Solier, seigneur de Morette, frequently ambassador from France, and lastly in 1534 (see S. Larpent, ‘sur le portrait de Morett à Dresde’). Holbein, as a supporter of the Reformation, now victorious in England, designed the title-pages to Coverdale's Bible, published in 1535, and Cranmer's Bible, published in 1540 (2nd edit. 1541, with Cromwell's arms erased from the title-page), a ‘Passion’ series satirising the monks (etched by Wenzel Hollar), a set of small illustrations to the New Testament, used for Cranmer's ‘Catechism’ in 1548, and a title-page used for Hall's ‘Chronicle’ in the same year. Though he painted Thomas Cromwell (at Tittenhanger; the drawing by Holbein at Wilton House is not Cromwell), he does not appear to have painted Cranmer, nor can any authentic portrait of Anne Boleyn by him be traced, except perhaps a miniature at Windsor. It is not till 1536 that any trace is found of his being in the king's service. In that year Bourbon speaks of him in a letter as ‘the king's painter,’ and in that year he painted the new queen, Jane Seymour (at Woburn Abbey, and another at Vienna, drawing at Windsor). In 1537 Holbein painted the group of Henry VIII with his father and mother and Jane Seymour on the wall of the privy chamber at Whitehall. This perished in the fire of 1698; a small copy by Remigius van Leemput (engraved by Vertue) is at Hampton Court, and the original cartoon for the figures of Henry VII and Henry VIII is at Hardwick Hall. A drawing of Henry VIII at Munich was perhaps done for this painting. Holbein does not appear to have painted in fresco. In October 1537 Jane Seymour died, and Henry VIII sought a new wife. In March 1538 Holbein was sent to Brussels to paint a portrait of Christina of Denmark, the widowed duchess of Milan. The painter, although he had but three hours to do his work in, was thoroughly successful. The portrait done in this way was probably that at Windsor, and not the exquisitely finished full-length portrait at Arundel Castle (on loan to the National Gallery). On Lady-day 1538 the first of a series of payments to Holbein is entered in the accounts of the royal household. In December 1538 he was paid 10l. for his services abroad in Upper Burgundy. This may allude to his share in the mission to negotiate for the Duchess of Milan's hand, which dragged on to January 1539. Anyhow he took the opportunity to pay a visit to his family at Basle, where he was entertained at a banquet by the citizens, who voted him an annuity and a separate one to his wife for two years, when he hoped to finally return. Possibly he also paid a visit to his friend Nicholas Bourbon, then resident at Lyons, to see after the publication of the series of illustrations to the Old Testament and to ‘The Dance of Death,’ which had remained unpublished since 1526, and were now completed and saw the light for the first time (1538). He drew a portrait of Bourbon (drawing at Windsor) which appeared in an edition of Bourbon's ‘Nugæ’ published at Lyons that year. On his way back he may have taken his son Philip and apprenticed him to Jerome David in Paris. He was back in England by New-year's day 1539, as among the New-year's gifts to the king he gave ‘a table of the pictour of the prince's grace,’ possibly the portrait of the infant Edward VI at Hanover (another in Lord Yarborough's collection). In August 1539 he was sent on another mission to Düren to paint the portraits of the daughters of the Duke of Cleves. His portrait of Anne of Cleves (perhaps the one now in the Louvre) was sufficiently attractive to decide the king in her favour. Holbein painted a great number of portraits in England at this time. Among them were Thomas, third duke of Norfolk (at Windsor, another at Arundel Castle), his son the Earl of Surrey (picture not traced, drawings at Windsor), Sir Nicholas Carew (at Dalkeith Palace, drawing at Basle), Sir Richard Southwell (in the Uffizi at Florence, drawing at Windsor), Sir John Russell (at Woburn Abbey, drawing at Windsor), Sir William Butts (formerly in Pole Carew collection), Lady Butts (the same, drawing at Windsor), Lady Rich (at Buildwas Park, drawing at Windsor), Lady Vaux (at Hampton Court, another at Prague, drawing at Windsor), Nicholas Poyntz (de la Rosière collection in Paris, drawing at Windsor), John Reskymeer (at Hampton Court, drawing at Windsor), Simon George (in the Städel Institut at Frankfurt, drawing at Windsor), Dr. John Chamber (at Vienna), and the man with a falcon (1542) (at the Hague). Holbein painted a miniature of Queen Catherine Howard (at Windsor, also drawing), but does not appear to have painted Catherine Parr. Many other notable persons appear among the collection of portrait drawings at Windsor, which form a most valuable historical, as well as artistic, record of the time.
In 1542 Holbein commenced the large picture (in the Barber-Surgeons' Hall) of Henry VIII giving the charter to the newly incorporated company of the Barber-Surgeons, which resembled his own guild at Basle. He did not live to finish this. Although the two years were long past after which he had promised to return to Basle,
