1 . . . . .34 Criticism not dogmatism . . . . .37 Holbein's will . . . . • .40 His birth ....... 40 Holbein topography. 1861-6 . . . .41 Holbein's drawings . . . . .43 Documentary authorities . . . • .43 Kindred painters . . . . • .45 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. A family of painters at Augsburg . . . .48 Old Holbein. 1459-99 . . . . .48 Michel Holbein. 1454-86 . . . . .53 Holbein the father. 1492-1508 . . . .54 Sigmund Holbein, living 1540 . . . .71 Ambrose Holbein. 1517 . . . . .75 Bruno Holbein . . . . . .78 THE SECOND BOOK. HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. IN AUGSBURG, AND IN BASEL. CHAPTER IV. Born at Augsburg in 1494-5 . . . . .79 The " Strasse zum Diebold " . . . .79 Fictitious signatures . . . . .84 CHAPTER V. Early works at Augsburg . . . . .86 In the convent of St. Catherine. 1510-16 . . .86 His father and mother . . . . .89 Madonna and Child . . . . .91 Early portraits . . . . . .92 Ulrich Schwartz . . . . . .93 Martyrdom of St. Sebastian . . . .94 Merz and wife . . . . . .97 The Imhof drawings . . . . . 99 CHAPTER VI. Removes to Switzerland, and settles in Basel: Works at Basel and Lucerne . . . . . .101 Works at Basel. 1516-26 . . . . .101 Early works in the museum. 1516-17 . . . 103 The church reformers . , . . .106 Wanderjahre. Lucerne. 1517-19 . . , .. 107 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER VIL PAGE Settles in and becomes a citizen of Basel. The historical paintings in the Town-hall of Basel . . . .111 Painter and citizen of Basel. 1519-20 . . . Ill Boniface Amerbach . . . . .113 The Amerbach collection . . . . .116 The "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon . . . .117 The Town-hall, Basel . . . . .120 The frescoes of the Council-room. 1521-2 . . . 121 Earity of Holbein's easel-pictures at Basel. 1521-5 . . 127 Glass-painting . . . . . ,130 The drawings of the Passion .... 130 The Dead Christ. 1521 . . . . .131 CHAPTEE VIII. Friends and patrons at Basel . . . . .133 Frobenius and Erasmus. 1521-5 .... 133 CHAPTEE IX. The painter's character and marriage. " Pinguis et nitidus Epicuri de Grege Porcus." His wife and children. Elizabeth Schmid. Lais Corinthiaca. The Meier Madonna . 153 " Epicuri de Grege Porcus " . . . . 153 Holbein's wife and children. 1525-6 . . ,157 Lais Corinthiaca. 1526 , . . . . 162 The Meier Madonna. 1526, , . . .164 CHAPTEE X. Wood engravings. The Dance of Death, and Bible-cuts . 176 The Dance of Death at Basel, about 1450 . . .176 Holbein's Dance of Death. 1526 . . . .180 Holbein's Bible-cuts . . . . .188 Cranmer's Catechism. 1548 . . . . 190 10 CONTENTS. THE THIRD BOOK. ■ HOLBEIN IN ENGLAND. CHAPTEE XI. The painter leaves Basel, and comes to England, in the autumn of 1526, carrying a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More in London .... 192 The painter leaves Basel. 1526-7, 18th Henry VIII. . 192 His contemporaries in England .... 193 Catherine of Arragon . . . . .198 Foreign rivals in England ..... 200 Prices in England ...... 201 Social state of England ..... 206 From Basel to London . . . . . 207 CHAPTEE XII. Holbein as the guest of Sir Thomas More at Chelsea, 1527-9 Earliest English portraits. 1527, 19th Henry VIIL The Windsor drawings Archbishop Warham Sir Henry Guildford Sir Thomas More .... Sir John Godsalve. 1528, 20th Henry VIII . Nicolas Kratzer .... John Fisher . . . . Sir Thomas More's religious sentiments The Eood at Dovercourt The More Family. 1529, 21st Henry VIII. . Engraved by C. von Mechel Portraits of More .... Hardness of manner CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Holbein visits Basel, and completes tbe paintings of the Town- hall, but within two years returns again to England . 254 He returns home 254 Eeligious disturbances . . • • ' • 255 Frescoes in the Eathhaus . . • • .256 Back again in London. 1531, 23rd Henry YIII. . . 257 The merchants of the Steelyard. 1532, 24th Henry VIII. . 258 George Gyze . . . • • • 259 The merchants of the Steelyard . . • .261 " The Triumph of Eiches " . . . • .263 "The Triumph of Poverty" . . • .264 Holbein recalled to Basel ..... 265 CHAPTEE XIV. Holbein presented to Henry VIII. Miniatures and other por- traits of the King and of the Eoyal Family . . 267 Presented to the King. 1533, 25th Henry VIII. . . 267 Queen Anne Boleyn ..... 269 The Princess Elizabeth * . . . . .270 The Princess Mary ..... 270 With the court at Calais ..... 273 The Battle of Spurs . . . . .274 The "Two Ambassadors" . . . . .275 Derick Born ...... 278 GerickTybis . . . . . .278 Ambrose Fallen ? . . . . . .278 The Sumptuary Law of 1533 .... 279 Portraits of the King ..... 280 Lady Audley's miniature . . . . . 284 The Dukes of Suffolk ..... 284 Church dissensions. 1534 ..... 285 Thomas Cromwell. 1535, 27th Henry VIII. . . 286 Death of Queen Catherine, 1536, 28tli Henry VIII. . 287 Disgrace of Anne Boleyn ..... 288 Derick Berck . . . . . . 288 The English Bible. . ' . . . .289 Henry VHL's portrait . . . . .290 * See also note, Appendix, p. 392. ]2 CONTENTS. PAGE Sir Eichard Southwell . . . . .291 Edward Seymour . . . . . .292 Undated portraits . . . . . .293 Jane Seymour . . . . . . 293 Dr. Chamber . . . . . . 293 Sir Brian Tuke , . . . ... 294 Sir William and Lady Butts .... 295 Lady Eich ...... 297 "Mr. Morett" . . . . . .298 CHAPTEE XV. Holbein a servant of the King's Majesty . . . 303 Eoyal portraits at Whitehall. 1537, 29th Henry VIII. . 303 The birth of Prince Edward .... 309 Death of Queen Jane . . ... . 309 The Duchess of Milan . . . . .310 Payments of the Household. 1538, 30th Henry VIII. . 315 Holbein visits Basel for the last time . . . 316 Solicited to settle in Basel . . . . .318 The painter and the peer ..... 319 The Duchess of Milan ..... 321 Prince Edward. 1539, 31st Henry VIII. . . .323 Further payments to Holbein .... 326 His travelling expenses . . . . . 328 Anne of Cleves ...... 328 The last payments ...... 336 Henry Earl of Surrey ..... 336 Catherine Howard. 1540, 32nd Henry VIII. . . 336 Guillim Stretes ...... 337 The state of morals ..... 340 The Duke of Norfolk . . . . .342 Church of St. Andrew Undershaft. 1541, 33rd Henry VIII. 344 Sir Anthony Denny ..... 348 The Barber-Surgeons' picture .... 348 Queen Catherine Howard ..... 352 Henry VIII. marries his sixth w^fe. . . . 354 The family of the King. 1543, 35th Henry VIII. . . 354 Miniatures and drawings . . c . . 356 Drawings in the British Museum . . . . 357 Architectural designs ..... 359 CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XVI. PAGE The last stage . . . . . . . 361 Death of pestilence ..... 361 Holbein's will ...... 366 Philip Holbein . . . . . .371 John and Jane Holbein of Folkestone . . . 372 Appendix ...... . 375 I. Inventory of Pictures, &c., belonging to Henry VIIL, in 1547 — "Stuff and Implements at Westminster, in tlie charge of Sir Anthony Denny, Knight, Keeper of the House " (Whitehall) . . . . .381 II. Catalogue of Portraits by Holbein, of English Lords and Ladies, of the Court of King Henry YIII., in her Majesty's Collection at Windsor . . . 395 Index to the Life and Works of Holbein 415 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Portrait of Holbein, engraved on steel by Mr. C. W. Sharpe, from the drawing by himself in the museum at Basel (noticed at pages 116, 129, 132) .... Frontispiece 2. The Holbein arms, from the Painters'-book, at Basel (noticed at page 371) . . . . . Titlepage 3. Dedicatory cut, from a design drawn on wood and signed by Holbein, and used on several occasions in the publications of Frobenius (noticed at page 135) ... 1, 377 4. Tail-piece, two boys, from the upper part of the design for a clock, made for Sir Anthony Denny ; in the British Museum 5, 373 5. Head-piece, arabesque, from a collection of drawings by Holbein, in the British Museum. Sloane MS. No. 5,308. A Plut. cxiii. B. . . , . . .7 6. Head and tail-piece, peasant dance from lower frieze of a title or dedicatory cut, in the " Opuscula " of Plutarch, published by Cratander at Basel, in September, 1530 13, 111, 132, 267 7. Head-piece, border tracery from a collection of drawings by Holbein, in the British Museum. Sloane MS. No. 5,308 14, 79 8. Tail-piece, jewelled locket, from the Sloane MS. No. 5,308 16, 360 9. Head-piece, border tracery, from the Sloane MS. No. 5,308 17, 153, 192, 361 10, Large ornamental initial I, from Erasmus's edition of the treatise of Irenaeus " Adversus hsereses Yalentini," &c., pub- lished by Frobenius at Basel in August 1526 . 17, 79, 395 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. it» PAGE 11. Head-piece, frieze, foliated scroll with children, from the "Opuscula" &c., of Plutarch . . . 29,86,214 12. Initial letter W, from the " Dance of Death " alphabet, at Basel (noticed at page 186) . 29, 133, 153, 267, 303 13. Tail-piece, an ornamental design for a book-back ? from the Sloane MS. No. 5,308 . . . • .47 14. Head-piece, frieze, cinquecento scroll, from the " Opuscula " of Plutarch. ..... 48,133,254 15. Initial letter O, from the " Dance of Death " alphabet 48, 86, 111, 251 16. Fortune, the printer's trade-mark, from the " Opuscula " of Plutarch, published by Cratander. It is used on the first and on the last page of the volume . . 78, 400 17. Head and tail-piece, arabesque border or frieze of satyrs, nymphs, and jewels ; from the Sloane MS. No. 5,308 85, 101, 176, 303 18. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, from the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, in the Munich Gallery . . . . .95 19. Initial letter E, from the " Dance of Death " alphabet 101, 176, 214, 361 20. The " Ecce Homo," from the Passion series of drawings, in the British Museum ...... 130 21. A "Hog of the herd of Epicurus," from the copy of Erasmus's " Praise of Folly " at Basel . . . .156 22. Outline of the " Meier Madonna," from the picture at Darmstadt 166 23. Tail-piece, bust of Folly, from the " Praise of Folly" at Basel 175 24. The " Arms of Death," from the " Dance of Death " . . 180 25. Job, from the series of the " Bible-cuts " . . .188 26. Tail-piece, "Christ casting out a Devil," from Cranmer's Catechism ...... 191 27. Large initial letter S, from Irenaeus "Adversus hsereses Valentini," &c., 1526 .... 192, 381 28. Tail-piece, a study of a goat, from the Sloane MS. No. 5,308 . 213 16 LIST or ILLUSTEATIONS. PAGE 29. Lord Vaux, a photograph from the drawing at Windsor . 216 30. Tail-piece, a Swiss lady, from a series of costume drawings in the museum at Basel ..... 253 31. Mr. Morett, a photograph from the drawing in the Dresden Gallery . . . . . . .300 32. Tail-piece, arabesque, from the Sloaue MS. No. 5,308 . 302 33. The "Jane Seymour cup," from a drawing in the Bodleian Library at Oxford ..... 358 34. Autograph of Henry VIII,, from a MS. in the Public Ptecord Office . . . . . . . 379 THE FIRST BOOK. INTRODUCTOEY-OLD BIOGRAPHIES AND NEW DISCOVERIES— A FAMILY OF PAINTERS AT AUGSBURG. CHAPTER I. Old Riographies. N commencing at this late day an Ouap. i. account of the Life and Works of Introductory. Hans Holbein, it will not be un- interesting to the reader, to peruse as a prologue a brief analysis of the substance of the accounts given us by early writers ; from which indeed nearly all that till quite recently was known of his life has been mainly derived. Three accounts are more especially prominent, but even the oldest of them was not compiled till about a couple of generations after Holbein's death, and has accordingly no great historical weight. Documents unfortunately have not entered into the balance before the present century ; and what we have in that way even now, is remarkably little compared with what we might wish ; however, I can safely promise the reader some 18 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. I. Introdudcry . Corel van Mander. 1604. genuine matter of considerable value or I should not have ventured on the present attempt. I flatter myself that even the general lover of art-history will follow me with patience ; to the lover of Holbein's art in particular, I need make no apology, for he must follow me with interest, even though he should not be altogether satisfied with the results. This first book was originally in the form of an introduction to my volume, but it has run to such a length, and contains inci- dentally such a mass of information that is essential to the subject^ that it has developed itself into an integral part of the biography. It constitutes an essay on Holbein's life, in itself complete ; some may consider it as in a measure forestalling my work, but I give it as a necessary thesis, laying before the reader the subject he has to study, and as an inducement for him to enter upon the task with curiosity as well as interest. I do not offer this volume to the public as a " Catalogue Raisonne " of Holbein's works ; I have not the slightest inclina- tion to undertake so laborious a task, which at most could only be used as a book of reference. I have done only what it has given me pleasure to do, and have attempted to produce a readable volume on the remarkable career of a remarkable man. I have placed before the reader a,ll I have been able to learn concerning Holbein's Life, and have given some account, with more or less detail as circumstances have dictated, of all his principal works, more especially however as a painter and draftsman ; and I have endeavoured in the investigation, to separate the true from the false. The subject is not without obscurity even now (1865). There is no plot to spoil, and the knowledge picked up in this preliminary review, will enable the reader to follow the various discussions in detail, as they arise, with some feeling of previous acquaintanceship. The three writers above referred to are CAKEii van Mander* a painter of Meulenbeeke in Flanders ; Joachim von * Ilet ScMlder-hoeh, or Eet Leven der door luchtige Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Schilders. Amsterdam, first published in 1604j small ito ; then in 1618 ; and again in 1764, in two vols. 8vo. Van Mander was born in 1548, only five years after Holbein's death. OLD BIOGEAPHIES. 19 Sandrart* another painter, of Frankfort on the Main ; and Chap. i. Charles PATiJsrf a French physician settled in Basel. CareTmn The earliest of these, and of any notice of Holbein, is Zander. 1604 that of Van Mander, published at Amsterdam in 1604, sixty years after Holbein's death, and it was compiled probably not much before that date. He says Holbein was born at Basel, or at Augsburg, in 1498, but he leaves both year and place in uncertainty. The rivalry therefore as to our painter's parentage, whether Swiss or German, is an old one ; it is however at length firmly established that Augs- burg, in Bavaria, was not only the abiding place of his family for a generation or two, but was also his own birth place : the date of his birth was not later than 1495, as will be presently shown. To continue Yan Mander's account, we are informed that the young painter was at least established very early in life at Basel, and there made the acquaintance of Bonifacius Amerbach the son of a well-known printer of that name, and acquired also the friendship of the celebrated Erasmus of Eotterdam, who had finally settled down at Basel in 1521. Both these acquaintances were very serviceable to him : Amerbach was a connoisseur and collector. Holbein never visited Italy, says our biographer, and I have found nothing to contradict this statement ; but to escape from the pesterings of an ill-tempered wife, he was very glad to venture his fortunes in England : the greater field open to him in England was of course part of the inducement to leave Basel. He brought with him a letter of introduction to Sir Thomas More, from his old friend Erasmus, together with a painted portrait of the great scholar, which he was by Erasmus himself justified in saying was much more like him than the portrait taken by Albert Diirer. Through Sir Thomas More, with whom he remained nearly * Accademia Todesca, or Teutsclie Aca- demie der Edlen Bau — Bild — und Mali- lerei-Kiinste. 4 vols, folio. Niirnberg, 1675. t Mapias Eyiccofiiov^ StuUitice laus. Des. Erasmi Hot: Declamatio. Figuris Hol- henianis Adornata. Basilise, 8vo. 1676. c 2 20 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, l three years, continues Van Mander, and tliis tradition seems Carei van ^® Corroborated by facts, Holbein was introduced to Mandn: ^i^q king-, Hcnrv VIII., and was afterwards taken into that 1604 ""^ monarch's service. This brings us to the anecdote of the painter's throwing an obtrusive nobleman down stairs who persisted in forcing himself into his study after being warned that he could not be admitted, and we have a record of the compliment afterwards incidentally paid to Holbein by the king, at the nobleman's expense. Van Mander notices portraits of the king, and of his children — Edward, Mary and Elizabeth ; besides other works ; and he singles out the admirable full-length figure of Henry VIII., which was still to be seen at Whitehall in his time. It is not easy to thoroughly follow him and identify all the works enumerated, but this portrait of the king is apparently the celebrated picture which was painted on the wall of the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, and of which there is a small copy at Hampton Court by Remigius van Leemput, one of the scholars of Vandyck. A portion of the original cartoon for this picture is still preserved, and is now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. He notices also the large portrait piece of Henry VIII., and some members of the guild, belonging to the Barber-Surgeons ; and he refers to, but doubts, the report that this picture was left unfinished by Holbein, and completed by another hand. At the same time, he remarks that it is wonderful how many pictures Holbein did paint, considering the immense number of his designs for goldsmiths, silversmiths, engravers in wood, and sculptors. He notices further, the two cartoons or tempei^a pictures, on canvas, the well-known compositions of " Riches " and " Poverty," which Holbein executed for the Hanse mer- chants, in the Stahl-hoff or Osterkuis — the Steelyard of the Easterlings, in Thames Street — from which, he says, Federigo Zucchero made two drawings, about the year 1574, pronouncing them, as reported by Goltzius the painter, quite worthy of, if not superior to, Raphael. He mentions likewise the full-length portrait of a Countess, dressed in black satin, which was then OLD BIOGEAPHIES. 21 in the house of the Earl of Pembroke, and of which this same Chap. l Zucchero declared that he had seen nothing so good in Rome. careTmn As an Earl of Pembroke presented or bequeathed some pictures -^^^^t^e^- to the Arundel family, we may safely infer that the admired picture in question is the excellent full-length of the Duchess of Milan, now at Arundel Castle. Further we have a,n account of one Andrew or Andries van Loo, an enthusiastic admirer and buyer of Holbein's works, living in London : he possessed portraits of Master Nicolas (Kratzer) the king's astronomer — now in the Louvre ; of the old Lord Orauwl (Cromwell) ; of Erasmus of Rotterdam ; of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham) ; and of Sir Thomas More and his family, a large painting in water-colours (tempera) on canvas, which was after Yan Loo's death bought by one of Sir Thomas More's grandsons — the example now at Nostell- Priory in Yorkshire, seems to answer to this description, though repeated repairing and varnishing may have rendered its method a question. The portrait of the archbishop, says our author, passed afterwards into the hands of Master Coop, in London* — query, now in the Louvre, or at Lambeth ? In Amsterdam was a Queen of England in cloth of silver, of wonderful workmanship ; and a small round miniature of Holbein himself, in water-colours, then in the possession of one Jaques Razet. Holbein worked equally well, says Yan Mander, in oil and in water-colours ; and he executed many drawings ; he painted also miniatures of especial excellence ; which last art he learnt from one Master Lukas, then in London, whom however he very soon far surpassed ; in fact as the sun exceeds the moon in brilliancy, says our biographer, an assertion we must accept mm grano sails; and it is a pity that on so interesting a point, he was not more explicit as to what Luke he referred to. I assume Luke Hornebolt to be the man ; he. * " Sir Walter Cope, who lived with- out Temple Bar, over against the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, and had several of Holbein, which passed by marriage to the Earl of Holland, and were for some time at Holland house." Oxford MSS. Ydoert. — Walpole. 22 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. 1604. Chap. L liis father GerarJ, and his sister Susannah, were all distin- Carel van guished miniature painters : Luke Hornebolt was in England Mander. Holbein's time,, and was not only domiciled here, but was also " a servant of the king's majesty."* Van Mander tells us that he tried to get some authentic information concerning Holbein, from a Dr. Iselin at Basel ; but the Doctor answered his Dutch correspondent that it would be somewhat laborious to find out all he required, and that he could not undertake it, unless he were to be well paid for his trouble : at which Van Mander was very much disgusted. He closes his account with the statement, only in part correct, that Holbein died poor in London, of the plague, in 1554, aged fifty-six ; thus placing the painter's death eleven * There were three painters of the name of Luke living at this time — Lucas Van Leyden and Lucas Cornehsz, called the Cook-De Kok, completing the trio. The first may be dismissed at once, he was never in this country; the second, assumed by Vertue and Walpole to be alluded to, was here, but he in all probability came at a later time. He was the son of Cornells Engelbertsz and was born in the same year as Hol- bein, 1495 ; but as he came to tliis country through the pressure of the wants of a family of seven children, he can scarcely have come as a yomig man, and accordingly he too may be dis- missed : we know nothing of any minia- tures by him. We have no alternative therefore, but to adopt Lucas Horem- bout or more correctly Hornebolt, as the master who taught Holbein minia- ture painting. He was settled here in 1529 and perhaps earlier; his skill in this department of art may have incited Holbein's emulation. Holbein possibly came here before Hornebolt, but Holbein may have first adopted miniatui-e paint- ing during his second visit to this country, after 1532, when in the king's service, as Sandrart distinctly states. Luke Hornebolt of Ghent, was some years in Henry's service, and was in receipt of a higher salary than Holbein ever had — namely 55s. %d. per month. He died in the spring of 1544, surviving Holbein about six months only. His Will was proved in the Consistory Court of Westminster, May the 27th, 1544, with administration to Margaret Hornebolt liis relict. See the paper on the " Con- temporaries and Successors of IJolbein " by Mr. J. G. Nichols, in the 39th volume of the ABCH^oLOorA. In this paper is also the following, from the lioll tf New Year's Gifts 30th Henry VIII., "By Lewcas paynter a skrene to set afore the fyre, standing uppon a fote of woode, and the ski-ene blewe worsted." This was in 1539, and tliis Luke received in return for his present, a gilt cruse weighing 10 i ounces. Holbein and Anthony Toto, an Italian, received similar presents for their gifts ; but there is no mention of Hornebolt — he was clearly this "Lewcas paynter," there was no other Luke of any distinc- tion. See further about this painter in the Xlth chapter of this volume, where the Will is given in full. OLD BIOGRAPHIES. 23 years too late, and making liim eight years older than he really Chap. i. was. This erroneous record, in the course of more than two cardvan centuries, many times repeated, has been the source of a ^'^^der. multiplicity of misconceptions, involving the history of Holbein and his works in a very deplorable confusion. There is a document among the archives of Basel, only recently discovered by Herr His-Heusler of that city, dated the 19th November 1545, which speaks of our Holbein as already deceased.* This date may have been communicated to Van Mander, and by a common but unlucky fatality the 4 and 5 have changed places in printing or in transcribing, and thus led to the long confusion. The document I refer to, is a letter from the Burgomaster Adelberg Meyer, to Jacob David, goldsmith in Paris. The restoration of this letter to light, gives us one more authentic record, proving the earlier death of Holbein than the popular error gave him. The next account we have is that of Sandrart, in his Teutsche Academie, 1675. He substantially copies Van Mander, but also adds some original and interesting matter. The family, he says, was of Augsburg, but as the father had Joachim von settled in Basel, Holbein was there born. After praising his style and some of his genuine and reputed works at Basel, including the " Dead Christ," the painter's " Wife and Children," and also Christ's Passion in eight compositions, an oil painting on wood, and the "Dance of Death," a fresco series in a churchyard there ; he observes that as far as he knows, Holbein never visited Italy. He relates Holbein's friendship with Erasmus ; the vexation he suftered from his wife's bad temper ; the sending of the portrait of Erasmus, by the painter to Sir Thomas More, whom and his family he most successfully painted ; and he notices the ultimate presentation to the King some three years after his arrival in England, at a banquet where Henry was shown, and had * Speaking of Philip Holbein, it says — " von wylandt Hansen Holbein seligen, sinem Vater" &c. 24 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. t. expressed his admiration of, the painter's excellent portraits. JoacUm von tli^n have a repetition at length of Yan Mander's anecdote Sandrart. g^hout the assault on the unlucky nohleman who wilfully interrupted the sturdy painter at his work. Among the most prominent of the few works enumerated by Sandrart, are two which were at Whitehall ; one was a wonderful portrait of the King, full length as large as life ; and the other picture he merely speaks of as showing the painter to be a real Apelles. The portrait of Henry was that already mentioned of which we have the small copy by Remigius van Leemput, and of which a portion of the original cartoon is now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. The second picture I cannot guess at. Sandrart also says that Holbein commenced miniature paint- ing in the King's service, having been incited to adopt this branch of the art by the excellence of the works of Master Lucas, repeating the account of Van Mander. He enumerates the portraits in possession of Van Loo, and adds that the Earl of Arundel had a large collection of Holbein's pictures and drawings, some with the pen and washed, others in chalk ; both from profane and sacred history ; as well as portraits ; all executed with an ease and precision almost supernatural. He further mentions that " Sir " Inigo Jones had shown him a book of pen and" ink drawings of designs for silver-work, dagger-sheaths, vases, and other ornaments of figures, and scroll work, for almost every purpose, for furniture and the person, from a cap ornament to a shoe-buckle : this was apparently the Sloane volume. Michael Le Blon or Blond, agent of the King of Sweden in Amsterdam, where Sandrart had settled after his return from Italy, was a celebrated collector of works of art and an engraver himself, unless there were two of the name. He possessed several pictures and drawings by Holbein — among them " a learned Doctor, behind whom was Death with an hour-glass" (this is perhaps the picture now at Munich, called Sir Brian Tuke Miles, in the catalogue) ; some other portraits ; and a Yenus and Cupid. Sandrart added another to his OLD BIOGEAPHIES. 25 collection, a present for services rendered, a " beautiful " round Chap. I, portrait of Holbein himself. Le Blond had possessed the Joachim vo picture of the "Meyer Family," but when Sandrart was in Sandmrt. Amsterdam, about 1640, he had already sold it many years before, to the Banker John Loessert of that city for 3,000 florins.* Sandrart possessed what he calls an original draw- ing of this picture ; and also a " Passion in folio," but from which two compositions of the series were missing ; and he offered any one 200 florins who should procure them for him, in order that he might show the work complete— this in honour of Holbein. Sandrart tells us an anecdote in illustration of the high admiration in which Holbein's designs were held generally by distinguished artists, many of whom he says appropriated them. When Sandrart was studying with Honthorst at Utrecht, in 1627, Rubens paid his master a visit, and they went all three in company together to Amsterdam. While in the canal-boat they entertained themselves with the book of wood-cuts of Holbein's " Triumph of Death," (first pubHshed at Lyons in 1538,) and Rubens took the opportunity of impressing on Sandrart's young mind the great merit of the designs as works of art, adding that he himself had dihgently copied them in his young days. This is an anecdote which though now more than two hundred years old will, I think, bear repetition, and should prove highly interesting to most of my readers. Rubens pi obably made large studies in his own way from these lively and dramatic compositions. The great Fleming was then a veteran hero in art, fifty years of age, Honthorst was a man of thirty-five years and now reaping the fruits of his labours, Sandrart was a youth of twenty and only just starting into life and activity, but such is the abounding spirit of the little book that old and young alike may equally derive a store from it. Honthorst and Sandrart were possibly then on their road to this country, where they were employed this year painting the large picture * Le Blond was born in Frankfort in 1590, and died in Amsterdam in 1656. 26 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. I. of Charles I., his Queen, and the Duke of Buckingham, which Joachim von ^® ^^^^^ ^® Hampton Court. Sandrart. Sandrart ffives the same account of Holbein's death as Yan 1675 Mander gave, that he died of the plague ; and he adds that the Earl of Arundel, Thomas Howard, was very desirous to erect a monument to the painter's memory, but could not ascer- tain where he was buried : this difficulty Sandrart supposed to have arisen from the circumstance of his having fallen a victim to the pestilence and having been accordingly buried together with others. Holbein lived in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft and was no doubt buried in that parish ; the parish church is that in Leadenhall Street, and it still bears its old name. St. Catherine Cree (Christ) Church in which some accounts say he was buried, is close to that of St. Andrew Undershaft, Charles To the above accounts there is little to add from the " Life ^""^TeTG Holbein " — Vita Joannis Holhenii Pictoris Basiliensis, prefixed to Erasmus's Praise of Folly, already mentioned, published at Basel in 1676, the authorship of which is as- cribed to one Charles Patin a French physician and accoucheur settled in that city. This account is commonly quoted as an early picture of our painter, but we must not overlook the fact that it appeared one hundred and fifty years after Holbein left Basel, that is no nearer to his time than we are now to that of Queen Anne and the succession of the House of Hanover ; further, I think I shall be able to lay before the reader a circumstantial account which will clearly show it to be improbable if not palpably false and scandalous. The author speaks of the painter as a native of Basel, but adds that some have assumed Griinstadt in the Palatinate, to have been Holbein's birthplace, and that others have supposed Augsburg. He describes him as living in great poverty, owing to his disorderly life and too great a fondness for wine ; and states that Erasmus, and his patron Bonifacius Amerbach frequently relieved the painter's necessities. This is a picture OLD BIOGEAPHIES. 27 not quite consistent with the letters of introduction with which Chap. I. Holbein was furnished to Peter iEgidius and to Sir Thomas charkT More when he set out on his EngUsh journey in 1526. It is ^''''J'g^g very improbable that a cautious man like Erasmus would introduce a dissipated scamp to his renowned and distin- guished friends. Patin also would lead us to beUeve that Holbein did not leave Basel so much on account of a very natural desire to find a larger field for his labours in England, but to escape from the constant curtain lectures of his imperious wife. He arrived in this country almost destitute, as it were begging his way, but was kindly taken into his house by Sir Thomas More, and remained with him about two years. He was then introduced to the king and entered his majesty's employment. After a visit of about three years' duration altogether in this country, Holbein returned in 1529 to Basel and renewed his old habits with his former boon companions, still apparently finding his wife's society anything but agreeable to him: he had recourse to his old toping friends and again wasted his time and his money in dis- graceful dissipation. Yet if such were his life, where did he get his money from ? In 1538 says Patin, the Council of Basel settled a pension of fifty florins a year on Holbein on conditions that within two years he would return to his wife and family : he never returned. The account of the painter's death is a repetition of that of Yan Mander. Such is the dismal swamp this worthy doctor has led us into, and he seems to have had no compunction in the matter. It is certainly not an agreeable history of a great painter's life, but it is fortunately untrue : we have no evidence that this is even an approximately true picture of Holbein's character; his early marriage, on the other hand, and his accomplished art both bear witness against its general truth ; it seems to have been founded mainly on the fact that Erasmus, in a spirit of retaliation, jokingly wrote the name "Holbein" under the well-known sketch of a coarse boor drinking and caressing 28 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. I. a girl, which the painter has drawn on the margin of one of harUT pages of a copy of the " Praise of Folly."* itin.^ Patin follows up the memoir with a catalogue of the ' • painter's works, which is the basis of Yertue's and Walpole's ; he enumerates eighteen pictures at Basel, comprising the two skulls now assigned to the brother Ambrose, and some forty others in various places, including several religious pieces for the Augustines at Lucerne. We shall be able to trace some of them in the following pages, but not all. Patin speaks also of his numerous wood engravings, taking it for granted appa- rently that Holbein was the actual engraver of all such designs as are known by his name. Yan Mander, and Sandrart, and Patin after him, all remark that Holbein painted with his left hand ; which I imagine to be a fable that may have arisen from a circular print engraved by Lucas Yorsterman, which being reversed, as is common in old engravings, necessarily puts his brush in his left hand : — Joannes Holhenius Pictor Regis Magnce Britanniw, sui cceeuli celeherrimus. Anno 1 543, cetat. 45 — is the legend. This may possibly have been engraved from some lost portrait or minia- ture of the Arundel collection ; it has been repeatedly copied since, by Hollar and others with various alterations, but we have no evidence either that it represents Holbein, or that should such be the case, the back-ground inscription is an autograph. It represents an oval-faced man with a short beard, and a black skull-cap on ; of this more hereafter. * There is really something shocking in the manner in which both this gossip- ing French accoucheur and his daughter Caroline speak of Holbein, and all with- out any given justification. Some of the father's charitable observations are re- corded above ; the daughter was quite as bad. In her " Tabellse Selectee," Paris, 1691, where in page 192, she speaks of the family i)icture of Sir Thomas More, by way of contrast between the painter and the great statesman whom he painted, she terms the former, " this rude man, a pauper and a drunkard," &c. Dr. Patin was forced to leave Paris from some misconduct, and could not retui-n; he seems to have spent his exile at Basel and at Pavia : he died in 1684. CHAPTER II. New DiscoYERiFS. ITH Patin ends our list of original biographers Chap. ll. of Holbein. Such is the complete substance of Recent con- all that was commonly known about him, before , loOl. Horace Walpole digested George Vertue's " Notes " for his so-called Anecdotes of Painting in England^'' the first edition of which was pub- lished in 1762, and the last, my own, in 1849. In this later account of course the substance of the other three appears in full, but expanded into a much more interesting body of matter, though still vague enough throughout, and quite erroneous in many essential points. This work accordingly only confirmed the embroilment of Holbein's biography, notwithstanding the efforts of Dallaway to rectify and complete it. The whole matter has lately, and especially in a critical sense, been thrown still deeper into the abyss of confusion by Dr. Waagen, not only in his popular " Art Treasures," but also in his later "Handbook of Painting."* Both through his unfortunate attribution of impossible works to Holbein, and by the arbi- trary fixing of certain years for the production of pictures * " Treasures of Art in Great Britain" with Supplement, 4 vols. 8vo. London, John Mui-ray, 1854-57 ; and " Handbook of Painting. The German, Flemish, and Butch Schools," &c. 8vo. London, John Murray, 1860. 30 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. 11. which the painter himself had already differently dated for us. Recent con- " About the year 1546," says Dr. Waagen, "another and final "^^^^Tsei change in the master's colouring took place, consisting of a light yellowish local tone in the flesh, though retaining still the grey shadows. Portraits of this character are those of Henry YIII., at Windsor Castle, and of his son Edward YI., in the same place. This period also includes the large picture of Edward YI., as king, in Bridewell Hospital. The bad state and high position of this, the most important work of Holheiris latest time, permit no opinion, properly speaking, upon it."* If Dr. Waagen has really looked at the last picture, he should have seen that it has not a trace of the hand or style of Holbein in it, apart from the fact that it was painted some years after Holbein's death. The Henry YIII. mentioned in the above quotation, he has in his "Treasures" suggested to be a copy of the Warwick portrait, which he assumed to have been painted in the year 1530 ; the two pictures have really no re- semblance to each other, the costumes are quite distinct ; and the king is quite fifteen years older in the Warwick picture than he was in 1530. In another place ("Treasures," &c. vol. i., p, 245), though we are told of the "yellow tone" adopted in 1546, the Doctor notices a portrait in Mr. Neeld's collection, inscribed — " JEt. SU93 48, Anno Domini 1547," as executed in a " powerful brown red tone," with the animated air of Holbein, and the admirable drawing of the hands which distinguishes the painter's later works. There is a half-length of a man in armour at Longford Castle, which used to be ascribed to Lucas de Heere, from the monogram it bears — FE ; it is further inscribed JEtatis XLII. MDL., with the initials T. W. below. This picture was of course not painted by Lucas de Heere, who was in 1550 only sixteen years old ; but it was certainly not painted by Holbein either, to whom Dr. Waagen has awarded it, for that * Handbook, p. 201. NEW DISCOVERIES. 31 painter had been dead already seven years in 1550. It is Chap. ii. needless to add further justification of my remarks on this p^^ce^iuVon- matter of impossible pictures. "^"^^is'ei With reference to the subject of arbitrarily, though no doubt unconsciously, altering the years of dated pictures, the examples are somewhat remarkable. The Doctor assumes the portrait of Sir Henry Guildford, at Windsor, to have been painted in 1533; Holbein has inscribed it ''Anno D: Mcccccxxvij., (^tatis suce ; xlix." Archbishop Warham, he has assumed to have been painted "next in order," after that of Sir Eichard Southwell, at Florence, dated he says on the 10th July, 1528. The painter has not left us in doulot about these pictures ; he has inscribed the archbishop " Anno Dm. mdxxvij. cetatis sue lxx. ;" and the Southwell portrait has in the middle of the back-ground the following exact date and the age :— X"'. Julii. Anno. H. VIII. xxviii". ^TATis su^ ANNO XXXIII., that is, on the 10th of July, in the 28th year of Henry YIII., which was 1536. The portrait of Nicholas Kratser, astronomer to Henry YIII., in the Louvre, is not dated 1527, but 1528. In the next example, that of the so-called " Ambassadors," at Longford Castle, I am not surprised that the real date escaped Dr. Waagen, for it was not known to Lord Folkestone himself, and it cost me half an -hour's search to discover it.* The Doctor however, notices this fine picture as the portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt and another, and he assigns it the year 1529 ;t yet he has mentioned the legend on Sir Thomas's dagger — mt. S\JM 29,1 which should have warned him to inquire into the year of Sir Thomas Wyatt's birth, before he brought age and date together : if the picture represents Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was born in 1503, it cannot have been painted in 1529, but some time in 1532 or 1533. Holbein has come again to our rescue in this case ; the picture has in its lower right-hand * I was enabled, througli the kindness several of them down from the walls, of Lord Folkestone, to thoroughly exa- October 13th, 1865. mine the various pictures ascribed to f Handbook, p. 196. Holbein at Longford Castle ; having had % Treasures, vol. iv., p. 359. 32 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. II. corner, just under the ermine edging" of Sir Thomas's overcoat, Recent con- following most interesting inscription :— JOANNES HOLBEIN, PINGEBAT, 1533. 1861 The words slope from the right to the left, following the perspective lines of one of the divisions of the parquetted or marble floor, and vary little in colour from that portion of the floor itself; still the words are distinctly visible to the naked eye, when it knows where to look for them — Dr. Waagen describes this picture, on panel, as 8 ft. high by 9 ft. wide ; it is just 6 ft. 9 in. high by 6 ft. 10 in. wide. As a last illustration I may mention the portrait of the Duchess of Milan, at Arundel Castle, which the Doctor says was certainly painted in 1539. The picture, or drawing, taken from the Duchess herself at Brussels, " very perffight " says John Hutton, was executed by Holbein in the short space of three hours, between 1 and 4 o'clock, on the 12th of March in the xxx* of Henry VIII., which is 1538. The full-length portrait therefore, doubtless painted from this life- study, was, as there was so much hurry for it, painted most probably in 1538, not in 1539.* There is another category of pictures, and a very interesting one, only too few in examples already, which Dr. Waagen has run his pen through, to bring in additional numbers to the already encumbered Holbein catalogue ; namely, the list of pictures preserved by tradition under the names of distinguished foreign artists rarely met with, yet who are known to have been employed in this country. One of the great misfortunes in art-criticism is that the reputations of secondary painters are so often absorbed by first-class names, to the certain injury of" both. Luca Penni and his brother Bartolomeo, both worked in this country, and Lucas Hornebolt was domiciled here, yet how rarely are their pictures met with. When tradition, not- withstanding the mischievous activity of presumptuous igno- rance, has still handed down works with comparatively obscure names attached to them, the fact alone should go a great way * See the extract from Hutton's letter in the XVth chapter of this volume. NEW DISCOVEEIES. 33 towards its confirmation as truth. In Lord Normantori's collec- Chap. ll. tion is a good female portrait called Lady Jane Grrey, and jiecent con- ascribed to Luca Penni ; this picture Dr. Waa2:en has unhesi- fusion. 1861 tatingly pronounced one of Holbein's finest works ; now if it is Lady Jane Grey it cannot possibly be Holbein's, as when he died she was but a child six years old. Again, the Marquis of Bute has a portrait of Henry VIII., now at Cardiff Castle, ascribed to Hornebolt; this also Dr. Waagen has taken from that master and given to Holbein. Hornebolt most probably did paint the king, and the fact of his name being connected with such a portrait is most interesting, and should be cherished, not ignored. Holbein has already more than enough of Henry-the-Eighths ascribed to him, which he certainly did not paint. As it is a long lane that has no turning, so at last light has New light, been let in on to the biography of Hans Holbein. His age and his birthplace have been hitherto unknown, both his topo- graphical and his chronological position have been false, and it has been impossible to know him correctly. German writers, apparently under the impression that he was a Swiss, have until lately done nothing or little for him ; since he has been acknowledged as a German they show much more interest in his career. It will, however, long remain difficult to know Holbein well ; no man perhaps, with the exception of Philip Wouverman, has had proportionably so many works of other men ascribed to him, as Hans Holbein. I should calculate about three out of every four, if not four out of five, of the pictures ascribed to him to be misnamed ; and it is not likely that the tares will now ever be wholly separated from the wheat. If we may judge from the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington (1866), it would be no exaggeration to say that not more than one portrait in ten, on an average, of those ascribed to Holbein, are the veritable work of his own hands. Hampton Court Gallery may serve also as an illustration of this abuse of his name ; of some thirty works attributed to Holbein in this royal collection, very few can be absolutely depended on. His father and mother, on the same panel; 34 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. II. Frobenius and Erasmus, as a pair, and the latter writing, are False atfribu- peAaps, unquestionable ; the Eeskimer, and the Henry YIII. **^'i86i ^^^^^ scroll, may be questioned, the latter particularly : of the whole mass we cannot accept more than one-fifth as genuine ; a second fifth may be considered doubtful, and the other three-fifths not doubtful at all, but very certainly not Holbein's. A portrait called Holbein himself, has the mono- gram, somewhat rubbed, certainly, of Hans Baldung, commonly called Grien, and is dated 1539. In the wardrobe accounts of the effects of Henry VHI., preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, is a catalogue of pictures, &c., drawn up in 1547. The names of the painters are not mentioned ; but among the hundred and thirty-one pictures here enumerated that belonged to Henry, are certainly a few that can be traced to Holbein, as for example two portraits of the Duchess of Milan, and perhaps some one or more of the four portraits of the king himself.* In Yander Doort's catalogue of the pictures of Charles I., eleven works only are ascribed to Holbein, and in these are comprised four miniatures. The large picture of Henry YIII. and his family, now at Hampton Court, though noticed in the catalogue, is not given to Holbein ; it remains nameless. The half-length of Queen EHzabeth, as a girl, holding a book in her hands, now in St. James's Palace, and ascribed to Holbein by Yander Doort, but certainly not by him, appears to be the only picture of the eleven which occurs also in the inventory of Henry YIII. All the pictures, however, falsely ascribed to Holbein are not unworthy of him : there are several excellent portraits dated but not signed, both in this country and elsewhere, which were painted about and before the year 1550, which * MSS. Barl 1419. Inventory of Hen. Vin. Gnard-robes, &c., Pint. xlii. 1. See the Catalogue in this volume. This Inventory, I believe, has never yet been published, and the account of it given by Dallaway in his " Walpole," is not accurate : it seems to comprise 131 paintings, on wood and canvas; 21 spe- cimens of fine embroidery (not hang- ings); 14 painted terra-cottas ; 11 carv- ings and other works; and 2 framed slates to write upon : total 179 articles, in the charge of Sir Anthony Denny. NEW DISCOVERIES. 35 would do no discredit to Holbein's best time ; and some of Chap. ii. these pictures I imagine must have been painted by Justus ^ai^^T^trih Van Cleef, an Antwerp painter, and according to Yan Mander t^ons. the best colourist of his time. He visited this country, and certainly survived Holbein several years. I may instance as an example, the fine portrait engraved by Dibdin in his " Antiquarian Tour,"* which he saw in the possession of Herr Dom. Artaria, in Manheim ; a half-length of a man with a beard, in cap and furred cloak, holding out before him his right hand, and resting his left, in which he holds his glove, on a table, and on which is lying the other glove. This por- trait has the following inscription, in a cartellino : — Aetatis Suae. Anno xlviii. Anno din. vero 1547. Yery similar in style and attitude is the portrait No. 97 in the Munich Gallery, once called Luther and now called Calvin, and ascribed to Holbein in the catalogues. This subject I have treated on more fully in later chapters. The injustice of a false attribu- tion of course remains the same whether the picture be worthy or unworthy, the real painter is in the former case defrauded, though it be done in ignorance, not wilfully. In this country the various portraits of Henry YHI. afford the most obvious illustration of the injustice that has been done to Holbein, in making him answerable for the short- comings of others. I may be mistaken, but I imagine that there is scarcely a portrait of this king in England which is not ascribed to Holbein ; yet the great majority, or nearly all of them, were painted after his death, and are certainly mere roha di hottega, contract work supplied from the shops of the sergeant-painters or others; this has been a practice of all countries, of all times. Portraits of reigning monarchs abound everywhere^ yet perhaps not five per cent, are painted from the august personage himself; most are mere copies of copies. Philip Reinagle, the Academician, was the pupil and assistant of Allan Ramsay, sergeant-painter to George III., and he used to relate how for two years of his time, he did nothing what- * Vol. m. Sup. p. liv. 1821. D 2 36 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Cjiap. II. ever but manufacture portraits of George IIT. and his Queen for False attrilu- presents or for the dealers, to supply the country market ; all tkmsi. Qf which were launched into the world as p'enuine portraits of their Majesties by the sergeant-painter : their source was probably some original slvetch or portrait by Ramsay, but that was the extent of their authenticity ; and so much authenticity we may safely allow to some of the portraits of Henry ascribed to Holbein, though they may be mere copies of copies. I have only to deal with the genuine works of Holbein, as far as they can be ascertained ; the proof of authenticity of reputed works rests with those who claim it.* In those days of splendid costume of course much labour was bestowed over the royal, dress, this is, however, mere mechanical work; the dresses are varied, but the face is commonly the same, with more or less of ill drawing and bad painting. The very identity of the view of the face, a full front in these portraits, is alone enough to stamp them as spurious copies, independent of their general worthlessness as paintings. The majority of these portraits represent him in the last period of his life. However, I make no pretension whatever of having accom- plished the task of altogether separating the genuine from the spurious works of Holbein, in the following pages; I know that I have not done so. I have seen many of Holbein's works, but certainly not all, and I find him exceedingly dif- ficult to pronounce upon. This difficulty arises probably from the vast comprehensiveness of his powers of observation ; he had nothing of what the Germans have styled the subjective operation in his practice ; he at once comprehended the indi- * Among the mass of portraits of Henry VIII., now on exhibition at South Kensington (April 1866), one only cer- tainly by Holbein — the large di-awing contributed by the Duke of Devonshire — the Kimbolton example is perhaps the best of the half-lengths; Lord Yar- borough's is not there. Lord Galway's is dated 1547, not 1543, as stated by Dr. Waagen, and it is not a whole-length, but a half-length— 2 ft. 11 m. h. by 2 ft. 3 in. w. It. bears the following inscrip- tion — Henricus. YIII. DEI. Gracia. Angliae. Franciae. et. Hyberniae, Eex. Fidei. defensor, et. i2sr. Terra. Sub. Christo. Supremu. Ecclesie. Anglic anab. et. Hybernicae. Caput. 1547. NEW DISCOVERIES. 87 1861. viduality of his subject, and added notliing of himself to the Chap. li. representation of the object to be reproduced, displaying an cnUdsm not extraordinary contrast to the ordinary proceeding of Rem- dogmatism. brandt, and a still greater to that of Rubens. Hence this essay is called " Some Account of Holbein and his Works." There are not yet the materials of what may justly be called a " Life of Holbein," though I have found subject matter enough for a somewhat bulky volume. I have been unavoidably compelled to place my own views before the reader with a degree of prominence which I should have pre- ferred to avoid ; not that I do not feel justified in giving an opinion ; on the contrary, a man who devotes his life to a special department of study is commonly supposed to have acquired some experience which may be made useful to his fellow-students and workers. It is now two and thirty years since I commenced my first extensive tour on the continent (April 1834) with a view to acquiring, from experience, some definite ideas about foreign art and artists, and right or wrong, I have gathered a few. Such views may be communicated without dogmatism ; the assertion of a fact is one thing, the assertion of an opinion is another. The critical opinions in this volume are to be accepted as opinions, and nothing more. A critic has every right to say that he doubts the ascription of a certain work to a certain master, without being pro- nounced dogmatical. As the impressions and convictions produced by works of art on the minds of people vary infinitely, in accordance with the nature and experience of the individual, so must the judgments vary where the mind exerts itself so far as to shape its impressions into a judgment ; but the value and influence of that judgment depend upon the experience of the judge. The opinions of inexperienced people may sometimes be sound, but they are commonly with- out influence and remain, harmless if incorrect. Still there is no doubt that there are what in the common sense of the word may be called experienced people, whose opinions if not harmless are certainly worthless ; and that is because they have sufficient vanity to wish to be considered judges, yet are 38 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. II. almost wholly deficient in the faculty of seeing, and in the „ ^ power of comparina: impressions on the mind. The chief Crincism not ^ i o i dogmutmn. essential to a good critic is perhaps honesty ; if a connoisseur will endeavour not to deceive himself, or imagine he knows what he really has but the vaguest ideas about, he is not very likely to deceive others. If he be honest and laborious at the same time, that is supposing he start with fair average abilities, he will not be long before he has stored up a few impressions which will assume gradually a very definite shape, and become useful capital in the acquisition of other impressions like them. These impressions in time become convictions, and as such are facts in the critic's mind, and they constitute his real stock-in- trade. It is no dogmatism to give expression to these convic- tions, he does not assert a fact about a picture, but a fact about his own mind, an impression. At all events I desire the reader in this light to accept any opinions or dicta that he may dissent from, which he may meet with in this volume, with reference to the works of Holbein. I do not intend to assert that Holbein never painted such and such a work, but simply that I do not perceive his hand in it. Having derived certain convictions from the careful and repeated observation of works which have a history as well authenticated as such matters commonly can be authenticated, and in applying these convictions as tests to certain reputed Holbeins, the critic will find his mind more or less vigorously repelled or attracted, and naturally draws his conclusions accordingly ; how far others are to allow themselves to b^ influenced by such conclusions depends upon their own esti- mate of the quality of the experience out of which they arise. Each must decide for himself, according to his own lights. The judgment may be rejected without there being any neces- sity for condemning the judge. In a professed' research such as this, into the history of a painter's works, it is not the busi- ness of a critic to suppress his convictions out of respect to prejudices ; on the contrary, coute gu ll coute, it is his proper business to put such convictions on record. All judgments find their level in the end, and such as arise from imperfect NEW DISCOVEEIES. 39 knowledge, hasty conclusions, or inadequate comparisons affect Chap. ii. only the critics themselves ; the true work is sure to maintain criticism not its position. I do not pretend to be altogether guiltless of dogmatism. either hasty conclusions or inadequate comparisons, but I trust notwithstanding, that I shall be treated with more charity of opinion by my critics, than one of my heroes in this book, the Chancellor Thomas More, indulged the Protestants with, whom he has written of as abominable heretics, and against God and his sacraments and saints, very blasphemous fools."* Documentary evidence is generally the only evidence that sound criticism can spring from ; works with their documents are the fundamental data to raise a superstructure on ; but documents are only positive, not negative evidence ; they show certain works to be by a certain master, but nothing more ; they do not prove that others are not by the same master, though they may by inference lead sometimes to that conclusion. The characteristics of a master's style are founded on analysis and synthesis, applied to his works, not on documents ; and it is this analysis and synthesis which constitute the special province of the critic ; the proper weighing of the documents belonging to the historian's province. But docu- ments themselves require as careful a testing as opinions. Many erroneous attributions have gained credit and notoriety, from the mere echo of a positive affirmation about some spurious or imaginary document, each repeating in placid con- fidence the same refrain, till some sounder or more curious inquirer discovers that the whole web is made out of a mere rope of sand. We are apt to believe almost any silly tale that flatters our vanity or self-love, and consider those who unde- * Eoper's "Life of More," Ed. Eevd. J Lewis, 1731, Preface. This was appa- rently the general orthodox opinion in those days ; in the Bishops' Eeply to spoken of — "Truth it is that certain apostates, friars, monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds, and lewd idle fellows of corrupt intent, have the Petition of the Commons containing embraced the abominable and erroneous accusations against the disorderly con- duct of the clergy, in November 1529, the Heretics or Protestants are thus opinions lately sprung in Germany." Froude, History of Evgland, &c. Vol. I. 40 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. II. ceive US exceedingly rude. But justice surely does not require us to leave people in the peaceful solace of their delusions, should even charity be supposed to do so. I certainly, in the following inquiry cannot claim to have much respected either tradition, or prejudices, and I have accordingly found the whole popular fabric of Holbein's biography and artistic career to have been the veriest house of cards imaginable. Holhein's The first very important discovery with reference to Holbein's life, is that of the period of its termination, through the most welcome finding of his Will in St. Paul's Cathedral by Mr. W. H. Black, which was communicated by him to the Society of Antiquaries, on the 14th of February, 1861; the absolute truth of this discovery has been clearly demonstrated b}^ Mr. A. W. Franks in his remarks upon it, communicated to the same society, in a letter to Earl Stanhope, in 1863. This last was supplemented by another valuable contribution to the " Archa3ologia," in the same year, by Mr. J. Gr. Nichols, in his Notices of the Contemporaries and Successors of Holbein^' to which Mr. George Scharf added some " Additional Observations on some of the Painters contemporary with Holbein^' containing farther matter of interest. lUs hirth. Another very important recent discovery is that of the true time and place of Holbein's birth, made public by Dr. Alfred Woltmann, in a Latin Dissertation on the " Origin, Youth, a?id Earliest Works of Holbein," held in the University of Breslau, on the 26th of November, 1863, and since published — ''Be Johannis Holbenii celtberrhni Pictoris, origine, adolescentia, Primis operihus, ^^c."* Another valuable paper upon Holbein has appeared in the Beitrdge zur vaterldndiscJien Geschichte heraus- gegeben von der historischen gesellschaft in Basel, vol. viii., 1866, entitled — " Bie neuesten Forschungen iiber Hans Holbein des Jiingern Gehurt, Leben und Tod." Mitgetheilt von Ed. His- Heusler. Some of this gentleman's discoveries are of the liighest interest and importance. * See also the Fine Arts Quarterly Revieiu, No. V. NEW DISCOVEEIKS. 41 These new data, perfectly reliable, and fixing incontrovertibly Chap. ii. the beginning and the end of Holbein's life, have mainly given jj^ii^ me courage to attempt the present undertaking, having pre- topography. viously made two extensive tours on the continent, and having had the advantage of a personal inspection of the many important works ascribed to Holbein, authentic or reputed, scattered in various localities over Germany, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands ; more especially in Augsburg, Basel, Munich, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Darmstadt and Paris. Though in the first tour, comprehending Berlin and Vienna, I had not decided on attempting such a work, and accordingly did not make such precise observations of the various reputed Holbeins I saw on that occasion, as I should have done had my work been already resolved upon. The proper way for the curious amateur to study Holbein, and follow his development is — first to visit Augsburg, then Munich ; in these two cities are his earliest works, and also many of his father's : vt^hether the Munich Gallery has any other picture by the son, besides the triptych of the " Martyrdom of St. Sebastian," is ques- tionable. From Munich he should proceed to Basel, where a rich feast is provided ; then let him go by way of Darmstadt to Dresden. At Darmstadt, in the palace of Prince Charles, is the admirable picture of the " Burgomaster Meier and his family :" at Dresden are a repetition or rather copy of this picture, and the wonderful portrait of " Mr. Morett," jeweller to King Henry VIU. of England, besides some other good pictures. From Dresden he may proceed to Berlin to see the superb picture of " George Gyzen," commonly ascribed to Holbein. I do not believe that there is any other picture by Holbein in the fine collection of the Berlin Museum, though Dr. Waagen's catalogue describes eight works ascribed to him. This museum however contains some interesting early drawings by him. In the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna, are several good examples, and conspicuous among them are — " John Chambers," physician to Henry VHI., and the portrait called " Queen Jane Seymour." It is a curious fact that among all the pictures possessed by 42 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Holbein topo graphy. 1861-6. Chap. II. Henry YIII., at his deiith, there was no other portrait of any one of his six wives, than that of Queen Jane joined with himself in a diptych.* The Louvre, in Paris, is rich in fine portraits by Holbein, all of which were probably at one time in this country ; here are capital pictures of ■ — Erasmus, Anne of Cleves, Archbishop Warham — 1527, Sir Eichard Southwell — 1536 (apparently a copy of that in the Uffizj, at Florence), Sir Thomas More, and a few others of inferior quality. In England perhaps the greatest treasure we have, as an illustration of Holbein's powers, is the portfolio of drawings in the Royal Library at Windsor, where also are a few miniatures. In the Queen's Closet, likewise, are some fine portraits by him, of Sir Henry Gruildford and others. There are also the half-dozen or so of genuine works at Hampton Court. At Hard wick Hall, Derbyshire, is the Duke of Devonshire's fine cartoon of Henry and his father; and at Longford Castle in Wiltshire is one of the most important of all his pictures, the so-called "Ambassadors," two large full-length portraits, in the same piece, of Sir Thomas Wyatt aod another, painted in 1533. At Arundel Castle, Sussex, is that of the Duchess of Milan, taken in 1538, and also a fine portrait of the third Duke of Norfolk, painted in 1540. In the British Museum is an excellent and varied collection of his drawings, in different departments of art, showing the versatility of his powers as well as the unusual thoroughness of his execution as an artist. Indeed, with the Windsor drawings and the Museum drawings together, Holbein is on the whole better represented here than in the Museum at Basel, at least in this province of his art, not only in powers of execution, but also in invention and in * "Item, a table like a booke, with the pictures of Kynge Henry theight and Quene Jane." Of their son Edward he had three portraits, two of which were whole-lengths; he had one of the Princess Elizabeth, but not one of the Princess Mary, though the fine portrait of this princess belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, was probably painted during Henry's life-time, and when she was about 30 years of age. This picture and that of the Princess Elizabeth as a girl, at St. James's Palace, were I ima- gine painted at nearly the same time and by the same hand, but that hand was not Holbein's. NEW DISCOVEEIES. 43 composition ; as well in historical subjects, as in portraiture .Chap. ii. and in ornamental design. HolheMs The various drawin2:s ascribed to Holbein, in this country drawings. • 1861-6 and elsewhere, and the numerous prints and woodcuts after his reputed works, I have not made a special study of; these are noticed only incidentally ; but I have neglected no works of these classes which are in any way materially concerned in demonstrating the character and progress of Holbein's career. Even in the matter of pictures my labours have been cir- cumscribed by short means, and by a restricted liberty of locomotion, to say nothing about time, the most precious element of all. In the matter of documents, or biography itself, in which Documentary however the supply of materials is still deplorably defective, without reference to art or aesthetics, I am, besides the works mentioned beholden also much to Ulrich Hegner's " Bans Holbein der Jiingere'' Svo. Berlin, 1827 ; this is, or perhaps rather was, now, the chief source of our infoi'mation respecting Holbein's life in Switzerland ; and the book is well done, though the author had no critical knowledge of art. The references in Dr. Waagen's " Art Treasures " have been useful ; and I have derived some slight help too from the Doctor's " Kunstwerke und Kiinstler in Dtutschland." 12mo. Leipzig, 1843-45, where many Augsburg pictures are described : and I am indebted in some degree also to J. D. Passavant's " Beitrdge zur Kentniss der Alien Malerschulen Beutscldaiids, his in das seclizehnte Jahrhundert,'' published in the Kunsthlatt, Nos. 45 and 46. 1846 : these last papers, notice besides the Holbeins, many of their principal contemporaries. But unfortunately some of the documents relating to the Holbeins published both by Waagen and Passavant have turned out to be spurious ; the details are given in their proper places. I am indebted likewise to the catalogues of the various picture galleries containing Holl^ein's real or reputed works ; but unfortunately the two most interesting collections, namely those of Augsburg and Basel are not yet catalogued (1865) ; for the mere nu- merical list of drawings and pictures, sold at Basel, is of but 44 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. II. very little service : it does not even give the dimensions or Documentary materials of the pictures. authorities. ^j^hQ chief authority for the history of the Holbein woodcuts 1861-6 is C. F, von Rumohr's Hans Holbein der Jiingere in seinem Verhdltniss zum Deutscken Formsclmittwesen. 8vo. Leipzig-, 1836; with which may be consulted Passavant's Peintre Graveur. Contenant H Histoire de La Gravure sur Bois, j L i. o >j Art-Museum, through his timely acquisition and preservation of so many of Holbein's drawings and pictures ; and these still constitute the chief, if not the only attractions of the collection. The most beautiful work in it, though not the most important, but certainly one of the most admirable of all Holbein's paintings is Amerbach's own portrait, a bust somewhat under the natural size, on a blue ground, the face seen little more than in profile, turned to his right, the right eye being just visible. He has a slouching cap on, with a small cross on it, a furred cloak and embroidered vest, and is looking intently before him ; he has a ruddy short full beard, and the blue eyes are brilliant and piercing. The complexion is of a rich trans- parent brown tint, and the whole is modelled with the minute accuracy of a photograph. In the back-ground on the right side is the stem of a tree, with a tablet hanging to a branch, containing some complimentary verses spoken by the picture itself; and the painter's signature. Holbein must have been content with his work, as he has signed it in an unusually complete manner, having added even the day of the month as well as the year — October the 14th, 1519 — BON. AMORBACCHIVM JO. HOLBEIN. DEPINGEBAT A. M.B.XIX. Prid. Eld. Octohr. This head I believe the painter has never surpassed, his art as a portrait painter, perhaps here culminates in technical execu- tion, especially as regards transparency : it \\ as painted in his twenty-fifth year, Amerbach being of nearly the same age as the painter; just completing his twenty-fourth, according to the third line of the inscription' — while on the point of com- pleting the eighth term of three years — rpierm-^ * Picta licet facies, viyae non cedo, sed instar Sum domini, j-ustis nobile lineolis. Octo is dxim peragit TPlEXft, sic gnaviter in me Id quod natnrre est exprimit artis opus. BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 115 Erasmus speaks of Amerbach as a man of but one fault ; lie q^^^ yj was excessively modest. Of his collection of forty-nine pic- ^ tures, and he collected many other things besides, his son Amerhach. Basilius, in an inveatory made in or before 1586, but many 1519-20 years after the father's death, ascribes no less than seventeen to Holbein: some of these ascriptions however are assuredly wrong : and it is certain that many of the drawings also enumerated are by another hand than Holbein's. It is singular how rapidly misunderstandings and misconceptions crop up in such matters. We do not know how many of these seventeen pictures Amerbach got from Holbein himself, some passed to him from Erasmus, others would be bought after Holbein left Basel, and no doubt several, perhaps the majority, were procured after Holbein's death. Between the departure of Holbein from Basel, and the drawing up of the inventory, about sixty years elapsed, time enough for considerable confu- sion and error to have been developed in the various ascrip- tions, and a very long time to preserve a scrupulously true classification of a mixed collection of works of art. Besides these seventeen pictures the Amerbach collection is supposed to contain one hundred and four original drawings, large and small, by Holbein ; besides the book of eighty-five sketches, and the copy of the Moriae Encomium or Erasmus's " Praise of Folly," with Holbein's marginal pen and ink sketches. Amerbach was Erasmus's principal heir : his letters and cor- respondence are preserved in the public library of Basel, and Hegner has suggested that if these letters were carefully examined, something trustworthy might be found in them con- . cerning our painter, especially respecting his life in Basel. Amerbach died in 1562. His portrait is thus entered in his son's inventory — " Meins vatters conterfehtung in der jugend, H. Holbein's uf holz mit olfarb." The original drawings by, and prints after, Holbein were preserved in two distinct drawers in a cabinet containing many other drawers, in which were arranged the works of various schools and masters, and this distribution turns out to be I 2 116 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. important, in helping our classification of the drawings and The woodcuts ascribcd to Holbein.* These drawers were num- Amerhach bcred V. and YI. :— Collection. 1519-20. Y. H. Holheini imitatio aliena non propria ejus, 64 (i. e., sixtj-four pieces, all copies after Holbein). Gretruckt 11 1 (i. e., one hundred and eleven prints after Holbein's designs, there being no doubt sevei'al impressions of some). Biblica historia, &c., 2 {i. e., two printed copies of Holbein's Bible illustrations). Totentantz 2 expl. {i. e., two copies of the " Dance of Death"). YI. //. Holheini genuina, gros, klein, von seiner hand, 104 (i. e., one hundred and four original drawings and sketches by Holbein's own hand, and from this distinc- tion we may assume that he was certainly not the engraver of the cuts in the two series of illustrations mentioned above). " Moria Erasmi," hin und wider mit figurlin {i. e., the copy of Erasmus's " Praise of Folly," in which Holbein had made some marginal illustrations in pen and ink ; which were published by Patin in 1676). Ein buchlin darin by 85 stucklin gerissen (i.e., a little book containing eighty-five sketches). Ein anders permentin mit eim stuck (^. e., a drawing on parchment ; this is Holbein's portrait noticed in the inventory among the pictures, where it mentions the frame belonging to it, but explains that the portrait itself was lying in the cabinet among the Holbein drawings). Erasmi effigies in eim rundelin mit olfarben ('/. e., the round so called oil miniature of Erasmus, in the museum) .f * Tliis arrangement of Holbein's works, was first pnblislied in the Kunstblatt for 1843, by Herr Peter Fischer, see p. 63. Dr. Woltmann has since published much more complete extracts. Holbein, &c., Beilagen, VI., p, 365. — Inventarium der stucken oder sachen so in der niieren carnmer gegen miner' studierstuhen icier, begriffen dessen in mim Testament meldimg beschiclit. Indorsed— Autographum Basilii Amar- bachii vor A. 1586 ververtigt; und nach diesem jar supplirt, &c. t The Basel Museum Catalogue as- cribes no less than thirty-two pictures, or fragments of pictures, besides drawings, to Holbein. Sixteen of these, counting the schoolmaster's sign as two, were in the Amerbach Collection. Of these six- teen the only pictures in my opinion of BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 117 I have already spoken of Holbein's power as culminating as Chap. Vli. a portrait painter in this year 1519, by which I mean simply The'^im- that his practical skill in mere painting reached its highest at this time, and in the portrait of his friend Amerbach : no 1519-20. other work of his shows better execution, indeed in richness of colouring and in transparency of effect it remained perhaps unrivalled ; in the portraits painted afterwards in this country he was incontestably dryer. Considering Holbein's general precocity there is nothing remarkable in his having attained his full manhood in his twenty-fifth year ; Masaccio had nearly run his course at this age, he was only twenty-six when he died, at Rome in 1428-9 ; and yet he had contrived to live long enough to influence generations of painters that came after him. Raphael was but twenty-five when he was invited to Rome by Julius H. to decorate the Stanze of the Vatican, and when the works of living men old enough to be his father were sweptaway to give place to his works. 1519 is the date of our " Raising of Lazarus " by Sebastian del Piombo ; and it is the date also of Raphael's last picture, the " Transfiguration," now in the Vatican : Raphael died on the 6th of April, 1520. And it is to this year 1519 that belongs a very remarkable picture now at Lisbon in the palace of the king of Portugal : I have not seen this picture but I have a photograph of it,* and it is a sufficient reproduction of the original to enable one to perceive some passages of a very strong similarity to known works by the painter, though it is more complicated and more varied in its composition than any of Holbein's previous characteristic power or merit are Nos. 4, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 30, and 33; that is not including the very- coarse early, and as art comparatively worthless, productions. These to avoid numerical confusion, I will also name : — " The Last Supper," on wood ; " Adam and Eve," 1517 ; " Boniface Amerbach," 1519; "The Burgomaster Meier and Wife," 1516; "Erasmus writing;" " Miniature of Erasmus ;" the sam^ in a roimd; "Dead Christ," 1521; "Hol- bein's Wife and Children ;" Head of a King, a fresco; and the "Portrait of Froben." Lastly the admirable portrait of Holbein himself, in body colour, noticed in the inventory, as placed with the drawings : — " Item, tin tafelen yeliort darin ein conterfeliung Holheins mit trocken farhen , so im grossen Kasten under Holheins Kunst ligt." It hangs now in the "Salle des Dessins," and is num- bered 1$. * Schauer's Uulhcui Album. 118 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, vil works. The picture, known as the " Fountain of Life " — Der The " Foun- Brunneii des Lehens, it is inscribed Puteus Aquarum tain of Life" ViVENCiUM, represents an eastern landscape, nearly the whole 1519-20. the upper half of it being covered by a rich temple or triumphal arch of Renaissance taste in variegated marbles ; the lower half is occupied by an almost semi-circular group of small figures, aboilt one third the scale of life, symmetrically arranged. The centre of this company is the Madonna seated, . on a throne, in front of the temple which constitutes a kind of canopy to it, holding the naked Infant in her arms, and in the fore-ground in front of her is the fountain of life coming from a cherub's mouth at the base of her seat, and springing into a well in which- are swimming fish : by the side of this well is a vase, in which a tall lily is growing, bearing three buds, and three flowers in full bloom. Behind the Madonna are standing Joseph and St. Anne, and on each side of her^ ranging to the lower corners are three female saints— behind each of these principal groups are other female saints, and in the extreme back-ground beyond the temple are three groups of winged angels, singing and playing musical instruments, one in the centre seen through an archway of the temple, and the other two, one on either side of the temple. Of the figures in this composition, the Virgin bears a strong resemblance to the Virgin on the exterior of the St. Sebastian altar-piece ; the St. Anne calls to mind strongly the portrait of the painter's mother at Hampton Court ; and the foremost saint on the left of the Virgin with roses, apparently St. Dorothy, has a striking likeness to the St. Elizabeth of the St. Sebastian altar-piece, engraved in this volume. The foremost saint on the other side opposite to St. Dorothy, with a dragon at her feet is St. Margaret ; on her left is St. Barbara ; on the right of St. Dorothy is St. Catherine who holds the left hand of the infant Christ. These four saints are the principal accessory figures. The architecture is extremely rich, and more careful and elaborate than anything else we have by Holbein ; the draperies are large and elegant, and quite free from that charac- BECOMES A CITIZEN OE BASEL. 119 teristic littleness of arrangement of fold, which too commonly Chap. Vil. disfigures German art. The picture is said to be signed with rj.j^^ '^oun- the painter's name and to bear the date 1519. The whole ^^^^(^^'l'^' composition is easy and beautiful ; the lower half contains 1519-20. eighteen figures, and the three small groups of angels beyond the temple in the back-ground add about eighteen more. It will be observed that in this composition we have nothing ecclesiastical ; we have the Lord as the " Fountain of Life," and the more popular female martyrs as representing the virtues and affections — no priests, no church dignitaries, no dogmatizers, no monks with their bald crowns, shaven in the pride of ostentatious humility. This picture was formerly in England, and is possibly one of those collected by the Earl of Arundel, though I find no mention of it in any of the early accounts ; it seems however to have been in the possession of Charles II., and it was through this circumstance that it found its way into Portugal, whither it was carried by his widow Queen Catherine ; Pietro Gruarienti saw it early in the last century in a royal chapel in Lisbon. There is an interesting note upon it, published twenty years ago, in Count A. Raczy.nski's "Arts en Portugal,"* " Bemposta {pres de Santa Anna, 26 Mars 1844). —Dans la sacristie de la chapelle du chateau, au-dessus d'une armoire, est place un tableau signe, de Jean Holbein. II porte la date de 1519. II a a peu pres 2 metres de hauteur sur 1,30 m, de largeur [6 ft. 6 in. high by 4 ft. 3 in. wide]. Les figures du premier plan ont un tiers de grandeur naturelle. C'est un admirable ouvrage, et il est d'une conservation parfaite. Les bourreaux, appeles restaurateurs, n'y ont pas touche.f Le sujet est La Sainte Vierge assise sur un trone tenant I'enfant Jesus dans ses bras et entouree de beaucoup de saintes. Derriere le trone se voit une riche et belle architecture dans le style de FranQois F. Ce fut la fille de Jean lY., la reine * Les Arts en Portugal, Lettres adres- sees a la societe Artistique et Scientifique de Berlin et accompagnees de Documens. 8vo. Paris, 1846, p. '295. t II serait superflu de dire que je n'appelle hourreaux que les mauvais res- taurateurs de tableaux. 120 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. Catherine de Portugal, soeiir de Pierre II., et femme de The « Foun- Charles II. d'Angleterre qui, etant devenue veuve, rapporta ^at\fshol^^'' ce tableau d'Angleterre et en fit present a cette chapelle. 1519-20. Je tiens ces renseignemens des ecclesiastiques qui la des- servent."* The Town- hull, Basel. We may now retutn to the paintings of the Town-hall or Rath-haus, the Richt-huss or Judgment-hall as it was then called. The old house was according to Ochs, pulled down in 1508, and the new was comj)leted by March 1521. In June of this year Hans Holbein the painter (not the father but the son) was commissioned by the council, his friend Jacob Meier being still burgomaster, to paint the council-room. One of the four walls of this room was completely pierced by win- dows, and was unfit for paintings : the entrance was at the end of this wall and as you entered the hall, on your left hand were the windows, and on your right hand was, at a right angle with these windows the only sound wall in the room ; * The picture is signed Joannes Hol- bein Fecit 1519, on the rim of the well in the fore-ground, in small dark letters ; but according to the convictions of M. Fournicr, Secretaire interprete of the Prussian embassy in Lisbon, this inscription has been repaired or re- newed : STich is his opinion communi- cated to Dr. Woltmann. The inscription cannot have been very perfect in about 1735, for Guarienti, with a strange want of sagacity not only read the name as HoLTEiN without any misgiving, biit conjectured from the style and time that the painter must have been a scholar of the celebrated Holbens, and stranger still, Guarienti published this conjecture after he had been appointed superintendent of the Dresden Gallery, and which then already contained its " Meyer Madonna." He enters Hol- bein's name in his continuation of Orlandi's Abecedario Pittorico (Venice, 1753) as Olbein. The passage is in- teresting as recording a high opinion of the draAving, colouring, and execution of the picture. — " Gio: Holtein, nome da me vednto in un quadro, ch' e in una Eegia Capella di Lisbona, in cui si rap- presentano gli attributi di Maria Ver- gine, il qual quadro e perfettamente hello, ben disegnato e colorito, con quantita di figure. Dalla maniera, dihgenza, o composizione di detto quadro, e del anno 1519, posto sotto a^ nome di lui, pare che possa dirsi, esser esso stato scolaro dell' Holbens, che circa a quel tempo fioriva, e che mori nel 1554. Non ho potuto raccovre di lui altra notizia." Tliis passage coming from a Keeper of the Dresden Gallery shows how sing-ularly Httle was known or thought of Holbein in the middle of the last century. His name on one of his finest works is misread, and one of the prin- cipal connoisseurs of his age speculates as to who the painter can have been. Our great painters had need have bio- graphers, if notwithstanding their fine works such is the obscurity into which they can fall a century or two after their decease. BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 121 both the others being pierced with doorways or windows, but CiiAP. vil. leaving several spaces where decorations might be introduced : ^Vie 'r^n- the room was about 60 feet long by 35 feet wide, but only 12| feet high ; and in the middle of it were three pillars sup- porting the ceiling.* It was therefore little calculated to display paintings, yet it was here that Holbein made his highest historical efforts, and produced his largest compositions, on three of the four walls. In the course of the years 1521 and 1522 the painter re- The Frescoes ceived in seven separate payments, the sum of 120 florins, "^^^ndi-romn though he had painted two of the walls only ; and the original contract for the whole three seems to have been but 120 florins {hundert und XX gulden). Holbein maintained that he had earned the money, notwithstanding the bare third side ; and this the council seems to have acceded to, and as no •immediate arrangement was made for prosecuting the work, it was suspended, and it remained suspended for some years, partly through a want of decision of the council, and partly through Holbein's departure for England. The third wall, the unbroken one on the right hand on entering, and for which Holbein received an additional sum of 72 florins, was not painted until 1530, after the painter's return to Basel from his visit to Sir Thomas More in England.f The insignificant fragments of fresco from this chamber, which are preserved in the Museum of Basel, are, with the exception of a single head, that of a king (No. 30, a head in profile with a spiked crown), quite unimportant, and display nothing worthy of Holbein's reputation ; but the head in ques- tion is really a fine work of art. The Museum however pos- * A plan is given in. Woltmann's Hol- lein, &c., p. 303. t These are the discoveries of Herr His-Hensler. The payments are given in the volume referred to, p. 353. The account is somewhat obscure as it is given in two currencies, in florins and in pounds and shillings* that is Basel pounds — of copper. The florin was one pound five shillings, the pound being divided into twenty shilUngs : the florin was accordingly f§ of a poiand of copper, equal to twenty of our old pennies, sup- posing the weights to be equivalent. This is about the value of the florin in the south of Germany and Holland at the present day. Our own shilling was in the Norman time the twentieth part of a troy pound weight of silver. See Jacob's Precious Metals, 1831. 122 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. sesses among its drawings five washed sketches which were The 'prtscoes Presumed to be original when in the Amerbach cabinet, but of the ^ there is nothing to proclaim the originality in the drawings ^1521-2°™' themselves. They are certainly interesting as giving the sub- jects and compositions,* namely — Samuel reproving Saul ; King Eehoboam ; the legislator Charondas ; King Sapor and the Emperor Valerian ; and the legislator Zaleucus. There are also some indifferent sketches of the state of the paintings in 1817 by one Jerome Hess. Portions of the frescoes were in an ordinary state of preser- vation in 1577, as they are mentioned in a local history of that date, quoted by Hegner,t and some were still to be seen in Patin's time, a century later : he notices the three walls of this hall as painted by Holbein. The subjects were comprised in several compartments or divisions, an arrangement of course necessitated by the nature of the spaces as described above. The painter adapted his designs to the spaces, introducing large compositions, smaller groups, and single iconic represen- tative impersonations. The frescoes appear to have been altogether eleven in number, five figures, and six compo- sitions. The five single figures were : — Our Lord, with the legend — quod tibi non vis fieri, alter i non facias; David with the harp ; Justice ; Wisdom ; and Temperance, a young woman pouring wine into a small flask. All with appropriate Latin inscriptions. Three of the stories, painted in illustration of justice, are * They are thus noticed in the un- satisfactory catalogue of Basel : — 35. Le Prophete Samuel repreud le Eoi Saul. 36. Le Eoi Eoboam. 37. Le Legislateur Charondas, et les Eois Sapor et Valerien. 38. Le Legislateur Zaleukus et la Justice. In the " Inventory " they are described as follows : — Item, Der Prophet Samuell und Achab, getouscht, auf einen langen bogen. Item, Der Konig Eehabeam mit vielen bildern, tuscht, auf einem kleinen bogen. Item, Zaleucus Igetuschtj auf Item, Charonda Tirius ("quart bogen. Item, Valerianus et Sapor rex Per- siarum, getuscht, auf einem quart bogen. The old catalogue is a little more explicit than the modern compilation made nearly three centuries later. f Epitome Historiae Basiliensis. aut. Chr. Urstisio. 8to. Basil, 1577. BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 123 those of three celebrated ancient legislators — The Roman Chap. vil. consul Manins Curius Dentatus ; the Locrian Zaleucus ; and y;^^ Frescoes Charondas Thurius ; painted in 1521. When some Samnite o/i;/«e , , • • 1 rN • T-w 1 • • r Couvcil-room. ambassadors visited (jurms Dentatus, bringing presents oi 1521-2. gold, in order to bias him in their favour, they found him in his cottage cooking his own dinner ; and he asked them if they thought a man who lived as simply as he did, could have any use for gold. The laws of Zaleucus were noted for their severity, and the punishment for adultery was deprivation of sight by putting out the eyes ; when his own son was convicted of this crime, Zaleucus in compassion and through love of his son, put out only one of the young man's eyes, but in justification of the law put out also one of his own. Charondas Thurius of Catana in his laws had decreed punishment of death for whoever should enter the assembly of the people armed ; and on an occasion when he had returned from the pursuit of some robbers, he inadvertently entered the assembly without having laid aside his sword. It was pointed out to him that he had himself broken his own law. " On the contrary," he replied, " I enforce it," and he imme- diately pierced himself through the body with the offending weapon . Whether true or not the above are well chosen examples for the pictorial illustration of the majesty or the inviolability of justice, however barbarous : a semi-civilized people require strong illustrations. The terrible punishment for adultery imposed by Zaleucus contrasts singularly with the slight penances and small fines exacted by the Roman priests for the same crime, in Holbein's time in this country. The fourth subject was Sapor the Persian king, using the captive Emperor Valerian as a step to mount his horse from. The two principal compositions however, were apparently on the end wall, which afforded an unbroken field ; these were two scenes from Jewish history : — Rehoboam ; and Samuel reproving Saul, after his victory over the Amalekites. These are assumed to be the pictures which Holbein painted after his 124 LIFE AND WOEKS OP HOLBEIN. Chap. yii. return from England in 1530, and for wliich he was paid, in Thelwscoes ^^^^ instalments, 72 florins.* This was after all not very of the ffreat encouragement for him to remain at Basel, considering Council-room. . .T-iin,,i' 1521-2. that painters in ii/ngland at this very time, were receiving about as much for a single portrait as Holbein was paid for two historical pictures, one about 15 feet wide, the other about 19 feet; the smallness of the sum does appear somewhat astounding, twenty pence for a large figure in fresco. Hol- bein must have found an agreeable difference in the pounds and shillings he received in England as compared with those he received in Basel. The English pound was then just sixteen Basel pounds. The subject of Eehoboam is a fine composition, but in the sketch the proportions of the figures are somewhat unrefined, like too many of the painter's earlier figure pieces ; though there is great dignity in the arrangement and in the figures in the back-ground. The moment represented is when Eehoboam seated on his throne, following the advice of the young men, utters the terrible words to Jeroboam and the Israelites, when they went to him on the third day as he had appointed : — " My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke." " 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." (1 Kings, ch. xii.) Eehoboam, in a spacious hall of Italian architecture, is raising himself on his throne, and leaning forward, his body is just seen above the Israelites in the fore-ground, some still looking at the king and others turning away from him and thus showing their faces to the spectator. The king with a ferocious countenance is threatening them with the little finger of his left hand, while with the index of his right, he points to a scourge in the * His-Heusler, Beitrdge, &c., jd. 358. Woltmann, Bdlugen, p. 373. These several payments to Meister Hans Hol- bein dem Moller, were made as fol- lows : — Ulf mitwuclis noch Ulryci (6th July) im 1530 jor . . . ffl. 12. Uff donstig noch sant laurenzen dag (11th August) im 1530 jor ffl. 20. Noch frene (Verenatag, Thursday 1st September) im 1530 jor . ffl. 24. Ufif fritag noch sant Martis dag (18th November), im 1530 jor ffl. 16. BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 125 hands of a slave standing by the throne. In the back-ground Chap. Vir. on each side of the throne, but behind it, are the councillors of y/^^ Frescoes the king— on his right "the old men that stood before g^f^^^.^^^^^^ Solomon, his father," who gave the good counsel— on his left 1521-2. " the young men that were grown up with him," who gave the bad counsel. In the back-ground on one side is seen a piece of hilly country where Jeroboam is being crowned king of Israel. In the meeting of Samuel and Saul, we have a crowd of foot- and horse-men met by the prophet, who addressing Saul, says, "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear ?" And Saul said, " They have brought them from the Amalekites," " to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God ;" and Samuel said, " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." " Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king." (1 Samuel, ch. xv.) Samuel is point- ing with his left hand to the sheep and oxen which are seen in the middle distance.* There is something striking in the change of subject from the stern virtues of the heathens to a sentiment of religion derived from Scripture, during the interval of eight years which passed between the suspension and completion of these decorations of the Council-hall — and a great change had come over the rehgion of the people, the ordeal of 1529 had bee i passed; the church was no longer to be a school of cere- monies and burning of incense ; the exhibition of relics, or the counting of beads ; the denunciation of the prophet had reached the ear of Basel — Behold, to obey is letter than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams ! This is an indication of the presence of what after events more clearly showed, that the spirit of our own Puritanism had found its biding places among the sunny vales of Switzerland. * Woodcuts of these two compositions are given in Wollmann's Holbein und seine zeit. 12G LITE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. As the works themselves have perished it is impossible Thelv7scoes ^^^^ Opinion on their merits; the sketches show of the dramatic vigour, and no doubt the works had manv ex- 1521-2. cellences. VVhether Holbein was a good practical fresco painter, means of judging are wanting ; the fragments in the Museum of Basel are quite insufficient to give any adequate idea ; one of the heads is certainly line, but the others are indifferent. The great efforts however, and perhaps they were more suc- cessful in their execution than most such efforts are, and almost unique in Grermany in their time, were destined to but a short duration. This council-hall seems to have been ill secured against damp ; this was the destroyer of the frescoes, not the Icono- clasts — the mischief was caused by imperfect construction and deficiency of proper precautions. Already in 1576 the paint- ings of one wall were so seriously decayed that a painter of the name of Hans Bockh, was employed by the town council to make an oil copy of them on canvas, and the copy occupied him the long days of no less than six and twenty weeks. His application for payment for his half-year's labour, is still among the archives of Basel, and bears the date 23rd No- vember 1579: considering that the work copied contained about one hundred figures as he estimated it, he demanded 100 florins — a moderate remuneration certainly, about eight guineas, making a little more than a shilling a day, yet by no means contemptible pay for those times. There was however no picture which contained one hundred figures, even the Eehoboam and the Samuel and Saul together, do not contain so many. This canvas copy was placed on the wall over the original, yet such was the fatality of the place, that it too perished in the course of not many years, and the walls were finally fur- nished with hangings of cloth and old tapestry. It was so lately as 1817, when some changes had to be made in the hall, that in removing the tapestries, some traces of these old frescoes were discovered on the walls, very nearly quite oblite- BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 127 rated. There were remains of the stories of Ourius Dentatus, Chap, vil. and Zaleucus, dated 1521 ; and it is from these ruins that the xhel^scoes seven fragments of the museum were saved, among them some heads of the Samnite deputies, which are now treasured 1521-2. as valuahle rehcs of Holbein's frescoes. The crowned head specified is masterly and interesting. To Holbein also has been commonly ascribed the painting of the " Last Judgment," in the staircase, the work that was so long vaunted for its Lutheranism before Luther. It is now show^n from documents that this work was not executed till nearly a century after Holbein left Basel, and as many after Luther's famous revolution in ecclesiastical polity. Several accounts and records of payments are preserved in the town archives which show that this work was executed in the years 1609-10 by the above-mentioned Hans Bockh, and his sons; who was accordingly a young man when he copied the frescoes of Holbein for some thirteen pence the day. The twelve painted windows or panes of glass which were transferred from the old council-room to the new, were all painted before Holbein's time ; they represent the arms of the twelve cantons, and Appenzell which was only added in 1513 is not included; while the shield of Solothurn bears the date of 1501.* No doubt Holbein in so circumscribed a field as Basel, more Rarity of Ms , , . „ , r> p , • easel-pictures especially in the unsettled times of the Keiormation, was com- Basel. pelled to turn his hand to many kinds of work which on the present system of the division of labour, the cultivators of high art would consider derogatory. But great artists com- monly led simple lives at this period, even in Eome the very centre of corruption. If Holbein's so called easel-pictures are few for the considerable number of years that he was residing in Basel, it is not so much that his pictures are lost as that he must have been busily occupied in every branch of his profes- sion, as a mere house decorator, as a fresco painter, as a designer for stained glass, and for the silversmiths. Several * Ochs, m., 218; Hegner, p. 77. 128 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. sketches of these various classes are preserved in the Museum Rarit^fUs of Basel, and his designs for silver work, for arms, for heraldic "^atiaid" devices for glass, and mero ornament, perhaps even for em- 1521-5. broidered muslin, show a perfect Italian taste, and in fact that he was a consummate master of the ornamental design of the cinque-cento period ; some of his foliated and floriated scroll drawings are not onlj perfect in their forms but are executed with all the ready ease of a consummate master. Among his decorations recorded is one of the facade of a house in the Eisengasse, painted from top to bottom, in the fashion of the rich architectural back-grounds which at a later time distinguished the pictures of Paul Veronese, and of which a sketch is preserved at Basel_, on which he had painted the story of Marcus Ourtius leaping into the gulf; and also a very popular peasant dance, which as the most sympathetic and intelligible incident of the whole composition gave its name to the house itself, the house of the Bauerntanz or " Haus zum Tanz :" for this work says Theodor Zwinger, an old writer quoted by Hegner/ Holbein was paid 40 florins : it is very rarely that we are able to report the prices Holbein received for his work. Even Albert Dlirer was content at this time to draw a portrait for a florin, and the 40 florins mentioned were probably a satisfactory remuneration to the younger painter, for a work that might have occupied him even for forty days. There is somewhere a large water-colour copy of the Bauerntanz referred to, made by one Wilhelm Stettler, which passes for the original drawing by Holbein himself. The museum possesses drawings or sketches of the whole facade, and of some of the parts; but all, if any one is, are not original. Considering that Holbein was painting in Basel at least eight years, and the museum there contains the works belong- ing to his intimate friend and patron Boniface Amerbach, the * Metliodus apodemica. Basil, 1577. Domus Privata in platea ferri (Eisen- gasse) choream rusticam exhibet, a J. Holbenio XL. florenorum stipendio depicta. Hegner, Hans Holbein, &c., p. 143. BECOMES A CITIZEN OF BASEL. 129 rarity of his easel-pictures at Basel is remarkable. Some Chap. vii. belong to the purchased Amerbach Collection, some to that of narU^fUs Eemigius Fesch, likewise a lawyer, made in the following century, and acquired through bequest ; and some few isolated • 1521-5. examples have been purchased by the town-council. All these works combined must constitute but a small portion of Holbein's labours while in Basel, even if we deduct another two years or so for the time he was occupied in preparing designs for and in painting the council-hall itself — 1521-2. Some few however of the pictures of this museum are invaluable, as showing the painter's early style and pro- gress ; and we have certainly authentic examples extending over the whole period of ten years that Holbein was more or less domiciliated at Basel; from 1516 to his departure in 1526 : viz. — Jacob Meier and his wife, 1516 ; Adam and Eve, 1517; the portrait of Dr. Amerbach, 1519; all already described. Further, the exquisite small portrait of himself, engraved in this volume, a drawing in body-colour, when about one or two and twenty years of age ; a small portrait of John Froben the printer ; a similar portrait of the celebrated Erasmus, writing, on parchment ; a large life-sized picture of the " Dead Body of Christ lying in the Tomb," signed and dated H. H. 1521; and the very remarkable portraits, on paper attached to wood, of his wife and his two children, which were probably painted in 1525 or 1526, certainly not long before he started for England. Here are several years unrepresented ; of 1523 and 1524 we seem to have nothing whatever ; but a few links may cer- tainly be supplied from foreign collections; as for example Hampton Court Gallery, which contains several examples of this time. Elsewhere it is not so easy to lay one's hand on examples ; the two portraits in the Maximilian's Museum at Augsburg, appear to be Basel works, as I have already sur- mised. The magnificent "Meier Madonna" to be described presently, and the remarkable picture of 1519, the " Brunnen des Lebens " at Lisbon, described already, are also Basel works. The altar- wings at Freiburg may possibly belong to these later K 130 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII. Rarity of Ms easel-pictures at Basel. 1521-5. Olass- painting. The Drawings of the Passion. years, that is after the painting of the council-room rather than before. Still all these works do not account for very much of the time of so able a master as Holbein. He must have been greatly occupied with mere decorative work for old walls, and for stained glass, which has mostly perished. He appears to have been frequently employed in preparing drawings for stained glass ; the Basel Museum possesses several examples :* a great deal of his time also must have been given to the preparation of drawings for woodcuts ; such as his " Dance of Death," and the Bible series. He appears to have made more than one important series of drawings for the Passion of our Lord ; there are ten in the " Salle des Dessins " at Basel, which according to the catalogue were made for glass paintings; they have some bold back-grounds of coarse Eenaissance archi- tecture, which has much of the ordinary character of such work designed for glass. The " History of the Passion " constitutes a very important series of designs, showing great power both in drawing and composition, yet in some few instances they exhibit a coarseness of treatment almost amounting to caricature, though he has not approximated the hideous deformities of many of his cele- brated countrymen, not excepting even Albert Diirer, occasion- ally. Seven of these scenes, apparently without variation but reversed, outlined with the pen and washed with Indian ink, are among the drawings of the British Museum, and have been for some time exhibited in the King's Library; they were purchased at the sale of Sir Thomas Lawrence's col- lection.! The execution is masterly and beautiful, but they appear to have been made from some other drawings, they * Dr. Woltmann lias given a woodcut of one of these studies, from a coloured drawing in Berlin, in his first volume, a couple of Landsknechts, reposing, and holding a shield, left blank for some inscription or coat of arms ; a landscape in the distance, and some rich Eenais- sance architecture serving as a frame- work to the two soldiers, p. 253. t See the catalogue compiled by Mr. Carpenter, A Guide to the Braiuings and Prints eschibited to the Public i% the King's Library, 1862. The subjects, about 15 in. by 12 in., are : — 1. Christ brought before the Higli Priest. 2. The Mocking of Christ. 3. Christ brought forward and shown .R e!d. ael . ECCE H03I0. P. 130. BECOMES A CITIZEN OP BASEL. 131 want the carelessness and imperfections of original sketches ; Chap. vii. they have been possibly traced in some way from those at y^^g Basel ; their effect is if anything superior to that of the Basel drawings. Passion. Among the best drawings also of the museum at Basel may 1521-5. be particularized the fine sepia sketch for the wings of the organ of the cathedral there. The wings them- selves are preserved in the museum, painted in chiaro-scuro, in brown, but they are injured, and their effect is gone. The drawing is a genuine Holbein work, with dignified figures and bold effective draperies : on one wing is the Emperor St. Henry, and behind him the Empress Cunigund holding the cross, with a model of the Cathedral of Basel on the ground between them : on the other wing, symmetrically arranged, is the Madonna crowned, holding the Infant Christ in her arms, and behind her is St. Pantalus, bishop ; between them is a choir of winged cherub angels with musical instru- ments. The whole is further enriched with elaborate and highly foliated cinque-cento scroll-work.f The " Dead Christ in the Tomb," mentioned above, a life- Dead Christ. sized figure, is in a very different taste from all Holbein's after pictures, of this or any other period : some have professed to have been greatly shocked by the naturalism of this picture. It is in a very different taste from his life-like portraits, and necessarily so. The painter has turned from life and intel- lip;ence to death and decay, and he has further adopted a to the people by Pilate (engraved for this volume). 4. Pilate washing his hands. 5. Christ led to Execution. 6. Christ divested of His garments. 7. The Crucifixion. The following is the Basel series, as given in the catalogue of 1863; they were formerly in the Amerbach Collec- tion; those marked with the asterisk are the three missing designs of the Lawrence series. The Inventory notices them thus — Item, Zehen stuckh vom passion getuscld, Jedes avff einem Bog en Fapeyr. 39. Le Christ devant Caiphe. 40. La flagellation du Christ.* 41. Jesus insulte par les soldats. 42. Le Christ couronne d'epines.'" 43. Pilate se lavant les mains (en- graved for Dr. Woltmann's first volume). 44. Ecce Homo (No. 3). 45. Le Christ conduit au Calvaire. 46. Le Christ depouille de ses vetc- ments. 47. Le Christ clone h la croix.* 48. Le Christ en croix entre les deux larrons (engraved for Dr. Woltmann's first volume). t A pliotograph is given in Schaucr's IJolbein Album. K 2 132 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VII, peculiar lighting of the body, to produce as ghastly an im- Dead Christ, pi'^ssion as possible, and thus enhance our abcmination of the 1521. act of the Jews.* The corpse is lying flat on its back on a cloth, the chin and small beard pointing upwards ; it is ema- ciated and of a cold greenish grey colour, and thrown mostly into shadow by the artifice of lighting it by a horizontal ray of light supposed to be coming through some small aperture low down ; it therefore strikes the soles of the feet, putting the upper sides in shadow, and so on along the body to the chin, illuminating the lower or under side of every prominent part, and darkening the upper ; producing altogether a most revolt- ing effect: and all is done with a horrible realistic power. He has inscribed it Jesus Nazarenus Eex Jud. H. H. 1521. It is one of the Amerbach pictures, and is noticed in the Inventory thus : — " Ein todten BiU H. Holbeins uf liolz mit olfarhen cum titulo Jesus Nazarenus Eex, &c." The drawing of himself on vellum, in crayon or body- colour, already noticed in pages 116 and 129, which Mr. C. W. Sharpe has engraved as a vignette for this volume, will not require much description. In the original both the sleeves and a part of the right hand are shown ; the loose over-coat is of a pale drab, the facings appear to be of dark brown velvet ; the cap is red ; the eyes are a rich brown. The effect of the whole is magnificent. * Engraved in von Mechel's (Euvre de Holbein, &c. CHAPTER YIII. Friends and Patrons at Basel. 1521-5. HEN Holbein arrived in Basel, the printer chap. viii. Froben or Frobenius as he is commonly called, j^y^ft^s had already a European reputation ; he seems andErasmus. as well as Amerbach to have been an early and good friend of the painter. It was probably through the first that Holbein became ac- quainted with Erasmus, who was settled in Basel in 1521, and lived in the house of Frobenius ; these two were in the double relationship of publisher and editor, and landlord and tenant. Frobenius had printed works of Erasmus before this time, and Holbein had already illustrated several volumes for him. The " Colloquies" of Erasmus were first published in Basel in 1522. It was, it is said, the great reputation of Frobenius as a con- scientious man, and able printer, that induced Erasmus to settle in that city : he had previously dwelt chiefly in Antwerp ; but Basel held out the additional inducement of liberty of con- science and a freedom from priestly domination. And here in the house of the famous printer and publisher, the young- German painter in his ordinary visits respecting possibly some woodcut design, some oruamental initial or title-margin, though his general art reputation would be a better intro- duction, became acquainted with, and gradually acquired 134 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. vilf. the friendship of, the great commentator : Erasmus had Frobenius some appreciation for art; he himself tried painting in his and Erasmus, youth. 1521-5. Rumohr assumes* that Holbein was employed as a wood- engraver by Froben ; this is possible, but from the general inferiority in the execution of the woodcuts referred to, I find it very difficult to adopt this opinion. Holbein may have tried to cut, and having failed once or twice, or found the process too slow or mechanical for him, have given it up. But it is quite certain that so good an artist in every way as Holbein was, could not possibly have gone on producing bad woodcuts ; this would have been an aesthetic violation of his taste and judgment : even as regards the designs, I do not be- lieve Holbein is the author of one quarter of those ascribed to him. But to be even tolerably perfect in wood-engraving a man must make it his business, and we know that Holbein did nothing of the kind. He was certainly much too fine an artist to have produced or at least tolerated when produced by him- self such essays as the very bad early cuts that are ascribed to him ; and he was certainly too unpractised an engraver to have produced the excellent cuts of later years, which have been given to him ; such for instance as those of the original " Dance of Death," which some writers insist on being his own handiwork. The conclusion my impressions impel me to, is, that he engraved neither the good nor the bad : and the prints seem to show that even as a designer on wood, he w^as really not much employed by Froben, who had other artists who worked for him besides Holbein, whose time could not be turned to so good an account as our consummate painter's, and who were in no proportion in such request for other work : Holbein seems to have worked for Froben in the first years only of his sojourn in Basel. Among other artists living at Basel at this time we * Hans Holbein der Jiingere in seinem Verhaltniss zum Deutschen FormscJinitt- wescn. 8vo. Leipzig, 1836. ThisvoliTmo contains an elaborate investigation of woodcuts ascribed to Holbein. See also Zur geschichte und Theorie der Form- scJmeidekunst, 1837, by the same writer. FKIENDS AND PATRONS AT BASEL. 135 know that Urs Grraf and Ambrose Holbein were botb employed Chap. viil. on woodblocks by Froben. Frobenius Erasmus was probably too mucb absorbed in his own andEnmmus. pursuits, to have noticed the humble efforts of an obscure designer, though embellishing or at least attempting to em- bellish his own works. Froben however must have known the man he employed, and by some means or other, either through the father or the uncle engaged in Basel before the son's arrival, or otherwise, Holbein's talent for designing in the Eenaissance taste, was soon made known to the great printer and publisher, who seems to have employed him imme- diately after he settled in Basel. The marginal decoration of the dedicatory page of this volume was first used by Froben according to Hegner in 1516.* The cut is used in various publications from 1516 to 1520 inclusive; and first in Erasmus de Octo orationis partium constructione, 1516, and again in 1517. It is used also in Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," November l5lS.--I)e optimo Eeip. statu, deque nova Insula Utopia, &c., for title and at p. 17. This cut is more particularly interesting as being one of the earliest of its class designed by Holbein ; he was only twenty in 1516 ; and as bearing his signature, virtually in full, in the two tablets at the top — Ha?^s. Holb. A few others have the initials H. H., as in the title to the Epigrammata clarissimi Disertissimique Viri Thomce Mori, &c., 1520: in this design is the composition of Mucins Sc£evola and Porsenna. The engraver of the majority of these book cuts is supposed to be an artist of Basel who signed J. F.f Froben seems to have afterwards, for a few years employed both Ambrose and Hans, as ordinary designers for the orna- mental blocks for his publications, but he required no great * Hans Holbein, p. 344. Passavant says 1515, but tliis must be an error; Holbein was not then in Basel, and as the cut contains Froben's trade-mark of the Caduceus, it would appear to have been expressly designed for him ; there- fore after Holbein's arrival in Basel. t See Passavant, Peintre Oraveur, Yol. III., p. 355 ; and Peter Vischer, Kunst- hlatt, 1838, No. 53, where there is a list of the superior cuts ascribed to Holbein, as the designer, not as the engraver. 136 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VIII. number, as he commonly used the same cuts in several Froh^s volumes — Initials, borders, vignettes, &c., of which I have """IST" ^^^^^^ examples in this volume. They are unhappily coarsely and even badly engraved, as a rule, but some of the more ornamental scrolls do not suffer by this, their sentiment re- mains in full force; the more ambitious efforts however in cinque-cento design require careful engraving to preserve the spirit of the drawing, I have already noticed Holbein's pre- ference for the Renaissance style of ornament and architecture over the Gothic, in noticing the early picture of the Infant Christ, at Augsburg ; and he shows the same preference in all the woodcuts .attributed to him in the publications of Fro- benius ; the designs themselves are free enough, it is the engraving that is at fault. Still, all the defects of these early works must not be laid at the engraver's door, Holbein's orna- mental sketches generally of this period are not to be compared with some of his later designs, especially some of those for silver work which were executed in England ; these are un- surpassed. He adhered to his first love, the cinque-cento, or rather the Renaissance, throughout. But if we compare, for instance, the amorini in Mr. Baring's portrait of Hans Herbster, with those of the design for Sir John Denny's clock, now in the British Museum, the distance between the skill of the 'prentice-work and the master's is enormous. One of the best and most interesting of these old blocks, a piece of pear-tree, is still preserved in the museum at Basel ; it represents the portrait of Erasmus, full-length, resting his right hand on the head of a truncated Terminus, which is placed im- mediately in front of him and hides his feet. He is surrounded by an ornamental border, in the form of a triumphal arch, of rich Renaissance architecture and ornament of elegant design. Above, in a tablet, are the letters Er. Rot., Erasmus Rotero- damus, and below, in another ornamental space, in the earliest impressions from the block, are the two following lines : Corporis effigieni si quis non vidit Erasmi Hanc scite ad vivum picta tabella dabit. FEEENDS AND PATRONS AT BASEL. 137 This cut, altogether 11 J in. high by 6 in. wide — the triumphal Chap, yiil arch itself is only 9 in. high — is commonly ascribed to Hans Frdbenius Llltzelburger, the drawing being assumed to be by Holbein, and^Erasmu and it is said to have been first used in 1519: it is quite worthy of Holbein. Liitzelburger is the assumed engraver of the " Dance of Death " series of cuts, published at Lyon in 1538. There are several impressions from the Erasmus block in the Print-Room of the British Museum, in the original and in a later state : the later print has four lines instead of two, in the lower space referred to, viz. : Pallas Apellaeam nuper mirata tabeUam Hanc ait, aeternum Bibliotheca colat. Dedaleam moiistrat Musis Holbeinnius artem Et summi ingenii magniis Erasmus opes. John Froben or Frobenius according to the then habit of Latinizing surnames as well as the baptismal, was invited to Basel by Amerbach the father, to assist him in his arduous printing operations. He became the most distinguished printer of his time ; his publications are numerous, but his opus magnum is perhaps, the complete edition of the writings of St. Jerome, in several volumes folio, first published in Basel in 1516, and reprinted in 1520 and 1524, under the super- intendence of Erasmus : the period when Holbein gradually developed his great powers in Basel, then a renowned centre of liberty, learning and the arts ; and no doubt the patronage and friendship of John Froben and his learned editor con- tributed, as did the intercourse with the monks of St. Ulrich, at Augsburg, not a little to completing the education of Holbein as a man of the world, and grinding out the littlenesses almost inseparable from a restricted provincial bringing up ; though Augsburg was a city of great importance in those days. In October 1527, to the despair of Erasmus, his friend Froben died suddenly, aged sixty-seven. This famous printer and publisher fell down on the pavement struck by apoplexy, and so seriously injured his head by the fall, that he never recovered his senses, but died six hours afterwards. Erasmus 138 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, viil in a letter to his friend John Emsted, wrote a feeh'ng lamenta- Frobenius *ion on Froben's death, and a sincere eulogy on his hfe and and Erasmus, character.* 1521-5. Erasmus and Froben seem to have been repeatedly subjects for Holbein's pencil, though from the uniformity of character in the various portraits of them, it would appear that they did not often sit to him. Holbein seems to have had the wisdom to spare his sitters the ceremony of sitting, as much as possible. Many of his portraits are evidently painted from chalk sketches, indeed some of them are simply these sketches varnished over and heightened with a little colour. A man who possessed the power of seeing as Holbein possessed it could afford to do this, there was no fear of either hand or eye failing him. I assume that all the genuine portraits of Erasmus by Holbein, were drawn or painted in Basel, between the years 1521 and 1526, that is when he was still in the prime of his maturity, when about fifty-five years of age ; he is grey, not white, and the eye is still brilliant. It would be difficult to determine any number for the genuine portraits ; they may be several, but not many. These genuine pictures have been again multiplied by copies : most of the so-called miniatures I imagine to be careful copies or studies, made by various painters, for some of the more enthusiastic of the many admirers of Erasmus's extraordinary learning; not only in Germany but also in England, where he held the Greek professorship at Oxford, for many years. Erasmus died at Basel, July the 12th, 1536, in his seventieth year. There is a pair of portraits of Froben and Erasmus at Hampton Court, which are evidently companions, and which have hitherto been preserved as inseparable ; and I take them to be the two which were presented to Froben by Erasmus. They were given to Charles I. by the Duke of Bucking- ham ; they are Nos. 323 and 324: on the back of 323 * See Epistolarum 1). Erasmi Boterodami. Libri XXXI., &c. Folio. London 1642. Lib. XXIII. Ep. 9. 1527. FEIENDS AND PATtlONS AT BASEL. 139 was pasted a record of the gift, but the following words are all Chap, vili. that now remain legible — Frohenius and Erasmus. " This picture of Frohonus was delivered to his < 1521-5. 5^ * * * Buckingham before * * *."* The original size of these pictures was 18 i in. high by 12i in. wide ; but for some reason not very evident, unless it were to make them fit two old carved frames, two inches and a half have been added to the top of each, injuring, not improv- ing, the effect of the portraits, and involving the necessity of repainting the back-grounds, which instead of some simple foil to the heads, as Holbein commonly supplies us with, now con- sist of cold minutely elaborated Grothic pillars and arches, as if the two friends were in some gloomy church or other dismal Gothic apartment : Steenwyck the architectural painter has the credit of having furnished these back-grounds in 1629, possibly when the pictures were in Le Blond's possession. The king's brand is on the back of the added pieces. Froben's is the freer and more careless portrait of the two, and was probably first executed, but both of them appear to have been original drawings perhaps on parchment. It was Holbein's custom occasionally to attach his crayon or body- colour drawings, whether on paper, parchment, or vellum, to panels and finish them in a rough way as pictures ; the heads, and hands perhaps, being the only parts thoroughly elabo- rated : the parchment covering acting as the priming of the panel. Mr. Baring's Hans Herbster is an example of this practice; a paper drawing has I imagine been attached to wood, and is finished as an oil picture. Of course such draw- ings however masterly they may originally have been, would lose immensely by accumulations of dirt and varnish ; a varnished crayon drawing might easily be scumbled and glazed into an effective picture. Erasmus seems to have had these two pictures hinged * The words to be supplied are " lie went to the Isle of Ehee." See Walpole, Anecdotes, &g., Vol. I., p. 76, note. 140 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap^^iii. together, as he had done in the year 1518 with two other por- Frohenius "^i^aits of himself and Peter Aegidius which he sent in that andE^^rnus. year from Antwerp to Sir Thomas More. They were joined as a diptych, and as a type of the friendship by which the originals were bound ; he gave the right-hand place to Froben, who is accordingly made to be looking at Erasmus. Patin saw them in London in 1672, hinged together as described, they were then in the royal possession. He says that Le Blond, the collector already noticed, bought them in Basel for 100 gold ducats, that is he bought the Erasmus, the Froben going with it. They passed probably from Le Blond to the Duke of Buckingham. Froben is uncovered and in full profile, the portion of the ground immediately behind the head being a marine green ; on one side are a box for printers' types, and a small ink dab. Below is inscribed, though scarcely by Holbein, Ioannes Frobenivs Typ. IHOLBEm P. Erasmus is painted nearly in full face and looking down, being turned a little to the right, that is towards Froben ; he is dressed in a black furred coat, and has on a black cap ; his hands, admirably drawn, are resting on a red book ; his mouth also is exquisitely modelled; the eyes are small. Both pictures are very brown, and neither can be looked upon as a first-class example of the painter's works even at this time, though sufficiently characteristic in style ; the Erasmus is the better picture : under all circumstances however they are very precious both on account of their subjects, and of their painter. And they might be to some advantage relieved of their addi- tions, encased together in one frame, and for old association's sake, be for evermore inseparable. At King Charles's sale these pictures were valued at 100/. each.* * Ulrich Hegner, writing in 1827, says that he possessed copies of them painted in oil by Sixt Einglin in 1648, for the Fesch Museum : it woiild be interesting to compare the back-grounds of these two sets of portraits, they should be identical if copied in 1648, when the originals were in the king's possession. King Charles's pictures were sold and dispersed in 1649—1651. FEIENDS AND PATRONS AT BASEL. 14] There are other portraits of Frohen ; the Basel Museum Chap. viii. possesses one similar in character to that at Hampton Court, Frobenius but not exhibiting so decidedly the distinctive features of and Erasmus. Holbein's style at this time : it is a comparatively recent pur- chase.* Another small portrait in oil of Frobenius, ascribed to Holbein, was sold in 1842 at the Strawberry Hill sale for nineteen guineas. Among the prints of Erasmus, by far the finest head is that engraved by Yorsterman from a portrait formerly in the Arundel Collection, and now said to be in the possession of Mr. oward of Grreystoke Castle, Cumberland ; the first is dedicated to the then Earl of Arundel. The picture was bequeathed by Alathea, Countess of Arundel, to her grandson, Charles Howard, an ancestor of the present Duke of Norfolk. It is a three-quarter face looking down, the hands only partly seen are clasped in front. This G-reystoke picture, a small portrait, which I have not seen, has been assumed to be that which Erasmus sent to England in 1525 as a present from him to Sir Thomas More, and of which Erasmus wrote that it was more like him than the portrait of him painted by the famous Albert Durer. It is a pity he has told us nothing about the portrait painted of him by Quintin Matsys. All the heads of Erasmus by Holbein are very similar, as they could not avoid being, coming from the hand of a man who saw as Holbein saw. That of Diirer is not at all like them. There is a fine etching by Durer himself, of his portrait of Erasmus, in the British Museum, 10 in. high by 7i in. wide. The philosopher is standing, writing, with a reed in one hand and an ink-bottle in the other ; a vase with a few flowers and some leaves in it is standing on the table, and some books * The Basel Catalogue, 1863, is one of the worst of a very worthless lot yet sold in the German galleries ; it is not only not descriptive but does not even mention the materials or dimensions of the works enumerated ; there is literally no help in it. There is yet no catalogue whatever of the Augsburg Gallery. The men of the last century made much better books than are now sold in some galleries. 142 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. viit. are lying on a bencli in front. The etching has the following FtoI^s legend, in a tablet :— and Erasmus. ^ _ 1521.5, Imago Erasmi Koterodami ab Alberto DURERO AD YlVAM EfFIGIEM DeLINIATA THN KPEITT^} TA SYrrPAMMATA AEIZEI* MDXXVI 1526 is of course the date of the etching, not of the picture, or rather drawing, as that was executed before 1525. The mechanical work is admirably done, but the drawing is mannered, especially in the crimped draperies, and the effect is metallic ; but for the inscription one would not know that it represented Erasmus at all ; compared with such work as this the head engraved by Yorsterman, is life itself. Such a portrait, however great the manipulative skill it may display, should strongly induce us to doubt Albert Diirer's power of seeing thoroughly what was before him. We have not only Holbein's portraits to judge from, and they are quite enough, but Erasmus himself in another place tells us that Diirer's was not a bit like him.-f The " Erasmus writing," at Hampton Court (No. 331), may also be looked upon as a fine genuine portrait, though so dark and dirty, that much of the expression of the eyes is obscured. The philosopher is seated, or standing, in his ordinary cap and coat, writing in a book, he has a ring on his fore-finger, and * AEISEl? "What is written will show the better/' that is reading Set^ei for Set^et; the reader perhaps will find out the meaning for himself. t In writing to H. Botteus after Albert's death, in 1528, Erasmus says — " Pinxit me, abhinc aliquot anm's, Durerus, sed nihil simile," quoted by Hegner, p. 142. It is notable here that Erasmus speaks of this portrait as a picture, pinxit" he says, while Albert himself describes it as a drawing; at least so I understand the words " imago deliniata." This portrait if in existence as a picture is surely discoverable some- where ; but I imagine it was simply one of the many pencil di-awings he made during his tour in the Netherlands in 1520-21. Pingere seems to have been used indifferently in medieval Latin, either for to paint or to draw. FEIENDS AND PATRONS AT BASEL. 143 this, the right hand, is iu a good state, and is a fair example of Chap. VIII. Holbein's manner of painting a hand at this time. The back- prob^s ground represents a shelved recess or cupboard, with six books and^Emsmus in it : on the topmost book on the edges of the leaves, are the letters HOE — for Horace; on one beneath is NOVYM TESTAMENT. ; on another is the name of Lucian — AOYKIANOS ; and on a fourth is written the name of Jerome— HIEEONYMYS. By the side of the books is hanging a pair of pointed scissors, of very modern fashion : all reminding very much of Quintin Matsys. Everything in this picture is well defined, and the lines and touches of the original drawing are still visible beneath the brown film which covers all ; there seem to be even distinct pen hatchings among the shadows, and the whole gives the im- pression of a varnished drawing on paper or rather parchment, being merely strengthened by an oak backing. The sight measure is 19i in. high by 171 in. wide; and on the back is the brand of Charles I.— C. R. surmounted by a crown. Turned the opposite way, that is showing his left side, is another smaller " Erasmus writing with a reed," which be- longed to Charles I., but is now in the gallery of the Louvre. It is less brown and apparently more minute in its details than those above described, approximating to the character of Holbein's so-called miniature work, of which the examples are so rare, that it is difficult to acquire a satisfactory notion of it. This is a small panel of deal 16i in. high by 12i in. wide ; it has on the back the brand of Charles I., twice, and a memorandum on paper partly destroyed, similar to that at the back of Frobenius, given above, and about as incomplete : it says — Of Holbein^ this ^ ^ ^ of Erasmus Rotterdamus was given to ^ * * Prince 5y * * * Adam Newton. There is besides a red seal on the back, with the arms of the Newton family, and the device Vivit post fimera virtus. This is the portrait which Charles I., through the French ambassador the Due de Liancourt, gave to Louis XIIL, in addition to a " Holy Family " by Titian, in exchange for the fine picture of " St. John the Baptist " by Leonardo Da Yinci, 144 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. VIII. whicli is also now in the Louvre. At the sale of King Frohenius Charles's effects, a French banker of the name of Jabach pur- and Erasmus, chased the St. John, for 140/. sterling, and he ceded it to Louis XIY.* In the Basel Museum are three portraits of Erasmus ; one is the often repeated composition, where he is seen in profile, writing ; this is on parchment attached to wood, and is a dull, brown picture ; it is one of the Amerbach purchases. The other two are what are improperly termed oil miniatures ; one upright ; the other, very good, a round about four inches in diameter, already noticed as being preserved with the Holbein drawings in the Amerbach cabinet. These are carefully and solidly painted heads, but have nothing in common with miniatures strictly so called, such as professed miniature painters execute on card, ivory, and vellum ; they are simply small oil paintings, the heads occupying as much as three square inches, while the strict miniature head is often no more than half a square inch. About 17 in. by 12 in., some- times a little more, sometimes a little less, was a favourite size with Holbein for his small portraits ; about the ordinary size of a folio of parchment, or half a skin. Patin notices that Erasmus was often painted by Holbein for England, France, and elsewhere, and he enumerates six examples : the three in the Basel Museum, and the companion to the Frobenius now at Hampton Court ; one at Vienna, and that in the Louvre. The Grrey stoke picture and the portrait in which he is writing, at Hampton Court, making a seventh and eighth ; there is a drawing ascribed to him, at Stafford House. This is a considerable number, but neither the Longford picture, nor that at Windsor, nor that at Turin are yet accounted for, to say nothing of numerous copies. That at Vienna is a small picture of no remarkable cha- racter, the sage is seated, in his doctor's cap and furred coat^ with an open book before him. On wood, about 15 in. high by lOi in. wide. * Villot, Notice des Tableaux du Louvre. FEIENDS AND PATKONS AT BASEL. 145 There are several other portraits of Erasmus, smaller and Chap. vni. larger, some of which may he original 5 he was compelled jpydbmius to have some painted to please his friends, and it was ap- ^'^'^ Erasmus. parently not quite so unpleasant to himself as he would lead us to believe, in a remark he has made on the subject. All these portraits have probably been copied, more than once ; it is how- ever not to be supposed that even all the originals are by Holbein, for we know that he was painted not only by Albert Diirer, but also by Quintin Matsys, and this last name intro- duces an interesting inquiry. The portrait of Erasmus, certainly enjoying the greatest reputation, is that at Longford Castle, Wiltshire, the seat of the Earl of Radnor. Dr. Waagen says that this picture alone is worth a pilgrimage to Longford Castle : Walpole on the other hand terms it stiff and flat : I had rather in this case second Dr. Waagen's opinion. This picture was formerly in Dr. Mead's collection, and at his sale more than a hundred years ago, in 1754, was sold as a work by Holbein for one hundred and five guineas, 110/. 55. : it then passed into the pos- session of the Earl of Radnor, who also bought the Aegidius for ninety-one guineas, 95/. \\s. The composition is much the same as that at Hampton Court, No. 331. He is seated in his black cap and furred coats, the under-coat lined with sable, the upper with black fur, resting his hands on a very handsomely bound book before him, and on the gold edges of the leaves of this book, are the words, partly in Greek and partly in Roman letters— HPAKAEIOI HONOI ERASMI ROTERO— the rest of the last word being cut off by the yellow sable cuff of his coat — the Herculean labours of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Behind is a green curtain on a rod, a rich Renaissance pilaster on one side, and on the other a cup- board or shelved recess, in which are a small bottle or carafe and three books ; and here, on one of the books leaning against the bottle is the date, which is at present distinctly MDXXIII. On the edges of the leaves of this same book is a damaged Latin legend which comprises the names Joannes Holbein : it would be difficult to read all the other words. L 146 LIFE AND WOEKS OE HOLBEIN. Chap. viit. There is also at Longford Castle, a companion picture to Frobenius whicli has been its companion a long time, a portrait and Erasmus, of Peter Giles or Aegidius, a celebrated traveller, of AntM^erp, 1521-5. ^ friend of Erasmus's. He is dressed in a furred coat, and holds in his left hand a letter addressed to himself, in Antwerp, his right touches a book on which is written ANTIBAPBAPOI in Grreek capitals, his left elbow rests on this book : in the back-ground are some shelves with a gold cup and several books, ancient classical authors — Plutarch, Seneca, Suetonius, &c. On the table before him is his sand or pounce-box. The address on the letter, in which we have a facsimile, as will presently be seen, of the handwriting of Sir Thomas More, the English Chancellor, is considerably injured, but appears to be as follows : — Viro Literatissimo Petro Egidio Amico Charissimo, Anversoe. (?) When these pictures were in Dr. Mead's possession, he had the following inscriptions written on labels attached to their frames ; and they remain there still : — On that of Erasmus — " E teiiebris clarum doctrinae attoUere lumen Qui felix potuit, primus Erasmus erat." On that of Aegidius — " Aegidium musis clarum dilexit Erasmus ; Spirat ab Holbenio pictus uterque tuo and these two pictures have passed as a matter of course as portraits by Holbein, and even as exceptionally excellent examples of that painter. What follows will show that they are most probably two capital works of the " Smith of Antwerp," Quintin Matsys. Their dimensions are precisely the same — 2 ft. 5 in. high by 1 ft. 8.^ in. wide. That of Aegidius is certainly by Quintin, about the Erasmus there may be a doubt, although the two panels are so precisely the same in character that it is difficult to believe that their similarity can have been the result of accident. It appears from a letter of Erasmus, written some time in 1517,* when he was living in Antwerp, that he promised to send to Sir Thomas More two portraits, on the same piece (in eadem tabula), one of himself, and the other of his friend Aegidius. * " Epistolurum D, Erusmi Eoterodarni." Libri XXXI., &c. Folio. London, 1642. Lib. VII., Ep. 24. FEIENDS AND PATEONS AT BASEL. 147 In October 1518, these two portraits, by Qmntin Matsys, Chap. viii. were already in the possession of Sir Thomas, and on the 6th Frohenius of that month he writes news of them to Aegidius in Antwerp : miy. 1529. this to be a sufficient reason for doubting the picture : its want 21st of finish is a much better. We know that Holbein was in the Henry Vlll habit of painting from his drawings, and the drawings being made separately, and probably in different rooms and in different lights, the pictures would of necessity, from the painter's habit of strictly following his drawings, preserve their differences and individual character ; besides two lights are possible in the room, coming from opposite directions ; for in this picture the window is not darkened as in that engraved by Meckel. The fool is lighted from the window on his left, and this light extends, but with less force, to Sir Thomas ; the father however next to him, and still further from the window, is lighted from the other side, from his right, from which a light is apparently coming strong enough to counteract that of the window on the left, though we do not see its source : the two women however next to Sir John having their backs to this supposed light from the right, are not affected by it, but receive a light on their faces, coming from the window opposite to them ; and this is certainly inconsistent. The shadows of the faces are nowhere strong, and there is 'nothing offensive in this variety of lighting, which might not only be justified, but is exactly what we might expect from Holbein's practice. Even allowing the lighting therefore to violate a strict principle of unity, it is not such a peculiarity or defect as to condemn the picture as the work of a master, nor is it even absolutely an error, as it is in its principle quite consistent with ordinary circumstances, which may be seen at any time in a room lighted from different directions. A better reason for doubting its authenticity is a general flatness and want of mastery in its execution. All the hands with the exception of those of Cicely Heron are very poor; these are decidedly graceful." It is quite probable that the picture may have been com- menced though it was never thoroughly finished by Holbein, its completion having been interrupted, before his return to 240 LIPE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. xii. Basel, and no opportunity occurring afterwards to enable The More painter to complete it. Some of the accessaries, as the family. dogs, are very poor. The left hand of Margaret Roper is 21st ' very bad ; and some of the faces are quite unworthy of Henry VIII. jjQibeijj^ The floor is strewn with green rushes. I can suggest two or three causes for this interruption ; either Holbein's presentation to the king, or the fire which in August 1529 consumed a part of Sir Thomas Mores house at Chelsea, and all his barns and the corn contained in them. This is a calamity which might well disturb the ordinary routine and occupations of a family. Before its reinstatement, if not already gone previous to the fire, Holbein must have returned to Switzerland : a third reason is the painter's com- pulsory return to Basel through the long expiration of his leave of absence as a citizen ; being still bound by rights and duties there. When his house was burnt, Sir Thomas was staying with the king at Woodstock. A letter he wrote thence to his wife on the occasion is still preserved ; it is dated the 3rd of September ; the fire no doubt happened some days before ; couriers were not very expeditious in those times, and a philosopher like Sir Thomas would not write immediately on the receipt of the news. This was shortly before More was made Lord Chancellor, he was then in high favour with the king ; he had just success- fully carried out an important mission at Cambray, respecting negotiations for peace. As an illustration of the king's favour, may be related an anecdote told by his son-in-law Roper. " The king would on a sudden, come over to his house at Chelsea, and be merry with him, even dining with him without pre- vious invitation or notice." After one of these dinners, when Henry was in an unusually benevolent mood, he w^alked with Sir Thomas, for about an hour in his garden, holding his arm round his neck. When the king was gone Roper con- gratulated his father-in-law on such an extraordinary mark of favour ; as no man but Cardinal Wolsey had been so honoured before ; with him Henry had once walked arm-in-arm. " I thank our Lord," replied Sir Thomas, " I find his grace my AT SIR THOMAS MORE'S. 241 very good Lord indeed ; and I believe he doth as singularly Chap. xil. favour me as any subject within this realm. Howbeit, son Thel^e Roper, I may tell thee I have no cause to be proud thereof ; fo-miiy. for if my head would win him a castle in France, it should not 2lst^^^^' fail to go." Henry VIIL It is necessary to be particular about the time of the fire at Chelsea, if we allow it to enter into the causes which brought Holbein's first visit to this country to its conclusion. I must mention therefore that on the 5th of this same month of September Holbein had already paid Erasmus a visit at Freiburg, where the latter was then residing ; for the painter and this very family picture are the subject of remark in a letter from Erasmus to More, bearing that date. There is per- haps time enough for Holbein to have left England after the fire, and yet to have been in Freiburg on the 5th of Sep- tember, but probabilities are much against this, and I believe his departure from this country arose from other causes, which will be considered in the next chapter. Some have imagined that Holbein carried over to Erasmus a copy of the picture ; but Erasmus does not say so, and it is highly improbable that Holbein did anything of the kind, unless we accept the sketch as the copy. He spoke of and described the picture, and seems to have done more — either to have made a sketch of it from memory, or to have carried one with him from England, which I believe he did, and to have left this sketch with Erasmus. From this sketch, which is now in the museum of Basel, and which was engraved by Mechel in 17&7, Erasmus could form a perfect notion of the picture itself and write about it as if he had seen it, as the sketch would make him quite familiar with the composition. " I have no words, my friend," he says, "to express the pleasure it gave me to see that whole family brought together before me, as the painter Holbein has repre- sented it, so happily that I could have seen little more had I been present myself." All this might be as well said of the sketch in pen and ink as of a picture; and it is a fact that Erasmus does not speak of a picture, either to R 242 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XII. TJie More family. 1529. 2Ist Henry VIII. the family or to any one else * There is not, and never has been, any other " Family of Sir Thomas More" at Basel, than this 'small paper drawing ; it has all the names and ages of each inserted, in Latin, and perhaps by Erasmus himself, though the surnames are sadly disguised by bad orthography and the attempt to Latinize them together. That the sketch itself is dated 1530 is nothing against this conclusion, for, as already remarked, the date is not reproduced in Cochin's engraving, though he has inserted the words Holhem dehn. The ages further correspond with the year 1529, not 1530, so that we may conclude this date to have been added later, and after 1691, when Cochin's print was pubhshed. Sir John More died in November 1530. Mechel's print has this date, it is inscribed Johannes Holbein ad vivum delin: Londini 1530. It is much better and larger than Cochin's, being the size of the sketch— 14 in. high by nearly 20 in. wide. This sketch however is not a sketch of the large Nostell Priory picture, though it may be of that engraved by Yon Mechel, with just such minor alterations in it, as the imperfec- tion of memory would be likely to occasion, or as might take place in carrying out the design. But it is just possible that the engraving of 1794 is nothing more than an elaboration from the sketch itself. The chief differences in the composi- tions are—that in the Nostell Priory picture Elizabeth Dancy and Margaret Clement have changed places ; the hands of ^ Sir John More are concealed ; the figure of the secretary Harris is an addition ; as are also the two dogs in the fore-ground ; the monkey is altogether different ; Lady More is sitting on a kind of camp folding-stool instead of an arm-chair (?) ; there is no lighted candle on the window-ledge ; nor is there any lute hang- ing up ; the foot-stool and the four books are omitted ; and there * His words are — "Utinam liceat adhuc semel in vita videre amicos mihi charissimos, qiios in pictura Olpeinns exliibuit utcnnqne conspexi snmma cum animi mei voluptate." Freiburg, 5th September, 1529, i^pisi. Lib. XXVI. Ep. 21. Again, in a letter to Margaret Eoper, lie says—" Pictor Olbeinus totam familiam istam adeo feliciter expressam mihi representavit, nt si coram adfuis- sem non mnlto plus fuerim yisurus." Ep. 50. AT SIR THOMAS MOEE'S. 243 is a large addition to the flowers in the jugs or vases. The Chap. xil. clock is also different,* The covering of the hands in Sir Thel^e Thomas Mores portraits by Holbein is noticed by Erasmus, famihj. who explains it by remarking that they were a little clumsy 21st^^^^' or rustic, and that Sir Thomas was in the habit of concealing ^^"^y them. The inscriptions on the sketch are:— 1, Elisabeta Dancea Thomae Mori Jilia, anno 21. 2. Margareta Giga Clemetis uxor Thome Mori jiliabus condiscipula et cognata, anno 22. 3. Johannes Morus pater, anno 76. 4. Thomas Morns, anno 50. 5. Jo- hannes Mortis Thomae Jilius, anno 19. 6. Anna Grisacria Joliannis Mori sponsa, anno 15. 7. Cecilia lierona Thome Mori filia, anno 20. 8. Magareta Ropera Thome Mori Jilia, anno 22. 9. Alicia Thomae Mori uxor, anno 57 ; with the words " diese soil sitzen" above. 10. Henricus Patensonus Thome Mori morio, anno 40. And in the upper corner, on the spectator's left, is written in German character, near the hanging instru- ment, the following somewhat singular sentence — Klaficordi und ander sey te spill uf ein bretz — Olavicords and other stringed instruments on a board. The following is Walpole's criticism on the Nostell Priory picture; after indorsing Vertue's objections to its authen- ticity. Vertue, he says, considered the picture, "but in- different ; on this I lay no more stress than I do on the case of that at Burford ; but his observation that the lights and shades in different parts of the picture come from opposite sides is unanswerable, and demonstrate it no genuine picture of Holbein, unless that master had been a most ignorant dauber,t as he might sometimes be a careless painter. This absurdity Yertue accounts for, by supposing that Holbein quitted the chancellor's service for the king's, before he had drawn out the great picture, which however Sir Thomas always understood was to be executed ; that Holbein's business in- creasing upon him, some other painter was employed to begin * TMs clock is still preserved, and is now in the possession of Mr. "Waterton of Walton Hall, Yorkshire. t I have already remarked that I do not feel the force of this objection in the strong light that Walpole sees it. 244 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XII. the picture, and to which Holbein was to give the last touches ; The'm^e sliort that inimitable perfection of flesh which characterizes famihj. j^jg works. And this is the more probable, as Yertue observed 2lsV^^^* that the faces and hands are left flat and unfinished, but the Henry vni. ornaments, jewels, &;c., are extremely laboured. As the portraits of the family, in separate pieces, w^ere already drawn by Holbein, the injudicious journeyman stuck them in as he found them, and never varied the hghts,* which were disposed, as it was indifferent in single heads, some from the right, some from the left, but which make a ridiculous contradiction when transported into one piece."f The picture is without question unequal in its parts, some portions certainly being unworthy of Holbein, others though much better, still bear no trace of the great master's hand: the want of finish too is in parts apparent. The dogs are very bad, especially the foremost one ; notwithstanding all this, however, there may be a genuine Holbein ground-work beneath. The Windsor drawing, as observed, appears to be the original of all the portaits of More, in these family pictures and elsewhere ; the position and expression are in all similar, and this drawing may possibly be the only portrait taken of him by Holbein actually from the life. Of this drawing Walpole remarks — " I do not know a single countenance into which any master has poured greater energy of expression than in the drawing of Sir Thomas More, at Kensington : it has a freedom, a boldness of thought, and acuteness of penetra- tion that attest the sincerity of the resemblance. It is Sir Thomas More in the rigour of his sense, not in the sweetness of his pleasantry. Here he is the unblemished magistrate, not that amiable philosopher, whose humility neither power nor piety could elate, and whose mirth even martyrdom could not spoil. Here he is rather that single, cruel judge, whom one knows not how to hate, and who, in the vigour of abilities of knowledge, and good humour, persecuted others in defence * The idea of a journeyman altering Holbein's lights, is rather a crude one for a professed art critic. t Anecdotes of Painting. Vol. L, p. 92. Ed. 1849. AT SIE THOMAS MOEE'S. 245 of superstitions that lie himself had exposed ; and who capable Chap. xil. of disdaining life, at the price of his sincerity, yet thought that Port^s of God was to be served by promoting an imposture; who triumphed over Henry and death, and sunk to be * * * the 2ls/^^^' dupe, of the Holy Maid of Kent." Henry vm. Before leaving altogether Sir Thomas More's retreat at Chelsea, there is some account to be given of some other separate portraits of Sir Thomas and his family. The genuine portraits of Sir Thomas himself are not very numerous, though the variety of prints that bear his name, having no resemblance with each other, is something astonishing.* We have of course here to do only with Holbein's works, these are not numerous ; except in the family picture all are bust portraits with little variation ; some with a moustache and some without, and they mostly have the SS. chain on : the long beard spoken of in the story of his execution, was no doubt of prison growth. The Windsor drawing was clearly the study for the family picture, and has as surely supplied the model for all that followed it. In this drawing, taken before he was chancellor, not later than 1527, he is represented in the prime of life, with a very stern expression, and looking, as it were, into vacancy. The face in the family picture is nearly identical with this, but less stern in its expression ; it was painted also probably in 1527, but not later than 1529, as Holbein's departure in the summer of this year, and the inscriptions by the various figures of the group, all testify ; the ages of the whole family being reckoned from his year. I have already tried to account for the date 1530 being on the Basel sketch. We find this date again on another portrait of More, where it seems to have no right to be, unless as dating the copy. This is a large canvas picture of Sir Thomas and his father^ at Hutton Hal], copied apparently from the two seated figures in the Nostell Priory group, with the addition of a coat of arms, and two original inscriptions. Over the head of the father. Judge More, is written— Morus Eques Auratus unus ex Judicihus Angliae. Aetatis 77. * See the Eoyal Collection at Windsor. 246 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XII. 1530: and over the son is Thomas 3forus films et (hrsf) pdcti Fortes of JofiisMori: Eques Auratus Bos Cancel: in Anglia. Aetatis60. ^^r^' 1530. It is quite possible, though not very probable, that 21st ' the contradiction here shown is only apparent ; both Sir J ohn Henry vm. g-^, Thomas More may have still been in their respective seventy-seventh and fiftieth years when this copy was made ; the same figures representing the age of Sir Thomas in the spring of 1530 as had served for the summer of 1529: Sir John it appears had entered another year, he died in November 1530. The original sketch of the portrait of Sir John More in this and the family picture is the head among the Windsor draw- ings, and it is one of the best preserved of them. The most imposing of the portraits of Sir Thomas More, though it is not in a perfect state, is that already noticed as now in the possession of Mr. Henry Huth, formerly Mr. Farrer's. This is nearly identical with that in the family picture, except that both the hands are shown in Mr. Huth's ; and it is painted with far more force. He is seated, in a black cap, and a black gown furred with sable, the sleeves of his coat being red ; in his right hand he holds a folded piece of paper. The picture may be described as a half length ; he shows a three-quarter face turned to the left. The eyes are dark grey, and the eyehd and the inside of the right eye have been injured and improperly repaired : the expression is harsh and even repulsive ; it was painted in 1527, the figures M.D.XXYII. are in the lower right corner. In the back-ground is a green curtain. On oak, about 2 ft. 5 in. high, by 2 ft. wide. A similar portrait, on canvas, a copy, is in the possession of Mr. Charles J. Eyston, at East Hendred, Berkshire. The Marquis of Lothian possesses another copy of it. In Yander- doort's catalogue of Charles I.'s pictures, is the following entry — No. 48, Sm Thomas More, in a black cap and furred gown, with red sleeves. Wood, circular, 4 in. in diameter. It is from the family picture of the Mores that we learn, that the portraits of nearly all its members are preserved among the Windsor drawings ; and they are among the best of the AT SIR THOMAS MOEE'S. 247 series.* They are executed on plain white paper, before Holbein Chap. xil. adopted that system, of questionable advantage, of spreading a Portraits of tempera wash, in salmon colour as a primiug, over his paper, as ^^^^^^^^ a preliminary operation to aid in the production of a flesh tint 21st before commencing his drawing : the More drawings are also ^^^^^ on larger paper than many of the others, being about 1 5 inches by 11. In the original catalogue found with these drawings, in Kensington Palace, the names of those represented are nearly all supplied, apparently from those written on the drawings, by Sir John Cheke, tutor to Edward YI., but these names are not always to be depended on ; many of them are erroneous ; for instance Elizabeth Dancy is called Lady Barkley; and Margaret Clement is misnamed Mother Jack, or Jackson, the nurse of Edward YI. If this Mrs. Jack, or Jackson is known by tradition to be among these drawings, she must be sought for among the yet unnamed female portraits of the series, of which there are eleven. That of the youngest daughter Cicely Heron is the anonymous portrait which was so admirably engraved in facsimile by F. C. Lewis, but which Chamber- laine would not make use of in his publication,! in case its superior excellence should have so overwhelmed the copies engraved by Bartolozzi, as to interfere with the sale of his work, \N\i\c\iprofessed to be a series of facsimiles of the original drawings. It is much to be regretted that so many of these valuable drawings should have nearly perished. Their method is against their durability. They appear to be executed in charcoal, then tinted with red chalk, and finally strengthened with touches with the brush and Indian ink. Some are so worn by time and friction, that little more than the Indian-ink touches is preserved. To return to the portraits of More ; Henry YIII. possessed * Their names are already given above, p. 217. t Imitations of- original Drawings by Hans Holbeiii, in the Collections of His Majesty, for the portraits of illustrious persons of the court of Henry VHI. With Biograpliical Tracts. By J. Cham- berlaine, 83 plates. 2 vols., folio. Lon- don, 1792. See the catalogue of -these drawings in the Appendix. 248 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap^ii. one of which there is a curious story in Baldinucci,* that I Portraits of have not come upon elsewhere. This picture, which he terms ^""1529. ^ stupendous portrait, Henry YIII. kept in an apartment 21st together with those of some other eminent men. It happened Henry YIH. ^^i^^ on the very day of the ex- chancellor's death (after the king had reproached her), the wicked Queen Anne Boleyn cast her eyes upom it, and seeing the expressive face of her enemy looking at her as if he were still living — she never forgave his refusal to be present at her wedding — she was seized with a feeling of either horror or remorse, and unable to endure the steady gaze and the reproaches of her own conscience, she threw open the window of the palace, and ex- claiming " Oh me ! the man seems to be still alive," flung the picture into the street: a passer-by picked it up and carried it away, and eventually it found a resting-place in Eome, where in Baldinucci's time it was still preserved in the Palazzo de' Crescenzi. The story I assume travelled to Eome with the picture.! We may apply an Italian saying to this anecdote— 56 non e vero, e hen trovato — though it may not be true, it's not a bad story. There is a good small portrait on panel of Sir Thomas More, in the Louvre, a three-quarter face turned to his left, which belonged to Louis XIV, ; he wears his cap and furred robe and holds in his right hand a gold cross which hangs on a chain round his neck ; in his left hand he holds a folded pa^er : it is 15 i in. high by about 12 in. wide. This Louvre picture may possibly be that with the eventful history in question. Francesco Scannelli, in his Microcosmo delta Pittura, who wrote a genera- tion earlier than Baldinucci, mentions, in an admirable passage concerning Holbein, a small portrait of extraordinary excel- lence, in the possession of Monsignor Campori, in Rome. It is of course impossible to identify a picture by such a descrip- tion, as long as we cannot trace its passage from one possessor * Notizie dei Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qua, &c. Dec. IV., del Sec. IV. Giovanni Holbeen. t I find no account of such a portrait in Eome now, nor do I know what this Palazzo de' Crescenzi, if it exist, may at present be called ; the name is still pre- served in one of the streets of Eome. AT SIR THOMAS MOEE'S. 249 to another : for identity here we must assume that the picture Chap. xii. passed from Monsignor Campori to the Orescenzi family, and p^rtT^s of from them to Louis XIY. Scannelli mentions two other ^^re. portraits in the highest terms of commendation, one of which 2ls/^^^*. we can fortunately identify as the magnificent half-length Henry vm. known as "Mr. Morett," now in the gallery at Dresden. Indeed the whole passage of Scannelli is of that interest that it deserves to be quoted in full ; even at the expense of a little anticipation as regards Mr. Morett, whose picture belongs certainly to the period of Holbein's second visit to England : — "There was also lately among ultramontane painters a Hardness of certain Olbeno, a highly quaHfied master, and in painting individual portraits verily stupendous. It is true in his execu- tion there is something of that native hardness which belongs to his country in other respects; yet through his extreme diligence and truthful fidelity to nature, it shows a high degree of perfection. As we see, for example, in the already noticed gallery of H.S.H. the Duke of Modena, where there is a half- length portrait by him which in its exact imitation of nature is quite wonderful. A similar excellence is shown in the small portrait by the same master, now at Eome in the possession of Monsignor Campori. And again perhaps even still more excellent than any other picture by this artist is that at Verona in the gallery of Cortoni, also a half-length figure, a stupendous work, in everything complete."* Scannelli, observe, is not an indiscriminate eulogist ; he felt something he was not accustomed to find combined with the highest excellence, yet even Leonardo da Yinci or Eaphael and certainly other first-class Itahan painters, are often quite as hard as Holbein : it is really the precision of nature which we find in Holbein, but without those embellishments or modifications which the consummate artist has often known how to apply to his work to harmonize it and subject it to a pleasing general effect which has a special charm in art. We * 11 Microcosmo della Pittura, di Francesco Scannelli da Forli. 4to Cesena 1657. L. II., p. 265. 250 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, xil look at nature with two eyes, we see accordingly no positive HardZ^s of Outline ; we see indeed two outlines to everything we look at, manner. one accordinp'lv modifies the other, and the whole is softened 21st ' in effect though sharp enough in reality. In a picture we see Henry vin. ^j^g ^^^q outHne with each eye ; exactly the opposite process therefore takes place, for while in viewing an object in the round we halve the cutting effect of the outline, in the flat we have a twofold impression of it, one from each eye. It is quite just therefore that the boundary lines of objects, and their parts should be subdued in painting; as in binocular vision there is no such thing as a cutting line in nature. Holbein though often, has by no means always neglected this refinement of the parts. He is indeed soft and general enough in his drawings, which are not minutely elaborated, but when he came to make out all the parts in the pictures he painted from these drawings, and probably often without nature to assist him, he fell into the fault of being over precise, or of elaborating a too positive expression of the minuti^ as mere component parts of what it was really his object to reproduce. I do not object to this precision and truth, a little distance modifies it, and it is certainly infinitely superior to that negligent handling which seems to have no other end than to produce a general effect, and is too often the mere cloak of incapacity; the "slobbering" of the infant artist who has commenced painting before he has learnt to make a proper use of his eyes. Men are not always in a perfectly efficient state. The sort of mastery which we admire in Yelazquez, is shown by Holbein occasionally, and certainly often in the little figures of his " Dance of Death," where by a few touches in the right place he has perfectly accomplished the desired expression. Yelazquez, Eubens, Yandyck, Rembrandt, or Reynolds, the great masters of handling, could do no more ; but how often both Rembrandt and Reynolds have missed the mark. A man who affects this style of execution should never miss the mark : he is the great master or nothing. Sir Joshua Reynolds in the group of views of the same child's face, in the National Grallery, called AT SIE THOMAS MOEE'S. 251 " Heads of Angels " is the great master, because every touch is Chap, xil not only wlmt it ought to be, but where it ought to be : in the Hard^s of large " Holy Family " close to it, he is nothing, or worse than *^«^««er. nothing, a mere brush driver, there is scarcely a touch either 2lst what it ought to be, or where it ought to be. '^Qmj Yin. There can be no doubt about a certain "dryness" as Sir Joshua terms it about some of Holbein's portraits, more par- ticularly of his English period, when I imagine he more frequently than formerly trusted to his own chalk sketch as his model, rather than to nature : yet there is no dryness whatever about the drawings themselves, the works he did execute from nature. There is none of this dryness in his best earlier works executed at Basel, which were apparently painted or completed directly from nature, as for example the portrait of Boniface Amerbach, or that of his own wife and children. Sir Joshua in his " Notes" on some pictures at the Hague fully appreciates Holbein's fine colour, but seems to consider his dryness or hardness of manner somewhat fatal. Still considering the diversity of method in the manner of the two painters, his estimate of the German is a high one, though coming upon Holbein at once from the unsurpassable colour- ing and force of Rembrandt ; a severe test to his simple portraiture. Speaking of the fine picture of Henry's falconer, Cheseman, with a falcon on his fist, a bust, small life-size, now in the gallery of the Hague, Reynolds says* — " A portrait by Hol- bein ; admirable for its truth and precision and extremely well coloured. The blue flat ground which is behind the head gives a general effect of dryness to the picture : had the ground been varied, and made to harmonize more with the figure, this portrait might have stood in competition with the works of the best portrait painters." On it he says is written Henry Cheseman, 1533." This is inaccurate, and the ground is a kind of marine green not blue. All the catalogues of this * A Journey to Flanders and Holland in the year 1781. Works, Vol. 11. 252 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. xij. collection describe him as " Robert Cbeseman ;"* and the Hard^s of i^iscription is — RoBERTUs Cheseman. Aetates. su^ XLYIII. manner. AnNO DM. MDXXXIII. 21st " * Though there may be a comparative dryness or positiveness Henry vni. many of the portraits of Holbein I do not admit a want of harmony in them ; a general truth implies a harmony ; in- distinctness and obscurity are not harmony. If every object is true in itself and as a component part true relatively to other component parts, it must be a harmony, and is in itself a living work of art. Whether such a work of art in painting can or ought to be thoroughly separated from, or made independent of its back-ground, is a fair question. In looking at an acquaintance, we certainly do not either look at or see the back-ground, but it is always there ; we can look at it if we choose, and when we do we see something that has little or nothing to do with our acquaintance. In a painted portrait we must certainly have the ground, and doubtless the greatest masters have done well when they have so toned this ground into retirement, that we overlook it. In Holbein's grounds there are often two conventionalisms : he made them generally of a greenish hue, choosing this colour perhaps with the view of heightening the effect of the flesh tones, and he also very often wrote the person's name or date on this ground, in such case certainly treating it as if it were something utterly distinct from the portrait ; a proceeding which true imitative art must reject. Still as Holbein has sometimes made his ground and his picture distinct, we may also judge them as two, and not require them to be a perfect harmony, we must look at the picture, separating it, in such cases from its ground, as we invariably separate it from its frame. Holbein's portraits themselves are always living harmonies. In his drawings where we have no back-grounds we feel this distinctly enough : many of these drawings are extremely free and yet accurately true, and as nearly perfect as the work of man can be. Many men have given us fine effects, but few indeed have * " Eobert Chescman, eenen valk op cle vuist hebbende." AT SIE THOMAS MOEE'S. 253 worked like Holbdn, and one should be sorry for the sake of a Chap. xil. few more fine effects, to give up the living harmonies of this j^ardness of remarkable painter. We feel as if we had known or seen the 'man7m\^ men that Holbein has painted; he has reproduced nature, 21st while your clever painters have only too often used nature as a mere means of showing their own cleverness. A SWISS LADY, CHAPTER XIII. HOL?.ETN VISITS BaSEL AND COMPLETES THE PAINTTNGS OF THE TOWN-IIALL, BUT WITHIN TWO YEARS RETURNS AGAIN TO England. Chap. XIII. Tie returns home, 1529-31. 22iid & 23r(i Henry YIU. F Holbein's return to tlie city of his adoption in 1529 there can be no question, but the exact duration of the visit we do not know. He was still in Basel in October 1531, and was apparently much employed there : his chief work being the completion or continuation of the paintings of the council-hall of the new Rath-house. As I have assumed Holbein to have been hitherto orderly in his proceedings, both in his coming and in his going, his return to Basel must be looked upon as a matter of necessity. That it was delayed so long was no doubt owing to the constant occupation which followed his introduction to, and the hearty reception he received from, Sir Thomas More. But in 1529 the painter's intercourse with the chancellor must have much diminished : in the summer of this year Sir Thomas took part in the negotiation of the peace of Cambray, and was absent for some time in the Netherlands, and after his return home he went to the king at Woodstock, as recorded. After the completion (?) of the picture of the More family, Holbein may have felt himself at liberty to return home, in compliance possibly as much with his own wishes to rejoin his HE VISITS BASEL. 255 family as with the desire of the authorities of Basel, who were Chap. xiir. anxious for the return of a painter highly prized and honoured He returns' by the dignitaries of so great a prince as the King of England ■ 1529-31. his two years' leave of absence had certainly expired, and he 22nd & 23rd was bound to return according to the laws of the munici- ^^^^^ pality, unless by neglecting the duties of citizenship, he should forfeit its rights also. No citizen of Basel could enter the service of any foreign prince without the consent of the city ; according to an order of the Great council, dated Saturday after St. Luke's day, in the year 1521. By this order it was illegal for any man, subject to the jurisdiction of Basel, either personally, or through any member of his family or any one belonging to him, to take or receive any pension or service money from any (foreign) prince, lord, or community whatever ; and as I understand the order, all were liable to be put to the oath on this matter.* The condition of Basel held out but few inducements to the Religious visit of an artist at this time. Eeligious dissensions had reached that pitch in 1529, that many of its principal residents had been forced to emigrate, and among these were Erasmus, the Burgomaster Meier zum Hasen, and some other of Holbein's friends and patrons. Erasmus gives a sad picture of the animosity of the reformers, incensed by the only too universal gross abuse of images by the Roman ecclesiastics, and accordingly the Iconoclasts showed as little discrimination in their throwing down, as the others had shown in their setting up. Erasmus, in a letter to his, and Albert Dllrer's, friend Pirkhaimer, dated the 9th of May of this year, says, that there was not a statue left in its place, neither in the churches, nor in the vestibules, nor in the porches; not one even in the * Sonnabend nach Lucse 1521 wiarde vom Grossen Eath eidlicli yerordnet: dass Niemand zu Stadt undLand kiinftig zu ewigen zeiten, weder durch sich selbst, scin weib oder hausgesind, noch niemand anders, koine pension noch dienstgeld von Keinem Fiirsten, Herrn, Commiin, noch niemand anderm bei seinem gesch- wornen Eide erwerben, haben, nehmen noch empfangen soUe." — Ochs, GeschicMe der stadt Basel, &c. Vol. V., p. 367, Quoted by Hegner. 256 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIII. monasteries. The wall-paintings were all whitewashed over ; Beligious what could be burnt was cast into the flames, and what not, disturhames. ^^s broken to pieces. Neither the intrinsic value, nor the 22iid & 23rd merit, of a work of art was of any avail to save it.* The Henry VHI. (destruction was the more complete, because many were the destroyers of their own property, out of a spirit of fanatical reaction. Still something was saved, not a few having been removed or concealed; several however of Holbein's own works perished, though some were in a manner afterwards restored, as already related of the " Last Supper " in the Basel Museum. Frescoes in It was during this first return, in 1530, that Holbein the Rathnaus. i i i • • completed the pamtmg of the council-chamber, and for which he received the payments already given, during the summer and autumn of this year, amounting to 72 florins.t He received accordingly 60 florins each for the two first walls painted, and 72 for the third containing the two large frescoes, making 36 florins for a single composition, which was then in Basel a fair remuneration for a picture containing even thirty or forty figures. Holbein's figures were less than life-size. On the 7th of October 1531 he received 14 florins as payment for some paintings of the two clocks of the Ehinthor — orna- mental or storied dials ? — " von beden Uren am Ehinthor zmalen" From these accounts it would appear that Holbein was absent from England in 1529, 1530, and part of 1531, over two years ; there are certainly no traces of his presence in this country during that interval. He must have returned to England agreeably to the regulations of the town council, as appears from the Burgomaster Meier's kind letter of recal in 1 532, quoted at the end of this chapter. When the council- chamber was once finished there seems to have been a total lack of worthy employment to detain him, satisfactorily to himself, * "StatTianim nihil relictum est, nec in templis, nec in vestibnlis, nec in por- ticibus, nec in monasteriis. Qnicquid erat pictarum imaginnm, calcea incrus- tura oblitum est ; qnod erat capax ignis in rogum- conjectum est, quod seciis frustnlatim comminutum. Nec pretium nec ars impetrayit, ut ctiiquam omnino parceretur." t His-Heusler, Uber Hans Hdlein, &c., p. 358. EETEENS AGAIN TO ENGLAND. 257 from returning to his wealthy, commercial, and courtly patrons Chap. xiii. in England. „ , . ^ IsacK again In the close of 1531 therefore when Holbein possibly re- in London. Visited England, he must have located himself elsewhere than 23rd ' with Sir Thomas More, now Lord High Chancellor : some few ^^^^ years later he was settled in the parish of St. Andrew Under- shaft. We know less how or when the painter came on his se- cond visit, than we do concerning his first journey here. When he was introduced to the king is also unknown, though we have a little romance about the circumstances of the introduction, in the account of Van Mander. At an entertainment given by Sir Thomas More to the king, his majesty expressed great admiration for some pictures by Holbein, which the chancellor had designedly placed in the king's way, and of course hke a loyal subject he offered these pictures to the king. Henry however inquired for the painter, and when informed that he was at his majesty's service, he declined Sir Thomas's gift ; remarking that possessing the painter himself, he could have pictures at command. I give this story as I find it : that Holbein was presented to the king, and entered his service is certain, but when these events took place there is no evidence to show, within a year or two. It is easy to add conjecture to conjecture, but failing facts even conjectures may sometimes be tolerable. It is possible that this introduction took place before Holbein returned to Basel, but if so it was followed by no immediate results ; he did not enter into the king's service at that time, nor can he have had any hopes of so doing, or he would not have returned to Switzerland and remained away from England so long. Having once experienced the difference between a great capital and a small provincial town, Holbein can have had no patience to contentedly settle down in the latter, especially after his comparatively brilliant career in England. Having satisfied the demands of citizenship and exhausted the art demands of Basel, he would necessarily hanker after the land of his prosperity : there was nothing to keep him in Basel, but his family ties, and these we know were s 258 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIII. Bach again m London. 1531. 23rd Henry VIII. The Merchants of the Steelyard. 1532. 24tli Henry VIII. not very strong. It is quite possible also that his wife should be content that her husband should reside where the better harvest was to be reaped, and his power of assisting her would be greater. There is nothing remarkable therefore in his releasing himself from Basel as soon as possible ; and as he left his wife and family behind him, it was only prudent to depart with the sanction of the authorities of the city. But it would seem that on this occasion his leave of absence was for one year only, as he was recalled or desired to return in 1532, as will be shown presently : he did not however immediately comply, notwithstanding the flattering form in which the invitation was communicated to him. Of the year 1531 we have no known works by Holbein, in England, miniatures or otherwise ; even if known to the king at this time he was certainly not in his service. I am aware of several miniatures of an earlier date than this ascribed to Holbein, but independent of the absence of all corroboration of these pretensions, in the style of the drawings themselves, there are sufficient historical data to prove that several are certainly erroneously ascribed to him — some of these will be noticed in detail presently. Of the year 1532 we have several dated portraits, but these are chiefly of Germans, apparently merchants settled here ; and this would seem to show that Holbein had no special patronage to cause his return to England, no individual great patron to supply the place of Sir Thomas More. He might have felt himself quite justified in venturing his fortunes in London, on the mere strength of the reputation he had al- ready acquired, by the many excellent works he had produced during his first visit ; he had of course also made numerous acquaintances, and it is but natural that he should be more closely allied with his own countrymen, many of whom were settled in London, than with foreigners. Among the portraits of this year ascribed to Holbein we have those of two German merchants, dated : George Gyzen, at Berlin ; and the nameless member of the Stahlhof or Steel- yard, at Windsor. The latter " a merchant, in a black cap, and KETUENS AGAIN TO ENGLAND. 259 a knife in his hand, about to cut the seal of a letter," is said to Chap. xili. have been presented by Sir Harry Yane to Charles I., but it y/^^ does not bear that kind's brand on the back, though such a Merchants of • • -IT • XT 1 1 / 1 the Steelijard. portrait is mentioned as above m v anderdoort s " Catalogue, ' 1532. No. 29, "a Whitehall piece," by Holbein, and it is valued in Hg^^^y vm the inventory of the king's pictures at 100/. It is the portrait of a youngish man with a brown beard, on an oak panel, 2 feet high by nearly 19 inches wide, the grain of the wood running transversely. He is dressed in a black furred surcoat, and is seated at a table, about to open a letter, by cutting its string with a knife ; the address on the letter is not now legible, the only distinct word being Stallhoff; the first words may be Dem Ersamen Heinrich — showing that he was one of the Hanse merchants of the " Steelyard " in Thames Street. Lying on the table before him, is a piece of paper, on which he has written — Anno Dm. 1532 am (?) 26 Juli/. Aetatis suae * * the age being defaced : near this paper are also some gold pieces, and a seal with a W for its device. The painting is somewhat dry and brown, being neither so rich nor transparent in colour as his earlier works, and shows the characteristic liny beard of Holbein's portraits : the back- ground is of a raw umber hue, and has a shadow from the head cast upon it. The true colouring of this picture is some- what obscured by dirt. The superb portrait at Berlin is painted with a different Qeorg Oyze. palette, it is not more accurately executed than the Windsor picture, but is more delicate in its details, and much richer in colour ; indeed it shows the highest Flemish finish, and is so delicate, so rich and clear in colour, as to unavoidably suggest a different hand from that which produced the other authentic works of our painter, of this time ; though there may have been sufficient reasons for the extra care bestowed on this remarkable portrait, which is however unusually large for Holbein. The picture is on oak, about 3 ft. 5 in. high by 3 ft. wide, and was formerly in the Solly Collection : the ground is green. The merchant, whose name is inscribed on the picture s 2 260 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIII. Gr. Gyze, wliicli is said to be a Flemish name, is seated at a Georg~Gyze T"icl:ily-covered table, in bis office, about to open a letter, and is 1532. surrounded by every kind of accessary that could well be Henry YnL found in a merchant's counting-house, with the superfluous but agreeable embellishment of a glass of flowers exquisitely painted. He has on a red coat, and a black cap and overcoat. That so elaborate and perfect a work of art should not be inscribed with the name of the painter, is somewhat remark- able, and certainly to be regretted ; the age of the subject and the year are given — Anno Aetatis suae XXXIIII. Anno Dora, 1532, and apparently his motto — nulla sine merore voluptas. Without going so far as to deny this picture to Holbein, I may be allowed to assert perhaps that there were certainly other painters living at the time who were also quite capable of producing such a work, some I have already noticed, as for example the Flemish Yan Cleef, and others that I have mentioned. I give the reader the advantage of Mr. Euskin's glowing description of the picture.* " In the portrait of the Kaufmann George Gyzen, every accessary is perfect with a fine perfection : the carnations in the glass vase by his side — the ball of gold, chased with blue enamel, suspended on the wall — the books — the steelyard — the papers on the table, the seal-ring, with its quartered bearings — all intensely there, and there in beauty of which no one could have dreamed that even flowers or gold were capable, far less parchment or steel. But every change of shade is felt, every rich and rubied line of petal followed ; every subdued gleam in the soft blue of the enamel and bending of the gold touched with a hand whose patience of regard creates rather than paints. The jewel itself was not so precious as the rays of enduring light which form it, beneath that errorless hand. The man himself what he was — not more ; but to all con- ceivable proof of sight — in all aspect of life or thought — not less. He sits alone in his accustomed room, his common work laid out before him ; he is conscious of no presence, assumes no * CornMll Magazine, March I860, p. 326. EETUENS AGAIN TO ENGLAND. 261 dignity, bears no sudden or superficial look of care or interest, Chap. xill. lives only as he lived— but for ever. Oeo^yze. "Jt is inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards, 1532. the attention with a continually-increasing sense of wonder- Henry vni. fulness. It is also wholly true. So far as it reaches, it con- tains the absolute facts of colour, form, and character, rendered with an unaccusable faithfulness. * * What of this man and his house were visible to Holbein, are visible to us : * * if we care to know anything concerning them^ great or small, so much as may by the eye be known is for ever knowable, reliable, indisputable." The fact that this Gryzen was a London merchant is in favour of Holbein's authorship of the picture ; but the address on a letter in his hand, does not contain the word Stahlhof, which we find on several other of the portraits of these G-erman merchants ; he may however have been a member of the company notwithstanding. On one of the letters he holds is distinctly written the following address — Dem ersamen herrn Jerg Gyzen zu Lunden in engelant minem hroder to henden. To the honourable Herr Greorge Gryzen in London, in England, my brother, to be delivered into his hands. His name was possibly Gryze, as in the picture, Gyzen being only the accusative case. The portraits of Derick Born at Windsor, and of Greryck Tybis at Vienna, both beariug the date 1533, seem to be also of members of this same German society. While speaking of portraits of the Hanse merchants of the The Stahlhof or Steelyard, I take the opportunity of mentioning the ^l^^^yj^ two allegorical compositions of " Eiches " and " Poverty," which Holbein executed for the Guild-hall of those merchants in Thames Street, probably in or about this year 1532, though there are no data from which their exact time can be fixed. The pictures themselves which were in tempera, and of a large size, have apparently long since perished ; the composi- tions however, are preserved to us in various drawings, including one possibly original sketch by Holbein himself, and now in the British Museum. This privileged company of German merchants was dispersed 262 LITE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. xni. by Queen Elizabeth in 1598, and the Steelyard closed for y;^^ some years; the two pictures were in 1617* presented by the Merchants of merchants' representative to Henry Prince of Wales, a known 1532. lover 01 the arts ; and on that prince s premature death they Henry vin ^PP®^^ have passed into the possession of his brother, afterwards Charles I. They are said to have perished with other valuable works at Whitehall, in the fire which destroyed that palace in January 1698. Such is the conjecture of some ; but as Felibien in his Entretiens on the Lives and Works of celebrated Painters, speaks of, and describes, these two pictures as seen by him in Paris, many years before that date,f I imagine it to be more probable that they shared the fate of the majority of King Charles's collections which were dispersed in Cromwell's time, and were sent abroad, and they may therefore possibly still be in existence. Further, Sandrart in his autobiography describes these two compositions, as seen by him in the " Long Gallery " at Arundel House — whether pictures or drawings he does not say ; he notices them as the chief of Holbein's works belonging to the earl, and after them he describes three portraits by Holbein, as hanging in the same gallery : — Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and a princess of Lorraine proposed to by Henry YIII. (Duchess of Milan?). This was in 1627 — they may have been presented to the earl by the king. It is under these circumstances very improbable that they were in Whitehall in 1697. These are the two compositions sketched by Zucchero in 1574, as recorded by Yan Mander. He copied them, and those drawings came afterwards into the possession of Crozat. Yorsterman, jun., engraved prints from these drawings, or at least from the " Poverty ;" Yertue never succeeded in finding a print of the " Riches." He discovered two drawings at Buckingham House, * See Dr. Lappenberg's Urkundliche Oeschichte des Eansischen Stahlhofes zu London. 4to. Hamburgh, 1851. § 7. Die gemaelde von Holbein, p. 82. They were given to the prince on the 22nd January, 1616-17. The house itself which occupied the site of the new station of the South Eastern EaUway as far as Thames Street, was burnt in the great fire of 1666, but was afterwards rebuilt. t Entretiens sur les vies et sur les Ouvrages des plus escellens peintres, &c. 2 vols. 4tp. Paris, 1666. EETUENS AGAIN TO ENGLAND. 263 in black and white chalk, with coloured skies, which he Chap, xiil assumed to be those made by Yorsterman for the purpose of y^/^g engraving the compositions. Walpole however who after- ^erchmitsof wards purchased them did not agree with Vertue, but has 1532. conjectured that the " Triumph of Riches " was Y orsterman's, yjjj and the " Triumph of Poverty " Zucchero's.* The British Museum possesses what is considered an original sketch of the " Riches " by Holbein himself ; it is drawn with the pen and washed with Indian ink ; is about 10 in. high by 2 2 wide ; and by the side of it is now hanging f a curious old etching of a portion of it, but differing in many minute details, inscribed John Borg'*'- Floret"- 1561 ; it was executed in Antwerp : the artist appears to be unknown. On the same screen with these two are two large drawings with the pen, and washed with bistre, of the same compositions, by John Bischop, a Dutch artist who died in 1686. They may have been done from the originals after they were taken to Holland, before 1666. The "Triumph of Riches" measures about 13 in. high by 30 wide, that of " Poverty," about 13 in. high by 18 wide. They are in a good bold style and executed with great detail. To judge from the above traces of these two great composi- tions, almost the only so-called historical works painted by Holbein in England, they were executed in a large style and bold manner, and displayed considerable resources of invention and composition. The subjects had reference to the pursuits of the Hanse merchants, the acquiring of Riches and the escaping from Poverty, though from their details one might imagine that Holbein considered poverty however repulsive to be less dangerous than riches. The " Triumph of Plutus " was much the larger composi- " The tion : the god is seated in a magnificent car, drawn by four ^S?? '^•^ white horses ; he is enthroned on a high back seat, and is an * They passed from tlie Strawberry- Hill collection into that of Sir Charles Eastlake, who eventually bought them : they were sold at the sale in 1842 for 16?. 16s. They are engraved in Waagen's " Handbook of Painting," 1860. t On a screen in the King's Library, see Mr. Carpenter's " Guide to the Draw- ings and Prints exhibited to the Public, in the King's Library." 1865. 264 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. "The Triumph of Piiches." 1532. 24th Hem-y Vin. Chap. XIII. old man nearly bent double ; his gold is spread before him. In front of him on a globe is seated blind Fortune scattering coins to some who . are rushing forward for her favours. The charioteer is called Ratio ; the four horses are named Avaritia, Impostura, Usura, and Contractus ; the two off horses are ridden by Liheralitas and 'Aequalitas, while the two on the near side are led by Bonafides and Justicia ; the reins are labelled Notitia and Voluntas : on either side is a crowd of followers, many are burdened by. the weight of their purses or bags of gold, and all have historical names connected with riches, attached to them ; the first is Sichaeus, among the last is Cleopatra, apparently the only woman among them. Nemesis is hovering in the clouds in the rear of the whole. On this drawing are written two lines, on the evils attending wealth, said to have been furnished by Sir Thomas More : — Aurum blanditiae pater est natusque doloris Qui caret hoc moeret, qui tenet hie metuit. The same lines were placed over the centre doorway of the Stahlhof building in Thames Street. Poverty or Penury, an old woman, over whom is the Greek word IIENIA,* is drawn in a dilapidated waggon with a straw roof by two asses and two oxen ; in the cart with her are Industria, Usus, and Memoria in front, and Infortunium behind ; Spes is driving. The names of the asses are Stupiditas and Ignavia, and those of the oxen Negligentia and Pigritia ; the animals are led by Moderatio, Solicitudo, Diligentia, and Labor : among the crowd of workmen and poor wretches escorting her are Mendicitas and Miseria, On a tablet suspended to a tree, are the following lines, pointing out the instability of fortune and glory, and dwelling "The Trium'ph of Poverty." * Sandrart in his description of these compositions as he saw them at Arundel House, calls this old woman Hecale (Hecate?) the name or word is Penia (ILevia) as given above, and means simply poverty or penury. There was no such goddess. I have never seen the name given in any account of these composi- tions, yet it is plain enough on the Museum drawing. Sandrart's Hecale is an enigma. Vorsterman's print has Naenia, EETUENS AGAIN TO ENGLAND. 265 on the security and hopeful peace of poverty ; also ascribed to Chap. Xill. Sir Thomas More : — « The Triumph of Mortalium jucunditas volucris et pendula Poverty." Movetur instar turbinis quem. nix agit sedula. 24tli^^^^' Quid ergo confiditis in gloria ? Henry VIII. Qui dives est penuriam formidat ignobilem, Instabilis fati rotam semper timet mobilem Degitque vitam prope fallibilem. Qui pauper est nihil timet, nihil potest perdere Sed spe bona laetus sedet, nam sperat acquirere, Discitque virtute Deum Colere. This is the place to notice Holbein's recal to Basel by the BecaiUd to . . 1 • Basel Burgomaster Jacob Meier (zum Hirschen, not he who is painted in the Meier altar-piece) : the letter is dated Monday the 2nd of September 1532, and is as follows, commencing in the third person but continuing in the second : — " To Master Hans Holbein the Painter, now in England. " We Jacob Meier, Burgomaster and councillor of the city of Basel, send greeting herewith, and announce to our beloved burgess Hans Holbein, that it would give us great pleasure if you would return home again as speedily as possible. So will we, in order that you may be in a better condition to support your wife and child, at home, grant you an allowance of thirty pieces of money yearly, till something better can be done for you in accordance witb our friendly desire towards you : this we wish you to be informed of to avoid future misunderstanding."* * A literal translation of this letter being next to impossible if the sense of the English is to be preserved, I add the original : — Meister Hansen Holbeia dem Mahler, jetzt in England. Wir Jacob Meier Biirgermeister und Eath der Stadt Basel, entbieten hiemit unserm lieben Burger, Hansen Holbein, unsern Gruss, nnd dabei zu. vernehmen, dass es uns gefallen woUte, dass du dich zum forderlichtsten wieder anheim verfUgest, So wollen wir, damit du desto besser bey haus bleiben. dein weib und kind ernahren mogest, dich des Jahrs mit dreyssig Stiicken Geldes, bis wir dich besser versehen mogen, freundlich bedenken und ver- sehen; (solches) haben wir dir, dich hienach wiisstest zu verhalten, nicht unangezeigt wollen lassen. Datum Mon- tags 2 September 1532. Ochs, Oeschichte, &c., V. 395; Hegner, Hans Holbein, &c., 242. His-Heusler quotes this letter ia its original form; the words are the same though the spelling is very dif- ferent. 266 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIII, It is surmised that Holbein received this missive in the Becaiiedto autumn while present with the court at Calais, but I have ^'^^1532 fo^^d corroboration of the surmise, nor is there any 24th ' evidence that he ever got it or ever visited Basel in con- Hem-yYin. geq^g^^e of its summons. Dr. Waagen records the fact as ascertained, quoting Hegner, who makes no such assertion, and he farther couples his statement with an extraordinary mistake both in the time and circumstances of the occasion. He says,* " This communication only reached the artist in 1533, on the occasion of the accompanying King Henry to the celebrated meeting with Francis I., called the Field of the Cloth of Goldy The famous meeting referred to, as is well known, took place in June 1520 ; and the next meeting with which Dr. Waagen has confounded this interview, occurred in October 1532, when Anne Boleyn accompanied the kiug as Marchioness of Pembroke, and when it is quite possible that ^ Holbein was present ; he may accordingly have then received at Calais the kind summons of the Burgomaster of Basel. Holbein's reported second visit to Basel is assumed (but not proved) to have taken place in the end of 1532 and in the beginning of 1533, he, instead of returning with the court to England, having prosecuted his journey to Switzerland, where the friendly feeling of the authorities towards him, enabled him apparently quickly to return to the country of his choice, and to a field of labour more in accordance with his great abilities, than could possibly be supplied by a small provincial town in Switzerland.-}- No doubt a proper provision was made for his wife and son Philip ; the other of the two children left with the wife in 1526, Franz Schmid? having by this time attained to years enabling him probably to labour towards his own maintenance. * Handhooh of Painting, p. 198. t There is a prhit by Hollar of a jeweller of the name of Hans; called Hans von Zurich, of which it is professed that the original by Holbein was painted in this year, in Switzerland. It is in- scribed — Hans von Ziirch, Ooltschmidt. Hans Holbein, 1532. W. Hollar fecit, 1647, ex collectione Arundeliana. With a dedication by the pubhsher H. Vander Boroht, to Matthew Merian. CHAPTER XIV. Holbein presented to Henry YIII. Miniatures and OTHER Portraits of the King and of the Royal Family. E may perhaps admit, that there is some vague Chap. xiv. evidence or at least probability that Holbein p^^g^nted to was towards the end of the year 1532 known theM7ig. • 1532-3 personally to Henry YIII., but there is no- gsth thing to prove that he was not known to him Henry vni. before this time ; we may however assume for certain that he was not as yet in the king's service : but when was he presented ? From what has been said in the last chapter, about Holbein's visit to Basel, it is no longer very remarkable, that in the accounts of Sir Brian Tuke, Treasurer of the Chamber,* extend- ing from the 1st of October, of the 20th of Henry VIII. (1528), to the 23rd of May, of the 23rd of Henry VIII. (1531), we should find no mention whatever of Holbein, though several other painters are noticed in those accounts. For a great part of the time Holbein was in Basel ; and as to the rest it corroborates my opinion that Holbein had not been brought personally to the king's notice, before his return home after his lengthened sojourn with Sir Thomas More. I have already alluded to the story of his presentation having been * Extracts in Trevelyan Papers. Part I. Edited for the Camden Society by J. P. Collier ; referred to in Mr. Franks's paper in the Arch^eologia. 26*8 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. xiy. broTiglit about by Sir Thomas More ; this may or may not be Presented to true, but it is probable. The fact that More was no longer thehing. chancellor in the autumn of 1532, he having resigned the 25tli * seals in May of that year, would perhaps favour the supposi- Henry vin. ^j^^ ^^^^^ Holbein's presentation to the king may have taken place previously ; but as there seems to be only this bare probability, I must, as I am endeavouring to write a history, not a romance, leave the matter as it stands, quite uncertain. We have some fine portraits of this year, dated, by Holbein, but not one of the king. An early portrait of Henry YIII., compared with the mass of the ordinary half-lengths of him dispersed over the country, is in the gallery at Hampton Court. This is a good picture, but does not show the cha- racteristic firm touch of our painter. It is a half-length ; his hair is cropped close to his head, and he has a short beard, both are of a sandy colour ; he is dressed in cloth of gold and fur, and wears a cap and white feather; in his hands is a scroll, with the following legend from the Gospel of St. Mark — Marci — 16. " Ite in Mudum Universu et predicate Evan- GELIUM OMNI CREATURE." Under the scroll is a red cushion ; the ground is green. The picture is considerably rubbed, espe- cially about the mouth and eyes ; the mouth is badly repaired and the lights are gone from the eyes. The hands are well drawn but somewhat enamelled, after the fashion of Yan Cleef. On oak, 2 ft. 4 in. h. by 1 ft. 10 in. w. It formed one of the collection of Charles I., and from a note on the back — " Changed with my Lord Arundel, 1624" — it appears to have been given to the king by the Earl of Arundel. Tradition did not give this portrait to Holbein, for Yanderdoort in his catalogue, ascribes it either to Holbein or Yan Cleef : I am inclined to consider the latter the better name, but a still more suitable name is perhaps Girolamo da Treviso, for the head shows much of his handling. After 1533, Holbein appears to have rarely dated his pictures, which is a misfortune. Certainly if painters had not only inscribed their works with their own names and dates, but PEESENTED TO THE KING. 269 also with the names of the parties represented, they would Chap. xiv. have saved posterity, immense labour, and endless conjecture, presented to settins; aside the positive benefits that mio-ht have accrued from ^^'^sf- . . . 1532-3. such a practice. That many families might possibly under 25tli such circumstances have been deprived of their " imaginary ^^^y ancestors," is but a light disadvantage for the general world, to be put into the other side of the scales. Let the present generation take warning, and attach the names of individuals to the backs of their photographs ; if not, there is a chance of the class of " imaginary ancestors " attaining to the number of millions ; they may be less valued however as they get cheaper. In November 1532, Anne Boleyn was privately married to Queen Anne Henry YIII. ;* in June following, she was publicly crowned by Cranmer at Westminster, and on the 7th of September 1533 the Princess Elizabeth was born. I find no authentic portrait whatever, by Holbein, of either the mother or the daughter. Among the drawings at Windsor, is one of a young woman to which Anne Boleyn's name is attached (No. 18, Yol. II.), but no reliance can be placed on the designation.'!' There is a drawing inscribed Ladi/ Mary, after Queen (No. 39, Yol. II.), which may possibly be authentic as far as age is concerned, but the countenance suggests doubt : the Lady Elizabeth can only have been drawn by Holbein as a child : this queen was just ten years old, at the time of the painter's death. In the Eoyal Collection is a reputed portrait of the Prustcess Eliza- beth, in her sixteenth year, ascribed to Holbein : it is now in * Froude, History of England, &c. Vol. I., p. 418. 3rd. Ed. t The Berlin gallery has a small pic- ture of a Queen Anne, about li inches by 11, which Dr. Waagen in his " Cata- logue " has named Anne Boleyn, by Hol- bein. She is in a black cap and white feather, with her hands crossed before her; and the picture is inscribed — Anna Eegina 1525. Anno Aetatis, 22. Eather an unhappy inscription for a pic- ture of Anne Boleyn: of course the doctor repudiates the writing. The picture may be genuine, though that it has nothing to do with either Anne Boleyn or Holbein, is perhaps the right explanation of the matter. A similar figure in hat and feather, with her hands crossed before her, but larger, on wood 33 in. h. by 23 in. w., belonging to Sir Montague Cholmeley, was this year in the South Kensington Exhibition. It is inscribed — Anna Eegina 1530. BB, but it is neither the picture of Anne Boleyn nor by Holbein. 270 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. Queen Anne Boleyn. 1532-3. 25th Henry Ym. The Princess Elizabeth. The Princess Mary. St. James's Palace. So long as the period of Holbein's death was deferred eleven years beyond its true date there was nothing impossible in the ascription. Yanderdoort has catalogued this portrait, as ' a Whitehall piece by Holbein " representing " Queen Elizabeth when she was young, to the waist." This description is not accurate ; the figure is quite to the knees. To speak from the figure itself, I should judge its subject to have been certainly not more than thirteen years of age at most when the portrait was taken : she is standing, showing the face in full, in a pink damask gown, and a white satin and gold petticoat, with a head-dress of pearls, and many rich jewels about her person ; she holds in her hands what appears to be now a green rather than a blue book ; by her right side is placed sloping on a kind of desk, another book open, but in which no trace of print or manuscript remains ; behind her is a thin transparent curtain ; the back-ground is brown. Inscribed in the right upper corner — Elizabetha Filia Rex Angliae. On oak, 3 ft. 6 in. high by 2 ft. 7|- in. wide. Who the painter of this picture may have been, it is difficult to surmise : that it was not Holbein is certain ; he was clearly the same as the painter of the Princess Mary's fine portrait, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.* She is in a brown and yellow, or tawny brocaded dress, the sleeves being heavily furred at the elbows, and like the Princess Elizabeth, is loaded with rich jewels and pearls, exquisitely painted, and almost identical in pattern in both pictures. She stands with her hands crossed one over the other ; in the back-ground is a red gold-fringed hanging showing the creases of the folds in squares. On oak, 3 ft. 4i in. high by 2 ft. 6 in. wide. Signed in the lower right corner Wi with the obscure remains of a date by the side of the monogram, showing 54, which figures I * Both pictures were hung this year, 1866, in the Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington; where also was exhibited the queen's picture of Edward VI., which is possibly by the same hand : it is inscribed — Edwardus Sextus Bex An- gliae. It is a three-quarter length reach- ing to below the knees. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 271 imagine to be the second and third figures of the date rather CHAr. xiv, than the third and fourth ; at present nothing beyond these y/je Princess two figures is at all legible, and these are sufficiently obscure. ^'^^'^^ g The date may have been 1543-6; it is difficult to imagine 25th that it was ever 1554, as clearly written below, for this cannot Henry Yin. be the portrait of a woman thirty-eight years of age ; the face is quite youthful, and may easily represent that of a woman under thirty.* The monogram is not identified with that of any known painter of this time; it is certainly not Lucas de Heere's ; IE has been explained as his mark, though not satisfactorily, as H. E. IE is a monogram and when written by De Heere, if ever written by him, must be explained as L. H. F. Lucas Heere Fecit: we find this mark on the allegorical picture of Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, with the date 1569, and we find it also but in a difi'erent form, as H. E. I assume, on the so-called Sir Anthony Denny portrait, at Longford Castle, with the date 1550 ; and it is on a portrait of Henry YIII. at Trinity College, Cam- bridge, with the addition of the word fecit, showing that it cannot be De Heere's in this case. The discovery of the painter of these two portraits is greatly to be desired ; they are not the work of either a boy in his teens or of a lad of twenty. In 1546 when they may have been painted, De Heere, born in 1534, had only just entered his teens ; Anthony More, born in 1525, was but young for such a work, supposing him to have been in this country at the time ; otherwise as the pupil of Schoorel the style is such as he might be supposed to have adopted in the early part of his career : but the signature is certainly not his. Even interpreting the defaced date as 1554, Lucas de Heere cannot have been the painter, he was too young at the time, he did * The date 1554, in rather modern- looking figures is very legibly written below the monogram ; as a picture would not be twice dated, and I fancy I see the defaced date at the side, I take this to be the attempt of some one to interpret and restore the damaged date, and under the impression that the picture was of Queen Mary, not the princess, the 54 has per- haps been complemented accordingly, into 1554 ; I give this however as a mere conjecture. The monogram is not EF or EE, but lEt, though the small t to the naked eye looks like a mere blot. 272 I LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. not visit this country until some few years later, and his style The Princess elaborate. Hornebolt's style and signature are Mary. both uuknown, but he was living in May 1544. If Hornebolt 25tli ' be suggested as the painter, we are driven to seek another Henry vin. yi-^^q for the portrait called the Princess Elizabeth, which certainly represents a girl beyond her eleventh year, unless indeed that princess were remarkably precocious. An alter- native is that it may not represent this princess ; a conclusion that Walpole came to. IFt 1544, is quite a possible signature for Hornebolt. Mr. Nichols in his Paper on Holbein's contemporaries, already referred to, has called attention to the fact that in the Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, occurs under the date of Nov. 1544, the following entry : " Item, paied to one John that drue her grace in a table, F"" Sir Frederick Madden in his annotations to these accounts, remarks that there is a picture of Mary inscribed " Lad: Marx doughtee to the most VERTUOus Prince Kinge Henri the eight. The age of XXYIII. TERES. Anno D'ni. 1544," of which an engraving was made by Thane in 1778. Neither of these pictures may have been by Hornebolt, but it is just possible that the former entry, if both do not refer to the same picture, may indicate the above-described portrait. At that time 5^. was a very large price to pay for a portrait, and the picture must have been an elaborate one. If we consider that this group of the three children of Heury VIII., Edward YI., at Windsor, and the two princesses, was the work of one man at nearly the same time, we to a great extent limit the names of the painters to whom we might ascribe them : that the two princesses are by the same hand is certain, but that the prince is also by the same hand, admits of question, though the same drapery-painter may have been employed in all. The prince's portrait can scarcely have been executed before 1547 or even later ; and at that time both Hornebolt and Girolamo da Treviso were long since dead ; they both died in 1544. Yan Cleef was living, and was quite capable of such work, but the monogram lEt certainly excludes PEESENTED TO TPIE KING. 273 him ;* though it need not exclude (rerome, as this name was Chap. xiv. commonly written by painters in its Latin form with an H., jy^^ Princess and the signature in question might be interpreted as Hierony- ^(^w- rrt '. ' 1532-3. mus J^ecit.j 25th The picture of the Princess Elizabeth was in the collection Henry VIII. of Charles I., and is described by Yanderdoort as follows : — 65. A Whitehall piece by Holben. Item, the picture of Queen Elizabeth when she was young, to the waist, in a red habit, holding a blue book in both her hands, and another book lying upon the table. In a gilded wooden frame, painted on board. 5 ft. x 4 ft. October 1532 is the period necessarily assigned for the With the painting of the several portraits of Francis I., and of some of ca£s? the members of his court, which have been ascribed to Holbein : independent of the improbability of Holbein's having had any opportunity to paint such pictures during this interview between the two kings at Calais, this autumn, supposing him to have been present, which is not shown, the pictures them- selves, by their style, contradict the ascriptions ; there does not appear to be any picture of any member of tbe French court by Holbein. On the other hand these portraits are com- * Ordinary accounts state that Van Cleef died in 1536, which I believe is an error for 1556. Van Mander dates this painter's ultimate insanity from his dis- appointment in finding that Anthony More's introduction of him to Philip II. of Spain when he came to this country to marry Queen Mary, resulted in no- thing, as the Spanish prince had so high an opinion of the works of Titian, that he had no eye for those of the Fleming : this was in 1654. If the monogram had been IF*, it might possibly have stood for Justus Fecit. t We have a fine altar-piece by Griro- lamo da Treviso, in the National Gallery, "The Madonna and Child enthroned," with saints and angels, &c. ; but this is signed Iekonimus, Teevisius. P. The style is good, and the surface is of an enamelled character, not at all unlike the portrait of Henry Vlll. just de- scribed. It is not known when the painter came to England, but if the cause of his coming here was, as is re- ported, his unsuccessful competition with Perino del Vaga at Genoa, it may have been even as early as 1530, when he was in his thirty-third year. Giro- lamo was born at Treviso in 1497, and was killed by a cannon ball in 1544, near Boulogne while acting as an engi- neer, in the service of Henry VIH. See Federici, Memorie Trevigiane su le Opere di Bisegno, &c. 1803. To return to the orthography of the name Gerome, the altar-piece in the National Gallery, by Girolamo dai Libri, is signed Hieronymus a Libkis. F. T 274 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIY. With the Court at Calais. 1532-3. 25th Henry YIII. The Battle of Spurs. pletely in the manner of Francis's own painter Jean Clouet, commonly called Jean net, a Fleming settled in France, and married to a French wife, and who was painter and varlet de chamhre ordinaire to Francis I., from 1518 to 1541.* It is possible that some exchanges of pictures took place at these meetings. Caroline Patin speaks of such a possible exchange, Henry receiving from Francis a Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci, for some portraits by Holbein ; I repeat this circumstance simply as a rumour that has already found circulation. It is sufficiently remarkable, and says much for Holbein's reputation among the generations that immediately followed him, that he should have absorbed within the vortex of his fame, nearly all his own immediate rivals or contemporaries in England ; but that also the principal of his contemporaries of a great foreign court that he is not known ever to have visited^ should meet with the same fate, and not only in England but on the continent too, as at Florence, Antwerp_, and elsewhere, is indeed extraordinary. I allude to such works as the portraits of French personages at Hampton Court ; Mr. Morrison's " Anne of Cleves ;" the Earl of Dudley's Francis I., which appears to belong to Francois Clouet, or the younger Jeannet ; to the equestrian portrait of Francis I. at Florence ; and the Francis II., as a little boy, now in the gallery at Antwerp. This is perhaps the place to say a few words about the pictures of the " Battaile of Spurs," the " Field of the Cloth of Gold," and other similar works at Hampton Court, there ascribed to Holbein. This species of painting, though not without cleverness, is mere pictorial mechanism : Holbein never produced anything of the kind, since the few of his earliest bread-and-cheese pictures painted at Basel ; such as the school- * Jeannet's wife was Jeanne Boucault of Tours, their son Francois succeeded to the rank and employment of his father in 1541 ; and the later works of this family of painters, four altogether, are the productions of Francois, who was also called Jeannet, and is commonly confounded with his father : he was still living in January 1571, but was already deceased in 1574. Le Cte de Laborde, La Benaissance des Arts a la Cour de France. Peinture. 1850-5. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 275 master's sign, of the year 1516. These works belong to a Chap. xiv. much earher time than Holbein's, and were doubtless the work rjrj^^ "mittie of of some such man as John Crust, a painter livine* in the Spurs. . . 1532-3 earlier years of Henry YIII., concerning whom and his work, 25th Mr. Cole has published an interesting extract from the ex- Henry VIIL chequer records : Crust was possibly the painter of these very pictures.* Another of Henry's painters Yincent Yolpe was employed on views and such work as this ; he was in the receipt of a salary of 20/. a year, as late as 1530.f To this year belongs Holbein's most important work in TJie " Tivo England ; the so-called " Ambassadors," at Longford Castle, dorsF^^' near Salisbury ; by no means the most delicate or refined, but 1533. the largest and that on which he has bestowed the most labour. The subject is doubtful, but it is supposed to represent Sir T iiOMAS Wtatt, the poet and diplomatist, and some learned friend ; the indicated age of the principal figure in the picture corresponds with that of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was born in 1503. * Exchequer yolume, Chapter House, C. 5., 10. 6th Henry VHI. — 1515. " Payntors drawing the Towne of BnlJon and grounde about the same — John Crust and his servant 13 days, at 12(Z. by the day. Divers colours and stuif bought for the same : — First, paid for 3 ells of lynen clothe . . . • . .2s. Item for half a pound of Vermeleon 5c?. „ „ Whitelede Id. „ „ Eeade lede \d, „ „ Verdgreace 8c?. „ „ Spanysh brown . . . .Id. I quarter of orpiment ^d. 1 lb. of yellow ocur Id. 1 qrt. of gume armonyck ^d. 1 unce of flory 2c?. 1 unce sangwyn dracones 16c?. 1 qrt. of oyle 5c?. a botell of erth Id. for paper and brystyll 6c?. for 1 lb. glewe 4c?. for threde Ic?. 1 lb. of rooset 16c?. 3 lb. generall %d. I dossen pott for colors 6c?. a great pott of erth . t Trevelyan Papers. Ic^." Summerley's Hampton Court, p. 82. I. 144-177; quoted by Mr. Nichols. T 2 270 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. By the side of a double table, or " wbat-not " of two shelves, The " Two standing two gentlemen ; the one on tbe spectator's left is Ambassa- masrnificentlv dressed, in a pink satin doublet, and a black dors. o •/ ' i 1533. jacket, over wbich is a black surcoat lined with ermine ; he ienry vin ^^ars a black cap ; and round his neck is a simple chain with a large badge of the archangel Michael, attached to it. On a gold dagger-hilt at his side^ is written his age — ^T. SYJE 29 : a magnificent green and gold tassel is hanging here. He is looking straight out of the picture. The other man on the opposite side of the " what-not " has on a doctor's cap, and a brownish green figured morning gown ; on the " what-not " by his side, on which he is leaning with his right arm holding a glove in his hand, is a book and on the edges of its leaves is written — Aetatis suae 25. The upper shelf of the table is covered with a Turkey carpet, and on this shelf are a celestial globe, some sun-dials, and other scientific implements in great abundance. On the lower shelf are a terrestrial globe, a guitar, some musical pipes, an open music book with German words, and a book of calculations also with German words. Beneath the low^er shelf, on the floor, is another guitar, in shadow ; and in the fore-ground quite in front, is a singular object which looks like the bones of some fish. The whole of the back-ground is a green damask curtain. The floor of the room is parquetted, or paved with various coloured marbles in a simple geometrical pattern ; and in one of the forms just below the lower edge of the ermined overcoat of the figure presumed to be Sir Thomas Wyatt, is the following legend : — JOANNES HOLBEIN PINGEBAT 1533 In oil, on ten boards joined vertically, 6 ft. 9 in. high by 6 ft. 10 in. wide. It has been engraved by J. Pierron, and published in the " Le Brun Gallery." The faces of this picture are somewhat hard, but finely PEESENTED TO THE KING. 277 drawn ; Sir Thoraas's beard is well made out, with a few very Chap. xiv. fine lines : the hands are rather formal and are not perfectly y/^g modelled ; there is a hardness throughout in the painting of the accessaries, but the execution is generally very perfect, 1533. though much of it must have been left to assistants, for the ^^^^^ yui amount of labour altogether bestowed upon this picture is prodigious. Some of the details, as for instance the books, are exceedingly elaborate. Sir Thomas Wyatt's magnificent dress is admirably painted, and this figure has altogether a very grand and imposing effect. Unfortunately the picture is covered in many parts with a dirty spoilt varnish, which requires to be removed to restore it to its proper effect ; it was doubtless once a brilliant picture. There are two sketches of Sir Thomas among the Windsor drawings. Holbein was distinguished for a portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt ; probably the above-described picture ; for in some funeral lines on the poet who died in 1541 aged only thirty-eight, Leland, in a small quarto printed in London in 1542, entitled Naeniae in Mortem Thomae Viati Equitis Incomparahilis, Joanne Lelando Antiquario autore, Holbein is spoken of as the greatest in his art, for some such work. Under a small woodcut, on the i-everse of the title, is the f olio wing encomium on both painter and painted : — In effigiem Thomae Viati. Holbenus nitida pingendi Maximus arte Effigiem expressit graphice ; sed NuUus Apelles Exprimet ingenium felix animumque Yiati. In a similar style to the last picture with the same cool Derick Born. brown flesh, is the fine portrait of a young man in the Queen's collection at Windsor — Derick Boen — belonging to the same year. It is a small half-length of a handsome youth, dressed in black satin, with a white collar, embroidered with black thread. He is resting with his right elbow on a stone, and the left hand easily placed on the right wrist : on the forefinger of this hand is a gold signet ring, the device, a coat of arms. The back-ground is plain green, but is agreeably varied by some vine sprigs, the leaves of which, of a yellowish-brown 278 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Derich Born 1533. 25th Henry Vni, Chap. XIV. tint, are nearly all foreshortened. Inscribed Der. Born Etatis su^ 23 ANNO 1533. On oak, 1 ft. Hi in. high by 1 ft. 5f in. wide. On the back are the brands of King Charles I., and of William lY. It has also the following lines highly complimentary to the painter, written on the lower edge of the panel, on a plinth or band, stating that the picture wants but a voice, to be mistaken for Derick himself : — DeRICHUS si VOCEM ADDAS IPSISSIMUS HIC SIT, HUNC DUBITES PiCTOR EECERIT AN GrENITOR. I have already noticed the portrait of Henry YIII.'s falconer Eobert Cheseman, now at the Hague, and painted in this year. OerychTylis. The gallery of Yienna also possesses an excellent portrait of this date, of a man in a black cap and furred black gown, standing at a table sealing a letter ; near him are a seal and some papers, on one of which is written — Geryck Tyhis zu London 33 Jahr alt. 1533. On oak, 18 in. high by 13 wide. A portrait of similar style and the same size, but not so decidedly of the Holbein character, which however may arise from the few years' interval between their periods, is hung as a pendant to the Geryck Tybis ; it represents a young man also in a cap and black furred gown, holding a partly open book in his right hand ; and is inscribed Anno Dm 1541. Aetatis SUAE 28. Ami. Fallen ? The gallery at Brunswick possesses a fine portrait of this time of one of the merchants of the Stahlhof, in character similar to that of Geryck Tybis (No. 375). The portrait of a man in a black surcoat ; with two letters and a glove in his hands; it is inscribed IN ALS GEDOLTIG. SIS ALTEES 32. ANNO 1533. Which signifies— In all things patient. In the thirty-second year of his age, 1533. In the letters in his hand are two very interesting addresses,* but the name is so imperfectly given that it can only be guessed at ; it seems to be Fallen. On one is — Dem Ersamen Festen (?) // (errn) * For which I have to thank Dr. Woltmann. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 279 Fallenn zu Lund (on) in Stalluff si dis * * * * On the Chap. xiv. other is — Dem Ersamen Hn. Ainb. Falen zu Luden in Stalhoff sumptuary sy diesser briff: " this letter is for the Honourable Herr Ambrose ^^^'^ggg Falen at London in the Steelyard." 25tli It was on Lady Day 1533, that Henry's sumptuary law Henry vni. against the then prevailing extravagance of dress was to come into operation — it was entitled " An Acte for Eeformacyon of Excesse of Apparayle." Though many restrictions are made, still abundance of latitude seems to have been left to the middle class, then comparatively a small and insignificant body. As an illustration of the expense some must have gone to in their dress it will be sufficient to quote a single provision. None but the king or members of the royal family were henceforth to wear purple silk, or cloth of gold tissue, except dukes and marquises, and these might wear cloth of gold provided it did not cost more than 51. the yard. To give an adequate notion of the expense of this luxury it will be sufficient to state, that a single yard of this cheaper sort of tissue cost the amount of just two months of Holbein's salary, or nearly the whole year's stipend of an ordinary parish priest. We weave silks at the present day still more costly, absolutely in amount of money, but not approaching the expense rela- tively, in value. The Lord Chancellor was permitted to wear any velvet silk or satin, except purple, and any fur but black genet : this fur (wild cat) and lucern (lynx) appear to have been the most select and costly : ermine, and yellow sable seem to have been very generally worn, by the nobility, and by others abroad; in the statute referred to, sable was limited to the rank of a viscount. Satin and damask were commonly worn by the gentry ; ordinary citizens, tradesmen, and servants were limited to the use of cloth, and instead of furs, lambs' wool.* * The Harleian MS. in the British Musenm, No. 1419 ; and the Augmenta- tion Office Yolnme 160 in the Eecord Office, show the wonderful wardrobe and amount of furniture, possessed by Hemy VIII. Such an outfit as he pos- sessed would cost many hundreds' of thousands of pounds now-a-days. 280 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, XIV. I fiud no certain portraits of the king at this time by Portraits, of Holboin. There is said to be a drawing of Henry by him, at the kimj. Munich, in the Print-Room there, a head on paper, life-size, 25th ' ^ut the date is of course uncertain. Yanderdoort, in the Henry VIII. catalogue published by Bathoe, mentions two miniatures as- cribed to him ;* even should Yanderdoort be right in his ascription of them to Holbein, it is next to impossible to identify them now. The Duke of Buccleuch possesses two at Montagu House ; one a mere head If in. in diameter, on a blue ground ; free but carefully touched in places, and it has a good general effect. The other, 2^ in. in diameter, also on a blue ground; the face is free, but retouched about the fore- head : the general effect is good, but the right hand holding a ring is exceedingly ill drawn. Miniatures once genuine, may become so disfigured by repairs, often rendered indispensable, through wear and tear, and natural deca}^, as no longer to be identified with themselves in their uninjured state. Slight blemishes and spots are often immaterial, but when coarsely repaired their injury is magnified tenfold ; but even such bungling repairs are not so mischievous as where merely injured parts have been replaced by new, as the hand for instance, which is worthless if ill drawn. We may regret a damaged hand in a fine miniature, but what is that compared with the introduction as a substitute, of a piece of clumsy patch- work that has neither nature nor art to recommend it ? Such delicate things as miniatures, unless the most skilful hand can be secured, had better be left in their decayed state ; we can often trace beauties through decay, but seldom through un- skilful repairs. I am not going to give a list of the miniatures of Henry YIIT., but the Queen possesses four, ascribed to Holbein, apparently on no other grounds than that they are portraits of Henry YIII., which I think it desirable to notice. Three of these portraits * The measurements given in this edition of King Charles's catalogue, seem to have been often added by Yertue, and they are not unfrequentlj wrong: he possibly included the frame sometimes in the dimensions of the picture. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 281 appear to have been executed before Holbein came to England, Chap. xiv. and the fourth, after our painter's death. They are — Portraits of 1. Henry Yin., three-quarter face, turned to the left; on '^"X^. card, round, If in. in diameter ; bright blue ground. In- 25th scribed H. R. VIII. AN°- ETATIS XXXy% that is, in 1526. Hem-y VIII. He has on a black cap with a feather ; the beard is shaven entirely off, and the hair long light brown^ hangs over and conceals the ears. 2. Henry Till., three-quarter face, turned to the left, on card, round, 1 J in. in diameter ; bright blue ground. In- scribed REX. HENRIOYS. OCTAYYS. Nearly identical with that above described, except that the face is nowhere shaven ; the age seems to be about the same. Both these miniatures are said to have belonged to Charles I., to whom they were given according to the tradition by Lord Suffolk. They are catalogued in a MS. by Yanderdoort at Windsor, but they are not in that catalogue ascribed to Holbein : they are numbered 48 and 49. 3. Henry YIII., three-quarter face, turned to the left, oval 1^^ in. ]i. by 1^ in. w. ; on card ; blue ground. The face is young and much the same in other respects as that first described, especially as regards the long hair, and the absence of beard. It is inscribed H. R. YIII. AN°- XXXY., with H and K combined in a lover s knot, above ; the K necessarily signifying Queen Katharine of Arragon, as the portrait is evidently not that of the king when advanced in years. The numerals I am forced to take to refer to the king's age, as in the first instance, not to his reign. The difference is material ; while 1525-6 was the thirty-fifth of his age, the thirty-fifth of his reign was 1543-4; when he was very fat, cropped his hair, and had a grey beard. The interval is exactly that between Holbein's visit to this country and his death ; he came to England in the thirty-sixth year of Henry's age, and died in the thirty-fifth of the king's reign. To judge from the inscription on the portrait of Sir Richard Southwell at Florence, Holbein would have written AN°- H. YIII. XXXY., if he had intended to signify the regnal year. Mr. Magniac 282 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XiV. has a similar miniature to this ; it was exhibited at South PoMsof Kensington in 1865. the king. 4^ Henry YIII., in oil on paper, attached to oak, round, 25th " 2f in. in diameter ; green ground. Inscribed — HENR. 8 Henry Yin. j^^X. ANGL. ^TA: S. 57. Full face, in hat and feather, with an ermine or some other white fur collar, close under the chin. The face, with scarcely any hair, and a thin beard, is the same type as that so familiar to us in the ordinary portraits of the king, as in the Yarborough picture ; or in the somewhat later Kimbolton, Serlby, Warwick, and other similar portraits, all repetitions of the same head with a variety in the cos- tume only, and belonging apparently to the last year of the king's reign, 1546. The age on the miniature is an error; Henry YIII. never entered his fifty-seventh year ; having been born in 1491, he would have only completed his fifty- sixth year if he had survived until the 28th of June 1547. On the back of this miniature is a small paper label on which is written in an old hand, and in faded ink, " Kiiiff Henry '^th" and in a modern hand, and fresh ink, has been added " by Holhein." Before the discovery of the date of Holbein's death, the error of ascribing to him portraits of Henry at the close of his life was not evident : it is now patent. Most false ascriptions must necessarily be the growth of time ; but three fourths perhaps of the works attributed to Holbein, are so on no better grounds than the above miniature has been named. As not one of the above four miniatures is by Holbein, the reader may ask, " By whom were they painted ?" This is more than I have undertaken to say. I do not presume that Lucas Hornebolt had any hand in the water-colour drawings ; the same objection holds with him as holds with Holbein ; he was most probably not in England at the earlier period, and in 1546 he had been dead already two years. There was a painter in England, of great repute in 1546, who was quite capable of executing the oil miniature ; this was Guillim Stretes, a Dutchman, to whom I shall have occasion to recur : in 1551 he was enjoying the high salary of 62/. IO5. a year, as painter PEESENTED TO THE KING. 283 to Edward YI. He acted, I believe, a very much more Chap. xiv. important part, among foreign artists in this country, than he portraits of has ever had the credit of doing. But an artist especially theMng. celebrated in miniatures and Holbein's contemporary was 25th Lavinia Teerlinck, noticed in the eleventh chapter ; surely Henry vm. some of the works by which she earned her renown must be preserved. An exceedingly fine miniature, in every way excellent, with a coat of arms on a back-piece, German ? was exhibited at South Kensington in 1865, by Mr. J. Heywood Hawkins, a small round, on card, with blue ground, the portrait of a lady, inscribed — Anno Aetatis suae 23. This, as every good minia- ture of the time, is ascribed to Holbein; why, it would be difficult to say, except that the prestige of Holbein's name is assumed to give value to everything ascribed to him. We have no key to Holbein's miniatures ; there is not a single miniature in existence, that can be positively assigned to Holbein. We have only the vague assertion of Yan Mander that he painted miniatures ; there is no contemporary accoimt of his drawings of this class, nor is there a single document proving the fact. The Queen's miniature of Lady Audley, if LadyAudUij. any, may be accredited to him, for it is identical with the drawing of that lady, in the Windsor series ; this however is not proof of its authorship. If there had been no other good miniature painter of the time, then there might be some reason in giving all possible works to Holbein ; but we happen to know that there were several good miniature painters of this time. This miniature, " Elizabeth wife of George Touchet, Lord Audley," is a round, 2^ in. in diameter, with a blue ground, painted on the back of the two of hearts ; it is good but damaged. Mr. Hawkins's " Lady" is finer than this " Lady Audley." Another miniature lent by Earl Spencer, similar in style, in the Kensington Exhibition of 1865, of remarkable excellence, is that numbered 950 in the catalogue — " Sir John Boling Hatton, and his mother ;" signed, and dated, in gold letters L 1525. On a bright green ground. Can this L mean Lavinia ? Both this miniature, and Mr. Hawkins's " Lady" 284 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap, XIV. appear to be by the same hand. L. might also mean Luke, Lad^idUy. Hornebolt was probably not in England in 1525, though 1533. we do not know that he was not.* 1525 may be too soon also 25th. ... Henry VIII. ^^r Lavinia Teerlinck. In speaking of the Queen's miniatures I may mention here also that of Sir Henry Gruildford, an oval, 3 in. h. by 2i in. w. The face is fine, but young ; it has a small delicate moustache ; he is in a large grey cloak, edged with white fur, and has on a black cap, and he holds his sword with his left hand. If this miniature really represents Sir Henry Guildford, as a young man^ how can it have been painted by Holbein ? Sir Henry was one of Holbein's first sitters, and then, in 1527 he was nearly fifty years of age ; he certainly appears his age in the fine Windsor portrait of him, though in the portfolio-drawing I should guess him to be somewhat younger. The Duhes of The Qucen is also in possession of two miniatures of the two '^"1534-5. Suffolk, who both died of the plague 26th&27tli or sweating sickness in 1551, which are ascribed, and perhaps Henry vm. j^g^jy Holbein. They are particularly interesting as having their dates fixed — September the 6th 1535, and the 10th of March 1541 :— Henry Brandon Duke of Suffolk, in a black cap with white feather, and a black coat with green sleeves, blond hair cropped all round ; he is resting his left arm on a table, on which is written— ET ATI S 5. 6 SEPDEM". ANNO 1535. Blue ground, painted on the back of the ace or three of clubs. The other is his brother Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, in a grey and red coat, with black cuffs ; his shirt collar is embroidered with black thread round the outer edge : blue ground. On a tablet is inscribed — ANN 1541 ETATIS SV^ 3. 10 Marci.. This is painted on the back of a king. Both are the same size— l^i of an inch in diameter ; they are said to have been given to Charles I. by Sir Henry Yane, and both are entered as Holbein's work in Yanderdoort's * This miniature is given in the offi- cial catalogue to Lucas de Heere, who was not born till nine years after it was painted. Sir John was father of Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor in Queen Elizabeth's time. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 285 catalogue. They are interesting drawings, freely, firmly, and Chap. xiv. yet elaborately executed. church dissensions. 1534-5. If we may except the first of the Duke-of-Suffolk miniatures, 26tli & 27th as correctly named, I am not aware of any known work by ^^^^^ Holbein of these years 1534 and 1535, nor is there any record of any journey by him : there appears to be no positive trace of him whatever, that can be assigned to these years ; there is nothing that can even by inference be presumed to belong especially to this time ; though there is no reason to suppose that he was then absent from London, or that he was less occupied with his ordinary pursuits at this time, than at any other. The catastrophe of the More tragedy in July 1535 has been already traced in its chief features. John Fisher bishop of Rochester had suffered from the same cause a few weeks before his friend ; and he had been made a cardinal by Pope Clement just before his death. In fact this distinction, considered as a species of papal defiance, is supposed to have expedited the old man's trial. I have already noted among the Holbein draw- ings, an admirable one of Fisher's remarkable face ; of which the British Museum possesses a more finished example, ap- parently from the Windsor sketch. Eliza Barton the famous nun of Kent and her monkish accomplices were executed at Tyburn on the 21st April 1534. In the same month Henry was excommunicated by Clement YII. (Ghdio de' Medici), who thus gave the death-blow to the old superstition in England ; the immediate result of the sentence was the abolition by the king of the pope's authority in this country, and he had himself proclaimed — under Christ supreme head of the church in his own dominions — In Terra sub Christo supremum Ecclesiae Anglicanae et Hihernicae Caput. So much for the hrutum fulmen of his holiness of Rome. A royal order was. issued " that all manner of prayers, rubrics, canons of mass books, and all other books in the churches wherein the bishop of Rome was named, or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, should 286 LITE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. Church dissensions. 1534-5. 26th & 27th Henry Vni. Thomas Cromivell. 1535. 27th Henry VIII. utterly be abolislied, eradicated, and rased out, and his name and memory should be never more, except to his contumely and reproach, remembered ; but perpetually be suppressed and obscured."* In October of this year Clement YII. died, and was suc- ceeded in the papacy by the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese as Paul III., who now prepared, but issued later, a far more terrible Bull against the king than his predecessor had pro- nounced : — " The king, with all who abetted him in his crimes, w^as pronounced accursed — cut off from the body of Christ, to perish. When he died, his body should lie without burial ; his soul, blasted with anathema, should be cast into hell for ever. The lands of his subjects who remained faithful to him were laid under an interdict : their children were disinherited, their marriages illegal^ their wills invalid ; only by one condition could they escape their fate — by instant rebellion against the apostate prince. All officers of the crown were absolved from their oaths ; all subjects, secular or ecclesiastic, from their allegiance. The entire nation under penalty of excommunication, was commanded no longer to acknowledge Henry as their sovereign. No true son of the church should hold intercourse with him or his adherents. They must neither trade with them, speak with them, nor give them food. The clergy leaving behind a few of their number to baptize the new-born infants, were to withdraw from the accursed land, and return no more till it had submitted."! Soon after More's death, a general visitation of the religious houses, was determined upon, under the direction of that " Hammer of the Monks " Thomas Cromwell, who had been Wolsey's secretary, and was now " viceregent of the king in all his ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realm ;" which visitation resulted in a few years, in the ever-memorable sup- pression of those dens of vice the monasteries. This famous minister became later one of Holbein's patrons, but I have not * Eoyal Proclamation, June, 1534. See Eronde, History of England, &c. Vol. 11., p. 243. t Fronde, 1. 1. Vol. II., p. 417. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 287 yet been fortunate enough to see any satisfactory portrait of Chap, xiv Cromwell by Holbein, though many are ascribed to him : one Thomas would imas-ine that there must be some such picture of Gromweii. . . 1535 importance. The Lord Cromwell's portrait is one of the very 27th few of Holbein's works mentioned by Yan Mander, as already Henry vm, noticed in my first chapter. There is a head of him, a draw- ing, similar to those at Windsor, at Wilton ; and Captain Ridgway, of Waterloo Place, London, possesses a capital head of him the reverse way, which appears genuine and in good condition ; it is almost in profile ; on wood, 12 in. square. One also reputed to be and apparently Holbein's, but with the face almost entirely repainted, is in the possession of the Countess of Caledon. It is a sitting half-length showing the profile and bears signs of having been a well-modelled portrait ; but Cromwell was evidently not a good subject for a picture. The various accessaries in this portrait, especially those on the table — the pen, book, and papers, &c. — have a decided Holbein character : the latter bears the following interesting inscrip- tion' — To our trusty and right wellhiloved Counsailler Thomas Cromwell, Maister of Jewelhouse. On wood, 2 ft. 6 in. h. by 2 ft. w. In the upper part of the picture is likewise the following inscription on a scroll, added perhaps after Crom- well's death: — Et . BONUS . ET . PRUDENS . CHRISTI . REGTSQUE . MINISTER. CONSTANS . VIR . PROMPTUS . PECTORE . FRONTE . MANTJ. YlX . IN AMICITIA . TALIS . VIX . NASCITUR . HEROS. PLUS . PATRIE . FIDUS . PLUS . PIETATIS . AMANS. There is a print of this picture, ascribed to Hollar, but it does not bear his name. On the 7th of January 1536, Queen Catherine of Arragon Death of died at Kimbolton, and was buried at Peterborough : the see Q^therme of Peterborough was founded as a memorial of her. She 1536. wrote an affectionate letter to the king shortly before she died, Hg^ry yni. and Henry could not restrain his tears while reading it. On the 2nd of May following Queen Anne Boleyn was 288 LITE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. arrested at Greenwicli and committed to the Tower ; on the Disgrace of l^th, true bills Were found against her for adnUery by the Anne Boleyn. Grand Juries of Middlesex and of Kent; on the 15th, she was 28th^^^*^' convicted and condemned ; and after having been divorced she Henry vm. ^.^g 19th, beheaded on Tower Green. The five gentle- men condemned with her, had been executed on the 17th; namely George Boleyn Lord Rochfort, Henry Norris, William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeton,* On the 20th of May, the day following the execution of Anne Boleyn, the king married Jane daughter of Sir John Seymour, in accordance with the expressed desire and to the great satisfaction of his Privy Council and the peers, indicating however an indecent haste which has very much injured his reputation with posterity. " If we are to hold Anne Boleyn," says Mr. Froude, " en- tirely free from fault, we place not the king only, but the Privy Council, the judges^ the Lords and Commons, and the two Houses of Convocation, in a position fatal to their honour and degrading to ordinary humanity." It is strange if not true that she should have acquired the reputation of having been the inveterate enemy of two of Henry's most distinguished councillors, Wolsey and More. The former spoke of her under the title of " the night-crow," as the person to whom he owed all which was most cruel in his treatment ; as " the enemy that never slept, but studied, and continually imagined, both sleeping and waking, his utter destruction."! DerichBercTc. At Petworth Housc, in the hall, is a portrait of another of the " Steelyard" merchants, Deeick Berck, apparently by * " Smeton was hanged ; the ' others were beheaded. Smeton and Brereton acknowledged the justice of their sen- tence. Brereton said that if he had to die a thousand deaths, he deserved them all; and Brereton was the only one of the five w^hoso gnilt at the time was doubted. Norris died silent; Weston with a few general lamentations on the wickedness of his past life. None denied the crime for which they suffered; all but one were considered by the spec- tators to have confessed." Froude, His- tory of England, &c. Yol. II., p; 522. t Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 316. Singer's edition, quoted by Froiide, His- tory of England, &c. Ch. 2. p. 188. 3rd Ed. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 289 name ; painted in this year. The record of the subject is Chap. xiv. preserved in a way not imnsual with the painters of this age, Berid^erch and of which Holbein has left us several examples : namely 1536. that of letting his sitter hold a letter in his hand^ with his Henry vill. own name and address upon it. This portrait is the half- length of an intelHgent-looking man, dressed in black, and wearing his beard : the style of painting is similar to that of the Longford picture, and the Stahlhof merchant at Windsor. The hands are well drawn, and in the left he holds a letter with the following address, not perfectly legible : — Dem ersam unci forsnn (?) Derick Berck to Londen uyt (?) Stahlhof * * * befall ds hriff — To the honourable and provident Derick Berck, in London, of the Steelyard, belongs this letter. On a table before him is lying a scrap of paper, on which is written Olim meminisse juvahit, and below is the date An. 1536, Aeta: 30. On Oak, 20 in. high by 16 in. wide. Near this picture is a smaller portrait, similar in stj^le^, but inferior, showing a middle-aged man, three-quarter face ; also holding a letter in his hand, dated 1537. The hands, more especially the right, are ill drawn. The picture is possibly genuine, but it may have suffered by time, and by restoration. In this year Henry VIII. ordered the Bible to be translated The English into English, and in the following year it was set up in the churches ; a blessing we seem to owe indirectly to the king's irascible opponents, those two old bishops of Rome, Griulio de' Medici and Alessandro Farnese. "From 1536," says Mr. Froude, "when the vicar-general's injunctions directed every parish priest to supply his church with a copy of the whole Bible, editions based all of them on the translation of Tyndal, followed each other in rapid succes- sion. The bishops who had undertaken to supply a version satisfactory to Catholic orthodoxy, had still left their work untouched. The king would not be trifled with. The Bible, in some shape, his subjects "should possess; and if unsupplied by the officials of the church, he would accept the services of volunteers whose heart was in their labours. Coverdale's edition was followed, in 1537, by Matthews's, 'printed with u 290 LITE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. the king's most gracious license ;'* and the same version, after The'E^iish being revised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was reprinted Bible. in 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541, under the name of ' the G-reat 28tli ' Bible,' or ' Cranmer's Bible.' " Henry viir. The edition of 1539 had a large cut illustrating the title, which is ascribed to Holbein ; it is 14 in. high by 9f in. wide, but is certainly not by Holbein ; it is disfigured by the mannered draperies characteristic of the so-called German " little masters," and the drawing of the figures is about as contemptible as it well can be. Hans Brosamer, another H. B. who lived at Fulda between 1537 and 1554, was also a Bible illustrator ; he furnished some designs on wood for the Lutheran Bible of 1558. Henrij viil. The Earl of Yarborough possesses what appears - to be a genuine half-length portrait ^of the king, painted after 1535, when he " polled his head :" it is the best I have seen, of all the full faces ; and it may be by Holbein. He is dressed in cloth of gold and ermine, with a black cap decorated with a white ostrich feather, hanging over the right ; in his right hand he holds his gloves, the left is resting on his dagger tie. He wears a collar of jewels, and a chain supporting a large jewelled locket. The eyes are grey, the beard is darker than in the Windsor portraits, and the head is of the same type as the Kimbolton, Windsor, and Warwick pictures, but seems somewhat younger. It has something of the Longford picture of the " Ambas- sadors" in its style of modelling. On wood, 3 ft. 2 in. high by 2 ft. 5 in. wide. There is a record that this portrait was pre- sented by the king to Sir James Worsley, Knight, Governor of the Isle of Wight, after a visit to Appuldercombe. It was exhibited at the British Institution in 1850. I certainly know no other of the half-lengths of Henry YIII. that can be com- pared with this one.f * "Matthews's name is supposed to have been fictitious. There is no real difference between his version and that of Coverdale." Froude, History of Eng- land, &c. Vol. IV., p. 290. t Among portraits of the king were two curious works at Strawberry Hill, upon what authority I know not, but both ascribed to Holbein. One was a small whole length of Henry cut in PEESENTED TO THE KING. 291 In this year, 1536, was painted the admirable portrait of Chap, xiv. Sir Eichard Southwell, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, sir Richard and of which there are several copies. This portrait, one of Southwdi. the most characteristic of Holbein's works of its class, is 28th remarkable for its striking individuality : its original sketch is ^^^'^ among the Windsor drawings. The picture was finished on the 10th July 1536, and it shows perhaps a greater care in some of its parts than those bearing the dates 1532 and 1533. Sir Eichard Southwell has been mentioned in relation to Sir Thomas More, he became later a person of more in- portance ; he was Master of Ordnance to Queen Elizabeth ; when the portrait was taken he was in his thirty-third year only. Small half-length, sitting, a black -haired man, with his face closely shaven, and his hair cropped straight across the forehead ; three-quarter face looking to the left ; his hands are resting on a table, the right being clasped over the left, and on the forefinger is a ring with a green stone. He has on a black cap, in which is an engraved red stone, a head, set in gold ; a dark coat, showing four buttons against the shirt (these buttons are indicated in the Windsor sketch just as they are painted in the picture), and black satin sleeves. The shirt is white, tied at the neck, and with ruffles at the wrists ; the hands are very finely painted. He wears also a plain gold chain, but this is not very conspicuous. The back-ground is a deep green, almost uniform, and it bears the following in- scription, in letters of gold : — On the right side of the head— X^- lYLII. ANNO. H. YIII. XXYIIF On the left side— ETATIS SViB ANNO XXXIIF On oak, about 19 in. high by 14 in. wide. stone, formerly in the Arundel collection, and which belonged later to Lady Eliza- beth Germayn; this was sold for 64 guineas at the sale of 1842: the other was a bust of the king in box-wood. with, instead of a George, a watch hang- ing about his neck; this fetched 38 guineas at the same sale. Both were bought by John Dent, Esq. u 2 292 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. Sir Richard Southivell. 1536. 23th Henry VIH. Edioard Seymour. Inscribed on a silver tablet, on the frame : — Effigies domini Ricardi Southwelli Equitis Aurati, Consiliarii privati Henrici VIII. Regis Angliae.* An excellent copy is in the Louvre, brought from Germany in 1806 ; another copy, in the possession of Mr. H. E. Chetwynd Stapylton, was exhibited at South Kensington, in 1866 ; where also was shown a copy in my possession, on an Italian panel, about 22 in. by 17 in. sight measure, painted about 1835 by the Florentine artist Micheli, who drowned himself in the Arno about 1850. He was celebrated for the excellence of his copies from pictures by the old masters at Florence. Among the smaller portraits by Holbein, those which may be classed as oil miniatures, is perhaps that at Sion House of Edward Seymour Earl of Hertford, Queen Jane Seymour's brother, and afterwards Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. There is something of the handling of the Longford " Am- bassadors" in this portrait; it is a small half-length on panel, and represents a middle-aged man, with an unusually long nose, and a long thin beard ; he is in a dark cloak, with a black cap and dusky feathers, and holds hanging in his right hand an ornamented locket : the face is three-quarter turned to his right; the back-ground is a pale bluish green. On panel, 8^ in. high by 7 in. wide. Somerset was a great friend to the Reformation ; in 1547 he repealed the "Bloody Statute" which had been passed in 1539 ; but he managed to make several powerful enemies. He was accused and convicted of felony, for having compassed the death of the Duke of Northumberland and of the Marquis of Northampton, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 22nd of January 1552, to the great sorrow of the people of London, with whom he was so popular, that, after his execu- tion, they dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood. f * The frame bears also Holbein's name, the name of Cosimo Secondo, its possessor; and the arms of England with the date 1621. Engraved in out- line, in the Reale Oalleria di Firenze Illustrata, 1817. t See Fi'oude, History of England, &c. Vol. V. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 293 Before proceeding with the biographical career of our Chap. xiv. painter, I may here notice a series of undated portraits, ascribed undated with more or less truth to Holbein, some of which may belong -P'"'^*^"^^^- to this period ; while others if his work were probably 28th executed a little sooner. As they have no fixed place, they ^^^^ may as well be noticed here as elsewhere. They are the portraits of — Queen Jane Seymour ; Sir Brian Tuke ; Sir William Butts, his wife Lady Butts ; Lady Rich ; Dr. John Chambers or rather Chamber ; and the grand half-length in the Dresden Gallery, known as " Mr. Morett," until lately ascribed to Leonardo da Yinci, though that it is a genuine work by Holbein, we may now rest satisfied. The portrait in the Belvedere Gallery in Yienna, called jane Queen Jane Seymour, finely painted, is nearly a half-length, ^'^y^^^''^- on the small scale so often adopted by Holbein in his portraits. She is turned slightly to her right, showing almost the full face, and is dressed in red velvet, the sleeves being enriched with gold thread ; she has pearls and rubies on her neck, and wears the peculiar diamond-shaped cap or hood, apparently the favourite female head-dress of the time, commonly with a black veil or fall attached behind : her hands are crossed before her. On oak, about 2 ft. high by 18 in. wide (No. 61). The "Queen Jane Seymour" in the collection at Knole, appears to be a copy of this picture at Yienna. The blue or grey eyes however do not harmonize with the apparently light hazel eyes of the Whitehall portrait of Yan Leemput. The portrait of Dr. John Chamber, physician to Henry Dr. ChamUr. YIIL, in the same gallery, is likewise a good picture. It represents a very old man, in a doctor's cap and a black furred gown, showing a three-quarter face turned to the left : he holds his gloves in his hands. On wood, also about 2 ft. high by 18 in. wide (No. 62). This picture is virtually dated, as it is inscribed on the ground — ^tatis. sue. 88 ; the doctor's age, if known, will give the year ; the portrait is nearly identical with that in the Barber-Surgeons' picture, which was painted possibly in 1541, but perhaps later : it is 294 LITE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Dr. Chamber. 1536. 28tli Henry Vm. Sir Brian Tuke, CuAP. XIV. the first of the three on the king's right hand, and is a fine old head.* In the same room with these two portraits, is also a fine oil miniature ascribed to Holbein ; the bust portrait of a young lady, richly dressed, with her hands crossed before her. She has on a red gown with a black surcoat over it^ and wears a white and gold diamond-shaped hood, with the black fall behind : on her bosom is a gold brooch. On wood, 8 in. high by 6 in. wide (No. 27). Among English portraits of this time may perhaps also be classed that of Sir Brian Tuke, whose accounts as Treasurer of the Chamber have already been referred to. According to Dr. Waagen, this portrait exists in duplicate, with only some slight variations : the English example was formerly at Corsham Court near Chippenham in Wiltshire. It is now in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster.^ It is a small portrait of a man in black, with a gold chain and cross on his neck, and sleeves of gold stuff ; in his left hand he holds a pair of gloves, and with the right points to a folded piece of paper on which are the following words from the Latin Yulgate of the Book of J ob — Nunquid non paucitas dierum meorum finietur brevi ? (rendered in the Douay version " Shall not the fewness of my days he ended shortly T Job x. 20). On the green ground is the following inscription^ — Brianus Tuke, Miles. Anno Aetatis suae LYII., with his motto Droit et Avant, below. Dr. Waagen assigns it the date 1529, and assumes it to represent the same person as the following portrait now in the Pinacothek at Munich, formerly at Schleissheira, and painted in the taste and manner of Yon Melem. A man in black, with a gold chain round his neck, to which a crucifix is suspended]; below is a piece of paper with the quotation from J ob, as above, and a reference to the passage ; but in the * It was etched by Hollar in 1648— D. J. Chambers, Anno Aetatis 88, Holbein pinxit, 9 in. ^. by 7 in. w. Chamber was a churchman as well as a physician, he died in 1549. t It was boiight for the marquis at Mr. E. Sanderson's sale at Christie's, in June 1848, for 74?. lis. It is not among the pictures at Grosvenor Gate, and I have not seen it. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 295 Tuke. 1536. 28th Henry Vin. back-ground is a green curtain, from behind which a skeleton Chap, xiv appears looking at the man before him, and with his right BrirjLn hand points to an hour-glass in his left ; the sand of the glass being nearly run down. Signed 10. HOLPAIN. There is no other inscription ; no name. This picture is not a bad one, but the signature is suspicious, as that of our painter ; and the style does not proclaim it to be the work of Holbein. On wood, about 15 in. high by 20 in. wide.* A couple of small pictures in this country, in the possession of Mr. W. H. Pole Carew, are of a more genuine character. These are a pair, on oak, about 18 in. by 14, a common size with Holbein ; they represent Sir William and Lady Butts : he was physician to Henry YIII., and died on the 17th September 1545. Butts is introduced by Shakespeare in his Henry YIII.,t and he is also one of those present, at the Sir William and Lady Butts. * The new Munich catalogue (1865), misled by the error in Dr. Waagen's Handhuch der Deutschen und Nieder- Idndischen Malerschulen (1862), has re- corded the picture as the "Portrait of Sir Brian Tuke Miles." In the doctor's Kunstiverke und Kiinstler in England (1838) the name is given correctly as Sir Brian Tuke. Crivelli was from 1490 in the habit of adding Miles (Knight) to his signature, but Sir John, or the Cav. Giovanni Crivelli Miles, would have an odd appearance in a catalogue. t (Act v.. Sc. 2.) Enter Dr. Butts. Cranmee. So. Butts. This is a piece of malice. 1 am glad I came this way so happily: the king shall understand it presently. Cean. (aside.) 'Tis Butts, the king's physician ; as he pass'd along, how ear- nestly he cast his eyes upon me ! Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace. For certain this is of purpose laid by some that hate me (God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice), to quench mine honour: they would shame to make me wait else at door; a fellow- counsellor, among boys, grooms, and lackeys. Biit their pleasures must be fulfilled, and I attend with patience. Enter, at a window above, the King and Butts. Butts. I'll show your gTace the strangest sight — K. Hen. What's that, Butts? Butts. I think your highness saw this many a day. K. Hen. Body o' me, where is it ? Butts. There, my lord : the high pro- motion of his grace of Canterbury, who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursui- vants, pages, and footboys. K. Hen. Ha! 'Tis he, indeed: is this the honour they do one another? 'Tis well there's one above them yet. I had thought they had parted so much honesty among them (at least, good manners), as not thus to suffer a man of his place, and so near our favour, to dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures, and at the door too, like a post with packets. By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery : let them alone, and draw the curtain close; we shall hear more anon. The king sent Dr. Butts with a ring to Cardinal Wolsey; this ring, says Walpole, was a cameo on a ruby, of the king himself, which had been formerly given to him by the cardinal.. 296 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. ceremony of that king giving a charter to the Company of Sir WiUiam Barber-Surgeons, and now in their Hall in Monkwell Street ; j^uttf^'^^ the doctoriis a profile on the right of the picture on the king's 1536. right hand," immediately behind Dr. Chamber : the portrait is Hem-y VIII same in both pictures. The doctor is in this example, in profile, looking to the left ; but the picture is much damaged, and coarsely and unskilfully repainted. The wife, in very much better condition, is a charming specimen of Holbein's manly simple style, and of his masterly skill in modelling after nature ; the face is quite life- like. Sir William is in a black cap, and black coat with sable edges, and a plain gold chain on his shoulders : in the once green back-ground is written ANNO JETATS SYE. LIX. Butts was possibly painted in 1541, for the group introduced into the composition commemorating the grant of a charter to the Barber-Surgeons. There is a fine old copy or replica of this picture in the National Portrait Gallery. The wife, a daughter of Mr. John Bacon, of Cambridgeshire, is nearly in full face looking a little to her right, she is also in black, with the pecuhar diamond-shaped head-dress of the time, with the usual black veil or kerchief hanging down behind ; she has on also a white partlet, with black embroidery on the collar, which is often seen in Holbein's portraits, very skilfully managed ; and she wears a rose in front. Inscribed — ANNO JETATIS SYE. LYII. The back-grounds and inscriptions of both pictures have been badly repainted. Lady Butts is among the Windsor sketches. As is also the drawing of the following portrait, that of the wife of Lord Chancellor Eich, who suc- ceeded Sir William Paulet as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1547. Lady Eich, Lady Eich, bust portrait, nearly full face turned to right ; a diamond-shaped hood, with a black velvet fall ; and in an open black dress with white frill, and a gold medallion brooch pen- dant before ; the figures on this brooch are exquisitely put in ; blue back-ground. On wood, 17 in. by 13. A fine expressive portrait, with a thin rich carnation ; and one of those examples PEESENTED TO THE KING. 297 which give us the very decided impression, that Holbein troubled Chap, xiv his sitters as little as possible, and worked alone, relying on lady^kh. the accuracy of his observation, and a drawing made for the gg^j^^^'^^' express purpose of painting from — a safe enough practice Henry VUI. perhaps for Holbein, in an ordinary way, but even with such powers as his, a disadvantage. The left hand, partly seen below, is weak. This portrait was formerly at Croft Castle.* We now come to a very important picture, the so-called "Mr. portrait of " Mr. Morett" in the Dresden Gallery. This is one of the completest of Holbein's portraits, and one of the finest of his works ; it has until lately been attributed to Leonardo da Yinci, and the person represented has been and is a matter of dispute : it has been called Sir Thomas More, Lodovico il Moro, Mr. Morett, Count Moretta, and even Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk ; I have adhered to the name given to it in Hollar's print from the drawing, here photographed, formerly in the Arundel collection. That the picture itself was ever in the Arundel collection, seems to be shown, by one of the following letters, to be at best doubtful. Thomas Howard Lord Arundel, was apparently an indefatigable collector and seeker of Holbein's works ; several letters showing this noble- man's general interest in works of art, are still preserved, and we have Holbein prominently mentioned in four of them : on the 17th of September 1619, he writes to Sir Dudley Carleton at the Hague f : — " My Lord : " I have received from your lordship a very fine basin of stone with an ewer alia Antica, for which I must give you very many thanks, and am sorry you remember me so much to your charge ; I hear like- wise, hy many ways liow careful your lo7'dsMp is to satisfy my foolish curiosity in inquiring for the pieces of Holbein. For the other little things * Contributed by Mr. Walter Moseley, of Buildwas Park, Wenlock, Shropshire, to the South Kensington " National Por- trait Exhibition" in 1866, where it was however called " Queen Catherine of Arragon." t He was English minister at the Dutch Court. See Sainsbury's Original unpuhlished Papers, illustrative of the Life of Sir P. P. Euhens, &c. 8vo. London, 1859, for these letters in their genuine form. Appendix Nos. XLIV., LIII., LV., and LVII. 298 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. which I entreated Sir Edward Cecil to inform himself of, I thought it " Mr unmannerly to distract your serious affairs with them, and besides, your More'u." lordship so apprehends all occasions to forerun my desires as I should 1536. ratlier wish to be able to deserve some of your old favours than load you 28th • • Henry VIII ^^^^ ^^^^ troubles ; so with my service to yourself and your worthy lady, and my best wishes, I ever rest, your lordship's most affectionate friend to command, " T. Arundell."* Sir Dudley Carleton to Lord Arundel {Extract). " liagh, June 1621. " Eight Honourable my most singular good Lord : " Having waited lately on the King and Queen of Bohemia to Amsterdam, I there saw the picture of Holheiris your Lordship desires ; hut caymot yet obtain it,] though my endeavours wait on it, as they still shall do. " We have now a young man (Gerard Honthorst) growing into reputa- tion in these parts who began with Bloomer (Abraham Bloemaert) of Utrecht where he dwells likewise, and hath been for some years at Kome and other parts of Italy to mend his art : which consisting much in Night-works, he desired of me an invention to my mind whereby to make trial of him in the which I might rest assured was no copy. I gave him Aeneas flying from the sack of Troy and in a posture pariter cometique onerique timentem ; wherein how well he hath acquitted him- self your Lordship will be best able to judge by the piece, which will be delivered your Lordship by tliis bearer, and which I will beseech you to accept as it is. It is without exception to the good will of the presenter what defect soever your Lordship shall observe in the skill of the painter. * * * * * • " Your Lordship's most humble and most faithful servant, "D. C." "I do now send a picture at full-length, of the young Prince * Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Z.G., of whom there is a magnificent portrait by Eubens, in the possession of the Earl of Warwick. A half-length in armour, the right hand leaning on his baton, on canvas 4 ft. 1 in. h. by 3 ft. 4 in. iv. The Duke of Sutherland also has a fine half-length of this nobleman by Vandyck. He pos- sessed, says his biographer Sir Edward Walker, p. 222, mimerous paintings, "and of the most excellent masters, having more of that exquisite master Hans Holbein, than are in the world besides !" t The "Meier Madonna" is possibly referred to, see the remarks in the ninth chapter, p. 170. PEESENTED TO THE KING. 299 Frederick Henry (whom we have here at this present with the King and Chap. XIV, Queen) to His Majesty, which will be presented by my Lord of Buckingham. I shall gladly know your Lordship's opinion of the work, Morett." for the life and likeness, we all here think that Michel of Delph 1536, (Mirevelt) hath not been so happy in any other picture this many jj^j^j.^ yin. a day." Sir Isaac Wahe to William Boswell {Extract). November 26 , " Turin, J, — 7^, 1628. ' JJecember o " My dear Friend and Sweet Heart, ***** " The picture after which you do seem to inquire was made by Hans Holbein in the time of Henry YIIL, and is of a Count of Moretta. My Lord of Arundel doth desire it, and if I can get it at any reasonable rate he must and shall have it. ***** " Your faithful friend and servant, "I.Wake." The Earl of Arundel to Sir Henry Vane {Extract), " Arundel House, April 25, 1629. " Good Mr. Cofferer, ***** " I must likewise give you very many thanks for your care con- . cerning Bloome's (Bloemaert's) painting and look of Holbein, and the King protests against any meddling with it, at 600/., which he says cost him but 200?. For the drawings I hoped to have had them for 30?., but rather than fail, as I told you, I would go to 50Z., but never think of 100?., nor 50?. offered without sure to have it ; if he would let it come, upon security to send it back, I should be glad, if not, let it rest. * * * " Your most faithful friend to command, " Aeundell and Sureey." The foregoing extracts extend over a period of nearly ten years, from September 1619 to April 1629 inclusive, and in them we have mention of two pictures and a book of drawings, by Holbein. One of the pictures is clearly the Dresden portrait now under consideration, the other may be either the " Fountain of Life" now at Lisbon, or even the famous Meier altar-piece, which we are told by Sandrart was in Le Blond's possession in Amsterdam, and sold by him there long before Sandrart was in that city (about 1640) ; this might be years 300 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIY. "Mr. Morett." 1536. 28tli Hemy VIH. after the date of Sir Dudley Oarleton's letter ; but we don't know when the picture first found its way to Hol'land. Yet should this conjecture be right, it is strange that the earl should have been outbidden by Le Blond in a matter of 150^. for such a picture, unless a total change of circumstances intervened and the purchase took place unknown to Lord Arundel. What the " Book of Drawings" may have been, it is difficult to guess ; scarcely the Windsor collection ? for these, which did belong to the Earl of Arundel, were according to tradition given to him by the Earl of Pembroke. Mr. Morett, the half-length of a man, showing the full face, in a black cap with a cameo, and splendidly dressed in black satin, silk, and talfeta, with a broad sable collar ; the fore- sieves cut and pulled with white. In his right hand he holds a glove ; his left, gloved, rests on and holds the gilt sheath of a dagger, hanging by a chain to a waistband ; white ruffles at his wrists. Round his neck hangs a simple gold chain, to which a locket is appended. In the back-ground is a green damask curtain. On wood, about 3 ft. 1 in. high by 2 ft. 6-2- in. wide. Splendid as this dress is there is nothing that a common burgher might not have worn, even after the sumptuary law passed by Henry YIII. in 1532. On this account I am inclined to look upon the portrait as that of a simple citizen, and nothing more : he has on no velvet, no purple, no cloth of gold. The following is the history of this portrait of " Mr. Morett" or " Count Moretta," though the physiognomy is not Italian. He is called Thomas Morett, and whether Morett or Moretti, all accounts make him a distinguished jeweller in the service of Henry YIII. ; he was accordingly the friend and fellow- labourer of the painter, and Holbein seems certainly to have done his work con amove. The first positive knowledge we have of the picture is that it formed part of the collection of the Duke of Modena. We see from the letter of Sir Isaac Wake, written at Turin in 1628, that the picture was then PEESENTED TO THE KING. 801 known, and appears to have been in the market ; Sir Isaac Chap. xiv. there declares that the earl should have it if a reasonable sum « Mr. could buy it. From 100^. to 200/. would at that time have ^'''fggg been a reasonable sum, but I conclude that the earl never did 28tla get the picture, though he had the original drawing ; and in "^^^^'^ the following century we lind it in the ducal collection at Modena, into which it certainly passed as an acknowledged work by Holbein. I have already quoted the passa ace from Scannelli's Microcosmo, which notices Holbein — Olbeno — and particularly mentions a " wonderful " half-length portrait by him in this gallery : this was in 1657. Some later custode, perhaps, at a loss to know who Thomas Morett might be, conjectured that it could be only Thomas Morus, the painter's great patron ; and so Morett became Morus : a few years or so later still, it seems to have been as puzzling to understand who this Morus in a princely dress, can have been, and the name was again transformed into Moro ; this was at least intelligible to a northern Italian, and what Moro so distinguished as Lodovico Sforza II Moro, notwith- standing the complexion is rather ruddy than dark? but if Lodovico Sforza, the portrait must clearly have been painted by Leonardo da Yinci ; in some catalogues he is Francesco Sforza ; and so the matter stood in 1746, when the Modena Gallery was transported to Dresden, and so it remained for one hundred years later. Eumohr, the most intelligent of German critics, had already from pure feeling pronounced it a work by Holbein, but what was mere opinion against tradition?^ However the connoisseurs of the Saxon capital and of Germany were not a little shocked when Herr von Quandt in 1846, setting aside mere guess-work, pubHshed an article in the Kunsthlatt showing that this famous picture was neither of Lodovico il Moro, nor by Leonardo da Yinci, but simply the portrait of a jeweller employed by Henry YHI., and certainly * Director Matthai, in his catalogue which I bought in the gallery in 1835, casually mentions in a note that some critics had lately ascribed the picture to Holbein, but otherwise it remains as absolutely ascribed to Da Vinci, as in the earlier books. 302 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XIV. painted by the master of the " Meier Madonna." His position "Mr. was much supported by his accompanying the essay with a ^'^?536 ^^-^-^ Hollar's engraving from the drawing of " Mr. Morett," 28th * then (1647) in the Arundel collection; though as this etching Henry VIII. ^j^^ picture are really not much alike, his inference was considered to be still doubtful, and the final restitution was not made to Holbein until the year 1860, when the original drawing itself by Holbein had been purchased for the Saxon government by Mr. Gruner after Mr. Woodburn's sale in London, in June, of that year.* It now hangs by the side of the picture, and the Moro-da-Yinci myth has become a matter of history. I know no work by Leonardo da Yinci that will bear comparison with it. The drawing itself, for force and truth is quite unsurpassed ; it shows what can be accomplished by the point, without the aid of colour, when guided by a hand that obeys with the minutest mechanical precision, the control of an eye that nothing can escape, or the balance of a judgment by which nothing is too minute to be measured. * See the new catalogue by Julius Hiibner, Dresden, 1862, 2nd. Ed. It is reported at Dresden that the late king Fredericli August, there not being any Leonardo in the gallery, objected to the change of name, and the consequent ex- clusion of the great Florentine from his gallery : the restitution therefore could not take place till after that Idng's death. The drawing was sold for 431. Mr. Gruner paid 50 guineas for it (352 thalers 26 ngr.). Hollar's etching, 4 in. in diameter, is inscribed " Mr. Morett." W. Hollar fecit, ex Collectione Arun- deliana. A° 364:7. 31 Dece. It is a poor work, quite unworthy of the draw- ing, of which our photograph gives an adequate rendering. CHAPTER XV. Holbein a Servant of the King's Majesty. ITH the year 1537 we enter, at last, a period Chap^v. in which we have many fixed dates and facts Royca respecting Holbein in England, satisfactorily Whitehall demonstrating his residence in London and 29th ^^''* showing his connection with the court of Henry vm. Henry YIH. We do not know of any pay- ments which were made to him, as in the king's service, in 1537, these occur first in the accounts of the next year; but this date of 1537 is very important as being that of the great picture of Henry YIII., so much praised and copied, which was in the Privy Chamber in the Palace at Westminster at Whitehall, or what had been commonly known as York House, the palace surrendered by Cardinal Wolsey to the king. The accounts referred to are contained in a Book of Pay- ments of the Royal Household, from February 1538 — 29th Henry YIII. to midsummer 1541 — 33rd Henry YIII. ; they were formerly in the Library of the Royal Society, but are now in the British Museum.* The first payment made to Holbein is that of a quarter's salary 7/. lOs, on Lady Day, March 25th, 1538 ; and as this is * Arundel M.S. 97. The items relating to Holbein have been already published in part by several, but completely by Mr. Franks in his paper on the " Dis- covery of Holbein's Will," in the 39tli vol. of the Arch^oi.ogia, 1863. 304 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. xy. not entered as an advance, it was for the preceding quarter Royal showing tliat the painter was in the king's service at the t commencement of the year 1538, and therefore probably also in 1537 and even earlier : the accounts of these years are not Henry VTTT P^^^erved. We may feel pretty certain that Holbein was a " servant of the King's Majesty" in the year 1537; it was in this year that the great Whitehall picture was painted, repre- senting Henry, his father, and the two queeus, Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour. We have already learnt something from Yan Mander con- cerning the fine figure of Henry YIIL, painted by Holbein on the wall of the Privy Chamber in this palace, and which in his time, 1604, was still in perfect preservation. He says that the king, as he stood there, majestic in his splendour, was so life-like, that the spectator felt abashed, annihilated, in his presence. Though the picture perished in the fire which consumed that palace in January 1698, we can fortunately still judge of its size and effect, and of the composition too, from the large cartoon of the right-hand half, containing the king and his father, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire at Hardwick Hall ; and from the small copy of the finished picture, showing also the two queens on the opposite side, by Remee, or Remigius van Leemput, made in 1667 for Charles TI., and now at Hampton Court ;* for this copy, says Walpole, Yan Leemput received 150/., which seems a very large sum, for that time. Walpole goes on to say, " Holbein's original drawing of the two kings is in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. It is in black chalk, heightened with Indian ink, and as large as life ; now at Chatsworth. The architecture of this picture is very rich, and parts of it in a good style." It appears to be done with a brush in distemper, in black and white, not in chalk ; it is very elaborate, but drawn in a firm vigorous manner ; the boundary lines however are harshly defined, like those of a fresco cartoon, a fact no doubt owing to * Engraved by Vertiie. Both cartoon and picttire were exhibited this year, 1866, at Sonth Kensington, in the National Portrait Exhibition. SEEVANT OF THE KING'S MAJESTY. 305 the drawing's being made, not for effect, but to be traced for Chap. xv. transferring to the wall ; the outline has been pricked all over, p^^y~ showing that the drawing has been traced or pricked from for Portraits at pouncing, and in the effort to plainly define the outline, the ^^"^gg^^^' anatomical delicacy of modelling, in the legs, has been damaged ^ or neglected; the calves are rather baggy than muscular. Parts of the drawing are evidently by an assistant, but parts are free and exquisite, as for instance the ornamental details, the cinque-cento arabesques, &c., which probably Walpole refers to as the "good parts" of the architecture of the picture. The figure of the king is full life-size, but looks even colossal ; the breadth of shoulder however is much exaggerated, being full three feet, no dress could account for such a breadth, and the right shoulder is quite thrown out of its place. The cartoon is about two squares, measuring nearly 9 ft. in height by 4 ft. 6 in. in width. The king was proud of his proportions and of his legs especially ; this we learn from the corre- spondence of Piero Pasqualigo a Yenetian ambassador-extra- ordinary who visited this country in April 1515. To stand with arms akimbo and legs apart seems to have been a favourite attitude with him when on his feet. Pasqua- Hgo tells the following anecdote in a letter dated the 3rd of May 1515, when the king was just upon twenty-four years of age : — His Majesty came into our arbour, and addressing me in French, said, " Talk with me awhile ! The King of France, is he as tall as I am ?" I told him there was little difference. He continued, " Is he as stout ?" I said he was not ; and he then inquired, "What sort of legs has he?" I repHed, " Spare." Whereupon he turned aside the front of his doublet, and slapping his thigh with his hand, said, " Look here ! I have also a good calf to show."* * Four years at the Court of Henry VIII. Selections of Despatches of Sehastian Oiusti- nian. London, 2 vols., 8vo. 1854. Vol. I., p. 91. The following is the ori- ginal Venetian patois : — "La maiesta Eegia vene a ritrovarne nel nostro: et Yolta COS! a me disse in Fracese : parla un poco CO mi : el re di Fraza ello si grado di psona como mi: lo li dissi che lera pocha differetia : disse ello si grosso, dissi cE no : disse che gabe ha lo, dissi sotile : et alhora el si averse il saio davati e mete- dosi la ma ala coxa, disse guarda qua, io ho pur bonagabasotto." (B. M. c. zz. g. 7.) X 308 LIFE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XV. The cartooii is not identical with Yan Leemput's copy, and Boyai it accordingly shows that some changes were made during the w'rn%^^ progress of the original picture. Henry's face in the cartoon 'i537.' is turned sHghtly to his left, towards his queen, Jane Seymour, Henry Yin occupies a corresponding place with him, on the other side of the composition ; in the copy his face is seen in full ; the dress is also different, both doublet and surcoat; the right hand is differently treated ; and in the small shield in the grotesque cinque-cento frieze in the back-ground, the lover's knot in the cartoon, uniting an H. and a J., has given place to the word anno in the picture. The head of Henry VII. also is somewhat indifferent and inferior in the picture. Although the cartoon was evidently prepared for the monumental work in Whitehall, the picture was as evidently not painted from it. The lower inscription on Yan Leemput's copy distinctly tells us that it was reduced from the large Whitehall picture, by the commands of Charles II., in 1667 ; in it therefore we have the exact character of the greater work. The composition is sufficiently formal, it was purely an heroic iconic monumental work, comprising not only the two heroes, but their wives also, and especially commemorating his father's pacification of the country after the terrible war of the Eoses, and his own victory over the papacy, and the restora- tion of religion. In the centre is the face of what appears to be a high marble pedestal, on the top of which are placed two cushions ; on the floor below, which is of different elevations, is carelessly thrown a Turkey carpet, which runs behind the pedestal, and is ruffled up by the interruption; the back- ground is a rich piece of Renaissance decoration in various coloured marbles, with pilasters, niches, and frieze. On the right hand of the pedestal, on the first step, stands the king, in the well-known attitude described, a glove in his right hand, and his left resting on his dagger, gold hilted, and in a gold and blue velvet sheath ; his doublet is brown, richly jewelled and cut ; his gown, furred, is red, and brocaded with gold thread ; his flat bonnet is ornamented with pearls and a white feather. Opposite to Henry on the other side of the pedestal is the SEEYANT OF THE. KING'S MAJESTY. 307 small figure of his queen, J ane Seymour, a woman with a light Chap. xv. brown or hazel eye, but a very aquiline nose, and this is the p^^y'i only portrait of the queen that can be depended on ; it is a ^^jj^^^"^ key that should solve the riddle, or a sword to cut the knot, of 1537.* other portraits reputed to be hers. Her dress seems to be tawny ^^^^ and gold, with full ermine sleeves, and she wears necklaces of pearls ; she holds her hands before her, clasped ; and a little white dog is reposing on the long skirt of her dress. On a still higher step, and nearly behind Henry YIII. and his queen, are Henry YII. and Queen Elizabeth of York ; the king is leaning with his left arm on the cushion on the pedestal, and holds a glove in his left hand; while he adjusts his gown with his right : the head is nearly full face, is much the same as in the bust of this king ascribed to Torregiano, but it is very inferior in dignity and effect to the head in the cartoon. Elizabeth of York stands with her arms crossed, and holding up her dress with her right hand. In the two cartouches or shields in the frieze is the date of the original painting, ANNO 1537. And on the face of the pedestal is the follow- ing inscription, and glorification of the two kings, father and son* : — Si juvat heroum claras vidisse figuras, Specta has, majores nulla tabella tulit. Certamen magnum, lis, questio magna, pater ne Filius an vincat, vicit uterque quidem. Iste suos hostes, patriaeque incendia saepe Sustulit, et pacem civibus usque dedit. Filius, ad majora quidem prognatus, ab aris Submovet indignos substituitque probos. Certae virtuti Paparum audacia cessit, Henrico Octavo sceptra gerente manu. * Which seems to mean this — If there is any satisfaction in seeing the illus- trioiis countenances of great men, look at these, no picture ever bore more noble. The great contest, the strife — it has been a question whether the father or the son were the superior — both are equally victors. He overcame his ene- mies, suppressed insurrections in the country, and restored peace to his sub- jects. The son, born to still greater things, removed the rogues from the altars and put honest men in their places. To his gTeat virtue the audacity of the popes yielded. With the sceptre in the hand of Henry VIII. rehgion was restored, and the doctrines of God began to be held in due reverence. 308 LIFE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XV. Boyal Portraits at Whitehall. 1537. 29tli Henry VIII. Eeddita religio est, isto regnante Deique Dogmata ceperuut esse in lionore suo. Then follows tlie painter's signature, on a plynth below : — PllOTOTYPUM JUSTAE MAGNITUDINTS IPSO OPEEE TECTORIO, FECIT HOLBENIUS JUBENTE HeNRICO YIII. EcTYPUM A E,E- MIGIO VAN LeRMPUT BREVIORI TABELLA DESCRIBI VOLUIT Carolls 11. M. B. F. E. H. R. A°- DM. MDCLXYII. It is therefore to Charles II.'s anxiety to possess a smaller picture of this composition, that we owe the preservation of one of Holbein's most important and interesting designs: whether any more of the cartoon is in existence, is not known ; but the figure of the king himself we have in hfe-sized copies, with some alterations in the accessaries, as in the really magnificent portrait of the king in the carved chamber at Petworth House •, and in the much coarser example belonging to Mr. Danby Seymour, which with the exception of the curtain, substituted in the place of a portion of the pedestal and the figure of Henry YIL, appears to be an exact copy of the portrait of Henry VIH. in this Whitehall picture. There is also a full-sized copy of the figure of the king at St. Bartholo- mew's Hospital, with another variation of the back-ground and floor : Henry YHI. reconstituted this hospital in 1544 : it had been condemned with the rest, at the general dissolution of the religious corporations.* There were doubtless many copies, both large and small made of this popular portrait : Dord Spencer has a small bust portrait of the king, which is nearly identical with the cartoon ; and there is another, on copper, formerly at Lee Priory, but now in the National Portrait Gallery, of the same size, and much the same in all respects, as Lord Spencer's, but not in such good condition. The * St. Bartholomew's possesses also one of the ordinary half-lengths of the king, of the Kimbolton and Warwick type, inscribed ANNO Dr.i 1544, ^TATIS SV^ 55. The date perhaps commemo- rates the reincorporation of the hospital ; the age is wrong by two years. The portrait is of course ascribed to Holbein ; the dress is skilfully enough painted, but the face is inferior. SERVANT OF THE KING'S MAJESTY. 309 dimensions of the original, or Holbein's prototype of the natural size, on the wall, was apparently about nine feet square. Yan Leemput's copy, on canvas is 3 ft. 3 in. high by 3 ft. wide. Mr. Danby Seymour's picture, on wood, is 7 ft. 8 in. high by 4 ft. 5 in. wide.* There seems to have been some attempt made to clean the two heads in the cartoon, and Henry YIII.'s face is nearly washed out. On the 12th of October of this year. Prince Edward was born at Hampton Court, to the great joy of the nation ; but within the fortnight this great blessing was followed by the irreparable calamity of the death of Queen Jane, who through some neglect of her attendants, in the midst of well-doing, took cold, and died on the 24th of the month, and Henry YIH. was again a widower ; and the Privy Council as usual, immediately urged upon him the necessity of undertaking a fresh marriage. Tn this year Paul III. published his great against the king ; the substance of it has been already given. Henry had opened negotiations of marriage with the emperor for the hand Chap. XV. Iioyal Portraits at WhitehaU. 1537. 29th Henry VIII. Birth of Prince Edward. Death of Queen Jane. The Duchess of Milan. * There is an entry in Pepys' " Diary" respecting the gallery at Whitehall, which is not easy to understand; he says — "Angt. 28. 1668 With much difficulty, by candle-light, walked over the matted gallery [at Whitehall], as it is now with the mats and boards all taken up, so that we walked over the rafters. But strange to see how hard matter the plaister of Paris is, that is there taken up, as hard as stone ! And pity to see Ifolben's work in the ceiling Hotted on, and only whited over I" Vol. IV., p. 12, 13. Ed. 1854. What work can this have been, and what is the sense of the words in itahcs; should "only" be read aW^ Or can it be that Holbein decorated the ceiKng of the gallery at Whitehall? He has the credit of having designed the ceiling of St. James's Chapel. The Whitehall ceiling was probably in relief, and picked out with colour; and Pepys was per- haps lamenting that instead of restoring it, it was messed and merely whited over: oidij would then be the correct word. The ceiling of St. James's Chapel is a curious work, a panelled Ecnais- sance design, and tastefully coloured. It was repaired in 1836 by Sir E. Smirke; the general ground is blue; the panellings are defined by ribs of wood gilt; there are also ornaments in foliage, painted green; and there are many coats of arms emblazoned in their proper colours. A small running open ornament, cast in lead, enriches the under sides of the ribs. The date 1540 occurs in several places, and various short inscriptions are scattered about, as— Heneicus Eex 8 — H and A, for Henry and Anne of Cleves, with a lover's knot between them ; also VIVAT EEX-DEEV ET MON DEOIT, &c. A view of the ceiling is given in Eichard- son's Architectural Remains of the lieigns of Elizabeth and James 1st. Folio. London, 1838. PI. 12. 310 LIFE' AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XV. of his iiiece, Christina Duchess of Milan, and the young widow TlieMess of Franccsco Sforza. of Milan. Everything seemed to proceed smoothly until the month of SOth^^^" October, when a coolness on the part of the emperor became Henry VIH. apparent, said to have been brought about by the hostility of the pope, who had been incensed beyond endurance, by the formal destruction in' this month of October of the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral ; the formal Bull was promulgated, and the King of England was, in theory, deposed by the bishop of Rome. In January 1539 the negotiations for the marriage were finally broken off, not by the lady herself, but by the emperor. The documents show no unwillingness on the lady's part, and there was no good reason why there should be any unwilling- ness : the execution of a faithless wife, was nothing to make an honest woman tremble, though one conscious of her own want of rectitude might well feel nervous under the circumstances. The following reply put by Walpole into the mouth of the Duchess of Milan is by Sandrart reported of the Princess of Lorraine, meaning the same lady she was afterwards Duchess of Lorraine. One story has doubtless as much truth in it as the other; both are from the same source, some spurious fabrications of a later time, or the duchess herself may have made some such observation in later years. " After the death of Jane Seymour," says Walpole, "Holbein was sent to Flanders to draw the picture of the Duchess Dowager of Milan, widow of Francis Sforza, whom Charles Y. had re- commended to Henry for a fourth wife, but afterwards changing his mind, prevented him from marrying. Among the Harleian MSS. there is a letter from Sir Thomas Wyatt to the king, congratulating his majesty on his escape, as the duchess's chastity was a little equivocal. If it was, consider- ing Henry's temper, I am apt to think that the duchess had the greater escape. It was about the same time that it is said she herself sent the king word, 'that she had hut one head; if she had two, one of them should he at his majesty s service.' " Fortunately among the very few documents relating to SEEVANT OF THE KING'S MAJESTY. 311 Holbein, we have among the State Papers of Henry VIII. Chap. xv. a very interesting letter to Cromwell, from John Hutton, the ^iie Duchess English minister at the court of the regent of the Nether- ^-^^^gg* lands, at Brussels, which gives us a detailed account of Hoi- soth bein's interview with the duchess, on the occasion of his visit Henry vni. to Brussels for the purpose of painting her portrait, in March 1538, pending the above-mentioned marriage negotiations. The following is an extract from this letter, which throws also some light on the marriage negotiations, — Mr. Haunce or Hanns being our painter; surnames were then of little ac- count; our painter was probably much better known as Mr. Hanns than as Holbein. (No. 488). Hutton to Cromwell, lith March, 1538. "My most bounden duty remembered unto your good Lordship. Pleaseth tlie same to be advertised, that the 10th of this present month, in the evening, arrived here your Lordship's servant Philip Hobbie, accompanied with a servant of the King's Majesty's named Mr. Haunce, by which Philip I received your Lordship's letter, bearing date at St. James's the second day of this present. The effect whereof ap- perceived, having the day before sent one of my servants towards your Lordship with a picture of the Duchess of Milan, I thought it very necessary to stay the same, for that in my opinion it was not so perfect as the cause required, neither as the said Mr. Haunce could make it. Upon which determination I despatched another of my servants, in post, to return the same, which your Lordship shall receive by this bearer. The next morning after the arrival of your Lordship's said servant I did address myself unto the Lady Kegent, declaring unto Her, that the night past there arrived at my lodging a servant of your Lordship's, with one other of the King's Majesty's ; by which your Lordship's servant I had received commission to certify Her Grace that the Emperor's am- bassadors, resident with the King's Majesty my master, had made earnest overture unto your Lordship for a marriage to be treated, betwixt the Majesty of my said master, and the Duchess Grace of Milan. To the which albeit your Lordship was of no less good inclination for the furtherance of the same, than the said ambassadors were, yet your Lordship thought it not expedient to be broken unto the King's High- ness, without having some further occasion ministered for the opening of the same. "And for as much as your Lordship had heard great commendation of the form, beauty, wisdom, and other virtuous qualities the Avhich God 312 LIEE AND WOEKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XV. liad endowed tlie said Ducliess witli, you could perceive no mean more meet for the advancement of the same, than to procure her perfect of Milan. picture; for which your Lordship had sent, m company ot your said 1538. servant, a man very excellent in making of physiognomies ; so that your Henry vm. Lordship's desire was that your said servant might in most humblest wise salute the Duchess's Grace, requiring that her pleasure might be to appoint the time and place, where the said painter might accomplish his charge. " The Eegent, when I began to declare this foresaid purpose, stood upon her feet ; but after she had a little in] r> 1 • J. 1 1 IT 1 the Museum. departments of figure drawmg, ornamental modelling, and architectural design. The " Passion " series of seven draw- ings, and the sketches for and from the Stahlhof compositions have been already described. Among other remarkable draw- ings by Holbein in the museum are the following six : — 1. The "Descent of the Holy Ghost;" a bold sketch with the pen, and tinted with Indian ink : from the Lawrence collec- 358 LITE AND WOKKS OF HOLBEIN, Chap. XV. tion. — The Queen possesses a fine drawing, in sepia, lieight- Drawings in ^^^^ witli blue and gold, at Windsor, in a more delicate style the Museum, than this, representing " The Queen of Sheba ;" it is engraved 35th by Hollar. 2. A " Woman seated with four children ;" and Henry vni. 3^ u YiYe Musicians in a Grallery ;" both outlined with the pen, and washed with Indian ink, and formerly in the Cosway and Utterson collections. 4. A " Cinque-cento design for a gold cup, or vase," of extremely beautiful scrolled details, and richly set with cameos and jewels ; this was executed for Henry YIH., apparently about 1536-7, as it bears the motto of Jane Sey- movLT-^Bound to obey and serve — together with the initials of the king and the queen. This drawing belonged to Beckford ; there is another of the same cup or vase, in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford ; it is about 14 inches high. There is no better cinque-cento ornament than this : it is in the same taste as, but perhaps, purer than, the best work of Benvenuto Cellini, Holbein's contemporary, but his junior by five years. Cellini was in Paris in June 1537, and on other occasions afterwards, but does not appear to have ever visited this country. Holbein may have met with some of Cellini's work in France in 1538-9, but he cannot have seen much of it, and must have formed his own style quite independently of the Florentine artist ; though if he ever visited Milan, which is possible, he might have seen fine cinque-cento work there. Cellini sur- vived Holbein nearly twenty-seven years ; he died at Florence on the 15th of January 1570, but his autobiography reaches only to 1562. 5. Another fine ornamental drawing with the pen and washed with Indian ink is the " Design for a clock," for Sir Anthony Denny ; the two boys* surmounting this design are very beautiful, in a true Eaphaelesque style; there is also a separate study for these two boys, taken from the Sloa.ne volume of sketches. This clock was executed and presented in 1544 ( ? for 1545) by Sir Anthony, as a New Year's gift to * Engraved for this volume. SERVANT OF THE KING'S MAJESTY. 359 Henry YIIL ; this fact is recorded on the drawing itself, which Chap. xv. at one time belonged to Mariette, and was afterwards in the drawings in collection of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill. Mariette tJ^^ Museum. 7 . . V 1543 has left us his own description of it: he says — "Je possede 35th aussi un fort beau dessein d'une horloge de sable, qui, suivant Henry vni. une inscription latine qu'on y lit, a ete fait pour etre presentee a Henry VHL, le premier jour de Tan 1545, par Antoine Deny, son chambellan. Le trait en est k la plume, et d'une nettete qui feroit soupQonner, au premier aspect, qu'il a ete grave ; les ombres sont donnees avec un lavis d'encre de la chine. C'est ainsi que sont executes tous les desseins de Holbein qui me sont passes par les mains, et voici une copie fidele de I'inscrip- tion : Strena facta pro Anthony Deny camerario Regis quod initio novi anni 1545 Regi dedit"* At the sale at Strawberry Hill in 1842, this drawing was sold for 6/. I65. 8c?. only. 6. Walpole possessed likewise the remarkable pen-and-ink Architectural design^ washed with colour, now in the museum, for a chimney- piece, in a rich Eenaissance taste ; which from the royal arms on it, was also probably designed for Henry YIII. It be- longed to Jonathan Richardson, and was sold for thirty-two guineas at the Strawberry Hill sal^, in 1842. Walpole suggests that it is possibly that mentioned by Peacham, as made for the new palace at Bridewell. This elaborate drawing, wliich was lately bought for the nation for 100/., is in a style consistent with Holbein's taste throughout the whole of his career ; this is what cannot be said for the old Whitehall gateway ascribed to him, and which is engraved in the Antiquities of Westminster^ ; or for the Wilton portico. The last is a plain Italian design of a double row of columns Ionic below and Corinthian above, displaying neither taste, nor knowledge of the style : the medallion figures inserted in the upper part appear from their costume to belong to a later time than Holbein's. As for the Whitehall gate it was a mongrel of Gothic and Renaissance quite unworthy of * Notes to Walpole, Abecedario, &c. Vol. II., p. 370. 360 LIFE AND WORKS OF HOLBEIN. Chap. XV. Holbein, and I should imagine an impossible design for him : Architectural it was similar in general character to the gate of St. Jameses designs Palacc, at the bottom of St. James's Street.* 1543. 85tli — — ^ Henry Vni. * " One cannot but lament," says vestre :— Veue et Perspective du Palais du Walpole, " that a noble monument of bis j liotj d' Angleterre a Londres qui s'appelle genius has lately been demolished, the | Whitehall. Silyestre died in 1691. The gateway at Whitehall, supposed to have \ other, plate 35, is a print of the gate, by been erected for the entry of Charles V. I J. Brock, from an engraving by Vertue, but that was a mistake : the emperor ; published in 1725 ; but the two do not was here in 1521; Holbein did not arrive j agree: sec J. T. Smith's Antiquities of at soonest till five years after. A view ' Westminster; the Old Palace, St. Stephen's of this gateway is given by Smith twice j Ohupel, &c. 4to. London, 1807. Sup- in his Westminster, but the two views | plement, 1808. There is also a vignette do not agree. One, plate 34, is a ge- \ of it inmy edition of Walpole's Jjiecc?oi{6?s, neral view of the old palace of Whitehall, | &c., p. 114. Ed. 1849. copied from a rare print by Israel Sil- ' CHAPTER XYI. The Last Stage, VRLY deaths are fortuDately not of very fre- Chai-. XVJ. quent occurrence in the annals of great painters, jjeati