Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/65

55 HOLBEIN 55 a dead Christ (1521), a corpse in profile on a dissecting table, and a set of figures in couples ; the Madonna and St Pantalus, and Kaiser Henry with the empress Kunigunde (1522), originally composed for the organ loft of the Basel cathedral, now in the Basel museum. Equally remarkable, but more attractive, though injured, is the Virgin and Child between St Ursus and St Nicholas (not St Martin) giving alms to a beggar, in the gallery of Solothurn. This re markable picture is dated 1522, and seems to have been ordered for an altar in the minster of St Ursus of Solothurn by Nicholas Conrad, a captain and statesman of the 16th century, whose family allowed the precious heirloom to fall into decay in a chapel of the neighbouring village of Grenchen. Numerous drawings in the spirit of this picture, and probably of the same period in his career, might have led Holbein s contemporaries to believe that he would make his mark in the annals pf Basel as a model for painters of altarpieces as well as a model for pictorial composition and portrait. The promise which he gave at this time was immense. He was gaining a freedom in draughtsmanship that gave him facility to deal with any subject. Though a realist, he was sensible of the dignity and severity of religious painting. His colour had almost all the richness and sweetness of the Venetians. But he had fallen on evil tunes, as the next few years undoubtedly showed. Amongst the portraits which he executed in these years are those of Froben, the publisher, known only by copies at Basel and Hampton Court, and Erasmus, who sat in 1523, as he like wise did in 1530, in various positions, showing his face three- quarters as at Longford, Basel, Turin, Parma, the Hague, and Vienna, and in profile as in the Louvre or at Hampton Court. Besides these, Holbein made designs for glass windows and prints, including subjects of every sort, from the Virgin and Child with saints of the old time to the Dance of Death, from gospel incidents extracted from Luther s Bible to satirical pieces illustrating the sale of indulgences and other abuses denounced by Reformers. Holbein, in this way, was carried irresistibly with the stream of the Reformation, in which, it must now be admitted, the old traditions of religious painting were wrecked, leaving nothing behind but unpictorial elements which Cranach and his school vainly used for pictorial purposes. Once only, after 1526, and after he had produced the Lais and Venus and Amor, did Holbein with impartial spirit give his services and pencil to the Roman Catholic cause. The burgomaster Meyer, whose patronage he had already enjoyed, now asked him to represent himself and his wives and children in prayer before the Virgin; and Holbein produced the celebrated altarpiece now in the palace of Prince William of Hesse at Darmstadt, the shape and com position of which are known to all the world by its copy in the Dresden museum. The drawings for this masterpiece are amongst the most precious relics in the museum of Basel. The time now came when art began to suffer from unavoidable depression in all countries north of the Alps. Holbein, at Basel, was reduced to accept the smallest com missions even for scutcheons. Then he saw that his chances were dwindling to nothing, and taking a bold resolution, armed with letters of introduction from Erasmus to More, he crossed the Channel to England, where in the one-sided branch of portrait painting he found an endless circle of clients. Eighty-seven drawings by Holbein in Windsor Castle, containing an equal number of portraits, of persons chiefly of high quality, testify to his industry in the years which divide 1528 from 1543. They are all originals of pictures that are still extant, or sketches for pictures that were lost or never carried out. Sir Thomas More, with whom he seems to have had a very friendly connexion, sat to him for likenesses of various kinds. The drawing of his head is at Windsor. The picture from that drawing belonged, and perhaps still belongs, to Mr Huth in London. A pen-and-ink sketch, in which we see More surrounded by all the members of his family, is now in the gallery of Basel, and numerous copies of a picture from it prove how popular the lost original must once have been. At the same period were executed the portraits of Warham (Lambeth and Louvre), Wyatt (Louvre), Sir Henry Guild- ford and his wife (Windsor and Mr Frewen), all finished in 1527, the astronomer Kratzer (Louvre), Godsalve (Dresden), and Bryan Tuke (Munich) in 1528. In this year, 1528, Holbein returned to Basel, taking to Erasmus the sketch of More s family. With money which he brought from London he purchased a house at Basel wherein to lodge his wife and children, whose portraits he now painted with all the care of a husband and father (1528). He then witnessed the flight of Erasmus and the fury of the iconoclasts, who destroyed in one day almost all the religious pictures at Basel. The municipality, unwilling and the sketches from these lost pictures are still before us to show that he had not lost the spirit of his earlier days, and was still capable as a composer. His Rehoboam receiving the Israelite Envoys, and Saul at the Head of his Array meeting Samuel, testify to Holbein s power and his will, also proved at a later period by the Triumphs of Riches and Poverty, executed for the Steelyard in London, to prefer the fame of a painter of history to that of a painter of portraits. But the reforming times still remained unfavourable to art. With the exception of a portrait of Melanchthon (Hanover) which he now completed, Holbein found little to do at Basel. The year 1530, therefore, saw him again on the move, and he landed in England for the second time with the prospect of bettering his fortunes. Here indeed political changes had robbed him of his earlier patrons. The circle of More and Warham was gone. But that of the merchants of the Steelyard took its place, for whom Holbein executed the long and important series of portraits that lie scattered throughout the galleries and collections of England and the Continent, and bear date after 1532. Then came again the chance of practice in more fashionable circles. In 1533 the- Triumphs of Wealth and Poverty were executed, then the portraits of Leland and Wyatt (Longford), and ( 1 534) the portrait of Thomas Crom well. Through Cromwell Holbein probably became attached to the court, in the pay of which he appears permanently after 1537. From that time onwards he was connected with all that was highest in the society of London. Henry VIII. invited him to make a family picture of himself, his father, and family, which obtained a post of honour at Whitehall The beautiful cartoon of a part of this fine piece at Hardwicke Hall enables us to gauge its beauty before the fire which destroyed it in the Nth century. Then Holbein painted Jane Seymour in state (Vienna), employing some English hand perhaps to make the replicas at the Hague, Sion Honse, and W T oburn ; he finished the Southwell of the Uffizi (copy at the Louvre), the jeweller Morett at Dresden, and last, not least, Christine of Denmark (Arundel and Windsor castles), who gave sittings at Brussels in 1538. During the journey which this work involved Holbein took the opportunity of revisiting Basel, where he made his appearance in silk and satin, and pro forma only accepted the office of town painter. He had been living long and continuously away from home, not indeed observing due fidelity to his wife, who still resided at Basel, but fairly performing the duties of keeping her in comfort. His return to London in autumn enabled him to do homage to the king in the way familiar to artists. He presented to Henry at Christmas a portrait of Prince Edward. Again abroad in the summer of 1539, he painted
 * that he should suffer again from the depression caused by
 * evil times, asked him to finish the frescos of the town-hall,