at various periods of his career; and if we accept as early works the
“Flagellation,” and the “Last Supper” at Basel, coarse as they
are, they show some acquaintance with Lombard methods of
painting, whilst in other pieces, such as the series of the Passion in
oil in the same collection, the modes of Hans Holbein the elder are
agreeably commingled with a more modern, it may be said Italian,
polish. Again, looking at the “Virgin” and “Man of Sorrows”
in the Basel museum, we shall be struck by a searching metallic
style akin to that of the Ferrarese; and the “Lais” or the “Venus
and Amor” of the same collection reminds us of the Leonardesques
of the school of Milan. When Holbein settled down to an
extensive practice at Basel in 1519, he decorated the walls of
the house “Zum Tanz” with simulated architectural features
of a florid character after the fashion of the Veronese; and his
wall paintings in the town-hall, if we can truly judge of them
by copies, reveal an artist not unfamiliar with North Italian
composition, distribution, action, gesture and expression. In
his drawings too, particularly in a set representing the Passion
at Basel, the arrangement, and also the perspective, form and
decorative ornament, are in the spirit of the school of Mantegna.
Contemporary with these, however, and almost inexplicably
in contrast with them as regards handling, are portrait-drawings
such as the likenesses of Jacob Meyer, and his wife, which are
finished with German delicacy, and with a power and subtlety
of hand seldom rivalled in any school. Curiously enough, the
same contrast may be observed between painted compositions
and painted portraits. The “Bonifacius Amerbach” of 1519 at
Basel is acknowledged to be one of the most complete examples
of smooth and transparent handling that Holbein ever executed.
His versatility at this period is shown by 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 remarkable 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 of 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 times, 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 likewise did in 1530, in various positions,
showing his face threequarters 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 for woodcuts, 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 composition 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 commissions—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. 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 Guildford and his wife (Windsor), all finished in 1527, the astronomer Nicholas Kratzer (Louvre), Thomas Godsalve (Dresden), and Sir 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 that he should suffer again from the depression caused by evil times, asked him to finish the frescoes of the town-hall, 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 (but now lost), 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 “Ambassadors” (National Gallery), and the “Triumphs of Wealth and Poverty” were executed, then the portraits of Leland and Wyatt (Longford), and (1534) the portrait of Thomas Cromwell. 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 17th century. Then Holbein painted Jane Seymour in state (Vienna), employing
