Italy, and appears to have painted pictures at Altorf; the Italian influence, however, detected in his pictures may be easily traced to the study of engravings. In 1518 he was back in Lucerne and engaged in painting the inside and outside of Jacob von Hertenstein's new house. This house with Holbein's paintings was standing till 1824, when it was destroyed for local improvements; hasty copies of the paintings were made at that time, and are preserved in the town library at Lucerne. Holbein painted a ‘Passion’ series for the Franciscan convent, made designs for banners, glass windows, and was employed on other local services in Lucerne. In 1519 he was back in Basle, and on 25 Sept. was admitted into the guild ‘zum Himmel,’ composed of barbers, surgeons, and painters. In October of that year he painted the beautiful portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach, another eminent humanist (in the museum at Basle). On 3 July 1520 he paid the fees for burgher's rights at Basle. He received many commissions for designs for glass windows, and painted the outside of many houses, such as the ‘Haus zum Tanz,’ some drawings for which are preserved in the museum at Basle. He was soon employed on a more important task, perhaps under the direction of Rhenanus, namely, to paint large mural paintings, with scenes chosen from classical history, in the town hall at Basle. Holbein commenced there in June 1521, but in November 1522 the series was broken off. In most of the paintings mentioned Holbein showed a great sense of humour and skill in treating secular or domestic subjects. He executed, however, some important religious works, such as ‘The Last Supper,’ the eight ‘Passion’ pictures, ‘The Dead Christ,’ and other pictures in the museum at Basle; ‘The Nativity’ and ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, ‘St. Ursula and St. George’ at Karlsruhe, the great ‘Madonna and Saints’ at Solothurn, and the still greater ‘Madonna with the Meyer family’ in the picture gallery at Darmstadt. This picture was painted about 1526 for Holbein's patron, the ex-burgomaster Jacob Meyer ‘zum Hasen.’ The famous picture of the same subject in the Dresden Gallery is now universally acknowledged to be an excellent and possibly contemporary copy, though not a replica, of the picture at Darmstadt. Two portraits of Dorothea Offenburg (in the museum at Basle), as ‘Venus’ and as ‘Lais Corinthiaca,’ of a rather different character from the others, belong to this period.
In 1522 Luther's translation of the New Testament into German was published, with woodcut illustrations, at Wittenberg. Numerous reprints quickly followed, and the Basle printers were in the front. At Christmas 1522 Adam Petri published a reprint with a title-page and eight illustrations designed by Holbein, and the edition was frequently reissued. In 1523 Thomas Wolff published another reprint with twenty-one designs to illustrate the ‘Apocalypse’ by Holbein. These designs and others were cut on the block by Hans Lützelberger, who came to Basle at the time for the purpose. The blocks for the ‘Apocalypse’ eventually came into the possession of Christoph Froschauer at Zürich, and were used for Tyndale's English translation, published in 1536. Luther's German translation of the ‘Pentateuch,’ published at Wittenberg in 1523, was reprinted in the same year at Basle by Thomas Wolff, with a title-page and eleven illustrations by Holbein and Lützelberger. Adam Petri, in a later edition of Luther's ‘Pentateuch’ (1524), printed six new illustrations by the same artists. In all these designs Holbein drew freely from the Wittenberg illustrations as originals. About 1523 the brothers Trechsel, printers at Lyons, planned a new series of illustrations to the ‘Vulgate Old Testament.’ They employed Lützelberger as cutter and Holbein as designer of the blocks. These were about ninety in number, and the designs were freely adapted from the preceding series. Before, however, the series was complete, Lützelberger died in 1526; the blocks passed into the hands of Trechsel, and were not published for several years.
A similar fate attended the famous series illustrating ‘The Dance of Death,’ designed by Holbein and cut by Lützelberger between 1523 and 1526. These designs reveal Holbein as one of the leading agents in the spread of the reformed doctrines, to which the humanist culture of the Basle scholars had given notable impetus. The chief of these, Erasmus, may be ranked among Holbein's patrons, though they were not necessarily on such intimate terms as has been supposed. He employed Holbein to paint his portrait in 1523 at least three times; two he sent to England (one now at Longford Castle, and the other in the Louvre at Paris), and the third he sent to Bonifacius Amerbach at Avignon, probably conveyed by the painter himself during a professional visit to the printers at Lyons. Holbein and his brother Ambrosius had also provided designs to illustrate not only the works of Erasmus himself, but also those of his friend and correspondent in England, Sir Thomas More. Holbein about 1520 married a widow, Elsbeth Schmid, with a son, and had a family of his own. In 1526, after Lützelberger's death, and from the general
