XXI. THE VISIT TO “HIGH BURGONY”[287]…

XXI. THE VISIT TO “HIGH BURGONY”[287]

Negotiations for a French wife for the King—Marie of Lorraine, Duchess of Longueville, afterwards Queen of Scotland—Visit of Peter Mewtas to France to obtain her portrait—Pierre Quesnel—Louise of Guise—Holbein receives a royal licence to export beer—Hoby and Holbein sent to Havre to take portraits of Louise of Guise and some other lady—Renée of Guise—Expedition of Hoby and Holbein to Joinville and Nancy to obtain portraits of Renée and her cousin, Anne of Lorraine—Cromwell’s instructions—Letter from the Duchess of Guise to her daughter, the Queen of Scotland, describing their visit—Holbein’s salary and advances of his wages—Letter from Niklaus Kratzer to Cromwell—Confusion as to the dates of Hoby’s and Holbein’s continental journeys in 1538 owing to a wrong entry in the Calendar of Letters and Papers—Holbein goes on to Basel from Nancy.

Footnote 287:

The greater part of this chapter appeared in the Burlington Magazine, vol. xxi., April 1912, pp. 25-30.

AS already stated in the last chapter, during the whole of the time the negotiations for the hand of the Duchess of Milan were in progress, others were being carried on concurrently for a French bride for Henry. The King’s personal inclination, indeed, leant much more strongly towards an alliance with France than one with the Emperor; and on October 24th, the very day of Queen Jane Seymour’s death, Cromwell wrote to Stephen Gardiner and Lord William Howard, then at the French court, informing them of Henry’s loss, and urging them to make secret inquiries as to a possible successor among the princesses of France. “Our Prince,” he said, “our Lord be thanked, is in good health, and suckethe like a child of his puissance, which youe, my Lord William, canne declare. Our Mastres, thoroughe the faulte of them that were about Her, whiche suffred Her to take greate cold, and to eate things that her fantazie in syknes called for, is departed to God.”[288]

Footnote 288:

St. P., vol. viii. (pt. v. continued) 478.

He went on to say that the Council were unanimously of opinion that the King should marry again as soon as possible:

[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS OF LONGUEVILLE]

“Soo considering what personages in Christendom be mete for Him, amonges the rest there be two in Fraunce, that may be thought on, thone is the Frenche Kinges doughter (Margaret, afterwards Duchess of Savoy), whiche, as it is said, is not the metest, the other is Madame de Longevile, whom they say the King of Scottes dothe desire. Of whose conditions and qualities in every pointe His Majeste desireth you both, with all your dexterite and good meanes, to enquire; and likewise in what pointe and termes the said King of Scottes standeth towards either of them; whiche His Highnes is soo desirous to knowe, His Graces desire therin to be nevertheles in any wise kept secret to your selfes.”

The details of the careful search which was made throughout France for a suitable successor to Jane Seymour are to be found in the very entertaining letters written by Louis de Perreau, Sieur de Castillon, the French ambassador in London, to Francis I and his Grand Master, Anne de Montmorency. The negotiations necessitated the despatch of numerous envoys and messengers, and the painting of four or five portraits; and there is very good evidence for the belief that two or three of these were painted by Holbein, for which purpose he made at least two journeys—to Le Havre in June 1538, and to Joinville and Nancy at the end of the following August.

In the first instance, Henry’s inclinations were very strongly set upon Marie of Lorraine, the eldest daughter of Claude, Duke of Guise, and the young widow of Charles d’Orléans, Duke of Longueville, although she had been promised to James V of Scotland before Jane Seymour’s death. Henry knew quite well that this arrangement had been made, but he would not listen to the names of other ladies which were suggested to him, and maintained with great pertinacity to Castillon that the match with Scotland had not yet been settled, and that Madame de Longueville had not herself agreed to it. “He is so amorous of Madame de Longueville,” wrote Castillon to Francis, on December 30, 1537, “that he cannot refrain from coming back upon it.” “I asked him,” he goes on, “who caused him to be more inclined to her than to others, and he said Wallop was so loud in her praises that nothing could exceed them. Moreover, he said that he was big in person, and had need of a big wife—that your daughter was too young for him, and as to Madame de Vendosme, he would not take the King of Scots’ leavings!”[289]

Footnote 289:

C.L.P., vol. xii. pt. ii. 1285.

Either in December 1537 or early in the following January, Henry sent over Peter Mewtas, of the Privy Chamber, to see the Duchess secretly, and to find out from her whether she considered herself bound to James; and as a result of this mission he appears to have convinced himself that, whatever Francis I might have arranged, the lady herself and her parents were attracted by his offer, considering an alliance with so powerful a sovereign to be preferred to one with the “beggarly and stupid King of Scots,” as Henry termed his nephew to Castillon. There was a political attraction, also, about the proposal, from Henry’s point of view, for if he succeeded in taking James’s bride from him it would tend to alienate the Scots from France.

Formal articles of marriage, however, between the lady and James V were drawn up in January; but in spite of this Henry stuck to his point, and about the 1st of February Peter Mewtas was again despatched by Cromwell to find out definitely if she were still free, and also to obtain her portrait. The instructions given him need not be quoted here. They concluded by saying that if he perceived any towardness in the lady, he was, if possible, to get and bring with him “her picture truly made and like unto her.”[290]

Footnote 290:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 203. St. P., viii. 10.

[Sidenote: PIERRE QUESNEL AND HIS SONS]

Mewtas’ mission proved fruitless, and he was back in London some time before the 6th March. There is no evidence to show that he succeeded in obtaining a portrait of Madame de Longueville, or that he took Holbein or any other painter with him for that purpose. The Duchess seems to have been in Normandy, possibly at Longueville or Le Havre, and it may have been left to Mewtas to obtain the services of some local French painter, if such an one were to be procured. It is more likely, however, that a painter would be taken over for the purpose, though this was not mentioned in the instructions, as it was in the case of Hoby’s mission to Brussels. If any one were taken, it may have been Holbein, who was known personally to Mewtas, for among the Windsor drawings there is one of the latter’s wife.[291] This, however, is mere conjecture, and there is no evidence, either in writing or in the shape of a drawing, to show that Holbein took the portrait of this particular duchess; indeed, the fact of his journey to the Netherlands seems to point to the contrary, for Mewtas only returned to England from France early in March, so that if Holbein had accompanied him, he would have had to start off again without a moment’s delay with Hoby in order to reach Brussels as he did on the 10th of the same month. It was, of course, possible for him to have made both journeys, but the interval between the two was so short that extreme expedition would have been necessary.

Footnote 291:

Woltmann, 339; Wornum, ii. 20; Holmes, ii. 16. See pp. 257-8.

There was, however, a French painter, Pierre Quesnel, who may possibly have been attached to Madame de Longueville’s court at the time of Mewtas’ visit; in any case, he accompanied her to Edinburgh two months later, and entered the service of James V. He came of a family of portrait painters, and also practised historical painting. His works are now unknown, but he returned to France in 1557, and designed a painted window for the Augustins of Paris. He had three sons, François, Nicolas, and Jacques. François,[292] who was born in Holyrood about 1543 and died in 1619, was a portrait-painter of exceptional ability, as may be seen from the fine portrait of “Mary Ann Walker” belonging to Lord Spencer at Althorp Park, of which an excellent reproduction in colour has been issued by the Medici Society in their National Portrait Series. It is signed “F. Q.” in monogram, and dated 1572. This picture was brought from France about one hundred years ago, and was obtained from a descendant of the lady’s family. In this connection it may be suggested that the double portrait of “James V and Marie of Lorraine,”[293] in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Hardwick, may possibly have been, in its original state, the production of the elder Quesnel’s brush.[294] It must be noted, in conclusion, that there is no record in the English State Papers of the result of Mewtas’ mission, and so it is doubtful if Henry VIII ever possessed a portrait of the lady, whether by Quesnel, or Holbein, or any other painter, such as Hornebolt, in the King’s pay.

Footnote 292:

See Dimier, French Painting in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 191 and 289.

Footnote 293:

Reproduced in the Burlington Magazine, Oct. 1906, p. 41, in an article on “The Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots,” by Mr. Lionel Cust and Miss K. Martin.

Footnote 294:

This picture was exhibited at the Golden Fleece Exhibition at Bruges in 1907 (No. 130), as the work of an unknown Scottish painter.

Marie was married to the King of Scots on the 9th May, thus putting a final end to Henry’s plans in that direction. In her place, Francis offered him, through Castillon, the choice of any other lady in his kingdom. He was told that “she had a sister as beautiful and as graceful, clever and well-fitted to please and obey him as any other.” This remark bore fruit, and the next morning the King sent Sir John Russell, a member of his Privy Council, to make further inquiries. Castillon told the latter that France was a warren of honourable ladies, from which Henry might choose, and that Louise of Guise was the very counterpart of Madame de Longueville. He had not seen her for a long time, but had heard her esteemed above any other lady in the kingdom. Russell then asked Castillon “to find some way that Francis (to show it was not as a refusal that he could not have Madame de Longueville, but because she was promised beforehand) should offer him her sister, and say something of it to M. Briant (Sir Francis Brian, Master of the Toils, then ambassador to France), who would then send her portrait.”[295] “Probably,” added Castillon, in writing to Francis, “he is troubled that it must be known that his great instance made for the one is so suddenly changed for the other.” Francis sent word in reply (May 25) that he would very willingly conclude a match with Henry and Louise of Guise; and on the 31st of the same month Castillon wrote to the Grand Master, Montmorency, urging greater expedition in the matter. “If he (Henry) is to marry in France,” he said, “three or four must be put forward, but let them be of the best and such as Montmorency shall advise as well to M. Brian as in letters from the King to Castillon, who should also have portraits of these put forward.”[296]

Footnote 295:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 994. Kaulek, 47.

Footnote 296:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1102. Kaulek, 54.

[Sidenote: PROBABLE VISIT TO HAVRE]

The narrative may be broken off here to note that Holbein, who remained in London throughout April and May, engaged, among other things, upon the full-length portrait of the Duchess of Milan, received, on the 29th of the latter month, the grant of a royal licence to export “600 tuns of beer.” It runs as follows: “Hans Holbeyn, the King’s servant. Licence to buy and export 600 tuns of beer. Del. Westminster, 29th May 30 Hen. VIII.”[297] The painter was evidently prepared, when the opportunity arose, to engage in small commercial speculations in order to augment his income, as was the case with more than one of his brother artists attached to Henry’s court. Thus, in April 1531, Luke Hornebolt received a licence to export 400 quarters of barley,[298] and Anthony Toto, “the King’s painter,” was granted one in April 1541,[299] exactly similar to Holbein’s, for the exporting of 600 tuns of beer. Again, Alard Plumier, “the King’s jeweller,” in March 1542,[300] obtained grants for importing 400 tuns of Toulouse woad and Gascon wine, and exporting 400 tuns of beer; while, as already mentioned, Holbein’s friend and compatriot, Niklaus Kratzer, the King’s astronomer, received a very similar licence in October 1527.[301]

Footnote 297:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1099 and 1115(65).

Footnote 298:

C.L.P., vol. v. 220(21).

Footnote 299:

C.L.P., vol. xvi. 779(18).

Footnote 300:

C.L.P., vol. xvii. 220(3).

Footnote 301:

C.L.P., vol. iv. pt. ii. 3540(28).

Henry rose promptly to the bait of Louise of Guise as a wife in place of her elder sister, now unattainable, and as usual no time was wasted. On the 3rd of June he despatched Philip Hoby and a painter to Havre to obtain the lady’s portrait. This we learn from a letter of Castillon’s to Montmorency, dated June 4th, describing an interview between the Duke of Norfolk and the ambassador’s “secretaire a cachetter” respecting the suggested marriage, which concludes with the following passage: “Finally he (Norfolk) said that yesterday he (Henry) despatched the gentleman, who wanted to go to see” (“vouloit aller”; Kaulek reads “souloit”) “Madame de Longueville, to Hâvre de Grâce to see Mademoiselle de Guyse; for a Scotchman has come hither who has said he wonders at the King of Scots taking a widow rather than a young girl, her sister, the most beautiful creature that ever he saw.”[302] In the same letter Castillon again urges that portraits of two or three of the ladies mentioned in his previous despatch should be sent as quickly as possible, as the matter is pressing. In this document there is no reference to Hoby by name, nor mention of any painter accompanying him; nor is there any entry in the King’s Book of Payments as to any expenses paid for such a journey either to Hoby or any other special envoy. Hoby had paid a visit to France earlier in the year in connection with his master’s matrimonial affairs. He had been sent over in February, at about the same time as Mewtas, and evidently, like the latter, for the purpose of urging Madame de Longueville to throw over James V. For this expedition he received exactly the same sum, £23, 6_s._ 8_d._, as for his journey to Brussels in the following March. It is entered among the royal payments for February as “Philip Hoby, sent into France about the King’s necessaries and affairs of importance, £23, 6_s._ 8_d._”[303]

Footnote 302:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1135. Kaulek, 37.

Footnote 303:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 1280 (f. 2_b_).

But although there is no record of payment for this second journey in June to Havre, or mention of him by name, there is no doubt that Hoby was the envoy sent, and that Holbein accompanied him. Evidence of this is contained in a letter, quoted below,[304] from the Duchess of Guise to her daughter Marie in Scotland, dated September 1, which speaks of the arrival of Hoby and Holbein at Joinville, and mentions their earlier visit to Havre. Contributory evidence is contained in Castillon’s letter of June 4, in which he describes the messenger sent as one who had already been over to see, or to try to see, Madame de Longueville, which undoubtedly refers to Hoby’s journey in February. According to the same letter from Joinville, two portraits at least were painted at Havre, or rather studies made, which would only occupy the artist for an hour or two, as in the case of the Duchess of Milan, the sitters in question being Louise of Guise, who was then eighteen, and some other lady—possibly Marie or Margaret of Vendôme.

Footnote 304:

See p. 148.

Somewhere about the date of Hoby’s return from Havre, a third French candidate for Henry’s hand appeared upon the scene. This was Renée, the third daughter of the Duke of Guise, who afterwards became abbess of St. Pierre de Reims. Castillon wrote to Montmorency on June 19: “If you wish to entertain this King urge always the marriages; for he only waits for them to be presented, and the pictures must be sent immediately. He has heard that Mons, de Guyse has a daughter still more beautiful than the second. I hear she is in a religious order, but not professed (qu’elle est en une religion, mais elle n’est pas religieuse). You can say something of it to Mr. Bryant; for he (Henry) expects to be asked and to have several offered to him.”[305]

Footnote 305:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1217. Kaulek, 64.

It will be seen from this letter that Castillon, who was probably unaware of the steps Henry was taking to obtain likenesses by means of his own artists, was doing his utmost, on his own account, to get portraits of likely ladies sent over from France. In a later letter (July 3) he harps upon the same theme. After reporting that Henry is still in the best of humours, and is ready to meet Francis at a house which he will have made between Boulogne and Calais, where they can both stay for six or seven days without pomp or great expense, he concludes by saying: “The principal point to bring him over to the interests of Francis is that he take a wife in France, and they must be more energetic than they have been, and let his ambassador see and send portraits and write news; for he wishes to be sought, and in the seeking they will put him so far in that he cannot draw back.”[306]

Footnote 306:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1320. Kaulek, 65.

[Sidenote: HENRY’S SEARCH FOR A BRIDE]

In his reply, dated July 10, Montmorency stated that a portrait of Louise of Guise had been obtained for Brian, who must have already despatched it to England. “If the King does not decide upon her,” he said, “others shall be shown to Brian.”[307] Castillon, who, on account of the plague in London, was then living in Chelsea, in Sir Thomas More’s old house, which had been lent to him by the King for the summer, announced to Francis I on July 25 that Brian “has sent the portrait of Mademoiselle de Guise, whom this King does not think ugly, as I know by his face.”[308] In spite, however, of Henry’s appreciation of the lady’s charms, Castillon, in a letter to Montmorency of the same date, urged that portraits of Mademoiselle de Vendôme and the young de Guise (i.e. Renée) should be despatched with all diligence.[309]

Footnote 307:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1356.

Footnote 308:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt i. 1451. Kaulek, 73.

Footnote 309:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1452. Kaulek, 74.

Throughout these negotiations Henry frequently suggested that a selection of ladies should be brought to Calais for his personal approval, in charge of Francis’ sister, Margaret of Navarre, or some other high personage, such as the Duke of Guise. “The ladies he means,” wrote Castillon to Francis on August 12, “are Mesdemoiselles de Vendôsme, de Lorraine, and the two de Guise. He has heard something of the younger of the two last, and I think he will settle on one of them. He has a great opinion of their house.”[310] This request of Henry’s gave great offence in France, which was voiced in a letter from Montmorency to Castillon on July 29: “To bring him thither (i.e. to Calais), as he asks, young ladies to choose and make them promenade on show! They are not hackneys to sell, and there would be no propriety in it. Henry has his choice of Mdlle. de Vendosme, or Mdlle. de Guise, and can judge of their beauty by the portraits and reports made to him; and if these be not approved, there are many other ladies from whom to choose. The selection might be left to his ambassador, Briant, who could send portraits.”[311] Even this did not quell the King, and in the end he was informed that Lorraine was not under the sway of Francis, and that he would have to apply for the hand of the damsel (Anne of Lorraine) to her father and mother, and as for the two daughters of Guise, one had already professed as a nun, while the other, as well as the daughter of M. de Vendosme, could not be disposed of as though they were on sale.

Footnote 310:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 77. Kaulek, 80.

Footnote 311:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1496.

This official portrait of Louise of Guise by some French painter, which Brian sent over—and possibly a second one of Marie of Vendôme, as may be inferred from the last quoted letter—must not be confused with those privately procured by Hoby at Havre in June. These later French portraits cannot now be traced, and it would be mere guesswork to attempt to name the artist who was employed to produce them; but a careful search through the royal collections or in some of the older houses in England might possibly result in their discovery.

Some time in August Holbein and Hoby set out together upon their journey “into the parties of high Burgony.” The purpose of their expedition was to obtain portraits of Renée of Guise, the Duke’s third daughter, and of her cousin, Anne of Lorraine, while Hoby was to sound the latter’s father as to his inclinations towards a possible marriage between his house and England. Hoby’s instructions from Cromwell, as given in abstract in the State Papers, run as follows:

“‘A memorial [by Cromwell] to my friend Philip Hoby touching such matters as he hath now committed to his charge.’

“To repair with diligence where the young duke of Longueville lies, where he shall find the two daughters of Mons, de Guyse, whom he shall salute, declaring that having business in these parts he could not omit to visit the one of them ‘of whom he hath by his late being there some acquaintance.’ And therewith he shall view well the younger sister, and shall require the Duchess, her mother, or whoever has the government of them, that he may take the physiognomy of her, that he may join her sister and her in a fair table. Which obtained, he shall go to the duke of Lorraine, deliver my letter of credence, and declare that no doubt he has heard of my good will to advance some personage of his house to the marriage of the King my master; and albeit my purpose has not taken the effect I desired, yet my affection remains the same; and learning lately that his Grace has a daughter of excellent quality, I directed the said Philip, who has other affairs there, to see her and get her picture. Requiring him to show his inclination and devise some overture to the King, upon which I may set forth this thing. Philip shall also speak in the same manner to the young lady. As soon as he has gotten her physiognomy and known the Duke’s pleasure he shall return with all possible diligence.”[312]

Footnote 312:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 380(i).

[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO JOINVILLE AND NANCY]

When Marie of Guise married James V of Scotland she left her son François, Duke de Longueville, behind her in charge of his maternal grandmother, Anthoinette of Bourbon, Duchess of Guise, who throughout 1538 was at Joinville, one of the chief residences of the family, or at places in the immediate neighbourhood. Joinville is a small town in Champagne, situated on the Marne between Chaumont and Saint-Dizier, and was made a principality by Henri II in 1552 in favour of Duke Claude’s eldest son, François II of Guise. Mary Queen of Scots resided there for some time when a young girl, under the care of her maternal grandmother, the Duchess of Guise. Miss Jane T. Stoddart, in her recently-published book, The Girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots, describes Joinville as follows:

“The train from Bar-le-Duc passes through a fertile, well-wooded country, with many sparkling streams and closely planted villages. There are few more picturesquely situated towns in Eastern France than Joinville, which lies on a branch of the Marne, in a valley overshadowed by undulating tree-clad heights, on one of which, until near the end of the eighteenth century, stood the Castle of the Guises.... The woods of Joinville to-day are full of singing birds. Every variety of foliage clothes the deep ravines. The high road leading towards Wassy is fringed with innumerable small, well-kept gardens, and the air, on May evenings, is not only light and bracing, but sweet with the scent of flowers. The little town must have changed very much in appearance since the sixteenth century. It once possessed a wall and three gates, and an old map in the Hôtel de Ville shows more than a dozen spires.... It acquired great importance under the first Dukes of Guise, who used it as their habitual country residence, and entertained royal personages in the Castle with regal magnificence. That proud Castle was allowed to fall into ruins during the eighteenth century.... The picturesque quays near the church, where the grass-impeded Marne runs between rows of tall, irregularly built houses, cannot have altered greatly since Queen Mary’s time. In unexpected corners we find whitewashed houses adorned with old and costly sculptor’s work, with carved pillars, and scrolls of vine-leaves surrounding the porch.”[313]

Footnote 313:

Stoddart, Girlhood of Mary Queen of Scots, chapter xxi. p. 346 et seq.

* * * * *

For Joinville, then, the diplomatist and the artist set out about the middle of August. The journey was a long one, and Hoby received in advance for travelling expenses, £66, 13_s._ 4_d._, nearly three times as much as he had been paid for his earlier journeys to Havre and Brussels, thus showing that the expedition was to be of considerably longer duration. This payment is entered in the royal accounts under August, anno 30, and is undated, but as may be gathered from entries preceding and following it, it was on some day between August 11 and 22. The place of destination is not mentioned; Hoby is said merely to be “sent into the parts of beyond the sea with all diligence.”[314]

Footnote 314:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 1280 (f. 32).

All the information so far to be gained about this journey is contained in a letter from the Duchess of Guise to her daughter in Scotland, dated September 1, which is preserved among the Balcarres MSS. in the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh. From it we learn that the two travellers reached Joinville on August 30. The letter begins by describing the health of the youthful Duke of Longueville, who was not quite three years old, and was growing very tall and plump, and goes on to give an account of the illnesses of various members of the family. Louise was still ill of the fever, and had not moved from her bed for eight days. Her brother Claude had been ill, even to death, at Autun, but was now quite out of danger. “Your sister Anthoinette is also ill of a fever and of a rheum, but I think she will do well. Your aunt (the Duchess of Lorraine) is sent for to be at Court at the coming of the Queen of Hungary, who is to be presently at Compiègne, where the King and all the Court will be in a few days.”

The letter then continues:

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN AT JOINVILLE AND NANCY]

“It is but two days since the gentleman of the King of England who was at Havre and the painter were here. The gentleman came to me, pretending that he was going to the Emperor, and having heard that Louise was ill, would not go without seeing her, that he might report news of her to the King his master. He saw her (it was the day of her fever), and talked with her as he had done to me. He then told me that, being so near Lorraine, he wished to go to Nency to see the country. ‘Je me doute (doubtai) in contynent il y allet voir la demoyselle (i.e. Anne of Lorraine) pour la tirer comes les aultres;’ for which reason I sent to their lodging to see who was there, and found the said painter was there. In fact they have been at Nency, where they spent a day, and were well entertained, and at every meal the maître de hôtel came to eat with them, with plenty of presents. ‘Vella se que j’en ay encore seu; au pis alle sy navyes pour voysine vostre seur se pouret estre vostre cousine.’”[315]

Footnote 315:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 262. Balcarres MS., ii. 20. For the original text of this letter, see Appendix (L).

* * * * *

This letter fully bears out Cromwell’s instructions to Hoby. It is plain from its wording that Hoby had already obtained a portrait of Louise at Havre, and at least one other, of some unnamed lady (“pour la tirer comes les aultres”); and that the painter who had drawn them was the painter now at Joinville. Their journey was, however, in part at least, a failure, for their chief purpose in visiting the Duchess was to obtain a portrait of her daughter Renée, the “religieuse.” Hoby was ordered “to take the physiognomy of her, that he may join her sister and her in a fair table”; in other words, he was to get a drawing of the younger girl in order that her portrait might be painted as a companion to the one of her sister Louise already completed, so that they might be hung side by side in one of those double frames hinged together of which Henry VIII had several in his collection. Unfortunately for their purpose, Renée was not at Joinville, so that nothing could be done, and Hoby had to be content with an interview with Louise in her bedchamber. The fourth daughter, Anthoinette, was at home, but she was then only a child of seven. Thanks to the curiosity of the Duchess, however, we know that they succeeded in the second half of their mission. They spent a day at Nancy, where they were well received by the Duke of Lorraine, and evidently procured the drawing required, which Holbein would easily make in a few hours. Hoby attempted to conceal the real purpose of this visit to Nancy from the Duchess of Guise, but the lady was sharp enough to guess what was in the wind. Whether Louise or Anne, however, it was all in the family. “If the worst comes to the worst,” she tells the Queen of Scots, “if you do not have your sister for neighbour, it may well be your cousin.”

The letter is far from easy to decipher, owing to its extraordinary spelling and grammar. It is difficult to gather from it which of the two places Hoby and his companion first visited. The Duchess, writing only two days after they had been with her, says that the envoy told her that “he wished to go to Nency,” which seems to indicate a prospective journey; but, on the other hand, she says “they have been to Nency,” and a journey from Joinville to Nancy and back again, together with a whole day spent at the latter place, could not possibly have been accomplished between August 30 and September 1, so that it looks as though they had gone straight to the Duke of Lorraine in spite of Cromwell’s instructions, and then from there on to Joinville. The point, however, is of little importance.

Neither in Cromwell’s instructions nor the Duchess’s letter is Holbein mentioned by name, but that he was the painter who accompanied Hoby seems certain. In less than a fortnight afterwards he was in Basel, an easy journey from Lorraine, where he made a stay of at least some weeks, returning to England some time before Christmas, when he received from the royal purse a special reward of £10 for his journey into “high Burgony.” The entry runs as follows: “December, A^o xxx:—Item payde to Hans Holbyn, one of the Kingis paynters, by the Kingis commaundement, certefyed by my Lorde pryviseales lettre, x li. for his costis and chargis at this tyme sent aboute certeyn his gracis affares into the parties of high Burgony, by way of his Graces rewarde, x li.”[316]

Footnote 316:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 1280 (f. 48).

Wornum and other writers have assumed that this journey to High Burgundy had to do with the painting of the portrait of the Duchess of Milan. The former even suggests that the £10 might be a deferred payment for the visit to Brussels in March.[317] But the title “High Burgony” was quite appropriate to the district in which Joinville and Nancy are situate. Woltmann says that High Burgundy was the name given to the county of Burgundy (Franche Comté), which belonged to the Emperor, in distinction to the duchy of Burgundy, which was French, and added that, in those days, the denomination would not have been impossible for Switzerland.[318] It may be taken, therefore, considering the lack of accurate geographical knowledge then existing in England, that the expression “High Burgony” sufficiently indicated, in the mind of the keeper of the royal accounts, that part of the world in which Guise and Lorraine had their headquarters.

Footnote 317:

Wornum, p. 315.

Footnote 318:

Woltmann, i. p. 455.

[Sidenote: THE PAYMENT OF HOLBEIN’S SALARY]

That the payment of this special reward to Holbein—his travelling and other expenses would be included in the sum of £66, 13_s._ 4_d._ paid to Hoby—was deferred until Christmas was owing to the fact that, finding himself so near Switzerland when at Joinville, he seized the opportunity of paying a visit to his family in Basel, and so remained absent from England for about three months in all. Another point in favour of the contention that Holbein was abroad on the King’s business during 1538 more often than has been generally supposed, is to be found in the fact that at the Midsummer quarter he received three-quarters of a year’s salary in advance. At Lady Day he had been paid his customary quarter’s salary: “Lady Day, Anno xxix:—Item for Hans Holben, paynter, vii li. x_s._”

At Midsummer he received £30, a whole year’s salary, but it included the quarter from Lady Day then owing to him. The entry reads: “Midsummer, Anno xxx:—Item for Hans Holbyn, paynter, for one hole yere’s annuitie advaunced to him beforehand the same yere, to be accomptedde from o^r Ladye dey last past, the somme of xxx li.”

On the two following quarter-days, owing to this payment in advance, he is entered as receiving nothing:

“Michaelmas, A^o xxx:—Item for Hans Holbyn, paynter, wages nihil^a quia solutum per warrantum.” “Christmas, A^o xxx:—Item for Hans Holbyn, paynter, Nihil.”

This payment in advance has generally been regarded as a mark of the King’s special favour and as an acknowledgment of his talents as an artist, but it was more probably due to his frequent absences from England at that time. On the one hand, his several journeys might well entail some amount of extra expenditure not covered by his travelling allowances, while on the other his income would be reduced through the limited time left him for painting the portraits of English courtiers or German merchants. There is, in fact, no portrait from his brush bearing the date 1538. Added to this, his great success in painting the Duchess of Milan must be taken into account. The King was delighted with this portrait, and his choice would naturally fall upon the man who had painted it when a similar journey was in contemplation.

There is one piece of evidence, however, against the assumption that Holbein was the painter who went to Joinville, which must not be overlooked—a letter from Niklaus Kratzer, the King’s astronomer, to Cromwell. It is a much-mutilated epistle, written in somewhat halting and incorrect Latin. Kratzer begins by saying that he had received, the day before writing, by a ship from Antwerp, two little books by Georgius Spalatinus, which the author had sent to him in order that he might present them to Cromwell. “These,” he says, “I gave to Hans Holbein (Joanni Holbein), in order that he might give them to you.” At first sight this looks as though Kratzer might have given Holbein the books to deliver, knowing that he was about to visit Cromwell for final instructions on the eve of his departure for High Burgundy. The letter,[319] however, is dated St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24 (Datum Lunduni, in [festo Sancti] Bartholomei), so that if Kratzer had seen Holbein on August 23, the latter could not possibly have reached Joinville by the 30th; for although the King’s messengers were accustomed to travel with great expedition—Castillon complains to Montmorency that the English couriers took only five or six days between Paris and London, whereas the French messengers took double that time—it would have been impossible, even with the utmost speed then attainable, to reach the far borders of eastern France within a week. But although the letter is dated “St. Bartholomew’s Day,” it has no year-date. It has been placed under the year 1538 by the editor of the Calendars of Letters and Papers from such internal evidence in it as it is possible to decipher; but it is so badly mutilated that it is impossible to make much sense of the greater part of it. It contains news from abroad, and mentions Burgratus, vice-chancellor of the Duke of Saxony; and Burgratus was certainly in London in the summer of 1538, with other envoys from the German Protestant princes. These envoys, however, paid more than one visit to England. As, therefore, the letter contains no evidence absolutely conclusive of the date 1538, it may, perhaps, be permitted to hold the opinion that it was written in some other year, and that, by itself, it is not sufficient to negative the strong proofs brought forward to show that Holbein was the painter who made this particular journey into France. Nor was this the only occasion on which Spalatinus used Kratzer as the medium for sending copies of his writings to Cromwell. On February 5, 1539, Cromwell wrote to the King, enclosing “a book brought this morning by Nic. Cratzer, astronomer, which Geo. Spalatinus, some time schoolmaster to the duke of Saxony, desired him to deliver to the King, on ‘The Solace and Consolation of Princes.’”[320]

Footnote 319:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 179.

Footnote 320:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 227. St. P., i. 592.

[Sidenote: THE DATE OF HOBY’S INSTRUCTIONS]

One other point in connection with this subject must be mentioned before leaving it. Hoby’s instructions for visiting the courts of the Duchess of Guise and the Duke of Lorraine are not dated. The editor of the Calendars has entered them under February 1538, together with the very similar instructions for the visit to the Duchess of Milan, which are also undated, placing both under the one heading, “Philip Hoby’s Missions.” For the latter instructions, which he puts second, February is, of course, the correct date, but the former should be under August, as the preceding pages prove. Dr. Gairdner was misled, in the first place, by the fact that in February Hoby received payment from the royal purse for a journey to France, and, in the second, through his misreading of the heading to the Brussels instructions, as explained in the last chapter.[321] By the insertion of two unnecessary words,[322] the last-named instructions are made to read as though it was Cromwell’s intention that Hoby, on this particular journey, should go first of all to the Duchess of Lorraine, and then to the Duchess of Milan. He concludes from this, in his preface to vol. xiii. pt. i. of the Calendars of Letters and Papers, that Hoby went to France in February for the purpose of obtaining the portraits of Marie of Guise and her sister Louise in a single picture, and immediately upon his return set out for Brussels to get one of the Duchess of Milan. There is no need to quote the whole of his argument, as it is based upon a misapprehension, for the instructions in question were undoubtedly drawn up in August, as the letter of the Duchess of Guise, of the 1st of September, clearly proves.[323]

Footnote 321:

See above, pp. 119-20.

Footnote 322:

“Instructions given by the L. Cromwell to Philip Hoby, sent over by him to the Duchess of Lorraine then [to the] Duchess of Milan.”

Footnote 323:

After pointing out that the instructions order Hoby to return home at once after obtaining portraits of the two Guises and the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, he continues: “Yet instructions for his proceeding on another very similar mission seem to have been drawn up at or near the same time; and by these second instructions he was not to come home at all, but proceed at once from the duchess of Lorraine in France to the duchess of Milan in the Netherlands. It would seem, however, that the heading to the second set of instructions has been supplied by a transcriber of a later date, and it is clearly inaccurate.” C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i., preface, p. xxxviii.

In spite of this anxiety to obtain portraits, Henry’s negotiations for a French marriage were as unsuccessful as his advances for the hand of the Duchess of Milan. In each case, no doubt, the proposed alliance was largely political, though Henry seems to have been genuinely anxious to marry Madame de Longueville, or to prevent his nephew of Scotland from doing so, and was afterwards by no means unwilling to take one of her sisters. Throughout the whole proceedings the French and the Imperial ambassadors in London kept each other well informed of what was going on, though each one was of the private opinion that Henry was more inclined towards a bride from his country than from the other’s. Thus Chapuys, writing to Charles V early in 1539, reports that “everybody says he is much inclined to the duchess of Milan, whom, as I was informed three days ago, by one who knows almost all secrets, he would willingly take, even if she were delivered to him naked without a penny.”[324] On the other hand, Castillon told Montmorency: “He, however, says the practice of his marriage with the duchess of Milan still continues, ... but I know he would willingly return to marry Mademoiselle de Guise. If you think the King (Francis) and Emperor should have the pastime of seeing him thus ‘virolin virolant,’ I can easily get it up, provided a little good cheer is made to his ambassador, and that M. le Cardinal or M. de Guise caress him a little.”[325] Henry, however, finally turned his attentions in another direction, while two of the ladies he had sought were soon married elsewhere, Louise of Guise to Charles de Croi, Prince de Chimaix, in 1541, and Anne of Lorraine to René, Prince of Orange, in 1540. The third, Marie of Vendôme, died unmarried, aged twenty-two, on 28th September 1538, a week or two after Holbein was at Joinville.[326]

Footnote 324:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 37 (9 Jan. 1539.)

Footnote 325:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. ii. 1120 (2 Dec. 1538.)

Footnote 326:

She was betrothed to François, Duke of Nevers, who married her sister Margaret before the end of the same year.

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S MOVEMENTS IN 1538]

Whether Holbein painted pictures of one or all of these ladies from the drawings he made in France it is impossible to say. The drawings themselves cannot be traced, but this does not prove that they were not taken, for the preliminary studies of Christina of Milan and of Anne of Cleves and her sister Amelia have so far remained undiscovered. Holbein and Hoby parted company at Nancy early in September, the former to visit his wife and family in Basel, while the latter returned post-haste to London, no doubt taking with him Holbein’s sketch of Anne of Lorraine in order to show it to his royal master. In October Hoby set out for Spain, in connection with the negotiations for the Milan marriage.

The contents of this chapter and the preceding one may be summarised as follows:

February 1, 1538.—Peter Mewtas sent over to France to obtain the portrait of Marie of Lorraine, Duchess of Longueville. Early in the same month Philip Hoby was also sent into France for the same purpose (about the King’s “necessaries and affairs of importance”), for which he was paid £23, 6_s._ 8_d._

March 2 or 3, 1538. —Hoby and Holbein left London for Brussels to obtain the portrait of the Duchess of Milan, reaching the latter place on the evening of the 10th.

March 12, 1538.—Holbein made his drawing of the Duchess, and the two men started home on the evening of the same day, reaching London on March 18.

April and May 1538.—Holbein at work on the full-length portrait of the Duchess of Milan.

May 29, 1538.—Holbein received a royal licence to export 600 tuns of beer.

June 3, 1538.—Hoby and Holbein left London for Havre to obtain the portrait of Louise of Guise, and of some other lady, possibly Marie or Margaret of Vendôme.

June 30, 1538.—Holbein received three-quarters of a year’s salary in advance.

August 11-22, 1538.—On one of the days between these dates Hoby and Holbein left London for Nancy and Joinville to obtain portraits of Renée of Guise and Anne of Lorraine, receiving £66, 13_s._ 4_d._ for their travelling expenses. They arrived at Joinville on August 30, to find Renée absent, but were successful at Nancy in getting a likeness of Anne. From Joinville Hoby returned to London, and Holbein went on to Basel, which he reached before September 10. He remained there until after October 16.

December 1538.—Holbein, upon his return to London, received a special reward of £10 “for his costis and chargis at this tyme sent aboute certeyn his gracis affares into the parties of high Burgony, by way of his Graces rewarde.”

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XXII. BASEL REVISITED

Holbein’s return to Basel—Fêted by his fellow-citizens—His prosperous condition—Proposes to repaint his wall-decorations—Offer of a pension of fifty gulden from the Basel Town Council, with permission to remain in England two years longer—Death and will of Sigmund Holbein—Holbein returns to England, probably by way of Paris, in order to apprentice his son Philip to Jacob David, goldsmith—Back in London before Christmas 1538—Receives a special reward for his journey to “High Burgony”—Portraits of Edward, Prince of Wales—Guillim Stretes.

SOME nine days after Hoby and Holbein parted company at Nancy the latter was home again in Basel after an absence of six years.[327] The journey across the Vosges mountains would not be a long one. On September 12, 1538, Rudolph Gwalther, then studying in Basel, wrote to the antistes Heinrich Bullinger in Zürich: “Hans Holbein came recently to Basel from England, and he gives such a glowing account of the happy condition of that kingdom, that after a few weeks’ stay he means to go back again.”[328] He received a very hearty welcome from the citizens, who, now that his reputation was much more than a local one, were naturally proud of the fact that he was one of themselves. On September 10 his fellow-burghers gave a banquet in his honour in the Guild-house in the St. Johanns-Vorstadt, the quarter of the city in which Holbein’s own residence was situated. Matthäus Steck, the steward of the Dominican Monastery, notes in his Book of Accounts that he and the schoolmaster, Brother Jacob, with their wives, were present on the occasion, and that they spent eight shillings.

Footnote 327:

Unless, as suggested above (see p. 63), he had paid an earlier visit to Basel, about 1534-5, of which, however, there is no actual evidence.

Footnote 328:

“Venit nuper Basileam ex Anglia Johannes Holbein, adeo felicem ejus regni statum praedicans, qui aliquot septimanis exactis rursum eo migraturus est.” This letter, which was first quoted by Hegner (Hans Holbein der Jüngere, p. 246), is now among the Zürich State Papers in the Antistical Archives.

[Sidenote: PROPOSAL TO REPAINT WALL-PAINTINGS]

There is a most interesting reference to this home-coming in Dr. Ludwig Iselin’s additions to the Faesch manuscript (discovered by Dr. His-Heusler), in which he says: “When he returned to Basel for a time from England, he was attired in silk and velvet; before this he was obliged to buy wine at the tap.”[329] In Basel, a city where wine was both cheap and plentiful, and all men of means kept a well-stocked cellar, to be obliged to procure it, from day to day, from the tavern was a sign of poverty, and Iselin thus contrasts Holbein’s worldly condition before leaving Switzerland and after his entry into the service of Henry VIII. Iselin adds, after stating that Holbein died soon after his return to England, that “his intention was, had God lengthened his life, to paint many of his pictures again, at his own expense, as well as the apartment in the Town Hall. The house ‘zum Tanz,’ he said, was ‘rather good.’” The pictures which he wished to put in order were, of course, his wall-paintings on the exterior of several of the Basel houses, done in his youth, some eighteen years earlier, which even then were beginning to suffer from exposure to the weather, and his frescoes in the Town Hall, some of which were already damaged by damp. No doubt, too, he felt that he could improve upon them, though it is interesting to note that he expressed himself satisfied with the “House of the Dance” façade, in which he had given the freest play to his imagination.

Footnote 329:

See Woltmann, i. p. 456 and ii. p. 43.

Twice during his absence in England, on November 23, 1533, and January 7, 1537, he had been “laid out for the banneret” by his Guild “zum Himmel”—that is, appointed as one of those who had to perform the military service of the Guild, but he had ignored the summons.[330] Possibly he knew nothing about it. He had even disregarded the letter from the burgomaster, sent to him in September 1532, shortly after his return to England, in spite of the offer of a pension which it contained; for England afforded far better opportunities than Switzerland for the making of money.

Footnote 330:

See Woltmann, i. p. 457. English translation, p. 430.

The two items, from the Banner Book of the Guild “zum Himmel,” are as follows:

“Item A^o 1533 Jar vff Sunthag vor kattrinen Sind dise her noch geschriben von beyden Zünfften vss gelegtt vom Himels vnnd Sternen.

Erstlich zum Fenlin vnd Baner.

. . . . . . . . . . Zum Baner.

. . . . . . . . . . Hanns Holbein der Moller” (his name being at the head of a number of other guildsmen).

“A^o 1537 Jar vf Sunthag noch dem nuwen Jar Sindt dise Hemach geschriben zum Fenlin vnd zu dem Baner vss geleytt erstlich Himels vij Mann (here follow the seven names).

Zum paner xiij man.” Here follow the thirteen names, among them being “Hanns Holbein der maller.”[331]

Footnote 331:

Woltmann, ii. p. 32, quoting from His, Die Baseler Archive, &c.

The first entry is brought forward by Mr. W. F. Dickes as one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favour of his contention that Holbein obeyed the request contained in the Burgomaster’s letter, and returned to Basel in the winter of 1532, and remained there throughout the following year, so that he could not have painted “The Ambassadors” in England in 1533. He entirely misreads the entry, however, which he regards as a record “of monies due to Holbein for festal decorations on behalf of the two city guilds”[332] (Von Himmel und von Sternen); and he ignores the second entry, which, to be logical, should prove that Holbein was also in Basel in January 1537. No “monies” are entered against these items, as one would gather from his description, so that it is difficult to see how they record sums due to the painter. They were merely lists of names, as Woltmann points out,[333] of members of the Guilds appointed to take their turn of military service on festal occasions. The second entry shows this even more clearly than the first, and from it we learn that Holbein was one of thirteen members thus appointed as banner-bearers.

Footnote 332:

Dickes, Holbein’s Ambassadors Unriddled, p. 3.

Footnote 333:

Woltmann, i. p. 457.

[Sidenote: OFFERED PENSION BY BASEL COUNCIL]

It is probable that one of the chief reasons for Holbein’s visit to Basel, in addition to a natural desire to see his family, was to make some arrangement with the Town Council for a further leave of absence. He was now in the actual service of a foreign sovereign, and he ran the risk of losing his rights of citizenship unless he could come to some understanding with the civic authorities. He had taken, as we have seen, no notice of the Council’s urgent request, sent after him to England in the autumn of 1532, and he had ignored the calls made upon him by the Painters’ Guild during the six years of his absence, for fulfilling his share of various official and ceremonial duties. Probably he was quite unaware that such calls had been made. Now, however, that he was in Henry VIII’s pay, it was necessary that some definite arrangement should be made, which would enable him to remain in England at least some years longer without risk of unpleasant consequences. The Council, seeing that he had become a painter of high reputation, known far beyond the confines of Switzerland, were more anxious than ever to keep him in Basel. Aware, however, that they were not rich enough to find him employment as remunerative as that enjoyed by him at the English court, they effected a compromise. A document was drawn up, after consultation with the painter, in which a much more generous offer was made to him than the one proposed in 1532. This agreement, which was signed on behalf of the Council by Jakob Meyer, “zum Hirschen,” after extolling Holbein’s reputation as a painter, offered him a pension of fifty gulden a year, with permission to remain in England for two years longer, during which time they would pay his wife a pension of forty gulden. After his final return to Basel, he was still to be permitted to receive service money from foreign kings, princes, nobles, and cities, and, in order to sell his pictures, was to be allowed to visit France, England, Milan, or the Netherlands once, twice, or thrice a year for that purpose.

The document runs as follows:

“Master Hans Holbein the painter’s Pension.”

“We, Jacob Meyger, Burgomaster, and the Council of the city of Basel, do make known and acknowledge with this letter that:

“From the special and favourable will which we bear to the honourable Hans Holbein, the painter, our dear citizen, since he is famous beyond other painters on account of the wealth of his art; weighing further that in matters belonging to our city respecting building affairs and other things which he understands, he can aid us with his counsel, and that in case we had to execute painting work on any occasion, he should undertake the same, for suitable reward, we have therefore consented, arranged, and pledged to give and to present to the above-named Hans Holbein a free and right pension from our treasury of fifty gulden, though with the following conditions, and only during his lifetime, whether he be well or ill, yearly, in equal parts at the four quarters.

“As however the said Hans Holbein has now sojourned for some time with the King’s Majesty in England, and according to his declaration it is to be feared that he can scarcely quit the Court for the next two years, we have allowed him under these circumstances to remain in England the two years following this date, in order to merit a gracious discharge, and to receive salary, and have consented during these two years to pay his wife residing among us forty gulden yearly, i.e. ten gulden quarterly, which are to begin from next Christmas, as the end of the first quarter. With the addition that in case Hans Holbein should receive his discharge from England within these two years and should return to us at Basel and remain here, that we should from that moment give him his pension of fifty gulden, and let it be paid to him in equal parts at the end of the quarter. And, as we can well imagine that the said Holbein, with his art and work being of so far more value than that they should be expended on old walls and houses, cannot with us alone reap much advantage, we have therefore allowed the said Holbein, that, unimpeded by our agreement, for the sake of his art and trade, and for no other unlawful and crafty matters, as we have also impressed upon him, he may gain, accept, and receive service money from foreign kings, princes, nobles, and cities; that moreover he may convey and sell the works of art which he may execute here once, twice, or thrice a year, each time with our special permission, and not without our knowledge, to foreign gentlemen in France, England, Milan, and the Netherlands. Yet on such journeys, he may not remain craftily abroad, but on each occasion he shall do his business in the speediest manner, and repair home without delay and be serviceable to us, as we have before said, and as he has promised.

“In conclusion, when the oft-mentioned Holbein has paid the debt of nature according to the will of God, and has departed from this valley of tears, then shall this warrant, pension, and present letter be at an end, and we and our descendants therefore are not pledged to give aught to anyone. All upright, honourable, and with integrity. This letter, signed with our official seal, we have given into the hand of the oft-mentioned Holbein as a true document. Wednesday the sixteenth day of October, anno xxxviii.”[334]

Footnote 334:

Woltmann, i. pp. 458-9. English translation, pp. 430-1.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEATH AND WILL OF SIGMUND HOLBEIN]

This document shows very clearly that though the civic authorities of Basel were anxious to retain Holbein in their service, they were doubtful whether they would be able to find much work for him except in the direction of an occasional wall-painting or decoration of a house-front; and his talents, they acknowledged, were too great to be devoted to nothing but the covering of “old walls and houses” with designs. They, therefore, made many concessions, which would enable him to pursue his art with almost the same freedom he had hitherto enjoyed. In spite of the liberality of the terms, however, the document remained, as far as Holbein was concerned, a dead letter throughout the five remaining years of his life; at least, no evidence has so far been discovered to show that he ever visited Basel again, though, as suggested in an earlier chapter,[335] he may have done so about the year 1541. Whether his wife received the pension of 40 gulden for the first two years is not known. There is no mention of it in the Council’s accounts, but Woltmann suggests that it may have been given, as was often the case with pensions of this kind, out of the monastery revenues.

Footnote 335:

See p. 63.

Holbein was bound to return to England for at least another six months, as he had received nine months’ salary in advance, but there can be little doubt that he had, at the time, every intention of accepting the Council’s conditions. He was, however, so popular in England, and had so much work on hand, that he found it increasingly difficult to leave, so that in the end his arrangement with the Basel Council fell to the ground. It has been suggested, too, that the death of his uncle Sigmund in Berne, in November 1540, at about the time when Holbein was due to return to Basel, may have had something to do with his determination to remain in England; for Sigmund bequeathed all his property to his “dear brother’s son Hans,” and it was handed over to the latter’s wife in his absence. The will, from which we learn that “Sigmund Holbeyn” was then a citizen of Berne, and being old, was about to make a journey to Augsburg to see his relations, continues:

“In the first place, I will and bequeath to my dear brother’s son Hans Holbeyn, the painter, citizen at Basel, both as my blood relation and my own race and name, as well as from the especial love I bear him and from the affinity in which he stands to me, the free gift of all my goods and property which I have and leave in the city of Berne, namely, my house, and courtyard, and the garden behind, standing in the Brunnengasse, on the sunny side, above by the Trom Wall, near Görg Zimmerman, the tailor’s, house. The said property is free from taxes, with the exception of five pounds interest, including the commutation-capital, which I owe out of it to Herr Bernhard Tillman, treasurer of the council at Berne, for money lent. Item, my silver utensils, household furniture, colours, painter’s gold and silver, implements for painting, and other things, nothing excepted, that he shall appropriate the same as my appointed heir, have it in his possession, do with it and live as with his own possession and property, unmolested by my sisters and by any one. What I have here bequeathed to him, will be found noted on a separate roll, so that my cousin can better inquire after it.”[336]

Footnote 336:

Woltmann, English translation, p. 106. Original text in Woltmann, ii. p. 33-5.

He left what property he possessed in Augsburg to his three sisters, Ursula Nepperschmid and Anna Elchinger in Augsburg, and Margreth Herwart in Esslingen. The will is dated September 6, 1540, and the testator died very shortly afterwards.

On the 18th of November the Berne Town Council wrote to both Basel and Augsburg notifying his heirs of his decease, and on the 10th January in the following year the property was handed over to Holbein’s stepson, as the authorised agent of his mother. The confirmation of the testament, in the name of Hans Franz Nägely, burgomaster of Berne, speaks of him as “the honourable and wise Franz Schmid, citizen of Basel,” and says that he brought “a procuracy and a letter from Elsbeth, the wife of Master Hans Holbein, the painter, citizen of Basel, and also a letter from the burgomaster and council of the town of Basel.”

This legacy would serve to some extent in place of the annuity of 40 gulden paid by the Council to Elsbeth Holbein, which would cease when her husband failed to carry out his part of the agreement. Woltmann suggests that she probably settled in Berne in consequence of this bequest, in the house on the sunny side of the Brunnengasse, although there is no documentary proof of this. On the other hand, the inventory of her household goods and property, drawn up after her death in 1549, and preserved in Basel, indicates that she never permanently severed her connection with that city.

[Sidenote: PHILIP HOLBEIN AND JACOB DAVID]

Holbein must have set out again for England shortly after the drawing up of this agreement, and there is some reason to suppose that he travelled back by way of Paris, taking his elder son, Philip, with him, and apprenticing him in that city for six years to Jacob David, the goldsmith, who was a native, and still remained a citizen, of Basel. This information is obtained from a letter addressed to David from the Burgomaster Adelberg Meyer and the Council of Basel, dated 19th November 1545,[337] with reference to a dispute between the apprentice and his master, the latter refusing to give him his discharge on the completion of his six years’ service. This letter speaks of Holbein as deceased, and refers to Philip as a “good, pious youth,” still in his minority, and under the care of his step-brother, Franz Schmid.

Footnote 337:

Discovered, and first published, by Dr. His-Heusler.

David is informed that “it has credibly reached our ears that thou wilt give no discharge to Philipp Holbein (but that thou hast brought him moreover in Paris before the Lord-Lieutenant), although he has served thee honestly and honourably his six years, which were promised by his father, the deceased Hans Holbein, our citizen, now when he, at befitting opportunity, desires to depart from thee, and this not alone on account of his honest and honourable service, as was thy duty before God and in all honour. Thus thou addest one cause of complaint to another, and aimest at oppressing the good, pious youth as far as thou canst and in causing his ruin. This thine unfriendly conduct has caused us not a little regret; we had in no wise foreseen it, but had rather hoped that if any one sought to hinder another in his success and welfare, thou would’st have taken up his cause and protected him.... Besides, this Philipp Holbein is in his minority, and is under the care of Franz Schmid, his brother, our citizen, and without his help and authority is qualified for no lawsuit; it is our pleasure, therefore, and we herewith request thee as our citizen, that thou forthwith and immediately breakest off the complaint brought by thee against Philipp Holbein and allowest him, kindly and friendly to depart from thee, and because he has served thee honestly and truly, that thou givest him a good sealed letter of discharge, of which he may make use. In all this we express our earnest will and command; we have also written to the Lieutenant who is judge between you both, our citizens, not to continue the proceedings, and to refer you both hither.” The letter concludes by saying that if David feels he has a just claim against Philip, he is to cite him before the municipal court of Basel, when full justice shall be done. A letter to the same effect, and of the same date, was sent to Philip, ordering him not to enter into any further law proceedings in Paris, but to take his discharge and return to Basel, where his case would be decided by the municipal authorities.[338]

Footnote 338:

Woltmann, English translation, pp. 329-30.

It seems clear from this letter to David that the dispute arose shortly after the completion of Philip’s six years of apprenticeship, in which case the boy must have been left in Paris in the autumn of 1539, and not of 1538. If that was so, then Holbein cannot have personally apprenticed him on his return to England from Basel, and Philip must have gone there a year later in charge of someone else. It is possible, however, that Holbein took his son with him to England, and kept him there for twelve months or so, sending or taking him to Paris in 1539. It is usually supposed that the boy in the family group of 1528 represents Philip, the elder son, born about 1522. In the picture he appears to be five or six years old. He would thus be about fifteen or sixteen in 1538—rather a late age upon which to enter his apprenticeship—and twenty-two at the date of the letter, which, however, speaks of him as still a minor.[339]

Footnote 339:

It is possible that the boy in the picture is not the one who was taken to Paris, but that the latter was a second son, born during Holbein’s second residence in Basel (1528-32), whose age would thus be in better accord with the evidence of the letter.

Holbein was back again in London some time before Christmas, 1538, when he received the special reward of £10 for his journey into Upper Burgundy. His first work of importance after his return was a portrait of the infant Prince Edward, then some fourteen months old. This was presented to the King on January 1, 1539, being entered in the roll of New Year’s gifts as: “By Hanse Holbyne a table of the pictour of the p^ince (Prince’s) grace.” In return he received from his royal master a silver-gilt covered cup supplied by Cornelis Hayes, one of the King’s goldsmiths. “To Hans Holbyne, paynter, a gilte cruse w^t a cover (Cornelis) weing x oz. quarter.”

[Sidenote: PORTRAITS OF PRINCE EDWARD]

Holbein died when Edward was just six years old, so that he cannot have painted the various portraits of the Prince in which he is represented at a somewhat later period of life and after he was King, though at one time they were all attributed to him. There are only three portraits of him, and a few drawings, which show him as a child of tender years, of which the authorship can be given to Holbein. The picture in the Provinzial Museum, Hanover, is generally regarded as the original work which he painted as a New Year’s gift for the King. An almost identical picture is in the possession of the Earl of Yarborough, which some writers regard as an unquestionable work of Holbein, while others consider it to be merely an excellent old copy.

The Hanover picture[340] is a life-size, half-length figure, facing the spectator. The child is dressed in a red velvet coat trimmed with gold, and sleeves of gold brocade. A red hat, with gold tags and a large ostrich feather, tied under the chin, surmounts the closely-fitting cap, from beneath which his fair hair falls over his forehead. His right hand is held out with open palm, and in his left he grasps a gold rattle. In front of him is a stone or panel on which eight lines of Latin verse from the pen of Sir Richard Morysin are inscribed, exhorting the Prince to imitate his wonderful father. “Little one, imitate your father,” the lines run, “and be the heir of his virtue, the world contains nothing greater—Heaven and Nature could scarcely give a son whose glory should surpass that of such a father. You only equal the acts of your parent, the wishes of men cannot go beyond this. Surpass him, and you have surpassed all the kings the world ever worshipped, and none will ever surpass you.”[341] The head stands out well against the sky-blue background. The round, chubby face, and small fat hands, are most truthfully and delightfully rendered, while the colour scheme is very harmonious. It is, indeed, in all ways, a most sympathetic and delightful study of childhood.

Footnote 340:

Woltmann, 165. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 130; Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 242; Ganz, Holbein, p. 122.

Footnote 341:

Wornum, p. 324, note.

The almost equally charming little work in the Earl of Yarborough’s collection (Pl. 22)[342] is practically a replica of the one in the Hanover Museum. According to Wornum, it was at one time in the Arundel Collection, at Stafford House, and was sold in 1720, subsequently passing into the possession of Sir Richard Worsley, of Appuldurcombe, Isle of Wight, and afterwards to the present owner. The same writer notes some few peculiarities in its execution—“some defects in the right hand, and a certain want of transparency, or a mealyness in the colouring, that are not entirely consistent with Holbein’s practice.”[343] It is most probably an old and careful copy after the original at Hanover. It was in the Tudor Exhibition, 1890 (No. 174), and the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1909 (No. 62).

Footnote 342:

Reproduced in the Catalogue of the Tudor Exhibition, 1890, p. 80; and Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, 1909, Pl. xxi.

Footnote 343:

Wornum, p. 323.

Charles I had a copy of this portrait made by Peter Oliver, signed “P. O.,” and inscribed “Edwardus Princeps Filius Henrici Octavi Regis Angliae.” In the King’s catalogue it is described by Van der Doort as: “22. Item, the picture of King Edward VI in his infancy, in a red cap with a white feather, and a red coat laced with gold, and golden cloth sleeves, holding in his left hand a round golden rattle, and with his right hand in some action; by a green table, whereupon is written in white and black letters. Being in a black shutting frame. Painted upon the wrong light. 4¾ in. × 2 in.” A marginal note describes it as “copied by Peter Oliver after Hans Holbein, whereof my Lord Arundel has the principal limning.” Wenceslaus Hollar engraved the picture in 1650,[344] when it was in the Arundel Collection.[345]

Footnote 344:

Parthey, 1395.

Footnote 345:

There were two portraits of the Prince in the Arundel Collection, both attributed to Holbein in the 1655 inventory, and entered as “Eduardo Sesto Re d’Inghilterra.”

The Duke of Northumberland’s version, at Syon House,[346] is larger, and the Prince is shown at full-length. It resembles the two others in most particulars, and appears to be based on the same original drawing, though the sitter looks somewhat younger. He is wearing a jacket of patterned cloth of gold, and over it a crimson frock or coat embroidered with golden stripes. His head is covered with a white-edged, striped skull-cap, beneath which a fringe of fair hair falls on the forehead; over this is worn a red hat with a dark feather in it. Thick-soled, broad-toed shoes complete his costume. He is standing on a green velvet cloth edged with gold, which is thrown over an ornamental stone tablet containing, as in the other versions, Morysin’s Latin verses. The background is a dark green curtain. It is painted on panel, 4 ft. 3 in. high by 2 ft. 5 in. wide.

Footnote 346:

Woltmann, 246.

This picture has suffered considerably from rubbing and cleaning. The preliminary chalk drawing can be plainly seen through the thin painting. The position of the hands—which are beautifully painted—is somewhat altered, and the child is without his rattle. In one corner of the tablet is inscribed “Edwardus Princeps,” and in the other “Filius Henrici 8,” now almost obliterated. Mr. Wornum[347] thought it probable that this was the New Year’s gift picture, as the child appears to be a little younger than in the Hanover and Yarborough versions, and with a still brighter expression of face.

Footnote 347:

Wornum, p. 325.

[Sidenote: DRAWINGS OF PRINCE EDWARD]

All three pictures seem to have been based upon the same drawing in the Windsor Collection, in which the Prince is shown full-face, as a young child, with a close skull-cap, and a black cap with a feather above it, and a single frill round his neck.[348] This drawing has been badly rubbed. There is a second drawing in the same collection, also full-face, with hair cut closely across the forehead, and a plain black hat (Pl. 23).[349] This, too, has suffered considerable damage. The strong brush-work of the outlines stands out with undue emphasis, owing to the destruction of the more delicate modelling of the crayons. In this drawing the Prince appears to be at least a couple of years older than in the other drawing, or in the Hanover picture and its variants. He looks quite four or five years old. Mr. Wornum thought it might represent Henry Brandon, afterwards Duke of Suffolk, from its likeness to the boy in Holbein’s beautiful miniature, the proportions of the face not quite agreeing with those of the infant Prince;[350] but it is undoubtedly a portrait of the latter.

Footnote 348:

Woltmann, 326; Wornum, ii. 1; Holmes, not given.

Footnote 349:

Woltmann, 327; Wornum, ii. 2; Holmes, i. 2. Reproduced by Davies, p. 176; Knackfuss, fig. 146; Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., 39.

Footnote 350:

Wornum, p. 407.

There is a third drawing of Edward VI at Windsor, in which he seems to be quite six, if not older. It is one of the least pleasing of the series, and if by Holbein, must be almost the last drawing he made, as the Prince was but six when the painter died. He is shown in profile to the left, with hat and feather, and almost yellow hair.[351] Several portraits exist which are based on this drawing, though they are not by Holbein, among the best of them being the versions in the National Portrait Gallery,[352] the Victoria and Albert Museum,[353] and the collection of Lord Sackville. The last-named was at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 60). In this the Prince has golden hair, a black cap with a white plume, and a purple gown lined with white fur over a pale pink doublet. His right hand, raised, holds a rose, and his gloves are in his left. The background is a greenish blue.

Footnote 351:

Woltmann, 328; Wornum, ii. 3; Holmes, ii. 1. Reproduced in Drawings of Hans Holbein (Newnes), Pl. ii.

Footnote 352:

Reproduced in the illustrated catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, vol. i. p. 27.

Footnote 353:

Jones Bequest.

There is a very interesting drawing in coloured crayons by Holbein in the Basel Gallery,[354] which is described as a portrait of Edward VI, and bears considerable likeness to the various paintings and drawings in England. The face, however, is decidedly longer and more oval in shape than in the Windsor drawings; but much of the delicate modelling of the flesh has vanished during the passage of time, so that it is difficult to speak with absolute certainty as to the likeness. Most probably the attribution is the correct one. The boy, who appears to be about five years old, is dressed in a princely costume, and is holding a meerkat in the bend of his right arm, and stroking its back with his left hand. There is no portrait known which follows this drawing.

Footnote 354:

Woltmann, 30. Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., ii. 37.

Upon one of the leaves of Holbein’s sketch-book, preserved in the Basel Gallery, there is a delightful little circular drawing of Edward when a small child,[355] evidently of about the same date as the Hanover portrait. His costume is much the same as in the pictures described, and he is seated on a cushion on the grass, fondling a small dog with his left hand. The background on either side of him is filled in with branches of oak with acorns. It may have been the first study for a miniature, or possibly a design for a medallion or hat-badge to be carried out in gold-and-enamel by one of Holbein’s goldsmith friends. In spite of its small size the likeness is evident.

Footnote 355:

Woltmann, 110 (82). Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 46, and woodcut in Woltmann, i. p. 449.

The scope of this book does not permit any attempt to give a detailed list of the numerous portraits of the young prince painted after the death of Holbein, in which he is represented at an age varying from about ten to sixteen, some of them being works of very considerable merit. In the days when it was believed that Holbein lived until 1554, all these portraits were attributed to him, whereas now some other authorship must be sought. It is known that Guillim Stretes, the Dutch painter, was responsible for at least two of these portraits of the young King. According to Strype,[356] in 1551 Stretes was paid by the Privy Council “fifty marks for recompence of three great tables, made by the said Guillim, whereof two were the pictures of his Highness sent to Sir Thomas Hoby and Sir John Mason (ambassadors abroad); the third a picture of the late Earl of Surrey, attainted, and by the council’s commandant fetched from the said Guillim’s house.” In 1553 “Gillam Strettes, Dutchman,” was the King’s painter, in receipt of the high salary of £62, 10_s._ a year, and he continued in favour during the reign of Queen Mary.

Footnote 356:

Memorials, &c., Vol. ii. p. 494. Quoted by Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 138.

[Sidenote: LATER PORTRAITS OF EDWARD VI]

The excellent little bust portrait of Edward, formerly in the possession of the Cokayne family at Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, which was lent by Lord Aldenham to the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 63), has been attributed to this painter. It is dated 1550. Mr. Roger E. Fry,[357] on account of the delicate and personal scheme of blonde and cool colouring which it displays, considers this portrait to be by the same hand as the portraits of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, lent to the same exhibition (Nos. 21 and 46) by Lord Sackville, which have been mentioned in an earlier chapter.[358] Others exist of the same type to which Stretes’ name has been provisionally given. The Duke of Portland has a fine small full-length, undated,[359] probably from the same hand as Lord Aldenham’s panel; another whole-length belongs to Mr. Vernon J. Watney, while a third is at Southam Delabere, near Cheltenham. A very interesting portrait of a different type is at Petworth, an elaborately-painted likeness of the young King at full-length, seated on his throne, with a canopy over his head, which is dated 1547, when he was in his tenth year. This is attributed by Mr. Wornum to Stretes.[360] There is another in Christ’s Hospital which closely resembles it, and in the same building there is a second portrait of the Prince at the age of nine. There is also a fine example in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle,[361] in which the head is of the same type as that in Lord Aldenham’s picture. It is apparently by the same hand as that of the Princess Elizabeth, also at Windsor, and whether by Stretes or not, seems to be of Franco-Flemish origin. The large picture at Bridewell Hospital, representing Edward VI transferring Bridewell Palace to the City of London, was regarded in Walpole’s day as an excellent example of Holbein’s brush, and both he and Vertue, who engraved it in 1750, asserted that one of the figures in the background represented Holbein himself.[362] The occurrence which the picture commemorates, however, took place in 1553, ten years after Holbein’s death. This picture, too, has been tentatively given to Stretes, but it is a work of no great mastery, though of undoubted historical interest. Descriptions of other portraits of Edward VI will be found in a paper contributed by Mr. J. Gough Nichols, F.S.A., to Archæologia.[363] No less than sixteen, of varying degrees of merit, were lent to the Tudor Exhibition in 1890. In the inventory of King Henry VIII’s pictures made shortly after his death, dated September 8, 1547, three of the earlier portraits of the young Prince of Wales were included. Two of these were full-lengths: “The Kynge’s Majestie, the whole stature, in a gowne like crymsen satten furred with lusernes,” which was protected by a curtain of white sarcenet; and “The Kynge’s Majesty, the whole stature, stayned upon clothe” (i.e. canvas), with a curtain of green sarcenet. The first named was not included in the earlier list of King Henry’s pictures drawn up in 1542, but the latter is in that inventory, and so must have been painted before 1542, and thus represented Edward as a little child. The third portrait is merely described as “The Kynge’s Majestie.” This may have been the curious “perspective” portrait of the young Prince, now in the National Portrait Gallery (No. 1300),[364] a head within a circle surrounded by a well-painted landscape, done in 1546, which has been attributed to Stretes. According to Walpole,[365] who considered it to be the work of Marc Willems, “Gulielmus pinxit” was written on the frame. It formed part of the Royal collections from the time it was painted, but was sold by the Commonwealth in 1650 for £2. It was seen in Whitehall and described by the German traveller, Paul Hentzner, in 1598. Two miniatures of Edward were lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (Case C, 13 and 19) by the Duke of Buccleuch, but these are not by Holbein.

Footnote 357:

Burlington Magazine, vol. xv., May 1909, p. 75. Reproduced by Miss Hervey, “Notes on some Portraits of Tudor Times,” Burlington Magazine, vol. xv., June 1909, p. 155.

Footnote 358:

See pp. 104 and 112.

Footnote 359:

Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1909, No. 68.

Footnote 360:

Wornum, p. 326.

Footnote 361:

Reproduced by Cust, Royal Collection of Paintings, Windsor Castle, Pl. 50; and Ganz, Holbein, p. 223.

Footnote 362:

Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 88.

Footnote 363:

Vol. xxxix. p. 20.

Footnote 364:

Reproduced in the Illustrated Catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, vol. i. p. 27.

Footnote 365:

Walpole, Anecdotes, &c., ed. Wornum, i. p. 135.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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XXIII. ANNE OF CLEVES: 1539

Henry VIII’s fresh matrimonial negotiations with Protestant Germany—Christopher Mont sent to the Court of the Duke of Saxony with reference to a political alliance and the King’s marriage—Anne of Cleves and her sister—Portraits of them by Lucas Cranach—Difficulties in obtaining portraits of the ladies—Richard Beard and Holbein go over to Düren for that purpose—The written descriptions of Anne—The legend woven round Holbein’s portrait of her—Henry’s disappointment on Anne’s arrival in England—Description of the portrait in the Louvre—Miniature in the Salting Collection—Drawing at Windsor—Portrait in St. John’s College, Oxford.

WITH the exception of works executed for his royal master, such as the “Duchess of Milan” and the lost French portraits, the likeness of the infant Prince Edward, and that of Anne of Cleves, there is nothing by Holbein which can be ascribed with absolute certainty to the years 1538 and 1539.[366] It is possible that the portraits of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and his son, Henry, Earl of Surrey, were produced in the latter year, but no dated likeness by him is known of any member of the court circle, or, indeed, of any Englishman or German, painted during these two years. It is true that more than one of his undated works may be of this period, but there is no actual proof, beyond that of style, in favour of such a contention. This may be accounted for to some extent by his frequent absences from England on the King’s business, which would leave him less time than usual for private practice, while there is also the possibility that at least some of the works he produced during these two years have been lost.

Footnote 366:

The portrait of Henry VIII in the National Gallery, Rome, now attributed to Holbein, was painted, according to the King’s age inscribed on the background, in 1539 or 1540. See above, p. 103.

By the beginning of 1539, when alarms of war were in the air, and the alliance between Francis and the Emperor was growing closer every week, Henry had abandoned all idea of a marriage in France or with the Duchess of Milan, and was turning his thoughts towards Protestant Germany. The project of this fresh matrimonial venture was not entirely a new one; it was under consideration during the previous summer in the midst of the more active negotiations elsewhere. There is a curious passage in one of Eustace Chapuys’ letters to the Emperor, dated London, 17th June 1538, in which he infers that Henry had grown less anxious for the Milan match because the Germans were making him offers. “Indeed it is a fact,” he says, “that about that time the King sent to Germany a painter (ung paintre) and one gentleman of his chamber for the express purpose of pourtraying the personages ‘au naturel’; for, although Cromwell at first denied this, or at least dissembled, he afterwards owned to me (Chapuys) that the report was true, that both from France and Germany several marriages had been proposed.” These marriages, he adds, according to report, were to be between the son of the Duke of Cleves and the Princess Mary, and Henry and one of the Duke’s kinswomen.[367]

Footnote 367:

C.L.P., vol. xiii. pt. i. 1198. Spanish Calendar, v. ii. 225.

This is the only reference in the State Papers to the despatch of one of the King’s painters to Germany in the earlier part of 1538, but it is interesting as containing a possible reference to Holbein and to some journey of his of which we have no further knowledge. It is much more likely, however, that Chapuys was misinformed, and that no such expedition actually took place, though it may have been suggested but afterwards abandoned.

[Sidenote: SEARCH FOR A BRIDE IN GERMANY]

About the middle of January 1539, Christopher Mont, or Mount, a German in Henry’s service, was sent abroad with letters of credence to the Duke of Saxony and the Landgrave. The ostensible purpose of his mission was to promote the attempted agreement between the English and German divines which had been the subject of numerous conferences in the previous year; but the real object was to find out to what extent Henry might rely upon the German Protestant princes in any trouble which might arise between England and the Pope or Emperor. At the same time, Mont, who was accompanied by Thomas Paynell, took with him private instructions from Cromwell, which included a secret message to Francis Burgartus,[368] the Duke of Saxony’s vice-chancellor, with respect to a marriage between the young Duke of Cleves and the Princess Mary, which he and Cromwell had discussed in London in the previous year. If, the instructions ran, Burgartus desire “the picture of her face,” Mont is to remind him that she is a King’s daughter, and that it was not the custom to send the picture of persons of such degree abroad. Burgartus, too, had seen her, and could testify of her proportion, countenance, and beauty. But there was a matter of still greater importance about which Mont was to sound the vice-chancellor, whose master, the Duke of Saxony, had married the eldest daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and was one of the most interested parties in any alliance proposed between England and Germany. Mont was to inquire diligently of the beauty and qualities of the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the Duke of Cleves, her shape, stature, and complexion, and, if he heard she was such “as might be likened unto his Majesty,” he was to throw out suggestions as to a marriage between her and the King. The proposal, however, must come from the side of Cleves, as the overtures made to his Grace in France and Flanders had not been finally refused. Mont, in short, was not to speak as if demanding her, “but rather to give them a prick to offer her;” but first of all, “it is expedient that they should send her picture hither.”[369] In this way the Princess Anne of Cleves first appears on the scene, and the Duchess of Milan, and the ladies of Guise and other royal French houses finally vanish from it.

Footnote 368:

Or Burgratus (Burchardt).

Footnote 369:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 103.

Shortly afterwards other diplomatists were sent abroad for the same purpose. Dr. Barnes went over to Frankfurt to attend the diet of the Evangelic League, while Dr. Edward Carne and Dr. Nicholas Wootton, together with Richard Byrd, Bird, or Beard, one of the gentlemen of the King’s Chamber, were despatched to Düren, to the court of the young Duke of Cleves, whose father had recently died. Their instructions were very similar to those given to Mont. They were to offer an offensive and defensive league and an English bride to the Duke, but were merely to throw out hints with regard to Anne. Here again they were to demand a picture of the lady before the match could be considered, for Henry was always most anxious to see what his proposed bride was like before committing himself too far.[370] If she were ill-favoured he would have none of her, however useful for political reasons such an alliance might prove to be. A portrait was always asked for, but was by no means always considered sufficient. The King feared that such pictures might flatter the subject, and so it became his habit, in order to avoid such possibilities, to send over one of his own painters to procure an independent likeness. Holbein, in particular, he knew to be capable of bringing back a true portrait, more valuable in all ways than the efforts of some unknown foreign painter, or the written opinions of his ambassadors, whose taste might not always agree with his own.

Footnote 370:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 489, 490.

Mont, after an interview with the Duke of Saxony, wrote to Cromwell to say that he seemed favourable to the proposed marriage, and that he promised to send a portrait as soon as possible, but said that “his painter Lucas was sick at home.” “Everyone,” he added, “praises the lady’s beauty, both of face and body. One said she excelled the Duchess (of Milan) as the golden sun did the silver moon.”[371] The Lucas referred to in this letter was Lucas Cranach the elder, and if it had not been for his illness Holbein might not have been sent over, for Cranach, no doubt, would have painted a portrait which would have satisfied the King. Towards the end of April, Cromwell wrote to Beard and Wootton, again urging them to get a portrait of the lady, which the former was to bring to London as quickly as possible.[372] In their reply, dated May 3—the letter, unfortunately, is badly mutilated—they describe a recent interview with Dr. Henry Olisleger, the vice-chancellor of Cleves, the young Duke being away at the Diet. “He said also he would cause the portraits of both the Duke’s younger sisters to be delivered to us in fourteen days. They were made, he said, half a year before. We said there was no occasion to declare the King’s goodwill to the Duke, which was manifest.... And as for the ij pictures, we wer verye w[ell] contentyd to receyve theym, and specyallye the imaige of my l[ady Anne] ... that yf eny of bothe shulde lyke his Grace ... yet wolde we gladdelye receyve and sende bothe. [And for a]s muche as we hadde not seene the ij ladyes, we shulde [not be] able to advertise his Majestye whether theyr imaiges were [l]yke to theyr persones, and so shulde his Majestye be never the nerre by the syht of the pictures.” Dr. Olisleger, however, assured them that the portraits were faithful likenesses, but the ambassadors were not satisfied. “We sayde, we hadde not seene theym, for to see but a parte of theyr faces, and that under such a monstruouse habyte and apparell, was no syght, neither of theyr faces nor of theyr persones. Why, quod he, wolde yow see theym nakydde?” What they said in answer to this last remark is lost through the mutilation of the letter, but they evidently did not approve of the court costume of Cleves. They concluded by saying: “A Moneday, God willing, we wylle departe to Duisseldorpe, and, excepte the Duke have enye bysynesse with us, we wyll thence to Coleyn, where we ar apoyntyd to receyve the said ij pictures, the which we wille send ynto England as soone as we canne convenyently.”[373]

Footnote 371:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 552. St. P., i. 604.

Footnote 372:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 834. St. P., i. 613.

Footnote 373:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 920.

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN AND BEARD GO TO DÜREN]

In spite of these constant demands for portraits, the ambassadors do not appear to have received them at the time promised. Early in July Dr. William Petre, one of the Clerks of Chancery, was sent to Cleves with further messages and instructions to Dr. Wootton. The new ambassador and the old were to make a further demand to see the ladies, and if Beard had not already started with the portraits, they were to send them “if they may be possible gotten,” with their opinion of them as likenesses.[374]

Footnote 374:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. i. 1193.

Beard was back in London for a short time in July, but whether he came empty-handed or not there is no record to show. It is possible that he brought with him the two portraits promised by Olisleger, which were to be handed to him at Cologne. There is a portrait of Anne in England, described below, which may be one of the two in question, but in any case it cannot have satisfied Henry, for Beard was sent back almost immediately to Düren, taking Holbein with him, in order that he might paint the two sisters. They were allowed £40 for travelling expenses, while Holbein received a further sum of £13, 6_s._ 8_d._ for his own personal outlay in connection with his craft.

The following is the entry in the Treasurer’s accounts:

“July, A^o xxxi—Item, to Mr. Richard Bearde, one of the gromes of the Kingis privi-chambre, and Hans Holbyn, paynter, by like lettre sent into the parties of High Almayne upon certain his gracis affaires, for the costes and chardgis of them both, xl. li. And to Hans Holben, for the preparation of such thingis as he is appoynted to carie with him, xiij. li. vi.s. viii_d._—in alle the some of liij li. vi.s. viii_d._”[375]

Footnote 375:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 781 (f. 85).

According to Dr. Woltmann, the extra fee of £13, 6_s._ 8_d._ paid to Holbein for “the preparation of such things as he is appointed to carry with him,” was, “without doubt a portrait of the King, perhaps a miniature in a costly frame, which he had to paint and to present to the Princess as a gift from his monarch.”[376] This explanation, however, is not at all likely to be the correct one. As already pointed out, Henry never sent portraits of himself to the lady he was preparing to honour with his hand until he had first of all seen what she herself was like. He was too cautious a lover to commit himself so far. In all these transactions he was the one who was to be sought, and the first offer must come from the lady’s side. The simplest explanation is that the money was for the provision of the necessary painting materials, and the cost of their carriage. The sum was, no doubt, a large one if for such a purpose alone, but Holbein was then high in the King’s favour, and well paid for all that he did, while his absence from England on the royal business put an end for the time to his general practice, and this might have been considered in fixing the amount of his allowance.

Footnote 376:

Woltmann, i. p. 463.

The travellers reached the castle of Düren, where the ladies were living, early in August, and Holbein at once set to work. He had finished portraits of both Anne and her sister Amelia before the 11th of the month, as we learn from a letter of that date from Dr. Wootton to Henry VIII. In the course of it he says: “Your Grace’s servant Hanze Albein hathe taken th’effigies of my ladye Anne and the ladye Amelye and hath expressyd theyr imaiges verye lyvelye.”[377]

Footnote 377:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 33.

It seems probable that in this instance Holbein did more than make mere studies in crayons such as he had done in the case of the Duchess of Milan and the French ladies; and the fact that the portrait of Anne of Cleves, now in the Louvre, is on parchment fastened down on a wood panel affords some proof of this. The portrait would be painted on the parchment directly from the sitter, and afterwards mounted and the finishing touches given to it. Owing to the haste required, and the safer conveyance of the portrait, the latter process was probably not carried out until the artist was back in London.

[Sidenote: GOSSIP ABOUT THE KING’S MARRIAGE]

No time appears to have been wasted. Henry not only demanded but obtained speed from his servants on their numerous journeys. Travelling post, the journey to and from Düren, which was usually made via Antwerp, took about eleven days. Holbein was in England again before the end of August, as we learn from Marillac, the new French ambassador, who, on September 1, writing from Grafton, where he had followed the King fifty miles from London, informed Francis I that he “has learnt that an excellent painter whom this King sent to Germany to bring the portrait of the sister of the Duke of Cleves, recently arrived in Court, and, immediately afterwards, a courier, bringing, among other news which is still kept secret, news that the said Duke’s ambassadors have started to come hither to treat and conclude the marriage of this King and the said lady.”[378]

Footnote 378:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 117. Kaulek, 124.

The proposed marriage afforded opportunity for much speculation on the part of the King’s subjects, as more than one of his earlier matrimonial projects had done. An excellent idea of the kind of gossip which prevailed can be gathered from the evidence taken in the case of a certain George Constantyne, who talked so much that he got himself charged with treason. It occurs in the report of a conversation between Constantyne and the Dean of Westbury during a journey they made together to South Wales, and in the course of it Holbein’s visit to Cleves is mentioned. “The Dean asked also if Constantyne had any news of the King’s marriage. Replied, he could not tell; he was sorry to see the King so long without a queen, when he might yet have many fair children: his own father was ninety-two years old, and yet, last summer, rode thirty-two miles one day before two o’clock, and said he was not weary; the duchess of Milan and that of Cleif were both spoken of, as the Dean knew. Asked, ‘How call ye the little doctor that is gone to Cleif?’ The Dean said, it was Dr. Woten, and that he that was with him of the Privy Chamber, whom Woten sent home lately, was Berde; adding that this Berde was sent thither again with the King’s painter, and that there was good hope of the marriage, for the duke of Cleif favoured God’s word and was a mighty prince now, having possession of Gelderland against the Emperor’s will.... Said also that the matter of the duchess of Milan was really broken off, for she would have the King accept the bishop of Rome’s dispensation and give pledges. ‘Why pledges?’ asked the Dean. ‘Marry,’ said Constantyne, ‘she sayeth that the King’s Majesty was in so little space rid of the Queens, that she dare not trust his Council, though she durst trust his Majesty; for her Council suspecteth that her great aunt was poisoned, that the second was innocently put to death, and the third lost for lack of keeping her in childbed.’ Added, that he was not sure whether this was her answer or that of Cleif, but that he heard a muttering of it before Whitsuntide.”[379] It will be seen from this gossip that the legend respecting the Duchess of Milan’s refusal to accept Henry because she had fear for the safety of her head was commonly believed at the time.

Footnote 379:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 400. Archæologia, xxiii. 56.

The written descriptions of Anne which Henry received from his representatives and agents were all favourable, but not enthusiastic. Wootton in the letter referring to Holbein, already quoted, says of her: “She has been brought up with the lady Duchess her mother (as the lady Sybille also was till she was married and the lady Amelye has been and is) and in manner never from her elbow, the lady Duchess being a wise lady and one that very straitly looketh to her children. All report her to be of very lowly and gentle conditions, by the which she hath so much won her mother’s favour that she is very loth to suffer her to depart from her. ‘She occupieth her time most with the needle, wherewithall she.... She canne reede and wryte her ... Frenche, Latyn, or other langaige she [hathe no] ne, nor yet she canne not synge nor playe [upon] enye instrument, for they take it heere in Germanye for a rebuke and an occasion of lightenesse that great ladyes shold be lernyd or have enye knowledge of musike.’ Her wit is good and she will no doubt learn English soon when she puts her mind to it. ‘I could never hear that she is inclined to the good cheer of this country and marvel it were if she should, seeing that her brother, to whom yet it were somewhat more tolerable, doth so well abstain from it.’”[380]

Footnote 380:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 33.

Sir Michael Mercator, the German factor of musical instruments, knighted by Henry, wrote to Cromwell later in the year, giving praise to God “for this alliance with the most illustrious, beautiful, and noble lady Anna de Clefves, who has a great gift from God, both of sense and wit. It would be difficult to describe her good manners and grace, and how Gueldres, Cleves, and all the country of the Duke, rejoice at the alliance.”[381]

Footnote 381:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. 500.

[Sidenote: THE “FLANDERS MARE” LEGEND]

Around Holbein’s portrait of Anne there has been woven a legend which upon examination is found to have no foundation in fact. The story is to be traced back to Bishop Burnet, who, in his History of the Reformation, says:[382] “Hans Holbin having taken her picture, sent it over to the king. But in that he bestowed the common compliment of his art somewhat too liberally on a lady that was in a fair way to be queen the king liked the picture better than the original, when he had the occasion afterwards to compare them.” Instead of the promised beauty, continues the bishop, they brought him over a “Flanders mare.”

Footnote 382:

Vol. i. pt. i. p. 543.

Walpole, following Burnet, elaborates this: “Holbein was next despatched by Cromwell to draw the lady Anne of Cleve, and by practising the common flattery of his profession, was the immediate cause of the destruction of that great subject, and of the disgrace that fell on the princess herself. He drew so favourable a likeness, that Henry was content to wed her; but when he found her so inferior to the miniature, the storm which really should have been directed at the painter, burst on the minister; and Cromwell lost his head, because Anne was a Flanders mare, not a Venus, as Holbein had represented her.”[383]

Footnote 383:

Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 72.

There is no truth at all in this story. The leading characteristic of Holbein’s portraiture is its complete truth; he was not in the habit of flattering his sitters, and the portrait of Anne affords one of the most striking testimonies of this. He certainly did not paint her as a Venus, nor was Cromwell’s fall owing to the picture. He was, indeed, made Earl of Essex after the lady’s marriage to the King. Letters in the State Papers show very clearly that Henry complained only of the spoken and written words of his ambassadors, and made no mention of portraits. Russell, the Lord High Admiral, in his deposition in connection with the divorce, quoted Henry as saying to him: “How like you this woman? do you think her so fair and of such beauty as report hath been made unto me of her? I pray you tell me the truth.” Whereupon the said Lord Admiral answered, that he took her not for fair, but to be of a brown complexion. And the king’s highness said, “Alas! whom should men trust? I promise you,” said he, “I see no such thing in her as hath been showed me of her, and am ashamed that men hath praised her as they have done, and I like her not.” Stow, in quoting this, adds without authority the words: “either by pictures or report,” after “I see no such thing in her as hath been showed me of her.”

Stow, apparently drawing upon his own imagination, makes exaggerated references to the part portraits played in the negotiations for the marriage. “Some went over by the king, some by the Lord Cromwell, and some went voluntary, to view the Lady Anne of Cleave, and to negotiate her marriage with the king. All which, either by letters, speech, or both, made very large and liberal reports in praise of her singular feature, matchless beauty, and princely perfections, and for proof thereof presented the king with sundry of her pictures, which the bringers ever affirmed to have been truly made, without flattery.”[384]

Footnote 384:

Stow, Annales, ed. Howes, p. 576.

Henry, however, in his own declaration, never refers to a portrait. He entered into the marriage, he said, “because I heard so much both of her excellent beauty and virtuous conditions.” In addition, he told Sir Anthony Browne, “I see nothing in this woman as men report of her, and I mervail that wise men would make such report as they have done.” He also told Cromwell, in reply to his question as to how he liked the lady, “Nothing so well as she was spoken of; if I had known as much before as I know now, she should never have come into the realm. But what remedy?”

After all, however, the praises of her sent home by Henry’s ambassadors were not very hearty ones. In Hutton’s letter from Brussels, already quoted,[385] written shortly after Jane Seymour’s death, in answer to a request that he would search for a possible bride for the King at the Court of the Regent, he reported, among other princesses, that “the Dewke of Clevis hathe a daughter, but I here no great preas neyther of hir personage nor beawtie.” Wootton’s account, given above, is a remarkably cautious one, and lays most stress on Anne’s domestic virtues. He had also complained that he had found it impossible to judge of the personal appearance of the two ladies on account of the ugly head-dresses they wore.

Footnote 385:

See p. 116.

Had the fault been Holbein’s, he would, no doubt, have fallen under the King’s displeasure. At the least his appointment would have been taken from him, even if he had not been forced to leave England; but the contrary was the case. In September, after his return from Cleves, he received, for a second time, a whole year’s salary in advance. This was, of course, before the King had seen the original of the portrait; but, strangely enough, if the accounts are to be believed, in addition to this year’s advance, Holbein continued to receive his salary every quarter day for the next year, so that he was paid twice over.[386] It is thus very evident that the painter suffered no disgrace or lack of employment or patronage, so that the legend must be abandoned.

Footnote 386:

See p. 190.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF ANNE OF CLEVES]

The fine portrait of Anne of Cleves now in the Louvre (Pl. 24) is in all probability the picture which Holbein painted in Düren.[387] It is almost three-quarter length, less than life-size. She is shown standing, facing the spectator, her hands folded in front of her, and dressed in a very elaborate costume. Her sumptuous gown of red velvet with wide hanging sleeves has heavy bands of gold embroidered with pearls. The bodice is cut square, and is edged with a band of ornament decorated with jewels, and a similar one round the neck with a pendant jewelled cross. She also wears two gold chains, and several rings on her fingers. The open front of the dress is filled in with fine white linen with bands of embroidery. Her hair is covered with an almost transparent head-dress worked with an elaborate pattern and the motto “A BON FINE,” over which is a cap wrought all over with gold, pearls, and other jewels. Her lace cuffs are also gold-embroidered. The background is blue-green, without inscription. Her brown eyes look straight at the spectator. More than one writer, influenced no doubt by these stories of her lack of beauty, has described this portrait as the likeness of a heavy, expressionless, ill-favoured woman; but this is far from being the case. Without any pretensions to extraordinary good looks, the face is a pleasant one, and by no means as plain as it has been described; indeed, in many ways it compares favourably with that of Queen Jane Seymour. That it is a truthful representation is certain, for Holbein never failed in this respect. Nothing is known of the history of the picture, or how it came to find a home in France, except that it was at one time in the Earl of Arundel’s possession,[388] and afterwards in the collection of Louis XIV.

Footnote 387:

Woltmann, 228. Reproduced by Davies, p. 174; Knackfuss, fig. 131; A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 260; Ganz, Holbein, p. 124.

Footnote 388:

Entered in the 1655 inventory as “ritratto d’Anne de Cleves.”

Walpole speaks of the portrait done by Holbein in Düren as a miniature. He was inclined to believe that the beautiful miniature of Anne, now in the Salting Collection at South Kensington, which in his days belonged to the Barretts of Lee Priory, was the very miniature painted by Holbein on this occasion. “This very picture,” he says, “as is supposed, was in the possession of Mr. Barrett, of Kent.... The print among the illustrious heads is taken from it: and so far justifies the king, that he certainly was not nice, if from that picture he concluded her handsome enough. It has so little beauty, that I should doubt of its being the very portrait in question—it rather seems to have been drawn after Holbein saw a little with the king’s eyes. I have seen that picture in the cabinet of the present Mr. Barrett, of Lee, and think it the most exquisitely perfect of all Holbein’s works as well as in the highest preservation. The print gives a very inadequate idea of it, and none of her Flemish fairness. It is preserved in the ivory box in which it came over, and which represents a rose, so delicately carved as to be worthy of the jewel it contains.”[389]

Footnote 389:

Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 72, note.

It is not known in what way this miniature,[390] together with the companion portrait of Henry VIII,[391] in a similar ivory box, in the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s collection, came into the possession of the Barrett family. They were offered for sale by auction in 1757, but bought in; and subsequently sold by Mr. T. B. Barrett in 1826 to a dealer named Tuck, who resold them for fifty guineas to Francis Douce, by whom they were bequeathed, in 1834, to Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, of Goodrich Court. At a later date the miniature of Anne of Cleves was bequeathed by General Meyrick to Miss Davies, from whom it was acquired by the late Mr. George Salting. This miniature follows very closely the portrait in the Louvre, though there are slight differences in the details and colour of the dress. The background is blue, without inscription. It is in water-colours, and is 1¾ in. in diameter. It was from this miniature, which is regarded as an undoubted work by Holbein, that Houbraken engraved, in 1739, the portrait of Anne for his “Illustrious Heads.”

Footnote 390:

Woltmann, 158. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 148 (2); and in Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.

Footnote 391:

Woltmann, 157. See p. 235.

When the Louvre picture was in the Arundel Collection it was etched by Hollar, but reversed. This print is 9¼ in. by 7 in., and is dated 1648 and inscribed—“Anna Clivensis, Henrici VIII Regis Angliæ Uxor IIIIta. H Holbein pinxit. Wenceslaus Hollar fecit aqua forti, ex Collectione Arundeliana, A. 1648.”[392]

Footnote 392:

Parthey, 1343. There is a second print by Hollar, of the same year, taken from a picture or drawing in the Arundel Collection, of a lady in profile to the right, wearing a flat black cap, which, it has been suggested, also represents Anne of Cleves (Parthey, 1545). The likeness is not very apparent, nor does the original appear to have been by Holbein, as Hollar states. It is reproduced by Dr. Ganz, Holbein, p. 198 (2).

[Sidenote: OTHER PORTRAITS OF ANNE OF CLEVES]

There are several other portraits in existence which are said, with little authority, to represent Anne of Cleves; among them a drawing in the Windsor Collection,[393] which appears at one time to have become separated from the others. It came into the possession of Dr. Meade, and at his sale in 1755 was bought by Mr. Chetwynd. After the latter’s death it was restored by his executors to the royal collection. It bears little or no resemblance to the Louvre portrait, and is almost certainly a likeness of some English lady. She is shown full-face, with a close-fitting cap covering the ears, and a hat over it. The drawing has been damaged by having been cut out round the outline. The face is a refined one. There are notes in German as to the material and colours of the dress, and the pattern of the Spanish work on the collar is drawn in detail on the margin. It has no inscription. In the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington in 1865, a small head of “Anne of Cleves” was exhibited by the Earl of Derby. It was in oil on panel, oval, about 3 in. by 2½ in., and signed “H. H.” It had been injured, and was then in a somewhat dirty condition; the face had considerable likeness to the Louvre picture.[394]

Footnote 393:

Woltmann, 357; Wornum, not included; Holmes, ii. 2.

Footnote 394:

Wornum, p. 330, note.

There is, however, one other portrait in addition to the Louvre panel which is a contemporary likeness of Anne of Cleves, though not by Holbein. This is the small picture in St. John’s College, Oxford, a fine work by some unknown painter of the Flemish School. It is a half-length, standing three-quarters to the left, behind a parapet upon which lie an orange and a pair of jewelled gloves. The head-dress is of cloth of gold and white gauze, the latter worked with the motto, “A BON FINE,” as in the Louvre picture. She is wearing a low-cut dress of striped gold and black, filled in with white with embroidered bands, gold and jewelled necklaces, and a pendant cross, and several rings on her fingers. Her left hand is placed against her waistbelt, and in her right she holds three carnations. The background is dark, with a small canopy or curtain over her head. It is on panel with arched top, 19¾ in. by 14¼ in. The costume is of the same style and period as the Louvre portrait, though it differs in numerous small details, more particularly in the colours of the materials, the shape of the sleeves, and the jewelled bands of the head-dress. The general tone of colour is golden, and there is excellent painting in all the details of the elaborate costume. It was included in the Oxford Exhibition of Historical Portraits in 1904 (No. 30), and was one of the most interesting pictures in the collection.[395] As a likeness it bears a strong resemblance to Holbein’s portrait, and if not of Anne may well be of her sister. The suggestion may be hazarded that it is one of the two portraits, painted six months before Holbein and Beard were in Düren, which Olisleger had promised to procure for Henry VIII’s ambassadors, portraits which Beard, apparently, took with him to London early in July 1539.

Footnote 395:

Reproduced in the Oxford Catalogue, p. 24; Burlington Magazine, vol. v., May 1904, p. 214. A very similar picture was lent by Dr. Wickham Flower to the New Gallery Winter Exhibition, 1899-1900, No. 44, as a work of the Early Flemish School. It was described in the catalogue as: “Half-length, turned towards left, habited in a rich Flemish costume of gold tissue covered with jewellery; head-dress ornamented with pearls, and inscribed with the motto ‘A bon fine’; in her right hand she holds a red carnation; flat green background. Painted on vellum and strained on fine canvas, 15 in. × 14 in. This portrait is supposed to have been executed by a Flemish painter a year or two previous to Anne’s marriage in 1540.”

There is no need even to touch upon the concluding stages of this miserable story, with which Holbein had nothing to do. Henry married Anne at Greenwich on January 6, 1540, and finally divorced her on July 12 in the same year. She settled at Richmond in the enjoyment of the rank of a princess and a pension of £3000 a year, and survived the King by ten years, dying in 1557.

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XXIV. THE LAST YEARS: 1540-1543

Holbein’s work at Whitehall—His residence in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft—In high favour at court—Payments of his salary—Possible visit to Basel—Portraits and miniatures of Catherine Howard—Portraits of the Duke of Norfolk—The Earl of Surrey—Unknown men at Berlin and Vienna—Unknown Englishman at the Hague—Earl of Southampton—Unknown man, aged 54, at Berlin—Unknown English lady at Vienna—Simon George—Dr. John Chamber—Sir William and Lady Butts—Unknown Englishman at Basel—Young English lady in the collection of Count Lanckoronski—Lady Rich—Holbein’s self-portraits—A newly-discovered one at Basel—Portraits, now lost, etched by Hollar—The Duke of Buckingham’s Collection.

Though there is no actual evidence in support of the statement of the older writers that Holbein, after he entered the royal service, had the use of a permanent studio in Whitehall Palace, granted to him by the King, there is every possibility that such was the case. “One of the earliest of the famous non-royal residents in Whitehall Palace,” says Dr. Edgar Sheppard, “was the artist Holbein. He had been presented to Henry VIII by Sir Thomas More, and the King assigned him a permanent suite of apartments in Whitehall, and commissioned him to paint the interior of the new Palace, for which work he received two hundred florins per annum.”[396] While the great wall-painting in the Privy Chamber was in progress, it would be necessary for him to have a room for his own use within the building, for the storage of the materials required for the work, and it is not impossible that he was permitted to retain the room as his own, perhaps one of those over the so-called “Holbein’s Gate,” for the short remainder of his life, more particularly as his practice was almost entirely confined to the court, so that a studio in Whitehall would best suit the convenience both of the painter and his sitters.[397] That he had a “permanent suite of apartments” there, as Dr. Sheppard states, is much less probable. This would indicate residence, whereas it is known that during his last years he occupied a house in the east of London.

Footnote 396:

The Old Royal Palace of Whitehall, 1901, p. 266.

Footnote 397:

See Appendix (M).

It is doubtful, too, whether Holbein carried out any important decorative work in the Palace beyond the famous wall-painting already described.[398] According to a curious entry in Pepys’ Diary, under the date August 28, 1668, which is not easy to understand, the room known as the Matted Gallery had a painted ceiling of Holbein’s handiwork. The passage runs as follows: “With much difficulty, by candle-light, walked over the matted gallery, 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 Holben’s work in the ceiling blotted on, and only whited over!” The exact sense of the concluding words is not very clear, but Pepys appears to mean that the ceiling had been formerly painted by Holbein, and that, having become damaged in course of time, it had recently been given a coat of whitewash. The ceiling was probably decorated with coloured plaster-work in relief, and though Holbein may have supplied the design, and may even have been responsible for the painting, it is much more likely that the plaster-work itself was done by some Italian, such as Nicolas Beilin of Modena, who had carried out similar undertakings at Fontainebleau.

Footnote 398:

In 1576 Johann Fischart, quoted by Ganz, Holbein, p. xxxviii., in a description of the Palace, speaks of several of the galleries as decorated on both sides with fine emblematic histories, and actions and stories in the style of Michelangelo and Holbein. Henry Peacham, in his Graphicè (1606), and again in The Compleat Gentleman (1634), speaks of works by Holbein in Whitehall. He says: “He painted the Chappell at White-Hall, and S. James, Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus rising from the dead, &c., were his.” (See The Compleat Gentleman, ed. G. S. Gordon, 1906, p. 128. Also Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 82.) There is a drawing in the British Museum representing Henry VIII seated at table under a lofty canopy, in a large chamber, with a number of standing courtiers in attendance, which appears to be a sixteenth-century copy of a preliminary study by Holbein for a wall-decoration, possibly for one of the rooms in Whitehall. It is inscribed “Holbein Inven^t.” Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 183.

[Sidenote: “DANCE OF DEATH” AT WHITEHALL]

The legend that Holbein also painted a “Dance of Death,” composed of life-size figures, upon the walls of one of the rooms in Whitehall, is probably pure fiction, or, at least, there is much less to be said in its favour than for Pepys’ attribution of the ceiling in the Matted Gallery to the painter. The writer who first gave currency to the story was Francis Douce, in his “Dance of Death,” published in 1833. According to his statement, “very soon after the calamitous fire at Whitehall in 1697,[399] which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person, calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William III, and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist,”[400] made etchings after nineteen of the cuts in the Lyon “Dance of Death.” Impressions of these etchings, accompanied with manuscript dedications, are said to have been presented by this Piccard to his friends and patrons, and among others to a Mynheer Heymans, and to the “high, noble, and well-born Lord William Denting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendreght,” &c. In these addresses Piccard speaks of a “wall-painting” of the “Dance” by Holbein which he himself had seen in Whitehall. In the dedication to Heymans he says:

Footnote 399:

Should be 1698.

Footnote 400:

Holbein’s Dance of Death, ed. 1858, p. 124.

“Sir,—The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII, contains, among other performances of art, a Dance of Death, painted by Holbein in its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been reduced to ashes.”

In the dedication to “Lord William Benting” Piccard is more precise:

“Sir,—In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art, it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans Holbein neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself had painted as large as life in fresco on the walls of Whitehall.”

* * * * *

As far as can be ascertained, there is not the slightest truth in this legend. Nothing is known as to the identity of Heymans, but Lord William Benting was evidently William Bentinck (1704-1774), of Rhoon and Pendrecht in Holland, and Terrington St. Clements, Norfolk, third son of Hans William Bentinck, first Earl of Portland, and a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Douce, who gave undeserved authority to this story, made no attempt to trace the history of the manuscript “addresses” which accompanied the etchings, and though he saw them, does not say to whom they then belonged, or even in what language they were written. They may be safely set down as forgeries, as far as any wall-paintings of the “Dance of Death” by Holbein are concerned. Piccard, whoever he may have been, is the sole authority for the existence of these mythical works, which are not mentioned by Van Mander or Sandrart, or by any of the foreign travellers who visited this country in their descriptions of Whitehall, though the wall-painting of Henry VIII with his wife and parents in the same palace is more than once spoken of in such records in terms of high praise. Both Pepys and Evelyn are equally silent on the subject, though the latter mentions the “Dance of Death” woodcuts, and ascribes them to Holbein by name. “We have seen,” he says, “some few things cut in wood by the incomparable Hans Holbein the Dane, but they are rare and exceedingly difficult to come by; as his Licentiousnesse of the Friers and Nuns; Erasmus; Moriae Encomium; the Trial and Crucifixion of Christ; The Daunce Macchabree; the Mortis Imago, which he painted in great in the Church at Basil, and afterwards graved with no lesse art.”[401] What he says is by no means free from mistakes, but as, in speaking of a visit paid to Whitehall in 1656, he describes the condition of the large wall-painting of the two kings Henry VII and Henry VIII, and their consorts, it is not probable that he would have failed to mention any other important wall-paintings in the palace had they existed. Douce thought he had discovered a corroboration of Piccard’s story in an entry in Van der Doort’s catalogue of Charles I’s collection, which runs: “A little piece, where Death with a green garland about his head, stretching both his arms to apprehend a Pilate in the habit of one of the spiritual Prince-Electors of Germany. Copied by Isaac Oliver from Holbein”; but this, no doubt, was painted from the woodcut of the Elector in the Lyon “Dance of Death,” and not from a large wall-painting.

Footnote 401:

Evelyn, Sculptura, ed. 1769, p. 69.

As already stated, though Holbein may have had a workroom within the precincts of Whitehall, his permanent home in London was elsewhere. The public records show that in 1541 he was living in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, in Aldgate Ward. How long he had been there is not known, but possibly for the greater part of his second sojourn in England. This information is contained in a subsidy roll for the City of London, dated 24th October, 33 Hen. VIII (1541). Among the “straungers” taxed were:

“Barnadyne xxx. s. Buttessey, xxx. li.

Hanns Holbene iij. li.” in fee, xxx. li.

Why Holbein was obliged to pay twice the amount charged to Buttessey on an equal assessment of £30 a year is explained by the fact that in these subsidies it was usual to tax “lands, fees, and annuities,” at double the rate of goods. “In the royal accounts,” says Sir Augustus W. Franks, “the payments to Holbein are sometimes noticed as wages, sometimes as an annuity; while other payments of a similar kind, although fees or annuities, are included under the general term “wages,” and evidently looked upon as synonymous terms for the salaries paid by the King to various members of his household. In any case, the salary of Holbein, the painter, rendered him liable to be rated, as a foreigner, at the high amount above-mentioned.”[402] There can be no doubt that this Holbein of the subsidy roll was the artist. The amount of his fee, £30, corresponds with the salary he received from the royal purse, while Holbein’s will gives his place of residence as the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft.

Footnote 402:

Archæologia, vol. xxxix. p. 17.

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S RESIDENCE IN LONDON]

According to a story told by Walpole, Holbein once resided in a house on London Bridge. He says: “The father of Lord Treasurer Oxford passing over London Bridge, was caught in a shower, and stepping into a goldsmith’s shop for shelter, he found there a picture of Holbein (who had lived in that house) and his family. He offered the goldsmith 100_l._ for it, who consented to let him have it, but desired first to show it to some persons. Immediately after happened the fire of London, and the picture was destroyed.”[403] This story is apparently a mere legend, and there is no evidence to support it; nor is it very probable that an important painting by Holbein would have remained in the same small house for more than one hundred and twenty years. Dallaway, in his notes to Walpole, includes in a supplementary list of works by Holbein in England a small picture of Holbein, his wife, four boys, and a girl, at Mereworth Castle, Kent, which he suggests may be either a repetition or the original picture of the London Bridge story; but in the first place, Holbein never had a family of four sons, and, secondly, the picture bears no traces of Holbein’s manner. He quotes Gilpin’s description of it: “As a whole, it has no effect; but the heads are excellent. They are not painted in the common flat style of Holbein, but with a round, firm, glowing pencil, and yet exact imitation of nature is preserved—the boys are very innocent, beautiful characters.” If some such “family” picture existed in London at that time, it is much more likely to have been a copy or a replica of the genuine family group in the Basel Gallery.

Footnote 403:

Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 86, note.

The favour with which Holbein was now regarded at court is shown by the frequency with which he received a year’s or half a year’s salary in advance, a mark of royal condescension which was most unusual. Thus under “September A^o xxxi” (1539) is the following entry: “Item paide by the Kingis highnesse commaundement certefied by my lorde privyseales lettres to Hans Holbenne, paynter, in the advauncement of his hole yeres wagis beforehande, aftre the rate of xxx li. by yere, which yeres advauncement is to be accompted from this present Michaelmas, and shall ende ultimo Septembris next commynge, the somme of xxx li.”[404] Notwithstanding this payment in advance, it appears, as already pointed out,[405] from the four following quarterly entries in the accounts having reference to Holbein, from Michaelmas 1539 to Midsummer 1540, that he continued to receive his salary of £7, 10_s._ each quarter as usual.[406] If these entries are to be depended upon, he clearly received his money twice over, either by accident, owing to carelessness in the keeping of the King’s accounts, or of set purpose as a further reward for his services.

Footnote 404:

C.L.P., vol. xiv. pt. ii. p. 313, The King’s Payments, f. 90 b; and Archæologia, vol. xxxix. p. 9.

Footnote 405:

See p. 180.

Footnote 406:

The first of these was due to him, and not covered by the year’s advance.

[Sidenote: HIS WORK ABOUT THE COURT]

In September 1540 he received an advance of half a year: “September, A^o xxxii—Item paide to Hans Holbyn, the Kingis paynter, in advauncement of his wagis for one half yere beforehande, the same half yere accompted and reconned fromme Michaelmas last paste, the somme of xv li.” This time, however, he did not receive his salary twice over, for in the two following entries, at Michaelmas and Christmas, 1540, the accounts merely state: “Item, for Hans Holbyn, paynter, wages, nihil, quia prius per warrantum.” In the following March 1541 he again obtained a half-year’s advance: “March, A^o xxxii: Item paied to Hans Holben, the Kingis painter, in advauncement of his half yeres wages before hande, after the rate of xxx li. by yere, which half yere is accompted to beginne primo Aprilis A^o xxxij. domini Regis nunc, and shall ende ultimo Septembris then next ensuynge, the somme of xv li.” The two remaining entries of which we have record, at Lady Day and Midsummer following, are as follows: “Item for Hans Holben, paynter, wages, nil, quia praemanibus”; and “Item for Hans Holbyn, paynter, nihil, quia prius.” The volume of accounts closes with the payments for this quarter, and no details of the royal expenditure during the next two years and a half exist, so that there is no record of the salary Holbein received for the remaining years of his life. In a later volume of Tuke’s accounts, as treasurer of the household, extending from October, 35 Hen. VIII (1543) to November, 36 Hen. VIII (1544), the first quarterly payments are for Christmas 1543, and Holbein’s name does not occur in them, as he had then been dead for about two months. It is rather strange, however, that it does not appear among the Christmas payments with “Nihil quia mortuus” after it, as this was the usual procedure in case of death. This omission, however, may have been due to the fact that he had once again received his salary beforehand.

The remaining years of Holbein’s life must have been busy ones, judging from the number of preliminary studies for portraits of the men and women of Henry’s court which exist in the Windsor Collection and in many of the great European museums. These drawings are all undated, and cover the whole period of his English career, but there are so many of them that his time must have been always fully occupied. It is strange, therefore, that so few of his finished portraits can be ascribed with any certainty to the year 1540. Although it was by no means his invariable custom to put the date on his paintings, yet this was his more usual practice, and there is no known picture by him which is inscribed 1540, though there are a few dated 1541 and 1542. Several portraits of the Howard family can be given with some certainty to the earlier year, but beyond this nothing has been so far discovered. It may be suggested, as some explanation of this, that Holbein paid another visit to Basel during the last quarter of 1540, as the two years’ leave of absence granted him by the Town Council came to an end in the middle of October. The Council, who had been paying his wife the promised yearly pension of forty gulden, expected him to make Basel his permanent residence on the completion of this further extension of leave. The terms of their agreement with him were fairly generous, and it is not to be supposed that the painter would risk losing his rights of citizenship and the stoppage of the pension to his wife through a total disregard of the Council’s wish. It seems possible, therefore, that he went over to Switzerland in order to make personal application for a further and longer leave of absence in England than the agreement of 1538 permitted. Unlike many of the foreign artists and artificers then resident in this country, he never became a naturalised British subject, and this, no doubt, was due to the fact that he was determined to end his days as a citizen of Basel, and regarded his residence here as merely a temporary one, and England as a profitable field which, as time passed, would become worked out. He could not, of course, foresee that he was to be suddenly cut down when a comparatively young man and still in the full maturity of his powers. At Michaelmas in the year in question he received half a year’s salary in advance, so that it was impossible for him to leave England permanently for some time to come.

In the summer of 1540 Holbein lost another of his English patrons. Henry formally divorced Anne of Cleves on the 12th of July, and on the 28th of the same month Thomas Cromwell, then Earl of Essex, who had been a good friend to the painter, was beheaded for high treason, after a period of eight years during which his influence with both King and Parliament had been paramount. During the same month Henry privately married Catherine, daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a cousin of Anne Boleyn, and niece of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk. By this marriage the Howards, and through them the Catholic party, regained that ascendancy in the councils of the King which had received a severe check at the fall of Anne Boleyn; and at least three members of this family were painted by Holbein. The new Queen was publicly acknowledged on August 8 at Hampton Court Palace.

[Sidenote: MINIATURES OF CATHERINE HOWARD]

Although it was to be supposed that Henry would employ Holbein to paint the portrait of his new queen, until quite recently the only known likeness of her from his brush was the miniature portrait in the royal collection at Windsor Castle, and the replica of it belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. In 1909, however, the discovery was made by Mr. Lionel Cust of a genuine and very beautiful portrait of this Queen. In the Windsor miniature (Pl. 31 (4)),[407] which shows her in a similar position to the one in the newly-discovered picture, she is represented nearly to the waist, turned to the left, her hands folded in front of her, the left over the right. Her hair and eyes are brown, and she wears a circular hood of the then fashionable French pattern, with a fall of black velvet. Her square-cut bodice is of dark cloth of gold, with sleeves of grey-green silk embroidered with gold, and white ruffles with black embroidery. Round her neck, over the white cambric filling of the dress, falls an elaborate necklace of pearls, rubies, and sapphires. The background, which is bright blue, has no inscription. It is painted on the back of a playing card, the eight of diamonds, and is 2⅓ inches in diameter. The hands, and the lower part of the arms, are badly painted, and appear to be a later addition.

Footnote 407:

Woltmann, 271. Reproduced by Law, Pl. vii.; Knackfuss, fig. 132; Williamson, History of Portrait Miniatures, Pl. ii. No. 2; Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 245; Ganz, Holbein, p. 149 (4), and Cust, Burlington Magazine, July 1910, p. 195.

Nothing is known of its history, or as to the date of its acquisition, but it did not belong to the Crown in Tudor or Stuart days. Dr. Ganz describes it as badly over-painted, and possibly only a copy. Doubts have been thrown from time to time on its right to be called a portrait of Catherine Howard. Mr. Ernest Law considers the attribution to be “very problematical indeed,” and states that it “does not at all accord with the Holbein drawing inscribed as ‘Queen Katherine Howard.’”[408] In this he follows earlier writers. Nichols says that though the position and head-dress of the drawing agree with the miniature, “the features do not appear to correspond.”[409] It is difficult, however, to agree with them in this, for a careful comparison of the two makes it quite evident that they represent the same lady. The version belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch is almost identical with the Windsor miniature, but is a better work and slightly smaller, being only two inches in diameter. It was last publicly exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, in 1909.[410] It was formerly in the collection of the Earl of Arundel, and when there was etched by Hollar in 1646. It was afterwards owned by Jonathan Richardson the younger (1694-1771), and subsequently by Horace Walpole. Walpole describes it as: “Catherine Howard, a miniature, damaged, it was Richardson’s, who bought it out of the Arundelian collection. It is engraved among the Illustrious Heads [of Houbraken]; and by Hollar, who called it Mary, Queen of France, wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.”[411] In this he is wrong, for no name is attached to it in Hollar’s etching, and it was first identified as Catherine Howard by Mr. Cust. In his Description of Strawberry Hill, however, Walpole calls it merely “a lady painted by Holbein,” and says that it is “probably Mary Tudor, Queen of France, sister of Henry VIII, but among the Illustrious Heads called Catherine Howard.” According to Granger, it was Vertue who first named it Mary, Queen of France. The Duke of Buccleuch also possesses a small oil painting on panel, 5⅜ in. × 4½ in., which was likewise at the Burlington Fine Arts Club (Case C, 24). It is inscribed, by a hand later than that of the painter of the portrait, “Catherine Howard Henry VIII.” According to Scharf, this is “apparently a French work, and, indeed, thoroughly so in personal characteristics.”[412] It is in the style of Clouet, and the compilers of the Burlington Fine Arts Club catalogue suggest that it may represent Anne de Pisseleu, Duchesse d’Estampes.

Footnote 408:

Law, Holbein’s Pictures, &c., p. 24. This was before Mr. Cust’s discovery of the larger portrait.

Footnote 409:

Archæologia, vol. xl. p. 78.

Footnote 410:

Case C, 4. Reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.; Ganz, Holbein, p. 148 (4); and Cust, Burlington Magazine, July 1910, p. 195. Only a part of one hand is shown.

Footnote 411:

Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. pp. 94-5. Hollar’s etching (Parthey, 1546) is reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 198 (3); and by Cust, Burlington Magazine, July 1910, p. 195.

Footnote 412:

Archæologia, vol. xl. p. 87. Reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxiv.

The Windsor drawing[413] bears no inscription, and the sitter is turned to the right, as in Hollar’s engraving, instead of to the left, but otherwise it shows the same type of features, smooth auburn hair, and French cap or hood, as in the miniature. The dress, however, in Holbein’s usual fashion, is merely indicated with a few lines, showing a plain bodice cut square, filled in with white cambric, with a diamond-shaped opening revealing neck and bosom. It agrees in the same way with the newly-discovered portrait, of which, though reversed, it is evidently one of the preliminary studies. The identity with Catherine Howard is further proved, as Mr. Lionel Cust points out, by the family resemblance, plainly visible, in certain of the features, such as the over-accentuated lower jaw, to the portraits of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and of his son, the ill-fated Earl of Surrey.

Footnote 413:

Woltmann, 329; Wornum, ii. 9; Holmes, i. 42. Reproduced in Burlington Magazine, vol. xvii., July 1910, p. 195, together with the two miniatures and Hollar’s etching.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE HOWARD]

In 1898 the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery acquired a portrait of Catherine Howard[414] at the sale of the Cholmondeley pictures at Condover Hall, Shropshire, which closely follows the Windsor drawing, although in the reverse position. The excellence of the painting of the hands, and of the details of the dress and jewels, led at first to the supposition that it might be a genuine work by Holbein which had undergone some damage and restoration, but closer examination proved that it was merely a careful contemporary school copy, or repetition of some lost original. It is inscribed “ETATIS SVÆ 21,” which corresponds with the known facts of Catherine Howard’s life. In the summer of 1909 the original picture of which it is a copy was submitted to Mr. Cust, who recognised it at once as not only a portrait of Catherine Howard, but as most possibly a genuine work of the great master, which proved to be the case on the removal of much dirty varnish and some repaints.[415] It came from a private collection in the west of England, where it had formed part of a series of historical portraits which had been in the possession of the same family for several generations, and had been regarded at one time as a portrait of Eleanor Brandon, Countess of Cumberland, and at another as Princess Mary Tudor. It is now in Canada, in the collection of Mr. James H. Dunn.

Footnote 414:

No. 1119. Reproduced by Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 268; and in the Illustrated Catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, vol. i. p. 25.

Footnote 415:

See Cust, Burlington Magazine, vol. xvii., July 1910, pp. 193-9, reproduced, frontispiece; and by Ganz, Holbein, p. 126.

Henry’s fifth Queen is shown seated, at a little more than half length, turned to the left. The hands are in the same position as in the miniature, though the fingers are more closely interlaced. Her hair is auburn, parted in the middle, and the eyes are blue-grey. She wears, too, a costume of a similar fashion, though of different materials. The circular French hood, with its heavy band of gold ornament and black fall, appears to be the same, but the dress is of black satin, with a square black velvet yoke across the bosom, open at the neck and turned back to show the white lining. A band or piping of gold ornament elaborately pierced, with pairs of gold tags at intervals, runs along the outer seam of the sleeves from shoulder to wrist, and the white ruffles are embroidered all over with a floral design in black. The ornaments she wears are of exceptional interest, as they afford actual evidence that Holbein not only painted portraits of royal ladies, but also designed their jewellery. Round her neck is a small necklace, set with pearls and diamonds, less heavy and elaborate than the one represented in the miniatures, and of greater beauty and delicacy of design, to which a large pendant jewel is attached. At her breast is a brooch from which hangs a circular jewel or medallion of chased gold work, with a large oblong diamond in the centre, on which is represented the story of Lot’s wife and the flight from Sodom. This jewel was designed for Catherine by Holbein. It corresponds exactly, as Mr. Cust points out, with a most characteristic study, a small roundel placed within an octagon, among the wonderful series of Holbein’s original drawings for jewellery in the Print Room of the British Museum,[416] and thus gives particular interest to a portrait which in all ways forms a very important addition to the master’s work, both on account of the brilliance of its execution and of its value as an historical document. Suspended from a chain round her waist hangs a still larger circular jewel, only the upper part of which is seen. That portion of the subject which is visible represents two angels with hands raised in adoration on either side of a crowned and bearded figure, most possibly the Almighty. The background of the portrait is a plain one, of Holbein’s favourite blue, across which is inscribed, as in the National Portrait Gallery copy, “ETATIS SVÆ 21,” on either side of the head. It is on an oak panel 29 inches high by 20 inches wide. It must have been painted between August 1540, the date of her marriage, and November 1541, when she was deprived of her dignity as Queen, and forbidden to wear jewels; most probably in the latter year, according to Mr. Cust, which would correspond with her accepted age at the time of her marriage. Its importance and its genuineness have been accepted by such leading authorities as Dr. Bode, Dr. Friedländer, Dr. Paul Ganz, and Sir Sidney Colvin.

Footnote 416:

British Museum Catalogue, 35(E) Vol. ii. p. 339. Reproduced in Burlington Magazine, vol. xvii., July 1910, p. 195. See p. 283 and Pl. 50 (2).

Catherine Howard’s reign as Queen of England was a short one. There is no need to describe her tragic fate in detail. Before the close of the year 1541 it was discovered that not only had she had two lovers, one of them her cousin Francis Dereham, before her marriage, but that she had also been unfaithful to the King almost from the beginning of her married life, her paramour being one of her gentlemen, Thomas Culpeper. The Queen and her accomplice, Lady Rochford, were confined in Syon House, pending a parliamentary inquiry. Dereham and Culpeper were tried at Guildhall in December, pleaded guilty, and were hanged at Tyburn twelve days afterwards; and in February 1542, Catherine and Lady Rochford were condemned to death, and were beheaded on the 13th of the month, on the same spot on which the Queen’s cousin, Anne Boleyn, had suffered the same penalty for the same crime.

This fresh tragedy in his life greatly aged the King, as can be seen in the portraits of him painted about this period, usually attributed to Lucas Hornebolt. A month after the execution, Marillac wrote to Francis I, on March 17, 1542, that Henry was “already very stout and daily growing heavier, much resembling his maternal grandfather, King Edward, being about his age, in loving rest and fleeing trouble. He seems very old and grey since the mishap (malheur) of this last queen, and will not yet hear of taking another, although he is ordinarily in company of ladies, and his ministers beg and urge him to marry again.”[417]

Footnote 417:

C.L.P., vol. xvii. 178.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF THOMAS HOWARD]

The portrait of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, uncle by marriage to Henry VIII, was painted at about the same time as that of Catherine Howard. The inscriptions on the fine original version by Holbein in Windsor Castle (Pl. 25),[418] and the excellent contemporary copy in Arundel Castle, both state that it was taken in his sixty-sixth year, and as he is said to have been born in 1473, this gives the date of the picture as 1539 or early in 1540. He is shown standing, at half-length, slightly turned to the left. He is wearing a doublet of dusky red silk, edged with brown fur, and a white collar embroidered with black silk. His outer robe of dark velvet has a deep collar and border of ermine, and on his head is a plain, flat black hat, without a badge, over a black skull-cap which covers the ears. In his left hand he holds the long white wand of his office of Lord High Treasurer, and in his right the shorter gold baton, tipped with black, which he carried as hereditary Earl Marshal of England. Across the shoulders hangs the magnificent and richly-jewelled collar of the Order of the Garter with the pendant George, which is painted with all Holbein’s wonderful mastery in the clear rendering of minute ornament. The face, clean-shaven, and of a brown complexion, displays remarkable subtlety in the delineation of a proud and cruel nature. The cold, unflinching eyes, the thin, compressed lips with their faint, ironic smile, and the bony hands clasping the staves, reveal the sitter’s true character as it has come down to us in the pages of history, pride of race, cruelty almost remorseless in its pursuit of power, and inflexibility of purpose both in personal aggrandisement and in the service of his royal master.

Footnote 418:

Woltmann, 267. Reproduced by Law, Pl. vi.; Davies, p. 179; Knackfuss, fig. 133; Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 188; Ganz, Holbein, p. 123.

The background is green, and across the top of the panel runs the inscription: “THOMAS · DVKE · OFF · NORFOLK · MARSHALL · AND TRESVRER OFF · INGLONDE THE · LXVI YERE · OF · HIS · AGE.” It is now almost illegible, through the passage of time and over-painting, but can be deciphered by the aid of the exactly similar inscription on the Arundel picture. This, as already stated, gives the date of the portrait as about 1540. The inscription, however, is not contemporary, but was probably added some hundred years later, in the reign of Charles I, when the picture was in the collection of the Earl of Arundel. It was finely etched by Vorsterman when in the Earl’s possession, in 1630, though without the inscription, but beneath the plate is engraved: “Hans Holbein pinxit. Visitur in Ædibus Arondelianis Londini.” This does not necessarily prove that the inscription on the panel did not exist at that date, as Vorsterman may have omitted it as disfiguring. That it was certainly there fifteen years later is proved by a coloured drawing on vellum by Philip Fruytiers, the Antwerp painter, dated 1645, a copy of a study by Van Dyck representing a large group of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, his wife, and family. On the wall in the background Van Dyck had inserted, and Fruytiers has copied, on the one side, this very portrait of the Duke of Norfolk by Holbein, in which the inscription across the top of it in gold letters can be plainly seen, and on the other side the portrait of his son, the Earl of Surrey, also evidently a work by Holbein, though the original painting is now lost, which is inscribed: “HENRY HOWARD ERLE OF SUHRY ANNO ÆTATIS SVÆ 25.” This water-colour drawing, which is signed “An. Vandyke inv. Ph. Fruytiers fecit 1645,” is in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland, and there is a small copy of it in oils on copper at Norfolk House, which also shows the inscription. It was engraved by Vertue in 1743. The original sketch or composition by Van Dyck has been lost.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF THOMAS HOWARD]

It is supposed that the Windsor version is the one which was in the Arundel Collection, but its subsequent history is uncertain. That collection was divided in 1686, and the share which fell to the Duke of Norfolk may possibly have contained this portrait of his ancestor.[419] The Duke’s pictures were sold in 1692, and nothing further is to be heard of this portrait until it is mentioned by Walpole as being then (1762) in Leicester House, at that time the dower-house of the Dowager Princess of Wales, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales.[420] “There can be no doubt,” says Mr. Ernest Law, “that the picture passed, on the death of the Princess in 1772, into the possession of the Crown with the rest of the collection which had been formed by Prince Frederick.”[421] It is not known from whom that Prince acquired it, but many of his pictures were purchased for him on the Continent by his agent, Bagnols, and it is not unlikely that Woltmann’s surmise is correct, and that it is to be identified with the portrait of the Duke which appeared in the catalogue of an anonymous sale of pictures at Amsterdam on April 23, 1732, as “Een zeer konstig uitmuntent stuk door Hans Holbeen, zynde de Hartog van Nortfolk nooit zoo goet gezien,” which must have been a fine work, as it fetched the relatively high price of 1120 florins.[422] It is quite possible, therefore, that the portrait was one of those sold by Lord Stafford in Amsterdam in 1654, immediately after the death of the Countess of Arundel, and that it was never in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, but remained in that town until 1732.

Footnote 419:

The only portrait of the Duke mentioned in the Arundel inventory of 1655 has no artist’s name placed against it, but it comes next to the portrait of the Earl of Surrey, which is given to Holbein. It is entered as “Ritratto de Tomaso Howard, Ducha de Nordfolk.”

Footnote 420:

Walpole, Anecdotes, &c., ed. Wornum, i. p. 83.

Footnote 421:

Law, Holbein’s Pictures, &c., p. 19.

Footnote 422:

Woltmann, ii. pp. 57 and 156.

The copy at Arundel Castle, about which still less is known, is so good that it is only when it is placed side by side with the Windsor version, as it was in the Tudor Exhibition in 1890, that the latter is seen to be by far the finer work of the two. The Arundel picture is slightly the smaller, and was last exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 49). There is a second version of this portrait in the Norfolk collection, at Norfolk House, in which various alterations have been made in the position and the dress, and a more elaborate background has been added. It is a work of comparatively little merit, and appears to have been painted during the seventeenth century by some inferior artist.

At the time he sat to Holbein the Duke was at the height of his power. He had been the bitter enemy of both Wolsey and Cromwell, and had assisted to bring about the downfall of both, and had arrested the latter with his own hands. After Cromwell’s execution he became the most powerful of Henry’s subjects, and reached his highest summit of greatness. His influence over the King, however, waned after the fall of his niece, Catherine Howard, when he was supplanted by his enemies, the Earl of Hertford and the Seymours. In 1546 he was attainted, together with his son, the Earl of Surrey, for high treason, and only escaped the latter’s fate by the death of the King on the day the warrant for his execution was made out. He remained in the Tower throughout the reign of Edward VI, but was released on the accession of Queen Mary in 1553, and his titles and estates were restored to him, but he only lived to enjoy them for a year.

[Sidenote: PORTRAITS OF HENRY HOWARD]

That Holbein painted his son, Henry, Earl of Surrey, is proved by the small portrait on the wall in Fruytiers’ version of Van Dyck’s picture of the Arundel family. The inscription on this miniature copy gives his age as twenty-five; and as he was born about 1517, Holbein must have painted him about 1541. He is represented with reddish hair and beard, and brown eyes, the head slightly turned to the right, and wears a black cap with a feather, and a black mantle from the folds of which the right hand appears. There is a small drawing in the Windsor Collection wrongly inscribed “Tho. Howard E. of Surrey,”[423] which bears some likeness to the Earl in the Fruytiers drawing, and is supposed to represent Henry Howard. It is badly rubbed, and has suffered from retouching and certain coarse alterations, and has the slightly-wavering touch which marks the so-called “Melanchthon” in the same collection. It is apparently the original study for the portrait which was engraved by Hollar when it was in the Arundel Collection.[424] There are two other heads at Windsor also named Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, but the attribution cannot be correct, as Surrey’s son, Thomas, was a small boy of only six or seven at the time of Holbein’s death. Whether the drawings represent the poet himself is also doubtful. One of them, inscribed “Thomas Earl of Surry” (Pl. 26),[425] in which he is shown full-face, clean-shaven, with hair cut straight across the forehead and partly covering the ears, and wearing a black cap with scalloped edges and an ostrich feather, is one of the finest drawings in the whole collection, conspicuous for the delicacy of the modelling and the freedom and expressiveness of the draughtsmanship. The face is one of considerable charm, which is not to be seen in the third drawing,[426] inscribed “Tho. Earle of Surry,” perhaps a little later in date, in which the head is turned slightly to the left, and the hair entirely covered with the black skull-cap he wears beneath the feathered bonnet. The dress is only slightly indicated, and is rubbed, and a circular medallion suspended from a broad ribbon hangs on his breast. A portrait of his wife is also to be found among the Windsor heads,[427] full-face, wearing the angular English head-dress with black fall, and a round jewelled ornament hanging from a chain round her neck, and a second medallion on her breast. The dress which, like the ornaments, is badly rubbed, was of rose-coloured velvet, according to a note in Holbein’s handwriting. The portrait for which this drawing was the study, like that of her husband, cannot now be traced. The two full-length portraits of Henry Howard, dated 1546, at Arundel Castle and at Knole respectively, are usually ascribed to the Netherlandish painter Guillim or Gillam Stretes, on account of Strype’s statement, already quoted,[428] that in 1551 the Privy Council ordered a picture “of the late Earl of Surrey, attainted,” to be fetched away from “the said Guillim’s house.” The Duke of Norfolk’s version of the portrait[429] has a very elaborate architectural setting, coarsely painted in stone colour, and apparently of a somewhat later date than the rest of the picture, while the one belonging to Lord Sackville at Knole shows the figure only, and is looked upon by some authorities as the original. The attribution of these two pictures to Stretes is extremely doubtful. The Arundel portrait, in particular, suggests the hand of an Italian, and the name of Nicolas Beilin of Modena may be tentatively suggested. One of them was in the collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, where it was attributed to Holbein. It is described in the inventory of 1655 as “il ritratto del Conte de Surry grande del naturale.”

Footnote 423:

Woltmann, 312; Wornum, ii. 8; Holmes, ii. 19.

Footnote 424:

Parthey, 1509. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 197 (2). The portrait itself is described in the Arundel inventory of 1655 as “Ritratto de Henrico Howard, Conte de Surrey.”

Footnote 425:

Woltmann, 314; Wornum, ii. 6; Holmes, i. 20. Reproduced by Davies, p. 180, and elsewhere.

Footnote 426:

Woltmann, 313; Wornum, i. 35; Holmes, i. 21.

Footnote 427:

Woltmann, 330; Wornum, ii. 24; Holmes, i. 22.

Footnote 428:

See p. 168.

Footnote 429:

Exhib. Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1909, No. 54. Reproduced Arundel Club, 1907, No. 3; Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 284.

Only three dated works of the year 1541 remain; the two fine portraits of men in the Berlin and Vienna Galleries, and the miniature of Charles Brandon, the younger son of the Duke of Suffolk. The Berlin panel,[430] (No. 586 C), is inscribed at the top, in gold, on either side of the cap, “ANNO 1541,” and lower down, in smaller letters, level with the sitter’s ears: “ETATIS : SVÆ : 37.” The coat of arms, enamelled in red and white, on the gold ring on his left hand, indicates that in all probability this young man was a member of the Dutch family of Vos van Steenwijk, though the writer has failed to trace the name, or any indication of a sojourn in or visit to England on the part of its bearer, in the Calendars of the English State Papers. It is a half-length portrait, considerably less than life-size, head and body turned to the right, but both eyes shown. The eyes are grey, and the finely painted beard and moustache are a reddish brown. In his clasped hands he holds a pair of brown gloves. He wears a black silk under-dress and a surcoat of black or very dark brown, with the collar turned over to show the lining of black watered silk, and his flat cap of the same colour has a turned-down brim. He is gazing to the spectator’s right with a far-away and slightly melancholy look in his eyes, which are wonderfully painted, as is the beautiful and expressive left hand. It comes from the Von Sybel, Elberfeld, Merlo of Cologne, and Suermondt collections, having been purchased from the last-named owner in 1874.

Footnote 430:

Woltmann, 117. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 134; Ganz, Holbein, p. 128.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH A FALCON.]

The picture of an unknown man, aged twenty-eight, at Vienna[431] (No. 1479) (Pl. 27), is still finer in expression, and, indeed, is one of the most brilliant portraits of Holbein’s later years. It is one of his customary half-length figures, less than life-size, seated at a table, the body turned to the right, and the face looking out at the spectator. His doublet is of purple-brown silk, and over it he wears the usual black cloak with a deep collar and lining of brown fur, and black cap with a brim. The collar of his white shirt is beautifully embroidered with black Spanish work and tied with black laces. His grey gloves are held in his left hand, and his right rests on the olive-green cloth of the table, the forefinger being thrust within the pages of a gilt-edged book, near which is placed an inkstand with a red cord. On one of his rings is an intaglio. The clean-shaven face, showing blue on chin and upper lip, is of a ruddy brown complexion, and the hair, which does not cover the ears, is almost concealed by the hat. The unknown sitter, who appears to be an Englishman, is comely in features, and the eyes have a far-seeing, visionary expression, which Holbein has rendered with extraordinary vividness and subtlety of drawing. The upper part of the background consists of a blue-grey wall, with wooden panelling, or the back of a long wooden seat, below, and the panel is inscribed on either side of the head: “ANNO · DNI · 1541 · ETATIS · SVÆ · 28.” It was in the collection of the Archduke Leopold William in the seventeenth century. There is an old copy of this picture in the Palermo Gallery (Woltmann, 223).

Footnote 431:

Woltmann, 254. Reproduced in the Vienna Catalogue, p. 343; Knackfuss, fig. 136; Ganz, Holbein, p. 127.

To the year 1542 belongs the small portrait of an unknown Englishman in the Hague Gallery (No. 277) (Pl. 28),[432] which, again, is brilliant in execution, the details painted with the minutest care, but with a touch both delicate and free from all hardness, and unusual richness of colour. The head is full-face, the body turned slightly to the left. His closely cropped hair is chestnut in colour, turning to red at the ends of his moustache and short pointed beard. It is almost the only portrait by Holbein in which the sitter is shown without a hat. He wears a dress of black velvet and watered silk with a pattern, slashed with red silk at the shoulder and wrist. On his left hand, which is gloved, stands his falcon, a large bell on its claw. His right hand, in which he holds the bird’s hood, is ungloved, with a gold ring set with a stone on the little finger. The light falls from the right, and the shadow on the left side of the face is more strongly marked than in most of Holbein’s portraits. The modelling is fine, the face full of strong character, and, as usual, the hands are most expressively painted, the whole presentment being most vivid and life-like. The background is a plain blue-grey, of much the same tone as that in the portrait of 1541 at Vienna. Across the panel is inscribed, on either side of the head, the date 1542, and lower down “ANNO · ETATIS · SVÆ · XXVIII.” Little is known about the history of this picture, except that it was at one time in the royal collections of England, and that it was taken to Holland by William III, and was included in the list of works of art reclaimed by Queen Anne after that King’s death.[433] Like the portrait of Cheseman, however, it remained abroad. It is inscribed on the back “The manner of Holbein,” and in old catalogues was absurdly described as a portrait of Sir Thomas More.

Footnote 432:

Woltmann, 160. Reproduced by Mantz, p. 171; Ganz, Holbein, p. 129.

Footnote 433:

No. 21. “A man’s head with a hawk by Holbein.”

[Sidenote: UNDATED PORTRAITS OF LAST YEARS]

It is probable that during this year Holbein painted Sir William Fitzwilliam, created Earl of Southampton in 1538, who died at Newcastle in 1543. There is a fine drawing of the head in the Windsor Collection,[434] turned three-quarters to the right, wearing a black cap with a medallion, and ear-flaps, or a coif, tied under the chin; slight whiskers are indicated on the cheek-bones. It is a face of strong individuality, with a big nose, finely and boldly drawn, the dress only roughly indicated. There is a full-length portrait of the Earl, 6 ft. × 3 ft. 3 in., in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (No. ii. 164),[435] which is described in the catalogue as probably a copy of the original picture by Holbein which, in 1793, was destroyed by fire at Cowdray House, the estate purchased by the Earl in 1528. He is represented standing to the right, and wearing a black cap tied under the chin as in the Windsor drawing, a long black cloak with fur collar reaching to the knees, dark hose and shoes, and the collar and jewel of the Garter round his neck. He grasps a gold-headed staff in both hands, and stands on a terrace with a low parapet and a pavement of black and red tiles, overlooking a distant landscape consisting of wooded country and a land-locked harbour or estuary of a river with ships. His coat of arms is in the top left-hand corner, and in the right an inscription giving his titles and offices, as Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the date 1542. The supposition that this picture is a copy after a lost original by Holbein is probably correct; it is quite in his manner, though in workmanship it in no way reaches to his mastery, the landscape background in particular showing an indecisive touch quite unlike his firm handling. A copy of the head, evidently taken from this picture, a small panel, 13⅛ in. × 9¾ in., was lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909 (No. 34),[436] by the Duke of Devonshire, which is inscribed across the brown background, in an eighteenth-century hand, “SIR THOMAS MOORE.” The compilers of the Burlington Club catalogue do not accept the Cambridge portrait on which it is based as a copy after Holbein, but as an original work, and clearly by the same hand as the Earl of Surrey at Knole, the full-length of a young man in Hampton Court Palace, and the Sir Thomas Gresham in Mercers’ Hall, with which the name of Guillim Stretes has been connected, though on somewhat flimsy foundations.[437] The Windsor head, however, is in such close accord with the Fitzwilliam Museum picture that it seems reasonable to suppose that the latter was based on it, or, rather, upon some painting of Holbein’s for which it formed the preliminary study. There were two portraits of the Earl in the Arundel Collection, both attributed to Holbein.[438]

Footnote 434:

Woltmann, 291; Wornum, i. 5; Holmes, i. 17. Reproduced in Drawings of Hans Holbein (Newnes), Pl. xl.

Footnote 435:

Reproduced in F. R. Earp’s Catalogue of the collection, 1902, p. 96; and in Principal Pictures of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Gowan & Grey, Ltd., p. 85.

Footnote 436:

Reproduced in the Catalogue, Pl. v.

Footnote 437:

See Burlington Catalogue, p. 86. In one of his articles on the Arundel Collection (see Burlington Magazine, vol. xxi., August 1912, p. 257), Mr. Lionel Cust speaks of this head of the Earl, at Hardwick Hall, as “perhaps by Holbein himself,” and states that, according to Vertue, in the sale of the Earl of Oxford’s pictures, 1741, there was sold “Lord Fitzwilliams,” a head by Holbein, for fifteen guineas.

Footnote 438:

“Ritratto de ffitzwilliams Conte de Southampton,” and “Conte de Southampton Fitzwilliams.”

In 1542 John Leland’s “Naeniae” on the death of Sir Thomas Wyat was published, with the small circular woodcut of the poet after a drawing by Holbein, which has been already described;[439] but otherwise the only dated portrait of this year is the one of the young man with the falcon at the Hague, though there are several which must have been painted shortly before his death. Those of Dr. John Chamber and Sir William Butts and his wife must have been produced in 1542 or the earlier half of 1543, while others, such as the “Elderly Man” at Berlin, the small portrait of an English lady at Vienna, and the Simon George at Frankfurt, may be attributed with some certainty to the last seven or eight years of Holbein’s life. It is probable, too, that he painted at about this time another portrait of the Prince of Wales. No such painting now exists, but the full-faced head with a cap in the Windsor Collection[440] represents Edward as a boy of about five or six years of age, and certainly older than in the Hanover picture, while in the profile head with cap and feather in the same collection of drawings,[441] which forms the basis of numerous portraits in the National Portrait Gallery and elsewhere, the boy seems even older, though he was only six at the time of Holbein’s death.

Footnote 439:

See p. 80.

Footnote 440:

Woltmann, 327; Wornum, ii. 2; Holmes, not included. See above, p. 167.

Footnote 441:

Woltmann, 328; Wornum, ii. 3; Holmes, ii. 1. See above, p. 167.

The portrait of an Unknown Man, aged fifty-four, in the Berlin Gallery (No. 586 I) (Pl. 29 (1)),[442] is another work of great power in its suggestion of life-like portraiture, and of high technical excellence. He is shown to the waist, slightly turned to the right. The face is a dignified one, with a long nose, and a slight droop in the right eyelid, and a look of melancholy absorption about his dark grey eyes. The hair and long beard are black, the latter with numerous grey hairs finely indicated with all Holbein’s customary minute care. The hands are thrust out of sight within the sleeves. His doublet, of which only the lower part of the sleeves is visible, is of ruby-red silk or satin, over which is a black or dark-brown coat with bands of black velvet, and lined with a patterned watered silk. The black cap has gold tags. The plain background is a greyish-blue, and on either side of the head is inscribed in gold lettering, “ÆTATIS · SVÆ · 54.” On the back of the panel are the letters “W.E.P.L.C.,” apparently in a sixteenth-century hand, probably the mark of some early English collector. The same letters appear on the back of the portrait of Robert Cheseman at the Hague, and on the portrait of a young man by Joos van Cleve in Berlin (No. 633 A), which was formerly in the Marlborough Collection, where it was at one time attributed to Holbein. Nothing of the early history of the portrait under discussion is known. It belonged at one time to Sir J. E. Millais, and was lent by him to the Holbein Exhibition in Dresden in 1871, where it was acknowledged by the leading German critics to be a splendid example of the master’s later English period. It was purchased at the Millais sale, in 1897, for 3000 guineas for the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. There is a poor and lifeless copy of the head of this portrait in the collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, of Philadelphia.[443] The panel is a pastiche, for the copyist has attached the head of the Millais portrait to the body of the Unknown Young Man aged twenty-eight in the Vienna Gallery. In the copy of the head the hat is without the gold tags, the beard is slightly shorter, and the sitter appears to be somewhat younger. In that of the body the dress, hands, the rings, gloves, and book follow the Vienna picture closely, but the copyist has removed the two rings on the little finger of the right hand to the more usual ring-finger. Mr. C. Ricketts regards it as “almost certainly modern. In draughtsmanship it is without subtlety, the nostril is preposterous, the under lip like a muffin.”[444] Mr. F. J. Mather considers it to be old, and of fair quality.

Footnote 442:

Woltmann, 211. Reproduced in the Berlin Catalogue, p. 178; Ganz, Holbein, p. 142; and in colour in Early German Painters, folio vi.

Footnote 443:

Reproduced in the Burlington Magazine, vol. ix., August 1906, p. 357; and Ganz, Holbein, p. 228. It has no inscription.

Footnote 444:

Burlington Magazine, vol. ix., September 1906, p. 426.

* * * * *

“It is pretty surely of Holbein’s century, and of better quality than the reproduction indicates.”[445]

Footnote 445:

Burlington Magazine, vol. x., November 1906, p. 138.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIMON GEORGE]

The portrait of an unknown English lady in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna (No. 1483) (Pl. 29 (2)),[446] is almost miniature in size, and is characterised by the most delicate brush-work and great charm and richness of colour. She is shown to the waist, full-face, the body turned slightly to the left, and her hands clasped in front of her. The dress is of dark brown or puce, with the yoke and central hanging part of the sleeves of black velvet. The sleeves from the elbow are of red velvet slashed with white at the wrists. She wears a French head-dress of white and gold, with black fall, closely resembling the one in the portrait of Catherine Howard. The hair is a dark reddish brown. At her breast is suspended a circular gold ornament upon which is represented figures sacrificing at an altar, possibly of Holbein’s designing. The background is a deep grey-blue, surrounded by a frame imitating stonework. It has no inscription.

Footnote 446:

Woltmann, 253. Reproduced in Vienna Catalogue, p. 346; Knackfuss, fig. 138; Ganz, Holbein, p. 140; and in colour in Early German Painters, folio iii.

Another small work of much beauty and delicacy of workmanship, and charm of expression, is the portrait of Simon George, of Quocote, in Cornwall, in the Städel Institut in Frankfurt (No. 71),[447] a profile portrait to the left, showing the head and shoulders only, and the right hand, in which the sitter holds a carnation. He has dark, closely-cropped hair and pointed beard, with a black cap over the right ear, elaborately ornamented with a white feather, many gold tags, an oval medallion with a representation of Leda and the Swan, and a small bunch of enamelled pansies. His dress is a rich one, and the open collar of the shirt is covered with black embroidery of a floral pattern of conventional design. The background is of greenish blue, and some letters of a two-lined inscription, of later date than the painting, mutilated by the reduction of the panel, which appears to have been originally round, can still be traced, including the letters NOB and part of the painter’s signature, “IOHA : H.” It was acquired in 1870 from the Brentano-Birckenstock sale. The original study for the head is in the Windsor Collection,[448] and shows the same slight frown wrinkling the forehead as in the picture. The hairs of the moustache are very carefully drawn, but the beard only shows a few days’ growth. It is inscribed at the bottom, in cursive writing, “S. George of Cornwall.”

Footnote 447:

Woltmann, 151. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 137; Ganz, Holbein, p. 139; and in colour in Early German Painters, folio vi.

Footnote 448:

Woltmann, 309; Wornum, i. 15; Holmes, i. 49. Reproduced in Drawings of Hans Holbein, Pl. xviii.

The portrait of Dr. John Chamber or Chambre in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna (No. 1480) (Pl. 30),[449] is one of Holbein’s most powerful portraits of old men, the deeply-lined, clean-shaven face being full of individuality. He is shown to the waist, turned three-quarters to the right, in a plain black doctor’s cap, which covers the hair and hides all but the lobe of the ears, and a black gown with brown fur collar; and he holds a pair of grey gloves in his hands. The background is a very dark blue, and is inscribed, on either side of the head, “ÆTATIS SVE 88.” The date of John Chamber’s birth has not been traced, but the portrait was probably painted in 1541 or 1542, when Holbein was engaged upon the big “Barber-Surgeons” picture, in which Chamber is introduced in much the same position as in the Vienna portrait. He died at an advanced age, well over ninety, in 1549. He was one of the King’s physicians, and his name was the first on the roll of six doctors who in 1518 received letters patent from the Crown giving them the privilege of admitting other physicians to practise medicine in London, which was the original foundation of the Royal College of Physicians. Chamber was joint author with Dr. Butts and two others of a manuscript “Pharmacopœia” for the use of Henry VIII. As Court physician he attended Anne Boleyn at Greenwich Palace at the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, and it was he who reported to the Privy Council the critical condition of Jane Seymour when Edward VI was born. He married Joan Wardell in 1545, when he was nearly ninety, and their son was christened in the following year, both he and his wife dying within a few weeks of one another in 1549. His career, however, was more remarkable for the many religious preferments he gained, than for his medical skill. Born in Northumberland, he became a priest in early life, and was a Fellow, and afterwards Warden, of Merton College, Oxford. In 1502 he went to Italy and graduated in physic in Padua. On his return to England he succeeded Linacre as the King’s chief physician. In 1522 he was Canon of Windsor, in 1536 Dean of the Collegiate Church of St. Stephen, and later on Archdeacon of Meath. A very excellent copy of this portrait is in the possession of Merton College, Oxford, and was included in the Oxford Exhibition of Historical Portraits in 1904 (No. 27). It is inscribed on the back: “Dr. Chamber, phisician of King Henry VIII, copied from Hanns Holbein’s original by H. Reinhart. The original, once belonging to the collection of King Charles I, was, together with several other pictures of the same master, after the execution of this Monarch, sold and became the property of Archduke Leopold, Stadtholder of the Low Countries, from whence by legacy it passed into the Gallery of the Emperors of Austria (Ob. 1549).” The original portrait, however, does not appear at any time to have been included in the collection of Charles I, but it formed part of the wonderful series of works by Holbein got together by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. In the Dictionary of National Biography the date of his birth is given as 1470, while the Oxford catalogue suggests the date 1469, but neither can be correct, or otherwise the date of the Vienna picture would be 1557 or 1558, fourteen years or so after Holbein’s death. If the age of the sitter, eighty-eight, as given on the panel, is correct, and it is accepted that the portrait was painted about 1542, Chamber must have been born about 1454. The Merton College copy was exhibited at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1901-2 (No. 155), as a work of the school of Holbein. In 1894 the Royal College of Physicians became possessed of a miniature portrait of Chamber, painted on the back of the ten of clubs, and said to be by Isaac Oliver. This is a careful copy of the Vienna picture, and has a long Latin inscription, giving Chamber’s titles, and the date of his death, round the frame. The original, when in the Arundel Collection, was engraved by Hollar (Parthey, 1372), with the inscription “D. Chambers Anno Ætatis Svæ 88. Holbein pinxit.” In the Arundel inventory it is described as “Doctore John Chambers.” It is possibly one of the pictures which remained on the Continent after the death of the Countess of Arundel in 1654.

Footnote 449:

Woltmann, 255. Reproduced in Vienna Catalogue, p. 344; Knackfuss, fig. 147; Ganz, Holbein, p. 131.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHN CHAMBER]

The portraits of Sir William and Lady Butts,[450] which have suffered, more particularly the former, from coarse repainting, are probably of about the same date as the Dr. Chamber, for Butts is also one of the prominent figures in the “Barber-Surgeons” group. The portrait of the husband has an inscription which has been repainted by an ignorant copyist, and now reads “ANNO ATATS SVE LIX.” Unfortunately, as in the case of Chamber, the year of Butts’ birth is not known, so that the exact date of the portrait cannot be proved. It is given in the National Portrait Gallery Catalogue as 1485 (?). His tombstone at Fulham bears only the date of his death, 1545. The portraits show the heads and shoulders only. Sir William is represented in profile to the right, in black cap and furred gown, and a heavy gold chain upon his shoulders. His face is clean-shaven, and his grey hair almost covers the ears. Lady Butts is painted almost full-face, but turned slightly to the left. She wears the angular English head-dress with black fall, a plain dress with fur-trimmed mantle, and a large enamelled rose at her breast. Above her head is inscribed “ANNO ÆTATIS SVE LVII.” Both portraits were in the National Portrait Exhibition, 1866, lent by Mr. W. H. Pole-Carew, and are now in the collection of Mrs. John Gardner, Fenway Court, Boston, U.S.A. They are about 18 in. × 14 in., and the green backgrounds and inscriptions of both pictures have been badly repainted. There is a good copy or replica of Sir William in the National Portrait Gallery[451] (No. 210), and copies of both husband and wife, apparently seventeenth-century work, in the collection of Mr. F. A. Newdegate-Newdigate, at Arbury, Warwickshire. There is no head of Butts among the Windsor drawings, but that collection contains a masterly one of his wife,[452] in which the lines of the face are very strongly marked. She was a daughter of John Bacon of Cambridgeshire. The portrait of their third son, Edmund Butts, of Thornham, Norfolk, who died at the age of thirty in 1549, is in the National Gallery (No. 1496), and is regarded as a work of that little-known English painter John Bettes. This portrait is dated 1545, and the age of the sitter is given as twenty-six, and on a card on the back is the inscription “faict par Johan Bettes Anglois.”[453]

Footnote 450:

Woltmann, 204, 205. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, pp. 132-3; and in Gowan, Masterpieces of Holbein, pp. 41, 42. The portrait of Lady Butts engraved by Hollar, 1649.

Footnote 451:

Reproduced in the illustrated edition of the National Portrait Gallery Catalogue, vol. i. p. 21.

Footnote 452:

Woltmann, 343; Wornum, ii. 36; Holmes, ii. 13. Reproduced by Davies, p. 220, and elsewhere.

Footnote 453:

For some account of Bettes, see pp. 308-9.

In the exhibition held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh lent a portrait (No. 30), also dated 1545, said to represent Edmund Butts, and attributed by the owner to Bettes. The armorial bearings on this picture indicate a member of the Butts family, but the person represented is certainly not the same as in the National Gallery portrait, nor do the two appear to be the work of the same painter.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIR WILLIAM BUTTS]

Dr. Butts was in receipt of a salary of £100 a year from the King, and was the favourite physician about the Court. He was a native of Norfolk, and educated at Cambridge. Many prescriptions in his handwriting are preserved in the British Museum. He appears as one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (Act v. sc. 2), and his name occurs in a number of contemporary letters. Thus, in 1537, the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote thanking Cromwell “for asking the King to licence Dr. Buttes to come to him”;[454] and on October 6, 1542, the Earl of Southampton wrote to Wriothesley from York, when upon the expedition against Scotland: “Recommend me to Butts, and thank him for his pills. I would not have foregone them at this time for all the good I have.”[455] In spite of the pills, however, the Earl died at Newcastle nine days later.

Footnote 454:

C.L.P., vol. xii. pt. i. 328.

Footnote 455:

C.L.P., vol. xvii. 912.

A small half-length portrait of an Unknown Man in the Basel Collection (No. 327),[456] belongs to the later period of Holbein’s English residence. He is turned three-quarters to the left, and wears the customary dark fur-lined surcoat and black cap, and dark purple sleeves, and holds his gloves and a paper, upon which the inscription is now illegible, in his clasped hands. The beard, moustache, and hair are dark. This picture, which was purchased in Basel in 1862, has been more than once restored, so that Holbein’s handiwork has suffered considerably. Another small picture which is also now in a damaged state is the portrait of a young English lady in the collection of Count Lanckoronski in Vienna,[457] which was regarded by Woltmann as probably by Holbein, but when exhibited in the Dresden Exhibition of 1871 was declared by the critics to be a genuine work. It is similar in style to the small portrait of a Lady in the Vienna Gallery, and of about the same date. She is shown at half-length, turned a little to the spectator’s right, with clasped hands, and wearing a dark dress with red puffings and gold tags from shoulder to wrist, and a French hood with bands of gold ornaments and a black fall. Round her neck is a gold chain with a pendant with seven flat stones, a second gold chain, and a large brooch fastened at her breast with a cameo of a double head, a young man’s shown full-face, attached to one of a lady in profile. Across the plain green background, on either side of her head, is inscribed “ANNO ETATIS SVÆ XVII.” In appearance she is stolid and unattractive, but this may be partly due to the present state of the picture.

Footnote 456:

Woltmann, 22. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 141.

Footnote 457:

Woltmann, 260. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 144.

There remains one other portrait of a lady of about this date—that of Lady Rich,[458] which until 1912 had been for many years in the possession of the Moseley family at Buildwas Park, Shropshire. The sitter is represented to the waist, slightly turned to the right, and wears the English diamond-shaped hood with black fall, and a black dress with a gold medallion decorated with the figures of a man and woman by a corpse, which, according to Wornum, are “exquisitely put in.”[459] According to the same writer, it is “a fine expressive portrait, with a thin rich carnation.” It is painted on wood, 17 in. by 13 in., and has suffered some retouching. The face is a most determined one, as can be seen from the fine preliminary drawing in the Windsor Castle Collection.[460] Lady Rich was the daughter and heiress of William Jenks or Gynkes, a rich London grocer, and she married, in 1535, Lord Chancellor Rich, of notorious memory, who helped to ruin many of the prominent men of his day, such as More and Fisher. In the seventeenth century the portrait became the property of the Rev. Herbert Croft, Bishop of Hereford, whose granddaughter, Elizabeth Croft, married Acton Moseley, of Staffordshire. In 1792 the portrait, with some other pictures, was bequeathed by Sir Archer Croft to his cousin, Mr. Walter Michael Moseley. The latter’s descendant, Captain H. R. Moseley, parted with the picture in 1912, and it is now in an American collection.[461] It was last exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington in 1866 as a portrait of “Queen Katherine of Arragon.” There is also a drawing of her husband, Richard Rich,[462] at Windsor, and Holbein must almost certainly have painted his portrait, but all traces of it have been lost. A version of it was among the pictures destroyed by fire at Knepp Castle in 1904.

Footnote 458:

Woltmann, 128.

Footnote 459:

Wornum, p. 296.

Footnote 460:

Woltmann, 319; Wornum, ii. 37; Holmes, ii. 10.

Footnote 461:

For a fuller history of the picture, see an article in The Morning Post, May 23rd, 1912.

Footnote 462:

Woltmann, 318; Wornum, i. 8; Holmes, ii. 9.

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S SELF-PORTRAITS]

Among the very last works from Holbein’s hand must have been the various miniature portraits of himself, dated 1543, described in the next chapter.[463] The self-portrait in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence,[464] which is evidently founded on one of them, or on one of the small oil-paintings, now lost, has few pretensions, in the writer’s opinion, to be regarded as an original work, though it is, of course, possible that beneath the brush-work of some later and inferior painter there may be an original work by Holbein now practically obliterated. It is only right, however, to point out that Dr. Ganz considers it to be an original though damaged drawing, and other writers are in agreement with him. It is in coloured crayons on a gold ground, and the comparatively modern inscription with the date 1543 has been painted over an earlier one, which can be still traced below. Dr. Ganz suggests that it is probably one of the two portraits which Van Mander saw in Amsterdam in 1604.

Footnote 463:

See pp. 230-231. Also Vol. i. pp. 27-8.

Footnote 464:

Woltmann, 150. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 134, and elsewhere.

Of far greater interest is the recently-discovered portrait, first published in 1912 by Dr. Ganz,[465] which he considers to be a genuine self-portrait by Holbein, hitherto unknown. The likeness both to the numerous miniatures and to the Uffizi portrait is so great that the attribution is most certainly the correct one. It is in all ways much more attractive than the last-named work, and has far greater vitality and a more subtle expression of character. It is a drawing of the head and shoulders only, turned slightly to the spectator’s right, and the painter is wearing a dark fur-lined cloak and black cap. Part of the left hand only is shown. It is a coloured-crayon drawing touched with water-colour, on white paper which has been covered with a flesh-coloured ground. The paper has a Zürich water-mark, and was only manufactured between 1536-1540, so that the date of the drawing can be fixed with some accuracy, and was very probably done in Basel during Holbein’s short visit home in the autumn of 1538. It has, unfortunately, suffered considerable damage, and here and there has been touched up with Indian-ink. On the top right-hand comer of the blue background is inscribed, in a later hand, “H. H. 15 ...” It was purchased in England in the summer of 1910, and is now in Basel in the collection of Dr. Rudolph Geigy-Schlumberger.[466]

Footnote 465:

Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 138.

Footnote 466:

See Ganz, Holbein, pp. xxxix. and 244. He suggests that this drawing is perhaps the “ritratto d’homo aquazzo” of the Arundel inventory.

Several portraits by Holbein, which so far have not been traced, were etched by Hollar when they were in the Arundel Collection, and these prints, in the absence of the originals, form invaluable records for the use of students. Some few of them, however, though Hollar has placed Holbein’s name on them, cannot have been painted by him, as, for instance, the portrait of Thomas Chaloner,[467] which is dated 1548. All the more important of them are reproduced by Dr. Ganz in his Holbein (1912),[468] and several have been already described in these pages. Among those remaining there is one of an unknown bearded man in a black cap,[469] and two of unnamed boys.[470] The second of these boys, whose head is turned three-quarters to the left, appears, from the details of the dress he is wearing, to be a Swiss. Holbein’s original silver-point study for the portrait from which the etching was taken is in the Louvre, and is dated 1520. The connection between the two was first pointed out by Dr. Ganz.[471] The circular portrait of Sir Anthony Denny is inscribed “ANNO 1541 ÆTATIS SVÆ 29.”[472] The original painting, a small roundel, descended, according to Mr. W. Barclay Squire, to the Howards of Greystoke Castle, and is now in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, junr. There is an old copy of it at Longford Castle.[473] The large print of an elderly, grey-bearded man, with fur coat, and cap with a feather,[474] is usually said to represent Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, but though it bears considerable likeness to the authentic portraits of him, the attribution is doubtful. There are several portraits of English ladies among Hollar’s work. Of one, in which the sitter is turned to the right, and is wearing a round head-dress surmounted by a flat black cap with a large feather,[475] there is no study known, but for two others, which Hollar has reproduced as small roundels, the preliminary drawings are to be found in the Windsor Collection, one of them of an unknown lady, full-face, wearing the angular head-dress,[476] and the other the drawing inscribed “The Lady Mary after Queen.”[477] The profile portrait of a lady, which has been considered by some writers to represent Anne of Cleves,[478] does not appear to be after an original by Holbein, though Hollar has placed his name on it. It is possible, though not very probable, that some of these circular etchings were based on the drawings, and not on finished pictures.

Footnote 467:

Parthey, 1371.

Footnote 468:

pp. 196-200.

Footnote 469:

Parthey, 1544.

Footnote 470:

Parthey, 1551 and 1543.

Footnote 471:

See Holbein, p. 250. The drawing reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 9; and by Mantz, p. 34.

Footnote 472:

Parthey, 1387.

Footnote 473:

Reproduced in Magazine of Art, May 1897, p. 42; and in the catalogue of the collection of the Earl of Radnor, W. Barclay Squire, 1909, No. 144. It is 4 in. in diameter, and is given to Holbein in the catalogue. Engraved by C. Picart, 1817.

Footnote 474:

Parthey, 1554.

Footnote 475:

Parthey, 1550.

Footnote 476:

Parthey, 1549. Woltmann, 350; Wornum, ii. 38; Holmes, ii. 24.

Footnote 477:

Parthey, 1465. For the drawing, see p. 258.

Footnote 478:

Parthey, 1545. See p. 182, note 4.

[Sidenote: DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM’S COLLECTION]

Holbein’s practice during his last English period seems to have been devoted almost entirely to portraiture, so that an entry in an inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s pictures at York House, made in 1635,[479] is of exceptional interest, as it shows that he did occasionally paint subjects other than portraits. It runs as follows: “Hans Holbin.—Jupiter and Jo in Water Coulers.” This picture, of which all traces are lost, was hanging in the Vaulted Room. The Duke possessed a number of other works by or attributed to Holbein, but unfortunately the entries in the inventory are so tantalisingly vague that it is impossible to gather much information about them, though two of them seem to have been portraits of Steelyard merchants. They included “Erasmus Rotterodamm after Holbin”; “A Dutchman Sealing a Letter” (possibly the John of Antwerp now at Windsor);[480] “A Rare piece, being a Dutchman”; “A Queen”; “An other Lady”; “A little picture in Linnen”; and “A little picture of Holbin himself,” which was probably one of the miniatures. With the exception of the last-named, all are described as by “Holbin” or “Hans Holbin.”

Footnote 479:

See Randall Davies, Burlington Magazine, vol. x., March 1907, pp. 376-82. Also Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, vol. i. p. 94.

Footnote 480:

See pp. 9-14.

[Sidenote: THE “DANCING PICTURE”]

Another subject-picture by Holbein is mentioned by Evelyn in his Diary, but so vaguely that it is impossible to guess what it could have been. He says, under the date May 8, 1654: “I also call’d at Mr. Ducie’s, who has indeede a rare collection of the best masters, and one of the largest stories of H. Holbein.” This, however, may have been some picture similar to “The Battle of Spurs” at Hampton Court, attributed to Holbein in Evelyn’s day, and not a genuine work of the master. His judgment was not always infallible, as he speaks of the well-known “Dancing Picture,”[481] which he saw at the Duke of Norfolk’s at Weybridge (23rd August 1678) as “that incomparable painting of Holbein’s.”

Footnote 481:

This picture was traditionally said to have been begun in France by Janet (Clouet), and Vertue thought it might have been retouched by Holbein, “as it was probably painted for his patron, the Duke of Norfolk, from whom it descended immediately to the Earl of Arundel, out of whose collection the father of the present possessor (Colonel Sotheby) purchased it.” (See Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 95.) It was lent to the Tudor Exhibition, 1890, by Major-Gen. F. E. Sotheby, No. 145. The only entry in the Arundel inventory which it is just possible might refer to this picture is “Un quadretto con diverse figure Jocatori, etc.,” which is given to Holbein.

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