XXV. HOLBEIN AS A MINIATURE PAINTER
Early references to Holbein as a miniature painter—Receives instruction from Lucas Hornebolt—Rareness of genuine miniatures by him—Sir Thomas More—Lord Abergavenny—Lady Audley—Henry and Charles Brandon—Drawing in the British Museum of a lady and children on a bench—Miniature of Mrs. Robert Pemberton—Unknown youth in the Queen of Holland’s Collection—Miniature paintings of Holbein himself—Thomas Cromwell—Anne of Cleves—Jane Seymour—Edward VI—Livina Teerlinc—Miniatures of the Holbein school—Miniature of an unknown man, possibly the painter Harry Maynert, at Munich.
The old tradition that Holbein did not practise miniature painting until after he had settled in England is probably true. Van Mander says that it was only at a late period, after he had entered the King’s service, that he, who knew how to adapt himself almost to everything, took up the art of miniature painting, in which he had before done nothing. At that time he met at the Court a very famous master in this art, named Master Lukas. “With Lukas he kept up mutual acquaintance and intercourse, and learned from him the art of miniature painting, which, since then, he pursued to such an extent, that in a short time he as far excelled Lukas in drawing, arrangement, understanding, and execution, as the sun surpasses the moon in brightness.”[482] Seventy years later Sandrart repeated this statement, which he evidently took from Van Mander’s book. The Master Lukas in question was undoubtedly Lucas Hornebolt, who was in the employment of the King throughout the whole period of Holbein’s residence in England. So far, the only pictures extant which have been attributed with some certainty to the studio of Lucas and Gerard Hornebolt are the portraits of Henry VIII, of the type of the Warwick Castle portrait, when that monarch was drawing towards the end of his life; but the sister, Susanna, wife of John Parker, Yeoman of the Robes, and one of the King’s bowmen, was well known in her day as an excellent miniaturist, while Guicciardini speaks of Lucas as not only a very great painter, but as exceptionally good in the art of illuminating, so that it is extremely probable that a number of the miniatures still in existence, representing Henry, his wives, and members of his Court, which though very excellent, have not the brilliance of execution and the unfailing insight into character which mark the few genuine miniatures by Holbein, were the work of the members of this family. Guicciardini published his book only twenty-four years after Holbein’s death, so that his account of the position they occupied at Henry’s court, and the estimation in which they were held in England, borne out as it is by the royal accounts, is evidently an accurate one.
Footnote 482:
Quoted by Woltmann from Van Mander, i. p. 407; English translation, p. 370.
Further confirmation of the fact that Holbein was famous for his skill in miniature painting during his residence in England is to be found in a manuscript “Treatise concerning the Arte of Limning,” which was written, at the request of Richard Haydock, by Nicholas Hilliard, the first and one of the finest of English native-born miniature painters, who was born in all probability in 1537, and so was a boy of six when Holbein died, and based his art on Holbein’s own practice. This treatise, which was first published in its entirety by Dr. Philip Norman in the first annual volume of the Walpole Society, 1911-12, from the original manuscript in the Edinburgh University Library, was probably written by Hilliard between 1598-1602. The manuscript, which is not in the miniaturist’s own hand, is dated 18th March 1624. In it Hilliard extols “King Henry the eight a Prince of exquisit jugment and Royall bounty, soe that of cuning stranger even the best resorted unto him, and removed from other courts to his. Amongst whom came the most excelent Painter and limner Master Haunce Holbean the greatest Master Truly in both thosse arts after the liffe that ever was, so Cuning in both together and the neatest; and therewithall a good inventor, soe compleat for all three, as I never heard of any better then hee. Yet had the King in wages for limning Divers others, but Holbean’s maner of limning I have ever imitated and howld it for the best, by Reason that of truth all the rare Siences especially the arts of Carving, Painting, Goudsmiths, Imbroderers, together with the most of all the liberall Siences came first unto us from the strangers, and generally they are the best and most in number. I heard Kinsard [Ronsard?] the great French poet on a time say, that the Ilands indeed seldome bring forth any Cunning man, but when they Doe it is in high perfection; so then I hope there maie come out of this ower land such a one, this being the greatest and most famous Iland of Europe.”[483]
Footnote 483:
Quoted by Holmes, Burlington Magazine, vol. viii., January 1906, p. 229. See also Walpole Society, vol. i., 1912, pp. 18-19.
[Sidenote: “MINIATURA, OR ART OF LIMNING”]
Still further proof of Holbein’s fame as a limner or miniature painter is to be found in a manuscript written by Edward Norgate, called “Miniatura or the Art of Limning,” now among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library, dedicated to Henry Frederick, Earl of Arundel. Other versions of this treatise on the “Art of Limning” are in the British Museum (Harl. MSS., No. 6000); in the possession of the Royal Society, which came from the Arundel Collection; and elsewhere. Norgate based a considerable part of his treatise on the earlier one by Hilliard. “The incomparable H. Holbein,” he says, “who, in all his different and various methods of painting, either in oyle, distempre, lymning or crayon, was, it seems, so general an artist as never to imitate any man, nor ever was worthily imitated by any.”[484]
Footnote 484:
Quoted by Dallaway in his notes to Walpole, Anecdotes, &c., ed. Wornum, vol. i. pp. 111-2. For a full account of Hilliard’s treatise, and the various versions of Norgate’s work, see Dr. Philip Norman in the Walpole Society’s publication, mentioned above; also Mr. Martin Hardie in vol. ii. of Dr. G. C. Williamson’s History of Portrait Miniatures, 1904.
Van Mander is, no doubt, correct in saying that Holbein received instruction in the art of miniature painting from Lucas Hornebolt, and that he had not practised it until he came to England; though Hornebolt had nothing to teach him but the practical use of a medium in which, as applied to portraiture, he had until then had very little experience. There is no evidence to show that he produced true miniatures while in Basel, though there is one attributed to him in the collection of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, a portrait of a Baseler, a certain Arnold Franz, described below, which affords possible proof that he did so. Such an isolated example as this, however, may have been painted during one of his later visits to Basel, or it may represent one of the members of the German colony in London. Several of his small circular oil paintings, almost the size of the true miniature, have been described in earlier chapters,[485] so that he was already skilled in working on a small scale, and within it of producing a life-like portrait, of the utmost delicacy and truth to nature, while his extraordinary skill and precision in rendering with most minute yet masterly touches of the brush all the details of the sitter’s costume, jewellery, and accessories, must have left him little to learn when he began to work in the new medium. It is evident that he soon set up a standard of excellence in this field which both his contemporaries and the miniaturists who came after him did their best to reach.
Footnote 485:
See Vol. i. pp. 180, 184-5; Vol. ii. pp. 14, 20, 70-1.
His miniatures are now of the greatest rarity, though there are many in various English collections which still wrongfully bear his name, given to them in less critical days, when every portrait, great and small, dating from Tudor times, was ascribed to him. In certain of these, very possibly Holbein’s original handiwork has been buried beneath repairs and repaints by later and less skilful hands. No doubt a number of others have been lost, for so delicate and small an object of art as a miniature is soon damaged or mislaid; though against this must be set the fact that many of them were kept in specially-made ivory boxes, and so would not easily suffer destruction. The number of them which, from the perfection of their execution, can be said with some approach to certainty to be from his brush, can be counted almost on the fingers of one’s hands. These include the portraits of Mrs. Pemberton; the two sons of the Duke of Suffolk, Henry and Charles Brandon; Lady Audley; Queen Catherine Howard; Sir Thomas More; the portrait of an unknown youth in the Queen of Holland’s collection; several of the painter himself, done in the last year of his life, and two or three others. After these come several which, though less perfect in draughtsmanship, have serious claims to be considered as his work, and after these, again, there are those fairly numerous examples which, though of good execution and of real interest and value, have no pretensions to rank as works of the great master. Some of these have been attributed tentatively to such painters as the Hornebolts, Livina Teerlinc, Stretes, or Bettes, though modern criticism has not succeeded as yet in disentangling the works of these little masters the one from the other, so that the various attributions are at present more or less mere guesswork.
[Sidenote: MINIATURES OF SIR THOMAS MORE]
The beautiful miniature of Sir Thomas More, rediscovered by Dr. Williamson when in the Godolphin-Quicke Collection, and first published by him in his History of Portrait Miniatures, which is in the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s collection, has been already described when speaking of the portraits of Sir Thomas.[486] A second miniature of More, in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House, was first reproduced by Mr. Dudley Heath in The Connoisseur.”[487] This, though based, like the Pierpont Morgan miniature, on the Huth portrait, shows some differences from both. It is smaller than the other miniature, and the sitter appears to be some years older. The eyes are more downcast and the head slightly bent, while the scanty beard is whiter. In other respects the dress, consisting of black cap and furred gown, and collar of SS with the Tudor rose, is the same. Another interesting point about it is that it is painted, not in water-colours, but in oil on a gesso ground, upon a metal plaque which appears to be silver. It has, unfortunately, suffered to some extent in the course of time, and has been retouched here and there, but it is a fine example, very possibly by Holbein, showing, according to Mr. Heath, “that vivid realism, yet reserve of expression, that sensitive modulation of the tones and contours, that insistent yet flexible drawing of the features, which constitute the sign-manual of the great portrait painter.” Nothing seems to be known of the history of this miniature, which was exhibited at South Kensington in 1862 (No. 2061), in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition in 1879 (Case L, 4), and at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (Case C, 17). These miniatures of More would seem to suggest that Holbein’s earlier biographers were wrong in stating that he did not begin to practise in this branch of art until after he had entered Henry VIII’s service. It has been generally supposed that when he returned to England a second time he saw little or nothing of the Chancellor, and if that is so, these miniatures must have been painted between 1526 and 1528, when he was at work on the big group of his first English patron’s family. At that time, however, Holbein had no official connection with the court, and was possibly not yet on terms of intimacy with the Hornebolts, so that it seems more probable that any miniatures of More from his hand were done between 1532, the date of Holbein’s return to London, and 1534, when the ex-Chancellor was imprisoned in the Tower. Another possible solution is that they were painted after More’s death for friends or relations who desired a memorial of him, and were done from the oil painting or from the preliminary drawings still in the painter’s possession.
Footnote 486:
See Vol. i. pp. 306-7.
Footnote 487:
The Connoisseur, vol. xviii. No. 71, July 1907, frontispiece (in colour.) Also reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.
Another miniature from the Montagu House Collection was also reproduced for the first time by Mr. Dudley Heath in the same article,[488] and was lent by the Duke of Buccleuch to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (Case C, 22). It represents George Nevill, third Lord Abergavenny, and, as already noted,[489] is founded on the fine drawing in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke, for so long considered to be a portrait of Thomas Cromwell. The face, which is that of an old man, is turned three-quarters to the spectator’s right, and is clean-shaven. His white hair is almost covered by the black cap, on which is a gold jewel with three pendant pearls. He wears a black fur-lined gown over a black doublet open at the throat, showing his white shirt. On the left-hand side of the bright-blue background is inscribed “G. Abergaveny.” It is painted, like nearly all miniatures of the period, on a playing card, and is 1¾ in. in diameter. It was purchased by its present owner, with some other miniatures, at the Earl of Westmorland’s sale at Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire, in 1892. It is in a perfect state of preservation, full of vitality, and excellent in modelling, and has considerable claims to be regarded as an original. The pale, high tones of the flesh colour are in marked contrast to the lower tones of the oil miniature of Sir Thomas More in the same collection.
Footnote 488:
The Connoisseur, vol. xviii., July 1907, frontispiece (in colour). Also reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.
Footnote 489:
See p. 62.
[Sidenote: MINIATURE OF LADY AUDLEY]
The two almost similar miniatures of Catherine Howard, at Windsor Castle (Pl. 31 (4)) and Montagu House, have been already described;[490] both are beautiful examples, and each one is almost certainly from Holbein’s own hand, though the former has suffered from restoration. In the royal collection at Windsor there are three other miniatures which also can be given to him without any hesitation, all three being masterpieces of the art of the limner; these are the portraits of Lady Audley and the two Brandon boys. The miniature of Lady Audley (Pl. 31 (3)),[491] is of extraordinary delicacy in handling and colour, and bears the stamp of Holbein in every minute and unerring touch. As Mr. Law says, “there was no other artist at the court of Henry VIII, or indeed in Northern Europe, who could have produced so exquisite a work of art.”[492] She is shown to the waist, turned to the right, with hands folded in front of her. Her richly-brocaded dress is of pale crimson, with under-sleeves of dark grey and white ruffles, and she wears a French hood trimmed with pearls, and a black fall over her fair hair. Her double necklace is of almost the same pattern as the one worn by Catherine Howard. There is no inscription on the plain, deep blue background. It is 2½ in. in diameter, and is painted on the back of the two of hearts. The identity of the sitter is placed beyond doubt by the fine drawing, inscribed “The Lady Audley,” in the Windsor Collection (Pl. 37 (1)),[493] in which the position and features of the sitter, the costume and ornaments, are almost exactly the same, while the colour of the dress in the miniature agrees with the note in Holbein’s handwriting on the drawing—“damast rot.” This drawing is one of the finest and most delicate among the heads of women in the Windsor Collection—a long, handsome face, with pointed chin and sharp nose, and very expressive eyes. Holbein has carefully indicated the details of the ornaments she is wearing. Her necklace is of elaborate workmanship, apparently a band of alternate links of enamel and pearls arranged as flowers, with a large pendant with inset facetted jewels and three hanging pearls. At her breast is a large circular ornament of a somewhat similar design. The oil painting for which the preliminary study was made, and from which the miniature was possibly taken, is now lost. Elizabeth, Lady Audley, was the eldest daughter of one who must have been in constant touch with Holbein—Sir Bryan Tuke, the Treasurer of the Chamber, whose portrait by him has been already described, and from whose hands he received his salary. She married John Touchet, ninth Lord Audley.
Footnote 490:
See pp. 192-193.
Footnote 491:
Woltmann, 270. Reproduced by Law, Pl. vii.; Williamson, History of Portrait Miniatures, Pl. ii. fig. 3; Ganz, Holbein, p. 149 (3). Painted at about the same time as the “Catherine Howard.”
Footnote 492:
Law, Holbein’s Portraits at Windsor Castle, p. 25.
Footnote 493:
Woltmann, 342; Wornum, ii. 31; Holmes, ii. 27. Reproduced by Davies, p. 220; and elsewhere.
The portraits of the two young sons of the Duke of Suffolk, Henry and Charles Brandon, are acknowledged on all sides to be among the very finest of Holbein’s miniatures. Dr. Woltmann, indeed, considered the one of the elder brother to be the best which ever came from his brush. It is, he says, “the most beautiful miniature painting by Holbein that is known to us, and exhibits more strikingly than any other his artistic style and his spirited and perfect mode of execution, true in spite of all its delicacy.”[494] This is certainly by no means too high praise, for both miniatures are delightful renderings of childhood, drawn with all Holbein’s keen perception, and faultless in their precision of line and delightfulness of colouring. The elder boy, Henry (Pl. 31 (1)),[495] aged five, is shown to the waist, full-face, leaning with his left arm on a table at his side, his head slightly bent in the same direction. He is wearing a black velvet dress with green under-sleeves, and a black hat with a white feather. His fair hair is cut straight across his forehead, and there is a rather sad look in his eyes. On the ledge of the table is inscribed, “ETATIS SVE 5 6 SEPDEM,” and below, on the table-leg, “ANNO” and the date, which has been variously read by different writers. The younger brother, Charles (Pl. 31 (2)),[496] aged three, is also seen to the waist and full-face. His dress is a bluish grey braided in red, and with black cuffs. His flat black cap has no feather; his hair, like his brother’s, is very fair, and his blue eyes look straight at the spectator. There is a strong likeness between the two. He holds in front of him a paper with the inscription “ANN 1541 ETATIS SVÆ 3 10 MARCI.” Both miniatures are painted on a playing card, 2 in. in diameter, and in each the background is the usual bright blue. Their pedigree in the royal collection can be traced back as far as Charles I, in whose catalogue they appear as: “Done by Hans Holbein. Given to the King by Sir H. Vane. No. 64. Item. Done upon the wrong light. Upon a round card, one of the Duke of Brandon’s children, being in a purple habit laced with red velvet lace, with both his hands before him. 2 inches.” “No. 65. Item. Another fellow piece of the same Duke of Brandon’s children, in a black cap and habit with green sleeves, leaning with his left arm upon the table, bending his breast towards his left shoulder, on the table written his age, and the year of our Lord, done upon the wrong light.” They appear again in James H’s catalogue, No. 646, as: “Two heads in one frame, in limning, being the sons of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. By Holbein.”
Footnote 494:
Woltmann, English translation, p. 371.
Footnote 495:
Woltmann, 268. Reproduced by Law, Pl. vii.; Knackfuss, fig. 124; Williamson, Pl. ii. fig. 5; Ganz, Holbein, p. 149 (2).
Footnote 496:
Woltmann, 269. Reproduced by Law, Pl. vii.; Knackfuss, fig. 135; Williamson, Pl. ii. fig. 7; Ganz, Holbein, p. 149 (1).
[Sidenote: HENRY AND CHARLES BRANDON]
The boys were the sons of Charles Brandon, first Duke of Suffolk, who became brother-in-law of the King by his secret marriage in Paris on May 13, 1515, with the young Queen Dowager of France, widow of Louis XII; and their mother, Suffolk’s fourth wife, was Catherine, only daughter and heiress of William, tenth Lord Willoughby de Eresby. The year date on the elder boy’s portrait has been usually read as 1535. It is so given by Wornum and Woltmann, and other writers have followed them, but if the portrait represents Henry Brandon, the date is quite impossible. Mary Tudor, the “French Queen,” the Duke of Suffolk’s third wife, died on June 25, 1533, and in September of the same year Brandon married Catherine Willoughby, the mother of these two boys. In Burke, on the other hand, it is stated that the marriage took place in 1535; but this appears to be incorrect. The Dictionary of National Biography gives the date of the elder boy’s birth as September 18, 1535, which date is fixed by the inquisitio post mortem held after his father’s death in 1545; so that it is quite impossible that the lad could have been five years old in 1535. Mr. Ernest Law reads the date on the miniature as possibly 1539; to the writer, however, who has not had the privilege of examining the original, it appears, from careful examination of the excellent reproduction in Mr. Law’s book, to be either 1543 or 1545, the third figure being plainly a 4. Neither of these dates, however, can be correct, and it is quite possible that at some time the inscription, growing illegible, has been repainted, and that in so doing the restorer has made a mistake. The lettering on both miniatures lacks the precision of an original inscription by Holbein. It is generally assumed that the two dates, “6 Sep” and “10 Marci,” refer to the boys’ birthdays, and there is no difficulty with regard to the second boy, Charles, who was born in March 1538, two and a half years after his brother. The two miniatures have every appearance of having been painted at about the same time, and it is to be expected that the elder of the two would be painted first. The writer suggests, therefore, that the correct date of the portrait of Henry is September 1540, and that of Charles, March 1541.
The two boys were very carefully brought up in the Protestant faith by their mother. Martin Bucer, the German reformer, was appointed their tutor, and they were afterwards in the charge of Thomas Wilson, who became Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth. At a later period Henry was sent to Sir John Cheke, and was educated with Prince Edward, and finally entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, where his brother afterwards followed him. While there the two boys contracted that scourge of the sixteenth century, the sweating sickness. On the occasion of the outbreak they were hastily removed for safety to the Bishop of Lincoln’s palace at Brickdon, in Huntingdonshire, but too late, for both developed the disease, and died together in one bed, on the same day, July 11, 1551, the younger within less than an hour of the elder. Their death at so early an age made an extraordinary impression at the time, and a pamphlet on the subject was published by their tutor, Dr. Walter Haddon. Peter Martyr said of Henry that, with the exception of Edward VI, he was the most promising youth of his day.
[Sidenote: DRAWING OF A FAMILY GROUP]
There is a very beautiful drawing of the boys’ mother in the Windsor Collection,[497] a head turned three-quarters to the left, wearing the English angular head-dress with a band of pearls, and a second ornamented band of which part of the pattern has been drawn in detail by Holbein. The collar is elaborately braided with black velvet, and a medallion is indicated at the breast. The brown eyes and the hair have been put in with water-colour. The portrait for which it was the original study has not been traced. There is a replica of this head in the British Museum (No. 10),[498] which was formerly in the Robinson and Malcolm collections. In this connection, too, a second drawing in the British Museum may be cited, which represents a woman and children sitting on a bench (No. 8) (Pl. 32).[499] It is in Indian-ink on paper, 5¼ in. × 4¼ in., and comes from the Cosway and Utterson collections. It has been reproduced by the Vasari Society,[500] with a note by Mr. Campbell Dodgson, and by Dr. Paul Ganz.[501] Mr. Dodgson suggests that the scene represented is the interior of a church. An effect of warm sunshine is skilfully suggested by the light which falls from a window, not seen, on the right. The mother or nurse is seated in the centre of the group, on a high-backed bench with panelling of the Tudor “linen” pattern, a baby in long clothes held on her lap. On her right a boy with a flat cap and feather, and puffed sleeves, is seated, his left elbow resting on the arm of the bench. A little girl stands in front of her, looking up, and on the left a younger boy, dressed like his brother, is standing, the whole making a group of the greatest charm. It is described in the British Museum Catalogue as an admirable example of Holbein’s earlier Basel period, but it is evidently of later date, and the costumes are undoubtedly English. It has been recently suggested by Mr. Peartree that the woman is “Mother Jack,” nurse to Prince Edward.[502] In features and costume she bears considerable likeness to the unnamed drawing in the Windsor Collection,[503] which is supposed to be a portrait of that nurse. If this supposition be correct, the baby would be the Prince of Wales, and the date of the drawing about 1537; but this fails to account for the three other children. Dr. Ganz considers it to be a group of members of the Brandon family,[504] and as far as the two boys are concerned, this suggestion has something in its favour. The lad on the right is by no means unlike Henry Brandon. The position of the head and the left arm are exactly the same as in the miniature, and the dress has many points of resemblance. The second boy, too, has some likeness to Charles, though he does not wear the velvet-braided costume of the miniature. Again, however, there is a stumbling-block to this theory in the presence of the two younger children, for the Duke’s family by his fourth wife consisted of the two boys only. By his second marriage with Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, he had two daughters, Anne, afterwards Lady Powys, and Mary, afterwards Lady Monteagle, and by his third wife, the King’s sister, he had two other daughters, Frances, afterwards Countess of Dorset, and Eleanor, afterwards Countess of Cumberland, but these ladies were all too old for one of them to have been the little girl represented in the drawing. Owing, no doubt, to the wrong date on the miniature of Henry Brandon, Dr. Ganz ascribes this drawing to the year 1535, and sees signs in the elder boy’s face of approaching illness, although no such illness is recorded until the sudden one in 1551, when he was nearly sixteen. Both explanations are ingenious, but neither is entirely satisfactory. On the margin of the drawing, in a later hand, is written—“exaltate Cedrus. H. Holbein,” which, apparently, is a reference to Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 17, “Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano.”
Footnote 497:
Woltmann, 334; Wornum, ii. 21; Holmes, i. 26. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 140; and Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 34.
Footnote 498:
Woltmann, 210.
Footnote 499:
Woltmann, 189.
Footnote 500:
1905-6, No. 18.
Footnote 501:
Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 35.
Footnote 502:
Vasari Society, Pt. i. No. 18 (1905-6), note by Mr. Campbell Dodgson.
Footnote 503:
Woltmann, 353; Wornum, ii. 14; Holmes, i. 10. Reproduced in Drawings by Hans Holbein (Newnes), Pl. xxvi.
Footnote 504:
Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., p. 56.
The utmost perfection in miniature painting is to be found in the portrait of Mrs. Robert Pemberton (#Pl. 33 (1)pl-33#),[505] in the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s collection (No. iv.), which bears in every touch the unapproachable skill and rare individuality of the artist. It was formerly in the collection of Mr. C. Heywood Hawkins, and at his sale on May 15, 1904, realised £2750, afterwards passing into the possession of Mr. Morgan, by whose courtesy it is reproduced in this book. In the Hawkins Sale-Catalogue it was described as the portrait of Frances Howard, Duchess of Norfolk, but without authority, for there was no Duchess of Norfolk of that name in Holbein’s time. When exhibited by Mr. Hawkins at South Kensington in 1865, it was described in the catalogue as merely—“Portrait of a Lady, Anno Aetatis Suae 23. Her coat of arms is affixed to the case.” This coat, described by Sir Richard Holmes in the Burlington Magazine,[506] in a note accompanying a reproduction of the portrait, is dated MDLVI, and in style and painting is about a century later than the miniature. These arms, as Sir Richard first pointed out, are those of the Pemberton family. Further researches, undertaken by Dr. Williamson, and embodied in his catalogue of Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Miniatures, prove, almost without doubt, that the lady represented was Mrs. Robert Pemberton. He says: “The arms of the wyverns’ heads which are quartered with those of Pemberton belong to the family of Jago di Lago, gentleman, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire; and Robert Pemberton, of Rushden, Northants, M.P. for Northampton in 1478, married Alice, daughter and co-heir of this Jago di Lago.... Major-General R. C. B. Pemberton, to whom I am indebted for these interesting references, is of opinion that the lady in the miniature is Margaret, daughter of Richard Throgmorton, of Higham Park, co. Northants, who was buried at Rushden, 27th October 1576. She married Robert Pemberton, of Pemberton, co. Lancs., and of Rushden, eldest son of William Pemberton, of the same places, and he died in September 1594. The arms would be those of this Robert Pemberton, whose grandfather certainly bore them.”[507]
Footnote 505:
Reproduced in Mr. Morgan’s Catalogue, Pl. iv., No. 2, and in colour in édition de luxe, No. 4; Burlington Magazine, vol. v., July 1904, frontispiece; Portrait Miniatures (Studio Spring No.), 1910, Pl. i.; Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, 1909, Pl. xxxii.; Ganz, Holbein, p. 148 (3); Connoisseur, Dec. 1906.
Footnote 506:
Burlington Magazine, vol. v., July 1904, p. 337.
Footnote 507:
Williamson, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s Catalogue, p. 9.
[Sidenote: MINIATURE OF AN UNKNOWN YOUTH]
In this very beautiful little masterpiece the lady is shown three-quarters face to the right, wearing a black velvet bodice and small white linen cape, and a lawn collar and cuffs, embroidered with a geometrical design in black. She has a red carnation fastened in her dress, and round her neck a thin black cord with gold filigree ends, and holds a single green leaf in her crossed hands. Her hair, which is parted in the centre, is almost concealed beneath her white linen cap. The background is, as usual, blue, and across it, in gold letters, runs the inscription, “ANNO ETATIS SVÆ 23.” It is painted on the back of a playing card, and is still in its original frame, decorated with white and black enamel and three pearls.
The miniature in the Queen of Holland’s collection (Pl. 31 (5)) equals, if it does not surpass, in the brilliance and delicacy of its execution and in the subtlety of its characterisation, the portrait of Mrs. Pemberton; in some ways, indeed, it is the most perfect example of Holbein’s mastery of this branch of art which remains. Its discovery was due to Sir Richard Holmes, who, in 1903, first attributed it to Holbein, in a communication to the Burlington Magazine,[508] accompanied by a reproduction of the miniature. It forms one of a collection of some four hundred, of which about fifty are of English origin, in the royal collections of Holland at the Hague. It represents a youth of about fifteen or sixteen, who so far has not been identified. The head and shoulders only are shown, turned three-quarters to the spectator’s right, the eyes cast down. The hair is cut close, and the dress is a brown doublet trimmed with black, with a small open, falling collar with white strings attached. There is no inscription on the background. With the exception of slight discoloration of the collar through the oxidization of the pigment, this miniature is in faultless condition. “Its extraordinary power and beauty,” says Sir Richard, “were manifest at first sight, and a close examination has convinced me that it can be attributed only to Holbein, of whose work in this branch of portraiture I have long been a student, as well as of his crayon drawings. It has all the restraint of power so characteristic of him, and the exquisite delicacy of line combined with firmness and precision, which never united in the same degree in any master with whose work I am acquainted.”[509] The same writer suggested that it is possibly the portrait of a member of the family of one of the German merchants of the Steelyard. The facial characteristics, however, appear to be more English than German, and it most probably represents the son of some personage about Henry’s court. It was exhibited at the Exhibition of Miniatures in Rotterdam in 1910, and again at Brussels in 1912 (No. 846). Another fine miniature in the Queen of Holland’s collection, the portrait of an unknown man in black (Brussels Exhibition, No. 847), was first pointed out by Dr. Williamson in his History of Portrait Miniatures as very probably the work of Holbein; and since its exhibition at Brussels in 1912 the attribution has been accepted by some of the leading Dutch critics.[510]
Footnote 508:
Burlington Magazine, vol. i., April 1903, p. 218, and frontispiece; Ganz, Holbein, p. 147 (2).
Footnote 509:
Burlington Magazine, vol. i., April 1903, p. 218.
Footnote 510:
See Hist. Portrait Miniatures, vol. i. p. 11, and Pl. iii. 1.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S MINIATURES OF HIMSELF]
A fine miniature portrait of the artist himself, painted in the last year of his life, is in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch,[511] and was exhibited at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1879 (Case F, 25), and at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (Case C, 23). It is a bust portrait, turned three-quarters to the left, the head facing the spectator. He is represented in the act of painting, the left hand supporting the right, and is dressed in a plain black costume with white pleated collar and cuffs, and a round black skull-cap. He has dark hair and a closely-cut beard. Across the blue background is inscribed, “H.H. AN. 1543. ÆTATIS SVÆ 45.” It was formerly in the collection of Horace Walpole, and at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842 was purchased by Mr. W. Blamire, and when the latter’s collection was disposed of in 1863 it passed into the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch. It is one of the best of several similar miniatures, and is very fine in execution, and has been usually ascribed to Holbein himself. The best of all is in the Wallace Collection (Case B, 93) (Pl. 33 (2)),[512] and appears to be from the painter’s own hand. A number of copies are to be found in various collections; one of them, in the Mayer van den Bergh Collection, Antwerp, is reproduced by Dr. Ganz.[513] Woltmann considered that the Montagu House portrait was “scarcely the original, but an old and contemporaneous copy,”[514] but it is too excellent in execution to be the work of a mere copyist. There is a second and larger version in the Buccleuch Collection, with the same date, 1543, also attributed to Holbein. The first-named example may possibly be the small round mentioned by Van Mander as being in Amsterdam in his day. Lucas Vorsterman’s circular engraving was evidently based on this miniature or the somewhat larger portrait now lost,[515] of which the exceedingly poor likeness of the painter in the Uffizi Gallery gives but a feeble echo. The print follows the miniature closely, but is reversed, so that Holbein is represented as painting with his left hand. Hollar’s engraving, dated 1647, in which the painter’s left hand is omitted, was taken, according to the inscription, from an original in the collection of the Earl of Arundel, though Wornum was of opinion that it was based upon Vorsterman’s version. Both are described in an earlier chapter.[516] The inscription across the background in Hollar’s print—“HH. Æ 45. AN^O 1543”—agrees with the second miniature in the Buccleuch Collection. Van Mander states that Holbein painted with his left hand, and in this Sandrart and Patin follow him, but that this was a legend is proved by the original miniature in which the artist has represented himself holding his brush. Vorsterman’s engraving, which appears to bear out Van Mander’s statement, through his failure to reverse his drawing on the wood block, if not the original source of the error, may have helped to spread it. Sir George Scharf, however, suggested another cause as the source of this tradition. “Most of the portraits of Henry VIII,” he says, “more especially those attributed to Holbein, have the light coming in from the spectator’s right, a circumstance which may have tended, in some degree, to establish the tradition that Holbein was left-handed. These are specified by Van der Dort as done upon the wrong light.”[517]
Footnote 511:
Woltmann, 371 (9). Reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.; Williamson, Hist. Portrait Miniatures, Pl. ii. 4.
Footnote 512:
Reproduced by A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 125; Ganz, Holbein, p. 150 (2); Williamson, Hist. Portrait Miniatures, Pl. iii. 3. According to the new edition of the Catalogue of the Wallace Collection there is engraved on the back of the case, “Hans Holbens—given to Me by Lord Bolingbroke, 1757.”
Footnote 513:
Holbein, p. 227 (4).
Footnote 514:
Woltmann, i. p. 477. English translation, p. 450.
Footnote 515:
See Vol. i. pp. 27-8, and Vol. ii. p. 213.
Footnote 516:
See Vol. i. pp. 27-8.
Footnote 517:
Old London, 1867, p. 320.
The discovery of another miniature by Holbein was made by Dr. G. C. Williamson in 1911,[518] and is one of exceptional interest, as it is an undoubted likeness of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, K.G. (Pl. 31 (6)). It came from a private source, and is now in the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s collection. It was fully described, and compared with other portraits of Cromwell, by Mr. Lionel Cust in the Burlington Magazine.[519] He is represented in a black cloak with fur collar, black cloth cap, and wearing the chain of the Garter with the pendant George. The background is blue. It is about two inches in diameter, painted on vellum or chicken-skin, pasted on card. “It is encased,” says Mr. Cust, “in an ivory box, carved on the back with a rose and other ornaments, similar to, though in no way so fine or so rich as, the ivory box which contains the miniature portrait of Anne of Cleves, lately bequeathed to the nation by Mr. George Salting, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the case, however, of Mr. Morgan’s portrait of Cromwell, the lower half of the box has been separated from the lid, cut down, and set in a gold frame, which is ornamented by a series of small deformed pearls. This gold framework is the work of a highly-efficient goldsmith, but hardly seems to date from the days of Henry VIII.” As Cromwell is shown wearing the Garter chain and badge, of which order he was made a knight in August 1537, the miniature was no doubt painted at some date between August and December in that year, to commemorate his election. In this connection it is of interest to note that in Cromwell’s accounts, preserved in the Record Office, there is an entry under 4th January 1538: “Hanns the painter, 40_s._”[520] This payment would suggest that, in all probability, Holbein presented him with this miniature as a New Year’s gift, and that in return he received the forty shillings from his old patron as an acknowledgment.[521] The miniature is thus some three or four years later in date than the portrait at Tyttenhanger, painted not later than the spring of 1534, when he was Master of the Jewel House.[522]
Footnote 518:
Communicated by him to The Times, 25th May 1911.
Footnote 519:
“A Newly-discovered Miniature of Thomas Cromwell,” vol. xx., October 1911, pp. 5, 6. The miniature reproduced p. 7 (1). Since the date of this article Dr. Williamson has traced back the history of this miniature to a member of the Cromwell family who settled and died near Munich.
Footnote 520:
C.L.P., vol. xiv., pt. ii., 782 (f. 117).
Footnote 521:
See Burlington Magazine, vol. xx., December 1911, p. 175.
Footnote 522:
See pp. 58-60.
[Sidenote: MINIATURES OF HENRY VIII]
Unfortunately this miniature has suffered severely during its past career, and has been so rubbed down that little of the details of the dress or ornaments can now be distinguished beyond the mere outlines. “The face,” says Mr. Cust, “is faded and also rubbed, but here the skilful drawing of the features reveals a master-hand which could be no other but Holbein’s. Very subtle, however, and recognizable are the distinctive features of Thomas Cromwell, the vulgar nose, with its sunken bridge, the cunning eyes with the puckered skin at their corners.”[523]
Footnote 523:
Burlington Magazine, vol. xx., October 1911, p. 5.
The scope of this book does not permit any detailed description of the very numerous miniatures of Henry VIII and the members of his family which are to be found in various collections in England, the more important of which have been publicly exhibited from time to time. In the royal collection in Windsor Castle there are four of the King himself, but none of them can be given to Holbein. Three of them appear to have been painted immediately before Holbein’s first visit to England, and the fourth shortly after his death. Two, in which Henry is beardless, and of youthful appearance, were in Charles I’s collection, and are entered in his catalogue as being among “the limned pictures which my Lord of Suffolk gave to the King.” One of them is inscribed, in two lines, “H.R. VIII. AN^O ETATIS XXXV^O,” which gives the date as 1525-6; the other, which it resembles closely, has no date, but merely “REX HENRICUS. OCTAVVS.”[524] The third Windsor miniature is inscribed “H.R. VIII. AN^O XXXV.” In the spandrils four golden angels, on a bright red ground, are holding the letters H and K in golden cords, and linked with true-lovers’ knots. Sir George Scharf considered these initials to refer to the King’s last marriage, on July 12, 1543, with Catherine Parr, and the “XXXV^O” as referring, not to Henry’s age, but to his regnal year. “The face,” he says, “at first sight looks youthful, but it is fat, and, on careful inspection, has a worn and very artificial appearance, as if means had been employed to conceal age.”[525] Mr. Wornum, on the other hand, considered the numerals to refer to the King’s actual age, and not to his reign, and the initial K to Katherine of Aragon.[526] It is only possible to say of the earlier of these miniatures that they are not the work of Holbein. As to the real author of them, the name of one or other member of the Hornebolt family can only be tentatively given, without any real proof in support of it, beyond the fact that the Hornebolts were settled in this country before 1526, the name appearing in the accounts of the expenses of the royal household in that year, and that there appears to have been no other foreign artist of like importance living in London at that date. Mr. Lionel Cust, in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition Catalogue, suggests the name of Jehan Perréal, or Jehan de Paris, as the possible author of some of the early portraits in miniature of the King, painted before Holbein’s arrival in England. Perréal was over here at the time of the marriage of Louis XII, whose official painter he was, with Princess Mary Tudor, for the purpose of designing the new Queen’s dresses. His visit, however, could have been but a short one, and does not account for miniatures of the year 1526.
Footnote 524:
Both reproduced by Law, Holbein’s Pictures at Windsor Castle, Pl. vii.
Footnote 525:
“Remarks on Some Portraits from Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, and Wilton House,” Archæologia, vol. xxxix., 1863, p. 252.
Footnote 526:
Wornum, p. 281.
The fourth miniature of the King at Windsor is in oils on oak, 2¾ in. in diameter, in which he is wearing a thin beard and whiskers. It is inscribed, “HENR. 8 REX. ANGL. ÆTA. S: 57.” Its date, therefore, must refer to the last year of the King’s reign, 1546, though there is a mistake in the age, as he never entered his fifty-seventh year. According to Charles I’s catalogue, it was “supposed to be done by Holben, and given to the King by my Lord Suffolk.” In type it corresponds very closely to the portrait of Henry in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. There is yet another miniature of the King at Windsor, by Nicholas Hilliard, which appears to have been copied from some lost original by Holbein or by Hornebolt. It is one of the customary full-face versions, with beard, and is one of the four fine miniatures which were appended to an elaborate jewel which Hilliard executed in enamels and gold, possibly for Edward VI, representing the Battle of Bosworth Field, which was bought by Charles I from Laurence Hilliard, the painter’s son. The three other miniatures represent Henry VII, Jane Seymour, evidently copied from the well-known portrait by Holbein, and Edward VI, which recalls more than one of the portraits of the young King usually attributed to Guillim Stretes. The one of Henry VIII is inscribed in gold: “1536. ÆTATIS SVÆ 46.”
[Sidenote: MINIATURES OF HENRY VIII]
No less than five miniatures of the King were lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition by the Duke of Buccleuch, two of which are attributed to Holbein. One is a reduced copy of Holbein’s portrait of Henry belonging to Earl Spencer (Case C, 6). A second[527] is inscribed “H.R. VIII. AN^O XXXV,” and appears to be the original from which the Windsor miniature, described above, was copied (Case C, 7). It was formerly in the Magniac Collection. The catalogue suggests that it is possibly the work of an illuminator of the French school. A third (Case C, 25), with a very similar inscription, is evidently a second copy of the same miniature. The fourth (Case C, 8 (D)), forms one of a series of eight in an ebony frame, which were formerly in the collection of Charles I. It is a full-face, with grey beard, and, according to the royal catalogue, was “done by Hans Holbein, given to the King by my Lord Suffolk.”[528] The companion miniatures represent Henry VII, Elizabeth of York (“copied by Hoskins after an ancient ould coloured piece”), Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn (also copied by John Hoskins “after an ould colured piece”), Queen Mary (“done by Ant. More”), Edward VI, and Queen Elizabeth (“done by Old Hilliard”). The “Henry VIII” is fine, and in the Burlington catalogue is attributed to Holbein, but it is more probably another copy from “an ould coloured piece” by the master. It has considerable resemblance to the fifth miniature from Montagu House[529] (Case C, 2), also ascribed to Holbein, but not by him.
Footnote 527:
Reproduced in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.
Footnote 528:
Reproduced by Williamson, Hist. Portrait Miniatures, Pl. ii. 6.
Footnote 529:
Reproduced in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxiii.
The very fine miniature portrait of the King in the Pierpont Morgan Collection was included in the same exhibition (Case B, 1).[530] Old tradition says that this portrait was presented by the King himself to Anne of Cleves. Tradition in this case may be correct, though this Queen is the least likely of all to have been the recipient of such a gift. The correspondence with reference to the suggested marriages with the Duchess of Longueville, the Duchess of Milan, and Anne herself, shows that Henry always refused to send a portrait of himself while such negotiations were in progress. His anxiety was to see a portrait of the lady first, and, if possible, the lady herself, before making his final decision, and to send one of himself before such final decision had been made would have been too compromising. It is not likely, therefore, that he sent one to Anne in Düren, and as he took the strongest aversion to her directly he saw her, it is still less probable that she received a gift of so personal a nature after she arrived in England. Dr. Williamson, in his catalogue of Mr. Morgan’s miniatures, gives a very interesting account of the history of this fine little portrait,[531] and the companion one of Anne of Cleves, both at one time in the possession of the Barrett family, of Lee Priory, Kent, and later in that of the Meyricks, of Goodrich Court, to which reference has been made in an earlier chapter.[532] Some years before the death of General Meyrick, who had succeeded to the Goodrich Court Collection, the miniature of Henry VIII disappeared, and was supposed to have been stolen. It is said to have travelled as far as Vienna, but four years or so after General Meyrick’s death it reappeared in England, and was repurchased for the family, from whom, in 1906, it was acquired by Mr. Morgan.
Footnote 530:
Woltmann, 157. Reproduced in Mr. Morgan’s Catalogue, Pl. ii., and in colour in the édition de luxe, No. 2; Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.; Ganz, Holbein, p. 227 (3).
Footnote 531:
See Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Catalogue, pp. 4-7.
Footnote 532:
See pp. 181-182.
It represents the head and shoulders only, full-face, with grey beard and moustache. Henry wears a black cap trimmed with jewels, loops of pearls, and a white feather, a brown fur coat over a grey doublet embroidered with black, a narrow white collar, and a gold chain round his neck. There is no inscription on the blue background. It is 1¼ in. in diameter, and is still preserved within its original turned ivory box, ornamented at top and bottom with the Tudor rose, and covered with a piece of rock crystal. There is some resemblance between it and the crayon drawing of the King at Munich, and, in the details of the costume, to the large cartoon at Chatsworth and the full-face portrait in Windsor Castle, which has been considered by some critics to be a copy of a lost picture by Holbein, and by others as an original portrait by some such court painter as Lucas Hornebolt. The differences in the costume are slight, and the dress is in its main features the same. Fine as this miniature is, it is difficult to ascribe it to Holbein himself; it is more probably only an excellent old copy of a lost original, or the work of some capable miniaturist adapted from one of Holbein’s paintings.
The miniature of Anne of Cleves, which is slightly larger than the one of Henry VIII, and is enclosed within a similar turned ivory box delicately carved to represent a Tudor rose, has been already described.[533] It is of the finest workmanship, and may be given to Holbein with little hesitation. It was included in the Burlington Club Exhibition, 1909 (Case B, 4), and the catalogue states that in all probability it was painted in July 1539, at Düren. Holbein’s visit to that place was of longer duration than was usual when he was sent to take likenesses of the ladies who were candidates for Henry’s hand.[534] As a rule, he only remained just long enough to make a study in coloured crayons, but he stayed at Düren for a week or two, and so may have had time to paint both the large portrait and the miniature, though it must be remembered that he also painted or drew the lady’s sister, the Princess Amelia. It is much more probable that the miniature was taken from the larger portrait, or that both were done from some lost crayon study, than that the Louvre picture should have been painted from the miniature.
Footnote 533:
See pp. 181-182.
Footnote 534:
See p. 176.
[Sidenote: MINIATURES OF JANE SEYMOUR]
There are several miniatures of Queen Jane Seymour in existence, in most cases attributed to Holbein, all, with one exception, closely following the portrait of that Queen in the Vienna Gallery, upon which they are evidently based. Among the best are two which were in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, lent by Mr. Vernon Watney and by the Duke of Buccleuch. The former (Case B, 2),[535] inscribed merely “A^ON XXV,” is said to have belonged originally to the Seymour family, and to have been given by Charles, Duke of Somerset, to his granddaughter, Elizabeth Wyndham, wife of the Right Hon. George Grenville, from whom it passed into the possession of the Duke of Buckingham. It was afterwards in the Sackville Bale and Lumsden Propert collections. Sir George Scharf considered this miniature to be a portrait of Anne Boleyn, and regarded the “XXV” as the King’s regnal date, and not as that of the lady’s age;[536] but the likeness to Jane Seymour is stronger, though not very marked. Mr. C. F. Bell points out[537] that the likeness of the sitter to Lady Hemingham or Heveningham (“Henegham”), as she is represented in the fine drawing at Windsor,[538] is much more pronounced, and he suggests that the miniature was painted from the portrait of that lady, taken from the drawing, which has now disappeared. Mr. Watney’s miniature, however, closely resembles the one belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch (Case C, 5),[539] though the latter has no inscription and the pendant jewel set with large pearls is absent. This last portrait belonged to Horace Walpole, and by him was regarded as representing Katherine of Aragon, and under that name it passed from the Strawberry Hill sale into the hands of Mr. Blamire, and afterwards into its present ownership. It appears to be, however, an undoubted portrait of Henry’s third queen. Another miniature of Jane Seymour was lent to the same exhibition by Mr. H. Dent-Brocklehurst (Case B, 6),[540] attributed like the others to Holbein, which was also formerly in the possession of Horace Walpole. The portrait of this queen is also among the four miniatures attached to the enamelled jewel, of Nicholas Hilliard’s workmanship, in the royal collection at Windsor, mentioned above. It is inscribed “ANŌ DNĪ 1536 ÆTATIS SVÆ 27,” which no doubt appeared on the original miniature by Holbein, now lost, from which all these others are also derived.
Footnote 535:
Reproduced in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.; Ganz, Holbein, p. 148 (1).
Footnote 536:
Archæologia, vol. xl., 1866, p. 81.
Footnote 537:
In a communication to Dr. Ganz. See Holbein, p. 245.
Footnote 538:
Woltmann, 333; Wornum, ii. 25; Holmes, ii. 12.
Footnote 539:
Reproduced in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.
Footnote 540:
Reproduced in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.
The miniatures of Catherine Howard have been already described.[541] It is doubtful whether Holbein painted Queen Catherine Parr, for the King did not marry her until July 12, 1543, only a month or two before the artist died. A miniature in the possession of Mr. H. Dent-Brocklehurst, lent by him to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (Case B, 7), is said to represent this Queen and to be by Holbein, but both attributions are probably incorrect. It is inscribed “ANO XXXII,” and if this is to be read as the regnal year, it must have been painted between April 1540 and April 1541, and, if it represents this Queen, more than two years before her marriage. She wears a scarlet, black, and white circular French hood with black fall, and cloth of gold dress. Sir George Scharf considered it to be a portrait of Catherine Howard.[542]
Footnote 541:
See pp. 192-193.
Footnote 542:
Archæologia, vol. xl., 1866, p. 84.
Several miniatures of Edward VI exist—there are three in the Buccleuch Collection—though not one has been so far discovered from the hand of Holbein himself. Most of them represent the boy at a period after Holbein’s death, and the name of Guillim Stretes has been suggested as their author.[543] The beautiful little circular drawing of the Prince, at a very early age, in the Basel Gallery,[544] is apparently Holbein’s first study for a miniature which has now disappeared, and may have been the “portrait of the Prince’s Grace” which the artist presented to Henry VIII on New Year’s Day, 1539.[545]
Footnote 543:
See pp. 168-189.
Footnote 544:
Woltmann, 110 (82).
Footnote 545:
See p. 164.
[Sidenote: LIVINA TEERLINC]
Certain of these miniatures, and others not described here, some of them apparently copies after Holbein, while others are original works, were no doubt produced by Susanna Hornebolt, Livina[546] Teerlinc, and Stretes, all three of whom were in turn much employed about the court, and enjoyed royal pay. It has been impossible, so far, to separate the works of these artists, or to find any starting-point in the shape of a signed miniature from which any judgment of their particular methods and style can be formed. What little is known of Susanna Hornebolt has been given in an early chapter. Livina Teerlinc, eldest daughter of the miniaturist, Simon Binnink of Bruges, married George Teerlinc of Blankenberghe, near Bruges, and after the death of her husband’s father, in 1545, they came to England.[547] She is mentioned by Vasari in a short passage as “Levina, daughter of the above-named Master Simon of Bruges, who was nobly married in England by Henry VIII, was held in great esteem by Queen Mary, and is now in much favour with Queen Elizabeth,” an account which Guicciardini copies and slightly elaborates.[548] Her name does not occur in the royal accounts, however, until Midsummer, 1547, under Edward VI, when, as “maistris Levyn Terling paintrix,” she received a quarter’s wages of £10. She held the same appointment under Mary and Elizabeth and at the same salary, £40 a year. On New Year’s Day, 1556, she presented Queen Mary with a small picture of the Trinity, and two years later her New Year’s gift to Queen Elizabeth was a portrait of her Majesty “finely painted upon a card,” for which she received in return a silver-gilt casting-bottle weighing 2¾ oz. In 1561, on a like occasion, there was given to the same Queen, “By Mrs. Levina Terling, the Queenes personne and other personnages in a box fynely painted,” which so pleased Elizabeth that she retained it in her own keeping, and gave “Maistris Levyn Terling” in return a silver-gilt covered salt-cellar weighing 5½ oz.[549] George Teerlinc returned to Bruges, and died there before 25th August 1580; and Mr. Weale conjectures that his wife died before him, probably in England, but there is no documentary evidence of this. In any case, Vasari, and Guicciardini after him, were wrong in stating that while at the English court she was “nobly married.”
Footnote 546:
Also spelt Levina.
Footnote 547:
See Weale, Burlington Magazine, vol. viii., February 1906, p. 356.
Footnote 548:
The latter says: “Levina, figliuola di maestro Simone di Bruggia già mentionato, la quale nel miniare come il padre è tanto felice et eccellente, che il prefato Henrice Re d’Inghilterra la volle con ogni premio haver’ a ogni modo alla sua corte, ove fu poi maritata nobilmente, fu molto amata dalla Regina Maria, et hora è amatissima dalla Regina Elisabetta.”
Footnote 549:
See J. Gough Nichols, Archæologia, xxxix. pp. 39-40.
In the case of Livina, as with Susanna Hornebolt, it is impossible to point with certainty to any work as being indubitably from her hand. The two beautiful miniatures in the Salting Collection representing two little girls, sisters, aged five and four respectively, which were formerly in the collection of Mr. C. H. T. Hawkins, were attributed by both these owners to Livina Teerlinc, and were so described in the catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (Case B, 5).[550] The richness of the costume indicates that they were the children of some important personage about the court. Each one is dated “ANO DNI 1590,” and they are enclosed in a contemporary turned ivory case. Dr. Williamson states that at one time they had attached to them “a strip of parchment on which was recorded, in handwriting undoubtedly contemporary, that the two little portraits were ‘fynely’ painted by Lavina Teerlinc in 1590 at Greenwich.”[551] It is impossible however, that miniatures painted in 1590 can be her work if Mr. Weale’s conjecture[552] that she died before 1580 is correct; but Dr. Williamson, who has been good enough to re-examine his notes, made when the miniatures were in the Hawkins collection, is now of opinion that the date on the parchment is not 1590, but 1570. The third figure is indistinct, but appears to be 7. If this is so, the attribution of these charming little works to Livina is very probably a true one, and the artist may still have predeceased her husband, as Mr. Weale surmises. There is an interesting miniature in Earl Spencer’s collection, signed with an “L,” and dated 1526, a double portrait, said to represent Sir John Boling and his mother, though the couple appear to be man and wife, which has been ascribed by some writers to Lucas d’Heere, though the date, of course, makes such authorship impossible. Mr. J. J. Foster[553] states that when he examined it he thought he could discern a “T” following the “L,” and suggests that it was the work of Livina Teerlinc; but this is equally impossible, for, according to Mr. Weale’s researches, she and her husband did not reach England until about 1545, while in 1526 she must have been a mere child.
Footnote 550:
Reproduced in Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl. xxxii.
Footnote 551:
Williamson, History of Portrait Miniatures, vol. i., Addendum, p. xx.
Footnote 552:
Burlington Magazine, vol. viii., February 1906, p. 356, and vol. ix., July 1906, p. 278.
Footnote 553:
British Miniature Painters, 1898, p. 14 and Pl. v.
[Sidenote: MINIATURE OF KRATZER]
There are several very interesting miniatures in the Pierpont Morgan Collection which, although they cannot be given to Holbein himself, are certainly of his school and period. One of the finest represents a Baseler named Arnold Franz, a man with a brown beard and moustache, dressed in black.[554] It is in a richly-enamelled gold frame with pendant pearls, and the sitter’s age, “AET. 32,” enamelled on the front, and on the reverse, “Arnold Franz, Holbein Pinx.” It was procured at the sale of a collection in Basel, and was stated to have been in the possession of the descendants of the sitter ever since it was painted. There was also an unbroken family tradition that Holbein himself had painted it, and that Franz, said to have been a printer and a friend of Froben’s, was intimately acquainted with the artist. The Franz family, now extinct, are also said to have possessed for many years a letter from Holbein to his friend, in which the miniature is mentioned, but the document has been lost.[555] A second miniature in Mr. Morgan’s collection is a portrait of Niklaus Kratzer, and is evidently by the same hand as the one of Arnold Franz. It is not a reduced version of the Louvre picture, which was painted in 1528, but appears, in Dr. Williamson’s opinion, to have been painted some years earlier than that date, though, if that be the case, it is not very likely that Holbein was its author. The face is nearly in profile, to the left, and the astronomer is wearing the customary fur-lined black coat and black cap, and a gold chain round his neck. In his hand he holds a brass armillary sphere. A third miniature, in the same possession, which has considerable affinity in style to the two just mentioned, represents Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. It was formerly in the possession of the royal house of Holland, and afterwards in the Propert and Tomkinson collections. Dr. Williamson suggests that some of the Holbeinesque miniatures, such as these, which exist in considerable numbers, may have been the work of Hans Mielich (1515-1572), of Munich, who painted portraits and miniatures of some merit, and was for a time court painter to the Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. There is no record, however, of any visit paid by him to England. Others may be possibly the work of such painters as Thomas and John Bettes and Guillim Stretes, who are dealt with in a succeeding chapter.[556]
Footnote 554:
Pierpont Morgan Catalogue, No. 3, and Pl. iii., No. 1, and colour plate, édition de luxe, No. 3.
Footnote 555:
Williamson, History of Portrait Miniatures, vol. i., Addendum, p. xx.
Footnote 556:
Burlington Magazine, vol. viii., February 1906, p. 356, and vol. ix., July 1906, p. 278.
There remains one other miniature to be noted, which until recently was regarded as the work of Hans Mielich, but is now, with apparent justice, given to Holbein. It is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich, and represents a young man, turned slightly to the right, with a fair pointed beard and moustache, and wearing a black dress and cap. It is inscribed upon the blue background, on either side of the sitter’s head, “H.M. ÆTATIS SVÆ 27.”[557] It was once thought to be a portrait of Melanchthon, and afterwards, on account of the initials it bears, it was regarded as a portrait of Mielich by himself. Its attribution to Holbein was due to Dr. Hans Buchheit, the director of the National Museum, who published it in 1911 as a work of the painter’s later time. The initials upon it are undoubtedly those of the sitter, and not of the artist, and it has been suggested that it represents the painter, Harry Maynert, one of the witnesses to Holbein’s will.[558] Whether this is so or not, the miniature itself is a fine one, and, judging from a photograph alone, its attribution to Holbein by Dr. Buchheit must be accepted as the correct one.
Footnote 557:
British Miniature Painters, 1898, p. 14 and Pl. v.
Footnote 558:
Pierpont Morgan Catalogue, No. 3, and Pl. iii., No. 1, and colour plate, édition de luxe, No. 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXVI. THE WINDSOR DRAWINGS AND OTHER STUDIES
The history of the book of drawings by Holbein in the royal collection at Windsor Castle—Early references to it—Sir John Cheke—The book’s various changes of ownership—Charles I exchanges it with the Earl of Pembroke for a Raphael—Afterwards in the Arundel Collection—Discovery of the drawings in Kensington Palace by Queen Charlotte—John Chamberlaine’s publication of them from engravings by Bartolozzi—Methods of their execution—Their present condition—Description of the more important of them—And of similar portrait-drawings at Berlin and Basel—Holbein and the Clouets—The “Queen of Sheba” miniature painting at Windsor—The “Death of Virginia” at Dresden—Drawing of a ship at Frankfurt—Drawings of animals.
IF, through some great misfortune, nothing remained of Holbein’s work but the wonderful series of drawings of the heads of the men and women of Henry VIII’s court, in the royal library at Windsor, this collection alone would still afford irresistible proof of his right to the title of one of the very greatest masters of portraiture. The history of these drawings can be traced with some exactness, though there are certain breaks in the continuity of the story. In whatever way they may have been preserved by Holbein during his lifetime, they were, shortly after his death, bound together in book form, and so remained until their rediscovery in the eighteenth century. Although they are not included in the elaborate inventory of the royal collection of works of art, dated 24th April 1542, or in the second inventory taken five years later, in the first year of Edward VI’s reign, it may be conjectured that they came into the possession of the Crown on Holbein’s death in 1543, or very shortly afterwards. His death was so sudden, that they may have been left behind in his painting-room at Whitehall, unknown to his executors, and so remained in royal keeping, though this is not a very likely surmise. It is certain, in any case, that the book containing them was at one time in the possession of Edward VI. This is proved by an entry in the Lumley inventory of 1590, to which reference has been already made more than once. The entry is as follows: “A greate booke of Pictures doone by Haunce Holbyn of certeyne Lordes, Ladyes, gentlemen and gentlewomen in King Henry the 8: his tyme, their names subscribed by S^r John Cheke Secretary to King Edward the 6 w^{ch} book was King Edward the 6.”
There is no reason to doubt the statement that the names on many of the drawings were supplied by Sir John Cheke, who, at one time professor of Greek at Cambridge, became one of the tutors of the young Prince before he ascended the throne, and died in 1557. He must thus have been intimately acquainted with a certain number of Holbein’s sitters, though not with all of them. This would account for the fact that although many of the names he has written on the drawings are the right ones, certain others are incorrect, while some fourteen of them are not named at all. He made mistakes, for instance, over some of the earlier drawings, such as several of the sitters in the More Family Group, with whom he was not likely to have been acquainted, and in some doubtful cases he probably indulged in guesswork. The late Sir Richard Holmes considered that he merely made a list of the drawings, which has not survived, and that from this list the names were inscribed on the sheets by some later hand.[559] There is an entry in the accounts of Sir Thomas Carwarden, Master of the Revels, preserved among the Loseley MSS., which very probably refers to this very book of drawings. The document is undated, but is considered to be of the reign of Edward VI. It is as follows: “Item for a peynted booke of Mr. Hanse Holby making, 6 li.” It is, of course, quite possible that this “peynted booke” may have had nothing to do with the Windsor drawings, but there is no other known work of Holbein’s to which the description would so well apply. The supposition that it was the very book, and that it was purchased by Sir Thomas for Edward VI, fits in well with the fact, established by the Lumley inventory, that the youthful monarch at one time possessed it. If this be so, the suggestion that Henry VIII obtained it immediately after Holbein’s death is, of course, incorrect.
Footnote 559:
Holmes in Introduction to Hanfstaengl’s Portraits of Illustrious Personages of the Court of Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF DRAWINGS]
It would appear that the book came into the possession of Henry Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, after the death of Edward VI, either by gift or purchase, and was preserved at Nonsuch, together with the various portraits by Holbein, already mentioned, some of which were certainly at one time in the royal possession; and on his death in 1580, passed to his son-in-law, Lord Lumley. The palace and estate of Nonsuch reverted to the Crown in 1591, by exchange for other property, but at what time the numerous pictures by Holbein left the possession of the Lumley family is not known. At Lord Lumley’s death in 1609 the greater number of his books passed into the hands of Henry, Prince of Wales, elder brother of Charles I, and it is very probable that the “greate booke of Pictures doone by Haunce Holbyn” accompanied them, and once again formed part of the royal collections.[560] It is usually stated, however, that Charles I obtained them through the good offices of M. de Liancourt, the French ambassador, this statement being based on a note in Abraham Van der Doort’s catalogue of that monarch’s pictures, which, if correct, indicates that at some time between the drawing up of the Lumley inventory (1590) and the list of King Charles’ pictures (1639), the book of drawings had been taken into France, and so cannot have belonged to Henry, Prince of Wales. It seems certain, nevertheless, that this supposed journey to France and back again never took place. Mr. Lionel Cust’s suggestion is evidently correct, and the mistake has arisen through a confusion between Holbein’s book of drawings and a very similar book of drawings by a French hand, representing illustrious personages of the French court, both of which were in the King’s collection, and are separately described in Van der Doort’s catalogue. It was the latter book, no doubt, which was procured through M. de Liancourt, some such volume as that now at Knowsley, or the collection formerly at Castle Howard, now at Chantilly,[561] or the numerous albums of a similar kind scattered about France. Holbein’s book of drawings, on the other hand, came to Charles I from his brother.
Footnote 560:
See Cust, Burlington Magazine, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 269.
Footnote 561:
These were purchased by the fifth Earl of Carlisle in Flanders, probably towards the close of the eighteenth century.
The King, however, did not retain the volume for long, but exchanged it with the Earl of Pembroke for the beautiful little picture of “St. George slaying the Dragon,” by Raphael, which is now in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg. This latter is entered in Van der Doort’s catalogue as “A little St. George, which the King had in exchange of My Lord Chamberlain, Earl of Pembroke, for the book of Holbein’s drawings.” This picture was sold by the Commonwealth for £150, and after passing through the La Noue, De Sourdis, and Crozat collections, found a final resting-place in the Hermitage. In 1627, while still in the Earl of Pembroke’s possession, it was engraved by Lucas Vorsterman, so that the exchange with the King may have taken place in 1628 or thereabouts. Lord Pembroke, in his turn, did not keep the drawings, but almost at once passed them on to the great collector, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who, according to Sir Edward Walker, who wrote his life, had “more of that exquisite master, Hans Holbein, than are in the world besides.” Whether Lord Pembroke gave the drawings to him, or in his turn carried out a second exchange, is not known.
Their presence in the Arundel Collection is proved by a contemporary reference in the manuscript among the Harleian MSS.[562] in the British Museum entitled, “An exact & Compendious Discours concerning the Art of Miniatura or Limning,” on the fly-leaf of which is written, in an eighteenth-century hand, “of Limning by Hilliard,” to which attention has been already called.[563] As the Holbein drawings were still in the possession of Charles I in 1627, the paragraph in the “discours” which speaks of them as in the Arundel Collection cannot have been penned by Nicholas Hilliard himself, who died in 1619. The compiler was almost certainly Edward Norgate, who held Holbein in the highest estimation. Speaking of the painting of shadows, he says:—
Footnote 562:
No. 6000.
Footnote 563:
See p. 219.
“The black must be deepened with ivory black, and if in working in the heightenings and light-reflections, you will mingle with your ordinary black a little lake and indigo, or rather a little litmus instead of indigo, you will find your black to render a rare and admirable reflection like to that of the well-dyed satin, especially if your lights be strong and hard; the manner whereof if you please to see inimitably expressed, you will find abundantly for your content in the gallery of my most noble Lord the Earl of Arundell, Earl Marshal of England, and done by the incomparable pencil of that rare master, Hans Holbein, who in all his different and various manners of painting, either in oil, distemper, limning, or crayon, it seems was so general and absolute an artist, as never to imitate any man, or ever was worthily imitated by any.”[564]
Footnote 564:
Quoted by Wornum, pp. 397-8. Also by Dallaway with slight differences (see p. 219 above).
[Sidenote: NORGATE’S REFERENCES]
The reference to the Windsor drawings occurs in the chapter dealing with crayon-painting. “I shall not need,” the writer says, “to insist upon the particulars of this manner of working; it shall suffice, if you please, to view of a book of pictures by the life, by the incomparable Hans Holbein, servant to King Henry the Eighth. They are the pictures of most of the English lords and ladies then living, and were the patterns whereby that excellent painter made his pictures in oil by; they are all done in this latter manner of crayons I speak of, and though many of them be miserably spoiled by the injury of time, and the ignorance of some who formerly have had the keeping of the book, yet you will find in those ruinous remains an admirable hand, and a rare manner of working in few lines and no labour in expressing of the life and likeness, many times equal to his own, and ever excelling other men’s oil pictures. The book hath been long a wanderer; but is now happily fallen into the hands of my noble lord the Earl Marshal.”[565]
Footnote 565:
Quoted by Wornum, p. 398. Dallaway, in his notes to Walpole, vol. i. p. 84, quotes this passage with slight differences, and adds after “Earl Marshal”—“a most eminent patron to all painters who understood the arte; and who therefore preserved this book with his life, till both were lost together”—which is not consistent with the words preceding it.
A second contemporary reference to the drawings occurs in the Bodleian Library manuscript, Miniatura or the Art of Limning, etc., also by Edward Norgate, to which reference has been already made.[566] Norgate, when dealing with crayon drawings, says: “A better way was used by Holbein, by priming a large paper with a carnation or complexion of flesh-colour, whereby he made pictures by the life, of many great lords and ladies of his time, with black and red chalke, with other flesh colours, made up hard and dry, like small pencil sticks. Of this kind was an excellent booke, while it remained in the hands of the most noble Earl of Arundel and Surrey. But I heare it has been a great traveller, and wherever now, he hath got his errata, or (which is as good) hath met with an index expurgatorius, and is made worse with mending.”[567] That the book was described as a “great traveller” is, no doubt, due to the fact that from 1642 until his death, four years later, the Earl was living on the Continent, and that he took all his works of art with him. “After her husband’s death,” says Mr. Cust,[568] “the Countess of Arundel continued to reside at various places on the Continent, accompanied by her collections, until her own death at Amsterdam in 1654. Litigation then ensued between her sons as to the disposal of her property. A good part of the valuable Arundel Collection was disposed of in Holland by the Countess’s younger son, Lord Stafford, but a considerable part eventually returned to the family of the Duke of Norfolk in England.” There is every reason to suppose that among the latter the Holbein book was included.
Footnote 566:
See p. 219. This manuscript is Norgate’s final version of the “discours,” written some twenty years or so later than the British Museum manuscript, which was his first compilation.
Footnote 567:
Quoted by Dallaway, in his notes to Walpole’s Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 84; and by Wornum, p. 398.
Footnote 568:
See Cust, Burlington Magazine, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 269.
[Sidenote: LATER HISTORY OF THE DRAWINGS]
It should be noted that, according to Charles I’s catalogue, the number of drawings was only fifty-four. Van der Doort may have made a mistake in the entry, putting a 5 instead of an 8, otherwise it must be supposed that Lord Arundel already possessed some thirty of these “heads,” which he added to the book after Lord Pembroke had given it to him. The collection as it now exists does not contain the whole of the portrait-drawings of Holbein’s English period. The fine head of Lord Abergavenny at Wilton appears to have been kept back, or to have been accidentally retained, by Lord Pembroke when he parted with the remainder of the collection, and there are several others in continental museums and elsewhere, some of which are known to have once formed part of the Arundel Collection. At Basel there are Sir Nicholas Carew, an unknown English lady, and a second English lady and her husband; at Dresden the Count Moretta; at Munich the head of Henry VIII; at Berlin a fine head of an unknown Englishman; in the Salting Collection the magnificent study of a lady already described;[569] and the two heads in the Duke of Devonshire’s Collection at Chatsworth.[570] If, therefore, Van der Doort is correct in stating that there were only fifty-four drawings in the book when it was in his keeping, the one person in England most likely to have added so considerably to their number was the Earl of Arundel, who was unceasing in his search for original works from Holbein’s hand. There is no record to show at what time the book returned to the royal collections, though the tradition noted by Dallaway, in his edition of Walpole’s Anecdotes, that they were purchased for James II at the sale of the possessions of Henry, Duke of Norfolk, in 1686, is no doubt the correct one.[571] A list of the drawings was included in James II’s catalogue, which was published by Bathoe in 1758. After this the drawings themselves were laid aside and forgotten, and it was not until early in the reign of George II that they were rediscovered by Queen Caroline hidden away in a folio in an old bureau in Kensington Palace, together with a volume of equal importance containing the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, which now form so valuable a part of the royal collection at Windsor. Queen Caroline had them framed and glazed, and for many years they decorated her own apartments, first at Richmond, and afterwards in Kensington Palace. Early in the succeeding reign they were removed to the Queen’s House, now Buckingham Palace, where they were taken from the frames and bound up in two volumes, forming a part of the large collection of drawings, similarly bound, got together by George III. The suggestion that they should be engraved originated with Dalton, the keeper of the King’s drawings, but the work was so badly done that it was abandoned in 1774 after ten plates only had been issued. The engraver was George Vertue, who, according to Walpole, was the originator of the project. “It is a great pity,” he says, “that they have not been engraved; not only that such frail performances of so great a genius might be preserved, but that the resemblances of so many illustrious persons, nowhere else existing, might be saved from destruction. Vertue had undertaken this noble work; and after spending part of three years on it, broke off, I do not know why, after having traced off, on oil paper, but about five and thirty. These I bought at his sale; and they are so exactly taken as to be little inferior to the originals.”[572] This tracing was done by Vertue and Müntz when the drawings were hanging in Queen Caroline’s room at Kensington. There were thirty-four of them, and they were framed and hung in what Walpole called his Holbein Chamber at Strawberry Hill. Somewhat later the projected publication was taken up again more successfully, on the suggestion, according to Dallaway, of Horace Walpole, under the direction of John Chamberlaine, who succeeded Dalton as keeper of the drawings. The engravings were published between 1792 and 1800 in fourteen numbers, containing eighty-two portraits, forming two large folio volumes, under the title of Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein, in the Collection of His Majesty, for the Portraits of Illustrious Persons of the Court of Henry VIII, with Biographical Tracts. The historical notices were written by Edmund Lodge, Lancaster Herald, and the plates, with the exception of eight, were engraved by F. Bartolozzi, R.A. F. C. Lewis was also engaged to take part in the work, but his plate of “Cecilia Heron” was in all ways so much finer than Bartolozzi’s efforts that Chamberlaine had the plate destroyed, fearing that if it were published side by side with the others, the latter would suffer so severely from the contrast that the success of the publication would be endangered. As transcripts of Holbein’s drawings, Bartolozzi’s engravings have very little artistic merit. Many of them, indeed, have small likeness to the originals, and all of them lack the strength and character and the searching truth of line which make the drawings themselves such masterpieces of art. In more recent years the drawings have been frequently photographed and published, the most important series being that issued by Mr. F. Hanfstaengl in two volumes, with an introduction and descriptive notes by the late Sir Richard Holmes, F.S.A. It should be added that under Queen Victoria the two volumes were broken up, and the drawings properly mounted and arranged. They are now kept in four portfolios.
Footnote 569:
See Vol. i. p. 309.
Footnote 570:
See Vol. i. pp. 336-7.
Footnote 571:
Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, vol. i. p. 84 note.
Footnote 572:
Ibid., pp. 85-86.
In Walpole’s day the collection consisted of eighty-nine sketches, but in more recent times two have been withdrawn, as the work of Jacob Binck. One of the two heads of Sir Thomas Wyat is only a good, careful copy of the other, in which the hair of the beard is drawn with great elaboration, from the hand of some follower or imitator of Holbein, and in one or two other cases the drawings are, perhaps, only copies of lost originals, or even original drawings by some other hand, such as the so-called “Melanchthon,” with its faltering line, which lacks much of Holbein’s customary strength and certitude.
[Sidenote: THE METHOD OF THEIR EXECUTION]
The drawings were executed in almost all cases in black and coloured chalks. During his first visit to England Holbein used, as a rule, white paper, the outlines being drawn in black and the features modelled in red chalk. The series of heads of members of Sir Thomas More’s family, and contemporary drawings such as the Warham and Guldeford, are done in this manner. Later on it was his custom to use a paper covered entirely with a ground of flesh or salmon colour, upon which the features were modelled in black chalk, and slight touches of red, after which the outlines were strengthened and the details of the hair, dress, and ornaments put in with pen or brush and Indian-ink. In some cases the whole face was completely modelled with the greatest delicacy, and as a rule the eyes, hair, and beard were drawn in with water-colour or coloured crayons in their natural hues. Upon a number of the drawings the colour and material of the costume worn by the sitter are indicated by notes in Holbein’s own handwriting, and in some of them details of the ornaments or embroideries have been drawn on the margin of the sheet with the brush with the sure and rapid hand of a master. In one instance—the portrait of John Godsalve—the drawing is entirely finished in water-colours, and the figure is shown against a blue background; and in one of the two heads of Sir Thomas More the holes with which it was pricked for tracing on the panel can still be seen. The earlier drawings are usually the largest, the one last-named being about 16 in. high by 12 in. wide. The Warham is 17 in. by 12 in., the Guldeford 15 in. by 11 in., and the Godsalve the same size. One of the largest of all is the Jane Seymour, which is 20½ in. by 11 in.
[Sidenote: THE METHOD OF THEIR EXECUTION]
“Some have been rubbed,” says Walpole, “and others traced over with a pen on the outlines by some unskilful hand.”[573] In a few instances, it is true, these strengthening touches appear to be by some other hand than Holbein’s, but in most of the drawings they are just as certainly his. The studies have suffered considerable damage during the passage of time. They are stained, and many of them badly rubbed, so that the more delicate modelling and colouring carried out in crayons has almost vanished. In consequence the brush-work, which has better withstood rough usage, at first sight appears to be a little hard, and in some instances even coarse, thus slightly marring that perfect harmony of effect which characterised the drawings when fresh from the artist’s hand. The finer details have been worn away, leaving certain lines more prominent than Holbein intended. A closer study, however, as Sir Richard Holmes points out, shows that it is to the wonderful strength and delicacy combined of these touches that the portraits owe the vivid and life-like quality which they so pre-eminently possess. “On some of the heads these touches occur only on the eyes, nostrils, and lips, where the marvellous accuracy of modelling, particularly in the corners of the mouth, is not to be excelled in the work of any other master.”[574] It must be remembered, too, that these studies were, in almost all cases, working drawings, done for transference or for copying on the panel, and are in that sense not finished works, some parts and details being emphasised more strongly than others. In certain of the drawings the beard and the hair have been put in with the brush with that careful and elaborate detail with which such features were usually carried out by Holbein in his finished portraits; for instance, in the long beard of Sir Thomas Wyat or the close-cut hair of Simon George. In other drawings the unshaven stubble on a man’s chin or upper lip is put in with a few masterly strokes. Here and there high lights have been indicated with a touch of white, as in the heads of Lord and Lady Vaux. It may be taken, then, that in the greater number of cases, the only hand which can be traced in these drawings is that of Holbein himself, dimmed here and there by the passing of the years, or rough or careless usage at some time or other during their earlier wanderings. Certain critics, however, consider that in many of them, some later hand has attempted to revivify the fading lines, with results quite contrary to those intended. Mr. Campbell Dodgson, speaking of the lovely head of an Englishwoman in the Salting Collection, describes it as being “entirely free from the retouching which disfigures many of the Windsor heads.”[575] Mr. Gerald Davies is also among those who consider that the drawings have been retouched by some other hand than Holbein’s. “I am quite persuaded,” he says, “that the strengthening of the outlines, either by chalk lines or in many cases by Indian-ink, is not due to the hand of Holbein himself. Among the drawings are a few which have never been so touched. The lines of these are of great delicacy and of the most expressive quality—an artistic dream which has almost faded from the paper. These are the select few which, having suffered most from rubbing, and having the faintest indications to guide the hand of the reinforcer, have been left in their ghostly beauty. Others have been revived by the application of a bolder chalk line of the proper colour in parts where the outline seemed most to need it. It has been done on the whole well, if such a thing can ever be said to have been well done at all. But these same lines will be found to be hard and wiry, and somewhat unfeeling as compared to the subtly sympathetic outline of the master himself. There remains yet the further manner of reinforcement by a strong outlining, often accompanied by a slight thickening in parts by means of a wash, in what appears to be Indian-ink. The ink has toned now, and has lost much of the offence of its once strong contrast with the rest of the delicate modelling. But remembering what that contrast would have been when the ink was fresh, I find it impossible to believe that it was added by the hand of Holbein.”[576] Mr. Davies suggests that this Indian-ink strengthening took place when the drawings came into the hands of Charles I, and that possibly Wenceslaus Hollar was employed for the purpose. It is difficult to follow him in this suggestion of Hollar’s retouching, nor can the writer agree with him in his opinion that a more or less wholesale retouching of the drawings has ever been undertaken by any hand than that of Holbein himself. A more credible suggestion is that of Mr. Lionel Cust, who says: “It is very probable that the drawings were refreshed by outlines very soon after Holbein’s death, if not by the painter himself. Since that date the most likely time for them to have suffered any alteration would have been after their rediscovery at Kensington, when they were for a time in the hands of George Vertue, an expert crayon-artist himself as well as engraver.”[577]
Footnote 573:
Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 85 note.
Footnote 574:
Holmes in Introduction to Hanfstaengl’s Portraits of Illustrious Personages, &c.
Footnote 575:
Vasari Society, Pt. ii. (1905-6), No. 31.
Footnote 576:
Davies, Holbein, p. 122.
Footnote 577:
Burlington Magazine, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 270.
Some part of the damage done to them may have been due to wear and tear in the artist’s own studio, for it is possible that he employed an assistant or two; though if that had been the case, it is strange that there is no record among the State papers of a licence granting him leave to employ journeymen, such as was necessary under the Act dealing with foreign residents. It is possible, too, though far from probable, that he may have had one or two pupils—though here again there is no record of them—who would copy his drawings, and might be entrusted occasionally with the tracing of the drawings upon the panel, or even in painting parts of the replicas of portraits which must sometimes have been ordered. It is evident that these drawings were made solely for the artist’s own purposes, both in order to avoid a too frequent attendance of his sitters at his studio, and also because it was the method of working which best suited him. They remained, therefore, in his own possession, and were never handed over to his patrons. The fashion of collecting portraits of celebrities which was in vogue in France throughout the sixteenth century was only imitated in a very minor degree in England. In France, as M. Dimier points out, “the result of this rage for portraits was that people were not content with the necessarily limited number of originals. The works of the masters of the time were copied and recopied a hundred times, often by unskilful and sometimes by absolutely clumsy hands. This was the case not only with the portraits of kings and queens, which have been multiplied thus in all ages, but with those of any one at court—a feature which is peculiar to the period under consideration. Not even the number of painted portraits and painted copies was enough; there was a demand for quicker and cheaper satisfaction. The original chalk-drawings were copied, in the same medium, an infinite number of times, far oftener, indeed, than the paintings; and these drawings were commonly bound into albums and preserved as family treasures. A vast number of these albums must have perished, but a vast number still exist.”[578] Nothing of this kind occurred on this side of the Channel. Holbein’s original drawings, after his death, were preserved in a volume in this fashion, but they formed an unique example. Though copies or duplicates of one or two of them exist, such as the John Fisher and the Duchess of Suffolk in the British Museum, the Guldeford, Fisher and Poyntz formerly in the Heseltine Collection, and the head called Sir Charles Wingfield in the collection of Sir John Leslie, Bart., recently published by Mr. Lionel Cust,[579] the collection as a whole was never copied in this way, as it would have been in France. It is doubtful if most of these duplicates, fine as they are, are actually from Holbein’s own hand.
Footnote 578:
Dimier, French Painting in the Sixteenth Century, p. 29.
Footnote 579:
Burlington Magazine, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 271.
[Sidenote: STUDIES FOR LOST PORTRAITS]
It may be taken for granted that portraits were painted from nearly all these Windsor studies, more than eighty in number, though possibly a few, drawn during the last months of his life, were not carried out in this way. It is, therefore, a little extraordinary that less than thirty of such finished oil portraits have so far been traced, the remainder having disappeared; and of these latter only about one half are original paintings by Holbein, the remainder being copies of lost originals. Among the first-named we have Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard, the Prince of Wales, Sir Thomas More, Warham, Guldeford, Southwell, John Godsalve, Reskimer, Simon George, Lady Vaux, Lady Rich, Lady Butts, Lady Audley (miniature only), and one or two others; in the second class the More Family Group is the most important, there being no less than seven studies for this great work at Windsor, including the one of Sir Thomas himself.
There still remain more than fifty drawings in England alone of which no paintings are known. It seems impossible that the whole of these pictures should have perished. Some of them, it is to be hoped, may yet be discovered, hidden away in some remote country house, perhaps obscured by dirt and disfigured by repaintings, so that hitherto they have remained unrecognised. It is not very likely that drawings of this size were made as preliminary studies for miniatures, or otherwise this might account for some of the missing portraits, as such small works would be much more easily lost than panel paintings. It is true that in a few instances, such as the portraits of Lady Audley and the Earl of Abergavenny, we have miniatures closely following the drawings, but no large portraits; but it does not follow that the latter were not painted.
On the other hand, there are a considerable number of Holbein’s portraits—between thirty and forty—for which no preliminary studies remain, and these range over every period of his career. This, however, is not so extraordinary, for drawings disappear more easily than pictures. In some instances, too, their absence may be explained by the artist’s method of work. It was his occasional habit, more particularly in the earlier half of his career, to fasten down the preliminary study upon the panel, and use it as the ground-work of his painting, so that the drawing naturally was lost. The portrait of his wife and children at Basel has been carried out in this way, and the Anne of Cleves in the Louvre is painted on vellum or parchment, afterwards mounted on canvas. This, however, was not his more regular practice, which was to transfer the study to the panel by tracing or pricking. Not a single study exists for any one of the portraits of the German merchants of the Steelyard, or for such portraits as the Duchess of Milan, Jean de Dinteville and the Bishop of Lavaur, Kratzer, Thomas Godsalve, Sir Henry Wyat, Cromwell, Tuke, the Duke of Norfolk, Cheseman, Dr. Chamber, and the painted portraits of various unknown men at Berlin, Vienna, Basel, and elsewhere. For the portraits of Erasmus there is only a study for the hands, while there is no drawing for the Amerbach or Froben. On the other hand, among a number of fine drawings in continental museums there are, in addition to the two earlier and three later ones of the members of the Meyer family, only two—the Morette in Dresden and the Sir Nicholas Carew in Basel—of which the finished paintings still exist.
There is no doubt that Holbein’s practice as a portrait painter during his second and longer residence in England was almost entirely confined to the court and to those who were in the King’s employment. The Windsor drawings, a number of which have been described in previous chapters of this book, make this sufficiently clear. Included among the heads which have not been described are John Russell, Earl of Bedford; Sir William Parr, afterwards Marquis of Northampton; Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde; Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby; George Brooke, Lord Cobham; Thomas, Lord Vaux; Sir Thomas Parry; Sir William Sherrington; Sir Thomas Wentworth; Edward, Lord Clinton; Sir Thomas le Strange; Sir George Carew; Lord Chancellor Rich, and others; and among the ladies, Lady Parker, Lady Ratcliffe, Mary Zouch, Lady Rich, Lady Henegham, the Marchioness of Dorset, Lady Mewtas, Lady Monteagle, and Lady Borough.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME OF THE HEADS]
The study of William Parr, Marquis of Northampton (Pl. 34 (2)),[580] is one of the few in which the hands are shown. The head, with close-cropped hair and short, round beard, has suffered from rubbing, but remains a fine and strongly individualised study of character. The dress and jewellery are indicated with some elaboration, to which are added notes in Holbein’s handwriting, and detailed sketches of his hat ornaments and other jewellery are drawn in the margin. The medallion he wears appears to be of open-work with a figure of St. George, and one of the links of his chain is inscribed with the word “MORS.” In the Thomas Boleyn,[581] also, the right hand is shown, and the dress is drawn with much more detail than in most of the companion drawings, while the face is one of the most carefully elaborated in the whole series, the individual hairs of the beard and moustache being indicated with minute precision. Equally careful drawing of the hair is to be seen in the head of Lord Stanley,[582] with its expressive face and fine eyes. Another very powerful drawing is the full-face portrait of Lord Cobham,[583] with open doublet showing his bare chest, a head of most striking individuality. One of the most beautiful among the more finished studies is that of Lord Vaux (Pl. 35),[584] in which the hair, cut straight across the forehead, and the beard and moustache are put in with almost microscopic detail, as well as the design upon the white collar with its strings of black and white cord. There is a second study of Lord Vaux[585] in the collection. It is, of course, impossible to give even a short description of the whole of the drawings, but among the numerous studies of “unknown men” two in particular cannot be overlooked. The one is the head of a handsome young man with a long, sharp nose,[586] thin whiskers, and a small beard, the head turned slightly to the right, and both eyes shown (Pl. 34 (1)). He wears large ostrich feathers in his black hat, which has a medallion, the design not indicated, and gold tags. The dress, very roughly sketched in, is badly rubbed. The drawing is one of great beauty, very delicate and refined in its treatment and feeling. The second, to which reference has been already made, is the very striking likeness of a man with a flat, broad nose, bushy, curly beard, and hair falling over the ears, his eyes cast slightly downwards, one of the most powerful drawings in the Windsor Collection, which Miss Hervey suggests is possibly a study for a second portrait of Jean de Dinteville (Pl. 36# (1)).[587] Dr. Paul Ganz considers the sitter to be a man of pronounced southern French type, and probably a member of the French embassy which was in London in 1533.[588] It is just as probable, however, that this unknown nobleman was English, for the type, though unusual, is to be met with occasionally.
Footnote 580:
Woltmann, 316; Wornum, ii. 5; Holmes, i. 15.
Footnote 581:
Woltmann, 288; Wornum, i. 21; Holmes, i. 16.
Footnote 582:
Woltmann, 310; Wornum, i. 16; Holmes, i. 18.
Footnote 583:
Woltmann, 315; Wornum, i. 44; Holmes, i. 19.
Footnote 584:
Woltmann, 320; Wornum, i. 26; Holmes, i. 23.
Footnote 585:
Woltmann, 322; Wornum, i. 41; Holmes, i. 31.
Footnote 586:
Woltmann, 346; Wornum, i. 25; Holmes, i. 51.
Footnote 587:
Woltmann, 345; Wornum, i. 12; Holmes, i. 52. See p. 44.
Footnote 588:
Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., p. 54.
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
Among the portraits of ladies it is unfortunate that several of the finest have suffered from bad rubbing. Such an one is the head of Mary, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, and wife of the King’s natural son, Henry, Duke of Richmond, which has been already described.[589] The fine head of Lady Mewtas (Pl. 37# (2)),[590] the face a strong one, is very delicately modelled, and unspoilt by the presence of too forcible outlines. Her jewelled ornaments include a circular pendant with five dark table stones and three hanging pearls, suspended from a thin chain, with beads round the neck, a circular medallion at the breast with a figure subject now almost obliterated, and across the top of the bodice a band of pearls set in groups of five like flowers. The incorrectly-named “Lady Mary, after Queen,”[591] whom it certainly does not represent, is another fine drawing which has suffered considerable damage. It has been gone over with the tracing point for transference to panel, but no painting after it is now known to exist. The same is the case with the head of the Marchioness of Dorset,[592] the daughter of Charles Brandon and the King’s sister, Mary, which also shows indications of tracing. This is a good example of a drawing in which the fine modelling of the face has now almost disappeared, so that the darker lines stand out too insistently. There is most brilliant and subtle drawing of the eyes, nose, and mouth in the very expressive and beautiful head of the so-called Lady Henegham (Pl. 38),[593] wife of Sir Anthony Hemingham or Heveningham, of Ketteringham in Norfolk, which remains in very excellent condition. She wears a small pendant ornament with one hanging pearl at her neck, and on the breast an upright oval medallion with a figure within a Renaissance framework. It has been suggested that this fine head really represents Margaret Roper, and the features are not unlike those of several members of the More family; but against this attribution must be placed the fact that the drawing, unlike all the other studies for the family picture, is not on white paper. Among the best of the other heads of women are Lady Parker,[594] Lady Lister,[595] Lady Rich,[596] Lady Elyot,[597] Lady Audley, already described (Pl. 37 (1)), an unknown lady, wearing a white cap or bonnet covering the hair and ears and reaching to the chin[598]—a large drawing on white paper, something of the type of the More family, but rather more freely drawn—and Mary Zouch (Pl. 36 (2)).[599] The last-named is one of the most attractive of the whole series. The face, seen in full, is modelled with extreme delicacy and expression. She wears a French circular hood with bands of ornament over her smooth, yellow hair, parted in the middle and covering the ears. Her dress is of black velvet, as noted in Holbein’s handwriting, and the medallion at her breast, surrounded with a Renaissance framework, has an almost obliterated subject, apparently a female figure with flying draperies seated on a rock, possibly Perseus and Andromeda. This drawing is inscribed “M. Souch,” and Sir Richard Holmes, following Wornum, suggests that the drawing represents Joan, wife of Richard Zouch, son of Lord Zouch of Haringworth. It is, however, more probably Mary Zouch, a member of the same family, who was a maid of honour to Jane Seymour, and, after the Queen’s death, received an annuity of £10 on April 6th, 1542, in recognition of her services, which was to be continued until she “was married or otherwise provided for.”[600]
Footnote 589:
Woltmann, 324; Wornum, ii. 17; Holmes, ii. 23. See pp. 110-111.
Footnote 590:
Woltmann, 339; Wornum, ii. 20; Holmes, ii. 16.
Footnote 591:
Woltmann, 331; Wornum, ii. 39; Holmes, ii. 15. Etched by Hollar (Parthey, 1465); the etching reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 199 (3).
Footnote 592:
Woltmann, 332; Wornum, ii. 16; Holmes, ii. 14.
Footnote 593:
Woltmann, 333; Wornum, ii. 25; Holmes, ii. 12.
Footnote 594:
Woltmann, 338; Wornum, ii. 28; Holmes, i. 27.
Footnote 595:
Woltmann, 336; Wornum, ii. 26; Holmes, i. 28.
Footnote 596:
Woltmann, 319; Wornum, ii. 37; Holmes, ii. 10.
Footnote 597:
Woltmann, 285; Wornum, ii. 19; Holmes, i. 39.
Footnote 598:
Woltmann, 350; Wornum, ii. 13; Holmes, ii. 11.
Footnote 599:
Woltmann, 344; Wornum, ii. 27; Holmes, i. 30.
Footnote 600:
C.L.P., vol. xvii. 283 (28). (April 6, 1542.)
[Sidenote: STUDIES IN BERLIN AND BASEL]
The Berlin Print Room possesses a remarkably fine portrait-drawing of an unknown Englishman,[601] with deep blue eyes, straight brown hair, a scanty beard, and a thoughtful, expressive face, slightly turned to the left. He wears a small flat cap, unornamented, and the usual gown with heavy fur collar. Only slight touches of colour have been used on the eyes, hair, and lips, and the paper has been covered with a pale red wash.
Footnote 601:
Woltmann, 120. Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 36; Davies, p. 224.
Among the portrait-drawings in the Basel Gallery, some fourteen in all, most of which have been already described, the finest is perhaps that of an unknown young man in a large, broad-brimmed black hat,[602] which is certainly one of the most beautiful of his drawings now existing (Pl. 39). The sitter, a handsome and dignified man, with a large, straight nose, and refined features—evidently a man of culture of the type of Bonifacius Amerbach—is turned to the left, the face seen almost in profile, though both eyes are shown. The lips of the mobile mouth are slightly parted, and the expressive eyes gaze into the distance, as though he were lost in thought. The brown, bushy hair, which covers the ears and falls over the forehead, is drawn with rapid, masterly touches, and the profile of the face stands out with great effect against the dark background formed by the underside of his large hat. The flesh tints are suggested with simple but subtle touches of the chalk. The dress is merely sketched in with a few lines, though the brown fur collar of his coat is sufficiently indicated just where it comes under the beardless chin. This superb drawing, in which the artist has seized upon and set down with unerring insight the finest traits of the sitter’s character, is in black and coloured chalks. The type of face, in the opinion of Woltmann and Dr. Ganz, is distinctly German. From its technique, which, on the one hand, has much in common with the later studies of the Meyer family made for the Darmstadt “Madonna,” and on the other with the drawings for the More Family Group, it may be surmised that this study was made in Basel shortly before Holbein left for his first visit to England. It has much in common, too, with the coloured drawing in Basel of Holbein himself, and it may be noted, as a small point, that the hat the unknown youth is wearing is similar to the one the artist wears, though rather larger, and is of a different fashion from the black head-gear worn by Holbein’s English sitters.
Footnote 602:
Woltmann, 38. Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., i. 54, and Holbein, p. xxxi.; Knackfuss, fig. 106.
Among the other portraits of unknown personages at Basel are two heads of an Englishman and his wife,[603] and a third, still finer, of a lady wearing the angular English head-dress and black fall, who was evidently a member of the court circle.[604] This drawing, which is also in black and coloured chalks, must be placed among the best of Holbein’s studies of women. It has been conjectured that it represents Lady Carew, and also Lady Guldeford. The equally beautiful drawing of Sir Nicholas Carew[605] has been described already. All the drawings just mentioned form part of the Amerbach Collection, and it may be suggested, though the suggestion is not a very plausible one, that at least those of them which represent English people were taken to Basel by Holbein himself, on one or other of his visits home, and were left behind when he returned to England, together with the sketch-book, also in the Amerbach Collection, which is undoubtedly of the English period; or, on the other hand, they may have been sent over from London to his widow with his personal belongings by his executors after his death.
Footnote 603:
Woltmann, 36, 37. The lady reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., i. 11. Already described. See Vol. i. p. 321, and Plate 82, Vol. i.
Footnote 604:
Woltmann, 32. Reproduced by Davies, p. 224; Knackfuss, fig. 105. Already described. See Vol. i. p. 321, and Plate 81 (2), Vol. i.
Footnote 605:
Woltmann, 31. Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., iii. 40; and in Holbein, p. xxxiii.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN AND THE CLOUETS]
Altogether apart from their artistic merits, these drawings of Holbein’s are of the utmost historical value, both on account of their number, including as they do so many of the leading characters who played a part in the making of England in Tudor days, and also because of the perfection of their draughtsmanship and the corresponding life-likeness of their portraiture, so that they form true documents in every sense of the word. Holbein’s genius shows us Henry’s ministers and the lords and ladies who surrounded him, just as they were in life, without any attempt at flattery, but with every feature set down with unfaltering truth, and, above all, with a grasp of character which the portrait drawings of no other great master of his period show in the same degree. He has left behind, as a mine of wealth for the use of the student of history, in drawings alone, without taking into account his numerous painted portraits for which no drawings now exist, a series of more than one hundred representations of Tudor men and women. In only one other instance can we turn to a similar series of contemporary portraits—the chalk drawings of French men and women of the same century by the two Clouets, Jean and François, father and son. These, though of the utmost value as historical portraiture, and also of great beauty and even fascination as works of art, fall short of the greatness which stamps Holbein’s work of a like nature. The elder Clouet had not his mastery of drawing; his knowledge was more limited and his means more restricted. His drawings have “a stiffness and dryness which are very far from the flowing and supple handling of the Basle master.”[606] His son had considerably more science. “His drawing in reality is extremely profound, and as exactly calculated as any known. In tracing the human face and all the parts presented by the model, he has the ability of a specialist, whose long practice of an art that is deep rather than wide has enabled him to accumulate a mass of information and experience. He reaches perfection in the proportion of the features, in the exact placing of all the fine fugitive, mobile parts of the face, in the careful study of the extremely subtle relations from which the mass of form draws its solidity, and in skill in constructing the unity of impression of a face and of a type.”[607] He has little or nothing, however, of Holbein’s beauty of style. Holbein’s drawings are matchless in the delicacy of their modelling, every little depression or prominence in the contours of the face being indicated with an exactitude and a simplicity of means unrivalled in work of such nature; and also for the way in which this delicacy of touch in handling the crayon, and subtlety and precision of the strengthening lines with brush or pencil, are combined with the wonderful vigour and sense of life with which each individual drawing is filled. Added to their truthfulness in portraiture there is that remarkable insight into the true nature and feelings of the sitter which is one of the greatest qualities of Holbein’s art. It is owing to the knowledge and mastery which are the basis of these Portrait-Studies—studies usually made with rapidity, but in which nothing essential has been missed by the penetrating eye and unerring hand of the artist—that so perfect a result is obtained with means apparently so slight. Delicacy and strength meet in them in exquisite combination; the flexibility and refinement of his line are always kept well under control, and there is no over-elaboration of detail to the detriment of character. Each drawing bears upon it the stamp of a style, and of a great style, which was Holbein’s own individual possession, in which freedom and truth are tempered and perfected by self-restraint.
Footnote 606:
Dimier, French Painting in the Sixteenth Century, p. 44.
Footnote 607:
Dimier, p. 205.
[Sidenote: “THE QUEEN OF SHEBA”]
To attempt even a list of Holbein’s more important drawings other than his portrait-studies would be quite beyond the scope of this book, in the course of which, however, many of them have been touched upon; but there still remain several which cannot be passed over in silence. Chief among them is the small drawing on parchment, highly finished like a miniature, in the Library, Windsor Castle, which represents the “Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon” (Pl. 40).[608] It is a composition containing no less than thirty-four small figures, and so, after the wall-paintings in the Basel Town Hall and the “Triumphs” of the London Steelyard, is one of the most considerable arrangements of grouping ever attempted by him. King Solomon is seated on a throne on a high daïs approached by a number of steps within a large chamber, the roof of which is supported by slender columns of Renaissance architecture. Behind the throne is suspended a large curtain, and on the steps on either side are placed groups of the elders and long-bearded wise men of Solomon’s kingdom. In the centre the Queen mounts the steps, her hands outstretched as though in wonder and admiration of the great king. In the foreground a procession of her ten ladies, walking two and two, passes towards the left, and on the right are a group of her attendants bearing rich presents, some of them kneeling with uplifted baskets. The drawing is in silver-point, slightly washed with grey and brown, and touched here and there with water-colour; the fruits in one of the baskets are red and green, and some of the draperies and details are touched with dead gold. The background between the pillars is blue powdered with gold stars. The Renaissance architecture of the setting is purer and less florid in style than is the case with many of Holbein’s earlier studies for glass paintings. The figures of the women are gracefully conceived and grouped, and the heads of the men have character and expression. In its general arrangement the upper half of this miniature drawing recalls the “Rehoboam” wall-painting in the Basel Town Hall, though the setting is more richly treated; while in the general gracefulness of its design it is Italian in feeling, and has close affinity to the “Triumph of Riches” drawing for the decoration of the Steelyard. It was probably done at about the same date as the latter, perhaps as a present for the King, the subject having been chosen as conveying a subtle and flattering suggestion that Henry and Solomon were alike in their possession of great wisdom. It is finished with such minute care that it does not seem likely that it is merely the preparatory sketch for some larger picture or wall-painting. There is no record of any wall-decoration of this subject, either in the Steelyard or at Whitehall, though Holbein may have had some idea when at work upon it that it might serve for such a purpose afterwards if it met with the King’s approval; or, on the other hand, it may be a miniature copy from one of his frescoes in grisaille, which has disappeared, made by Holbein himself as a gift for his royal master. It was at one time in the Arundel Collection, and while there was engraved by Hollar. In the inventory of that collection it is entered as “Regina de Saba in miniatura chiaroscuro.” There is a picture in the Dresden Gallery representing the “Death of Virginia,” which appears to be an early copy of another of Holbein’s lost frescoes in grisaille, which has many points in common with the “Queen of Sheba” miniature painting, and is carried out in a similar scheme of colouring. Both were, no doubt, the work of his second English residence.[609]
Footnote 608:
Woltmann, 272. Reproduced in Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 32, and in Holbein, p. 182; Knackfuss, fig. 145.
Footnote 609:
See Woltmann, ii. p. 124. Reproduced by Ganz, Holbein, p. 174.
Another important drawing, of an earlier date, in the Städel Institut at Frankfurt, represents a transport ship about to put out to sea.[610] It is a three-masted vessel, with high poop, crowded with small figures, among them a troop of landsknechte, one of whom stands in the stern, a fine figure, holding aloft a banner which flaps in the wind. Others play drum and trumpets, some hold pikes, and one of them embraces a girl. The anchor has been hauled up, and most of the sailors are at work in the rigging unfurling the sails; but several of them are taking parting drinks from large jars, even at the masthead, and one of the number is already overcome with sea-sickness. Below, on the left, a boat with two rowers is pulling vigorously towards the ship, either to put on board a late comer or to fetch off those for the shore. The exact date of this drawing is uncertain. It is possible that Holbein saw some such vessel during his visit to Amerbach in the south of France, or that he made it a year or two later at Antwerp on his way to England for the first time.
Footnote 610:
Woltmann, 152. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 70. Water-colour has been used for the faces, dresses, and other parts of the drawing.
His skill in the representation of animals is shown in a number of drawings. There are some fine horses in the “Triumph of Riches” study, and also in the “Samuel and Saul” and the “Sapor and Valerian” drawings for the Basel Town Hall paintings, as well as in the woodcut of “The Ploughman” in the “Dance of Death” series and in others of his woodcut illustrations; the latter also showing good studies of sheep, dogs, and other animals. The early drawings of a lamb and a bat have been described on a previous page.[611]
Footnote 611:
See Vol. i. p. 161.
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XXVII. DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY AND THE DECORATIVE ARTS
Holbein as a practical designer for craftsmen in the different branches of art workmanship—Architectural designs—The “Holbein Gate” at Whitehall—The Porch at Wilton—Drawing of a royal chimney-piece in the British Museum—Ceilings in St. James’s Palace and the Matted Gallery, Whitehall—Sculptured capitals in the More Chapel, Chelsea Church—Glass window in Shelton Church, Norfolk—Number of his designs for jewellers, goldsmiths, and armourers—The Jane Seymour Cup—Other designs for cups in the Basel Museum—Sir Anthony Denny’s clock—Sword and dagger hilts and sheaths—Henry VIII’s love of jewellery—Pendants—Book covers—Monograms—Panels of ornament—Designs for circular medallions or enseignes in the British Museum and at Chatsworth and Basel—The leading English and foreign jewellers in London—Holbein’s probable connection with some of them.
Holbein was a master in all crafts, and Erasmus’ description of him in his letter to Peter Ægidius,[612] not as painter, or sculptor, but simply as a fine workman (insignis artifex), was a true one. His great technical powers in every department of decorative design, his practical knowledge of the various processes employed in the different branches of art workmanship for which he supplied the craftsmen with patterns and working drawings, show him to have been a real master of arts in every sense of the word.
Footnote 612:
See Vol. i. p. 255.
“The artistic quality he possessed in the highest degree,” says Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, “was, I consider, the intensity with which he realised ‘form.’ Able master as he was of delineation, what gives the stamp of enduring truth to his work is the feeling of assurance his delineation conveys to the mind of the spectator, that what he has drawn from life was the vera effigies of what he saw—that what he designed could never be executed with equal propriety in any other way than as his drawing defined it. There is never any uncertainty as to his intention or meaning—what he says was, was—what he says should be, should be. In this precise conception of pure form and power of conveying his own sense of it to others, he stood upon the same platform as the great men to whose universal genius I have already alluded—Albert Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. The artist who possesses in a high degree any such power as that I have attempted to define, must of necessity have the requisite aptitude for success in either painting, architecture, or sculpture, or all three; since the power in question lies at the root of and is indispensable to the satisfactory practice of either or all. Architects will do well to look earnestly at such reliques as time has spared of the genius of Dürer, Da Vinci, and especially of Hans Holbein, since, so far as I know, they were the best makers of working drawings who ever lived. Of whatever they drew they gave every characteristic, and their slightest sketches never fail to mark essentials and to omit secondaries of form and expression.”[613]
Footnote 613:
M. Digby Wyatt, “Foreign Artists employed in England,” &c., Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1868, p. 229.
Horace Walpole, speaking of the rise of Renaissance architecture in England—“Grecian art plaistered on Gothic,” he calls it—says that “the beginning of reformation in building seems owing to Holbein. His porch at Wilton, though purer than the works of his successors, is of this bastard sort; but the ornaments and proportions are graceful and well chosen. I have seen drawings of his, too, in the same kind. Where he acquired this taste is difficult to say; probably it was adopted from his acquaintance with his fellow-labourers at court.”[614] Though there is no doubt that Holbein would have been a fine architect had his inclination led him to practise that branch of art—the backgrounds of his designs for painted glass afford ample proof of his aptitude for design in the new architectural manner of the Italian Renaissance—Walpole’s assertion cannot be accepted as the truth. Henry VIII had at least two good Italian architects in his employment—first, Girolamo da Treviso, and afterwards John of Padua, as well as sculptors and modellers of architectural detail such as Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni da Maiano, and it is the influence of such Italians as these that is to be most clearly discerned in the buildings which were erected in England at this period. Holbein produced a few designs of an architectural nature, but no building exists of which it can be said that he was the architect.
Footnote 614:
Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. 128.
[Sidenote: “HOLBEIN’S GATE” AT WHITEHALL]
The gateway which, according to tradition, he designed, and hence known as “Holbein’s Gate,” was one of Henry VIII’s additions to Whitehall, and connected the tennis court, the cock-pit, and the bowling-green with the palace, besides providing the King with a gallery into the park, from which he could witness the sports which took place there on special occasions. It was built, according to Walcott, of stone mixed with small squares of flint, and tesselated, and was “very neatly set.” J. T. Smith, in his Antiquities of Westminster, describes it as being in the Tudor style of architecture, with battlements and four lofty towers, the whole enriched with bustos on the north and south sides. Pennant, who had himself seen the gate, says: “To Holbein was owing the most beautiful gate at Whitehall, built with bricks of two colours, glazed and disposed in a tesselated fashion. The top, as well as an elegant tower on each side, were embattled. On each front were four busts, in baked clay, which resisted to the last every attack of the weather.” An excellent idea of its appearance is to be obtained from the engraving by G. Vertue (1725) in the “Vetusta Monumenta.”
The gateway was pulled down in 1759 in order to widen Parliament Street. The materials were obtained by the Duke of Cumberland, Ranger of Windsor Park, with the intention of re-erecting the gate at the end of the Long Walk. In the end, however, they were worked up in several buildings the Duke built in the park. Two of the medallions were put in front of the park lodges, but most of them appear to have been stolen when the gateway was pulled down. Three of them eventually came into the possession of a coachbuilder named Wright, who, in 1769, employed John Flaxman, the sculptor, then a boy, to repair them. They were in terra-cotta, coloured and gilt, and the ornaments included the rose and crown and the King’s initials. Wright had them removed to Hatfield Priory, Essex, where they were still to be seen in 1803, in which year J. T. Smith went down there to copy them. They were larger than life, and were said to be representations of Henry VII, Henry VIII when sixteen, and Bishop Fisher. The two which decorated the front of the park lodges were afterwards removed to Hampton Court, where, says Allan Cunningham, “they are made to do duty as two of the Roman emperors described by Hentzner in his Travels.” It seems probable that they were the work of Giovanni da Maiano. In its design there is nothing to suggest that Holbein was the architect of this famous gateway, and it is much more probable that one of the Italians employed by the King was responsible for it; and the legend which connects Holbein with it may have arisen from the fact that he had rooms in Whitehall, possibly in the very gateway to which his name has been so long attached. It contained, says Dallaway, “several apartments, but the most remarkable was the ‘little study, called the New Library,’ in which Holbein was accustomed to employ himself in his art, and the courtiers to sit for their portraits.”[615]
Footnote 615:
Dallaway, notes to Walpole’s Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, p. 133.
[Sidenote: THE PORCH AT WILTON]
Tradition has also long associated the name of Holbein with the Porch at Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke. This porch or loggia is of no great beauty, but it is free from any admixture of Gothic detail, and is a good example of the early adaptation in England of Renaissance architecture and ornamentation. It originally formed part of the house, but in the nineteenth century, when some alterations to the buildings were made, it was removed to the end of a walk in the gardens. The dissolution of the monastery of St. Edith, on the site of which the house stands, took place in 1539, and the abbey and its rich possessions were granted by the King to Sir William Herbert shortly afterwards. In the erection of his mansion the first Earl no doubt employed one of the architects then attached to Henry’s court, for there is little in the design of this small porch to support the tradition that the man he selected was Holbein, rather than one of the Italians whose business it was to invent and embellish such buildings. It is, indeed, simpler in design and less lavish in ornamental detail than those architectural backgrounds to his windows which Holbein produced when in Basel, based upon recollections of his visit to Italy. The size of the porch may be gauged by the entrance-way, which measures 8 feet in height. Round the three outer doorways runs an interlaced design cut in low relief, which still retains much of its original colour, the ground a rich red and the ornament yellow, from which the original gilding has worn away. In the corners a wreath of fruit and flowers encircles a small wyvern on a blue background. Above the capitals of the fluted pillars, and just below the projecting mouldings that divide the upper and lower portions of the porch, is a broad band filled with a pattern of intersecting circles, painted on a flat surface in light blue and yellow, lined and touched with darker blue and red. Probably the whole surface was originally painted and gilded. In the upper part the double pillars are repeated, but with rich acanthus capitals. On the three faces over the openings are panels with the Pembroke coat of arms, with a circular medallion on each side, containing heads of men and women in relief, those on the front being apparently busts of the Earl and his wife. The vigorous heraldic design supported by the Talbot dogs and wyverns forms a novel finish to the crown. The interior has a ribbed and vaulted ceiling, and brackets and other details in bold relief, including a number of figures on pedestals. It is, of course, possible that Holbein provided drawings for the building of this porch, but there is no real evidence of this, and the style of the design does not suggest his invention. It is much more likely to have been due to one of Henry’s Italians, such as Antonio Toto. “The character of the whole,” says Woltmann, “as is shown especially in the crowning, is far too feeble for us to think of Holbein as its architect; and, besides this, the costume of the half-length figures, introduced in several of the medallions, shows that the work was executed near the close of the sixteenth century.”[616] Wornum also calls attention to the lateness of the costumes, and says of the porch itself that it displays “neither taste nor knowledge of the style.” He adds: “As for the Whitehall Gate, it was a mongrel of Gothic and Renaissance quite unworthy of Holbein, and, I should imagine, an impossible design for him; it was similar in general character to the gate of St. James’s Palace, at the bottom of St. James’s Street.”[617] Waagen says that the medallions contain busts of Edward VI and the Pembroke family.[618]
Footnote 616:
Woltmann, Eng. trans., p. 419.
Footnote 617:
Wornum, pp. 359-60.
Footnote 618:
For drawings of this porch and its various details, and a description of it as it now is, see an article in the Art Journal, 1897, pp. 45-8, written and illustrated by Mr. G. Fidler.
Among the architectural works by Holbein, which, if they were ever carried out, cannot now be traced, must be placed his very admirable design in the British Museum for a magnificent chimney-piece[619] for one of Henry VIII’s palaces, in all probability Bridewell. It is conceived in the finest Renaissance taste, and is covered with elaborate and beautiful ornamentation. It is in two stages, each flanked by a pair of fluted pillars carrying richly-decorated entablatures. The upper part is divided into six divisions, the three higher ones containing the royal arms and motto, and the king’s initials and badges, the portcullis and fleur-de-lis. The central panel of the lower range represents a battle of horsemen, and the two on either side contain circular medallions with figures of Charity and Justice, charming compositions, in which beauty of form is rendered with all that freedom and life-like accuracy which characterise everything Holbein produced, even his most hasty sketches. The lower part of the fireplace, over the open hearth, on which the logs are shown burning across two fire-dogs, is filled with a semicircular lunette, with a second scene of horsemen engaged in furious combat, in the centre of which is a wreathed medallion with figures of Esther and Ahasuerus. In the spandrels are smaller rounds with the heads of a lady and a helmeted warrior. On the bases of the pillars on either side are blank tablets for inscriptions, surrounded by scroll-work. This splendid fireplace was evidently intended to occupy an important position in one of the King’s buildings, as the frequent occurrence of his initials and the presence of the royal coat of arms and badges indicate. Peacham, in his Compleat Gentleman, when speaking of Holbein, says that he has seen “of his owne draught with a penne, a most curious chimney-peece K. Henry had bespoke for his new built pallace at Bridewell,” and there is no doubt that this is the drawing to which he referred. It is in pen and ink, with Indian-ink wash and slight colour, 21¼ in. × 16¾ in., and was formerly in the Arundel,[620] Richardson, and Walpole collections. It is possible that Holbein made similar designs for Nonsuch Palace. In this drawing Mr. Digby Wyatt thought he saw the same designer as the one who produced the beautiful woodwork of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. This important work, he says, “I cannot hesitate to believe must have been executed from his designs.... In its way it is a model of Renaissance wood-carving, revealing in every arabesque, and especially in the ornaments of the lunettes, the peculiarities of classical form as they were first, if I may use the expression, translated from the Italian into German by Albert Dürer, Altdorfer, Peter Vischer, and others, including Holbein.”[621] The ceiling of the chapel of St. James’s Palace has also been attributed to Holbein, though without any evidence but that of style. This ceiling, says Wornum, “is a curious work, a panelled Renaissance design, and tastefully coloured. It was repaired in 1836 by Sir R. Smirke; the general ground is blue; the panellings are defined by ribs of wood gilt; there are also ornaments in foliage, painted green; and there are many coats of arms emblazoned in their proper colours. A small running open ornament, cast in lead, enriches the under sides of the ribs. The date 1540 occurs in several places, and various short inscriptions are scattered about, as—Henricus Rex 8—H and A, for Henry and Anne of Cleves, with a lover’s knot between them.”[622] His work in connection with the internal decoration of Whitehall, including the great fresco in the Privy Chamber and the ceiling in the Matted Gallery, mentioned by Pepys, has been already described.[623]
Footnote 619:
British Museum Catalogue, 16 (vol. i. p. 330). Woltmann, 197. Reproduced by His, Pls. 48-50; Davies, p. 224. The work was probably carried out by Nicolas Bellin, “maker of his Majesty’s chimneys.”
Footnote 620:
Countess of Arundel’s inventory—“Disegno per Ornamento d’un Camino.”
Footnote 621:
M. Digby Wyatt, Transactions Royal Institute of British Architects, 1868, p. 233.
Footnote 622:
Wornum, p. 309, note. A view of the ceiling is given in Richardson’s Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I, 1838, Pl. 12.
Footnote 623:
See pp. 93-98 and 185-188.
[Sidenote: MORE CHAPEL IN CHELSEA CHURCH]
One more work of an architectural nature, attributed to Holbein by Mr. F. M. Nichols in his paper, to which reference has been already made, read before the Society of Antiquaries in March 1898, must be noted. In the design of the two capitals[624] supporting the arch which divides the chancel of old Chelsea Church from the More Chapel he “recognised at once the characteristic invention of Holbein.” Each capital is “founded upon the suggestion of a classical capital of the composite order. But the antique model is treated with a freedom which would scarcely have commended itself to the taste of an Italian artist.” They are capitals of half columns, there being only a single arch between the chapel and the chancel, and each capital, like the pillars, has five sides, as the columns, if completed, would be octagonal. In the eastern capital the volutes terminate in a projecting human head, and in each hollow of the abacus above is inserted the winged head of a cherub. The acanthus-leaf design which covers the lower part has various objects introduced among the foliage, such as a shield with More’s arms and his crest of a Moor’s head, a sword crossed with a sceptre, a mace, and two ornamented tablets, one of which bears the date 1528 in Arabic numerals. The western capital is of a somewhat similar design. Human heads take the place of those of the cherubs, and the five sides below display various religious emblems and ornaments, such as crossed candlesticks, a bundle of tapers, a pail of holy water with sprinkling-brush, a clasped prayer-book or missal, and a blank shield. These objects clearly have reference to the religious ceremonies in which More was accustomed to take part in the chapel, while the ornaments on the other capital may have reference to his secular employments. The Holbeinesque character of the designs, combined with the locality of Chelsea, the association with Sir Thomas, and the date 1528, during the earlier part of which year Holbein was still in England, are sufficient, in Mr. Nichols’ opinion, to prove that Holbein was the designer. Mr. Beaver, in his Memorials of Chelsea, in discussing the authorship of these capitals, rejects their attribution to Holbein on the ground that they have an Italian character, and may be more probably ascribed to one of the Italian artists then employed in this country; and most architects who have made a close study of this period are in agreement with him. “But,” says Mr. Nichols, “there are abundant examples in Holbein’s work of his fondness for architectural details of a Renaissance type.... An Italian architect would scarcely have dealt so freely with the just proportions of the classic capital upon which his design was founded. And I am inclined to think that there was only one artist in England at that time who combined the fertility of invention and the graceful mastery of detail shown in these capitals with the boldness and freedom with which the classic model is treated.”[625] Mr. Reginald Blomfield is of opinion that these carvings are of French origin. He says: “The names of French artists or workmen scarcely ever occur in the State Papers, and there are few instances of Renaissance work in England which can be attributed to them. The capitals to the arch between the More chantry and the chancel of old Chelsea Church are an unusual instance. They closely resemble French work of the early sixteenth century such as is found along the banks of the Seine between Paris and Rouen. The monument in the Oxenbrigge Chapel in Brede Church, Sussex, dated 1537, is another rare example. It is of Caen stone, admirably carved, and was probably made in France and shipped to the port of Rye, some nine miles distant from Brede.”[626]
Footnote 624:
Reproduced from photographs in Mr. Nichols’ paper, Proceedings Soc. of Antiq., second series, vol. xvii. No. 1 (March 1898), pp. 132-45.
Footnote 625:
See Nichols, Proceedings Soc. of Antiq., second series, vol. xvii. No. 1, p. 143.
Footnote 626:
Blomfield, History of Renaissance Art in England, 1897, i. 18. In a letter to the present writer, in 1901, Mr. Blomfield, after his attention had been called to Mr. Nichols’ paper, states that he adheres to his opinion that the Chelsea capitals are of French origin.
In the same paper Mr. Nichols also draws attention to a two-light stained-glass window in the south chapel of the village church of Shelton in Norfolk, which contains figures of Sir John Shelton and his wife, Ann, daughter of Sir William Boleyn and aunt to Henry VIII’s second queen, a lady well known about the court, who at one time had charge of the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. The work, in Mr. Nichols’ opinion, is evidently of foreign origin, being totally different from the English glass of the same period within a few feet of it, and the faces and figures being executed more in the manner of a picture than of stained glass. The foreign origin of the work is shown, among other indications, by the peculiar treatment of the heraldry, which has a decidedly German character. Both figures are represented kneeling, Sir John in a crimson robe lined with fur, and his dame in a contemporary dress of crimson, with the English angular head-dress. The heads appear to have been carefully drawn from good portrait-studies supplied to the glazier. Calculating from the known age and date of Sir John Shelton’s death and his appearance in the window, Mr. Nichols holds that these portrait-studies must have been made about 1527, and he is of opinion that Holbein’s was the hand which supplied some foreign glazier with the designs for them. Neither of the heads, however, is to be found among the Windsor series.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERS]
It is when we turn to Holbein’s work for jewellers and silversmiths that the extraordinary fertility and happiness of his invention and the beauty of his design are seen to the greatest advantage. Some hundreds of his working drawings in this branch of art still exist, the greater number of which are in the British Museum and at Basel, those in the latter collection being for the most part contained in a sketch-book of his later English period; indeed, most of the drawings which have survived were produced in England, though he must have carried out a considerable body of work of the same nature while in Basel. When he came to London he was already a master of decorative design as applied to most of the handicrafts, and his influence soon made itself felt among a number of the craftsmen employed by Henry and his court. His wonderful skill in the production of fine Renaissance ornamentation of the purest taste, combined with a happy use of the human figure, set a fashion in jewellery and personal ornament, and inspired those who carried out his designs to a greater beauty and delicacy of workmanship. The impetus he gave was in the direction of fresh models of beautiful form in place of the mannerisms of Gothic art into which the decorative crafts had sunk in this country at the period of his first arrival in England. Even at so early an age he already possessed, in addition to his skill in painting and drawing and book illustration, a thorough knowledge of the rules of composition and design according to the best Italian traditions, and was well versed in the use of the forms and proportions of classical architecture and ornament, in addition to possessing practical skill in the true application of design to the various art crafts and industries.
[Sidenote: DESIGNS FOR CUPS AND GOBLETS]
Holbein’s most elaborate design for goldsmiths’ work which has survived is the one known as the Jane Seymour Cup, which was evidently made to the order of the King at about the time of his marriage with that lady in 1536. Two drawings for this exist in pen and ink, the more highly-finished one, which is washed with colour and gold, being in the Bodleian Library, Oxford,[627] and the other in the British Museum,[628] the latter (Pl. 41), which is 17¾ in. × 9½ in., showing slight modifications. The cup is a covered one, of a very beautiful shape, the lines of which are not disguised or confused by the lavish ornamentation with which it is covered. The body is set with four circular medallions containing busts of “antique heads” in high relief, the one facing the spectator being a woman with bared breast. Above them is a deep band of exceptionally beautiful interlacing ornament of floriated design; and below a smaller band with the initials of Henry and his Queen, entwined with true-lovers’ knots, alternating with square-cut precious stones set as flowers, and similar bands of precious stones at the base, and round the rim of the cover. The stem is decorated with hanging pearls and dolphins, cupids’ heads, and wreaths, and a narrow band containing the motto of the Queen, “Bound to Obey and Serve,” which is repeated on the cover. The latter is of very light and graceful design, with two grotesque figures terminating in fish-tails blowing foliated trumpets, and above them two cupids supporting a shield surmounted by the royal crown. When carried out in gold the general effect must have been one of extraordinary richness and beauty. That it was so completed is proved by the fact that the cup itself was still in the royal collection at the accession of Charles I in 1625. In an inventory of that date it is thus described: “Item a faire standing Cupp of Goulde, garnished about the cover with eleaven Dyamonds, and two poynted Dyamonds about the Cupp, seaventeene Table Dyamonds and one Pearle Pendent uppon the Cupp, with theis words BOVND TO OBEY AND SERVE, and H and I knitt together; in the Topp of the Cover the Queenes Armes, an Queene Janes Armes houlden by twoe Boyes under a Crowne Imperiall, weighing Threescore and five ounces and a halfe.” No further traces of this masterpiece of the goldsmith’s art exist. In spite of its beauty, it was most probably melted down, like much of the royal plate, to meet the demands of an impoverished exchequer. It is, indeed, a matter of the keenest regret that, in spite of the hundreds of designs with which Holbein furnished the London goldsmiths or the Basel armourers, not a single example of work so carried out remains, and his achievements in this branch of art can only be judged from his working drawings.
Footnote 627:
Woltmann, 222. Reproduced by His, Pl. xlv.
Footnote 628:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 18. Reproduced by Davies, p. 204; Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 47.
His designs for cups with covers, goblets, tankards, and other table vessels, which from the richness of their ornament were evidently intended for ceremonious occasions, are numerous. Some of them are only known through Hollar’s etchings, while the drawings for the remainder are for the most part in the Basel Gallery. The most interesting of them is the standing cup and cover in the Basel sketch-book, which Holbein designed for his friend Hans von Antwerp (Pl. 42),[629] which may have been intended by the latter as an addition to the collection of plate in the guild-hall of the Steelyard merchants. The left-hand half has been drawn with the pen, from which the other half has been transferred by damping and pressure. The broad, flat body has a deep band of ornament containing nude figures blowing trumpets amid foliage, and a somewhat similar band round the base, and on the crest of the cover is the nude figure of Truth holding a book and a lighted torch. By the side is an alternative design for this figure. Round the rim of the cover is inscribed HANS VON ANT[WERPEN]. Another cup and cover, or table ornament, with a wide stand, of which only the left side is shown, though much more hasty in execution, is a more highly elaborated piece of decoration, in which small nude standing figures are combined with leafage and festoons.[630] On the side of the sheet are a number of alternative sketches for various details. There is no need to describe at length the other designs for covered cups in the Basel Gallery, one of which is surmounted by the nude figure of a woman with right arm extended and the left hand resting on a shield;[631] while a second design has a figure of Justice, and on the base a medallion with the bust of a lady in sixteenth-century costume.[632] Several studies for tankards are to be found among Hollar’s etchings. These etchings indicate the existence at one time of a third sketch-book or set of designs, which, at the time when Hollar worked from it, was in the possession of the Earl of Arundel, but has since disappeared.
Footnote 629:
Woltmann, 110 (104). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxvii. 1. See Vol. ii. p. 11.
Footnote 630:
Woltmann, 110 (99). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxxi. 2.
Footnote 631:
Woltmann, 109. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxvi. 2.
Footnote 632:
Woltmann, 110 (100). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxvi. 3; Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., i. 12.
One of the most important of Holbein’s designs in the British Museum is the large drawing in pen and ink and Indian-ink wash, of an astronomical clock, which was formerly in the Mariette and Horace Walpole collections (Pl. 43).[633] This clock, the design for which must have been one of Holbein’s last undertakings, was presented to Henry VIII by Sir Anthony Denny on New Year’s Day, 1544, shortly after the painter’s death. It consists of an hour-glass enclosed within a case, the doors of which stand open in the drawing, with a terminal figure of a satyr in the centre, which recalls the very similar figure in the full-length woodcut portrait of Erasmus. The hour-glass rests on a pedestal with legs, supported at the corners with other terminal figures of satyrs, and having a circular space in the centre left blank in the drawing. On the decorated crown of the case stand two nude boys—for which there is an alternative design in the British Museum on one of the leaves of the Sloane sketch-book[634]—each pointing to a sundial of metal curved outwards in an arc, for which their fingers serve as gnomon. On their heads rests a mechanical clock with a sun-face in the centre of the dial with fiery locks, one of which forms the pointer, the whole surmounted by a crown. On the left side of the sheet is a compass, probably intended to fit inside the clock-case. The drawing is inscribed, in Sir Anthony Denny’s own handwriting: “Strena facta pro anthony deny camerario regio quod in initio novi anni 1544 regi dedit.” He was then King’s Chamberlain, and was knighted in the September of the year in which he made his royal master this handsome gift. Other notes occur on the drawing, here and there illegible, made evidently for the guidance of the craftsman who carried out Holbein’s design, which is simpler, though no less characteristic in style, than his drawing for Queen Jane Seymour’s gold cup.
Footnote 633:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 17. Woltmann, 193. Reproduced by His, Pl. xlvii.; Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 48.
Footnote 634:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 22 (a); Woltmann, 194. Reproduced by His, Pl. xlvi.
[Sidenote: DESIGNS FOR SHEATHS AND HILTS]
His designs for sword and dagger hilts, sheaths, and various ornaments for sword-belts and weapons are numerous, and again display his extraordinary fertility of invention and his power of combining the human figure with conventional floral and grotesque Renaissance ornament into a decorative whole of the utmost elegance and beauty. One of the finest, and most elaborate, is the large pen-and-wash drawing, 17⅞ in. × 4⅝ in., in the British Museum, which was purchased in 1874 from the Earl of Wicklow’s collection (Pl. 44).[635] The handle has spiral bands set with stones, and numerous pearls are also set in the sheath, the hilt, and the guard. These gems are held or supported by a number of nude figures of women, old men, satyrs, and children amid foliage, each one full of individual character, and drawn as only Holbein could draw them. It was evidently intended for execution in chiselled gold or silver, and produces an effect of great splendour. Only the right half of the sheath is drawn, as the design was to be repeated on the other side. There is an alternative design for parts of the hilt in the Basel Gallery.[636] In the latter collection there is also a study for the sheath of a short sword or cutlass in which a somewhat similar arrangement has been carried out.[637] It is an offset taken by Holbein from a pen-and-ink drawing. Another of the Basel designs is for a powder-flask, possibly to be executed in bone or ivory, in which naked cupids are intermingled with the foliage.[638]
Footnote 635:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 19. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxix.; Davies, p. 206.
Footnote 636:
Woltmann, 110 (97). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxx. 3.
Footnote 637:
Woltmann, 110 (28). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxxi. 1.
Footnote 638:
Reproduced by His, xxxi. 3.
There is a splendid design for a dagger sheath in the Bernburg Ducal Library, which is divided into four compartments, the three upper ones containing figures in settings of Renaissance architecture.[639] In the uppermost is a group representing the Judgment of Paris. The youth, in sixteenth-century costume, reclines with his back against a pillar with Mercury bending over him and offering him the apple, the three goddesses standing in front of him, and Cupid aiming at him with a bow and arrow. The next division shows the deaths of Pyramus, a cleverly foreshortened figure beneath a fountain, and Thisbe, who is stabbing herself by his body. Below is Venus within a scalloped niche, with the long ass’s ears of a jester, and a blindfolded cupid at her feet. The lowest compartment contains scroll-work, the whole terminating in a cherub’s head within volutes, with the initial H. at the bottom. There is a slighter preliminary pen study for this sheath in the Basel Gallery, which shows a number of differences (Pl. 45 (3)).[640] Another dagger sheath at Basel is of particular interest because it is dated 1529,[641] and so must have been drawn in Basel after Holbein’s return from his first visit to England (Pl. 45 (1)). The design consists entirely of conventional foliage, seen against a black background, as though to be executed in chiselled open-work over some black material such as velvet, or to be filled in with niello. There are other sheaths in which the subject stands out against a plain black background, one, in Berlin, with a Dance of Death,[642] of which there is a repetition at Basel (Pl. 46 (1)),[643] which appears to be an impression taken from the Berlin drawing, strengthened and finished with Indian-ink, by some other hand than Holbein’s; and another in the British Museum, with a Triumph of Bellona,[644] of which only the sheath is by him. The hilt is obviously the work of some other designer, in all probability, according to the British Museum catalogue, Peter Flötner of Nuremberg. It was formerly in the Beckford Collection, and consists of two pieces of paper joined together, the hilt on one and the sheath on the other. Another sheath in the Basel Gallery is decorated with a Roman Triumph (Pl. 46 (2)),[645] slightly drawn, in the manner of Mantegna, recalling the frieze in the 1517 portrait of Benedikt von Hertenstein; and a second of a like quality, representing Joshua’s Passage of the Jordan (Pl. 46 (3)).[646] Other designs for the knobs and cross-pieces of dagger hilts will be found in the British Museum (Pl. 47).
Footnote 639:
Woltmann, 124. Reproduced by Woltmann, i. p. 434.
Footnote 640:
Woltmann, 60. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxiii. 3; Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 40.
Footnote 641:
Woltmann, 56. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxiii. 2; Knackfuss, fig. 108.
Footnote 642:
Woltmann, 123 (Bauakademie-Beuth-Schinkel Museum).
Footnote 643:
Woltmann, 57. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxi. 3; Knackfuss, fig. 109.
Footnote 644:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 39. Woltmann, 196. Reproduced by Davies, p. 206.
Footnote 645:
Woltmann, 58. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxi. 1; Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., i. 41 (a).
Footnote 646:
Woltmann, 59. Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., i. 41 (b).
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DESIGNS FOR PENDANTS AND JEWELS]
The sketch-book bequeathed to the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753 contains nearly two hundred drawings, almost all of them designs for jewellery and other small objects for personal use or adornment, such as belt tassels and buckles, book covers with rings for attachment to girdles, seals, portable sundials, pendants and brooches. Henry VIII was lavish in his use of jewellery, and the fashion he set was slavishly followed by his courtiers. Dresses were loaded with gems and elaborate specimens of the goldsmith’s art, and this delight in finery was carried to such an extent that it was a topic for jest and sarcasm among foreigners. More than one contemporary account gives details of the King’s costume and the many jewels which adorned it, and the long inventories of his clothes and personal ornaments which still exist prove that continental visitors to his court did not exaggerate in the descriptions of his person which they sent home. French and Italian jewellers paid frequent visits to London, and sold him many gems and beautiful specimens of gold and silver work and other art objects, while he regularly employed a large number of English and resident foreign jewellers. Their services were most in demand about New Year’s Day, when gifts were showered upon his Majesty, and he in return made many presents, often of great value. There is no doubt that some of these gifts were designed by Holbein, and that he served as designer to several of the leading London goldsmiths. The British Museum Collection contains many designs for pendants and for jewels which were suspended round the neck by a ribbon or chain, this attachment being shown in a number of the studies (Pl. 48). In most of them table diamonds and other flat stones, together with pearls, are arranged in geometric patterns, the interstices being filled with strap, scroll, or ribbon-work, or some conventional floral design. Occasionally at the top of the jewel there is a small grotesque or nude figure (Pl. 49). Many of the designs have a black ground indicating niello or champlevé enamel. In some instances, however, the blackening may have been done merely to indicate the design more clearly to the craftsman who was to carry it out. Some of them are coloured and are often touched with gold, so that it is possible to tell the jewels and materials it was intended to use. Several pendants are in the shape of a cross, and others heart-shaped; one of the latter is of gold, with three pendant pearls, and two doves billing on a green bough in enamel, with the motto, TVRTVRVM CONCORDIA (Pl. 48 (3)).[647] Another shows the bust of a woman in Tudor dress holding between her hands a large table-cut stone, across which is written, apparently in another hand, “Well Laydi Well” (Pl. 49 (9)).[648] Several pendants are in the form of monograms, a very fine one consisting of the letters R. and E. in gold, with two rubies, an emerald, and a garnet at the four corners, hung by a ribbon above and with three pearls below (Pl. 48 (7));[649] many of the designs, in fact, show one or more pearls suspended in this fashion. A jewel very similar to the last-named, formed of the sacred monogram, is worn by Jane Seymour in her portrait at Vienna. Another pendant monogram, with the initials H and I and an emerald in the centre (Pl. 48 (6)), was evidently designed for the King and his third Queen.[650] Several of them have mottoes, such as QVAM ACCIPERE DARE MVLTO BEATIVS (Pl. 49 (7)),[651] or PRVDENTEMENT ET PAR COMPAS INCONTINENT VIENDRAS,[652] the latter on a round device of two horns of plenty, two dolphins and a pair of compasses with serpents writhing round them (Pl. 50 (8)). Among the brooches there is one consisting of three diamonds enwreathed by a scroll, on which is inscribed, MI LADI PRINSIS, and the same motto occurs on a second.[653]
Footnote 647:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 27 (b). Woltmann, 199 (30). Reproduced by His, Pl. xliii.
Footnote 648:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 28 (a). Reproduced by His, Pl. xli.
Footnote 649:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 27 (e). Reproduced by His, Pl. xliii.
Footnote 650:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 27 (f). Reproduced by His, Pl. xliii.
Footnote 651:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 28 (f). Reproduced by His, Pl. xli.
Footnote 652:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (i). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 653:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 30 (a and b). Reproduced by His, Pl. xxxiv.
[Sidenote: DESIGNS FOR MEDALLIONS]
There are two designs for book bindings with rings for suspension, no doubt covers for a prayer book. They are decorated with metal and enamel in arabesque patterns, and one of them has the initials T.W. in the centre, which are repeated in the corners, T.W. above and W.T. below.[654] On the second the same initials are combined with an I,[655] and in both cases it is probable that they were intended for Sir Thomas Wyat. Two very similar designs appear to be for a jewelcase, or perhaps a portable reliquary.[656] There is also an interesting drawing of a seal with the coat of arms of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, within the garter and its motto, and around the whole a circular band inscribed CAROLVS DVX SVFFYCIE PRO HONORE SVO RICHEMOND (Pl. 50 (4)).[657] Among the remaining studies are various devices, coats of arms, including Holbein’s own (Pl. 50 (6)), book clasps, bracelets, chains (Pl. 51 (3, 4, and 5)), collars, rings, a number of monograms (Pl. 48 (1)), some of them containing as many as eleven letters, probably concealing a complete name or the initials of the words of some device, grotesque figures, winged warriors, nude women, and satyrs—the latter in some cases certainly intended for the foot of a vase, box, or salt-cellar, or some such table ware—together with a variety of ornaments for which the exact purpose is not indicated. These last are largely fragments of circular borders or segments of discs, decorated with arabesques on enamel (Pl. 52). In some of these designs for enamel the pattern is in white on a ground of blue and red or blue and black.
Footnote 654:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 31 (b). Woltmann, 191. Reproduced by His, Pl. xliv.; Davies, p. 226.
Footnote 655:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 31 (a). Woltmann, 191. Reproduced by His, Pl. xliv.; Davies, p. 226.
Footnote 656:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 31 (c and d). Reproduced by His, Pl. xliv.; Davies, p. 226.
Footnote 657:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (a); Woltmann, 199 (44). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Among the designs at Basel is a very charming and humorous upright band or panel, for goldsmith’s work (#Pl. 45 (2):pl-45),[658] in which eight bears are shown climbing among the leaves of a vine accompanied by a little man with a high peaked cap blowing a trumpet and beating a drum, a design no doubt suggested to Holbein by the sight of some travelling showman with a troupe of performing animals. Two other bands of ornament in the Basel Gallery, in which the design is arranged horizontally, represent in one case a humorous frieze with nude children,[659] and in the other similar children with dogs hunting a hare, chasing one another, and blowing horns (Pl. 51 (1 and 2))[660] The latter is a carefully-finished drawing, in which the small figures are arranged with great decorative effect among curved Renaissance ornamentation of conventional floriated design. In the same collection there are several elaborately decorated mirror-frames.
Footnote 658:
Woltmann, 54. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxii. 2; Knackfuss, fig. 111.
Footnote 659:
Woltmann, 61.
Footnote 660:
Woltmann, 55. Reproduced by His, Pl. xxv. 4; Knackfuss, fig. 110.
* * * * *
* * * * *
There remains one particular form of personal ornament for which Holbein’s services as designer were in constant demand. This was the circular medallion or enseigne worn on the hat, and also, in the case of ladies, as a pendant at the end of a chain or ribbon, or in the shape of a brooch fastened to the front of the dress. They usually bore some figure-subject, the earlier examples being, as a rule, religious, with figures or emblems of saints or scenes from the Scriptures. In course of time subjects taken from classical story or mediæval legend were used, and designs of a fanciful and allegorical nature. They became highly popular forms of personal adornment, and French and Italian jewellers brought numbers of them over to London. “Every one, from the highest rank downwards,” says Mr. H. Clifford Smith, “had his personal devise or impresa, or more often a series of them. It was worn as an emblem—an ingenious expression of some conceit of the wearer, the outcome of his peculiar frame of mind. It usually contained some obscure meaning, the sense of which, half hidden and half revealed, was intended to afford some play for the ingenuity of the observer. The love of the time for expressing things by riddles led to the publication of sets of emblems, like those of Alciatus, which had imitations in all directions. Every one, in fact, tried his hand at these ‘toys of the imagination.’”[661]
Footnote 661:
H. Clifford Smith, Jewellery, The Connoisseur’s Library, 1908, p. 223.
* * * * *
That these hat-badges and brooches were worn by almost every one at Henry’s court is shown by their representation in many of Holbein’s pictures and in a large number of the Windsor drawings. In the latter, unfortunately, the subjects are so slightly indicated that it is impossible in most cases to make them out. They are to be found almost invariably in the portraits of courtiers, the learned doctors and the more soberly-attired German merchants not using them. Those worn by the more wealthy were generally of gold, with the design in repoussé work, frequently enamelled in colours, and often with precious stones set in them. They were, as a rule, surrounded by a border or framework of similar workmanship, sometimes set with jewels. Some of them were fastened with a pin, like a brooch, others had loops or small holes round the edges so that they could be sewn to the hat. Henry VIII possessed a large collection of these ornaments. In a list dated 1526 there is mentioned, among many others, a crimson velvet bonnet, double turfed, with a brooch of St. Michael set with diamonds, and a white rose on one side and a red rose on the other; and another of a buttoned cap of black velvet with a diamond and a brooch of Paris work of St. James. Other hats had brooches representing “three men and a pearl in the back of one of them”; a lady leading a brace of greyhounds; Venus and Cupids; a lady holding a heart in her hand; another lady holding a crown; another with a cameo head and a hanging pearl; “a man standing on a faggot of fire”; “a handful of feathers”; “a gentleman in a lady’s lap”; and St. George, Hercules, and so on.[662] In another list, two years later in date, there is mentioned “a brooch with a gentlewoman luting, with a scripture over it.”[663] Occasionally these enseignes are described as “valentines of goldsmith’s work.” Most of the King’s hats were also lavishly decorated with gold aglets.
Footnote 662:
C.L.P., vol. iv. pt. i. 1907.
Footnote 663:
C.L.P., vol. iv. pt. ii. 5114. See vol. i. p. 357.
[Sidenote: DESIGNS FOR MEDALLIONS]
None of the jewels included in these earlier lists can have been designed by Holbein; but after he became attached to the court he appears to have been constantly employed in this way, and it became, no doubt, the fashion to wear an enseigne or medallion of his devising. Among his drawings, in the British Museum, at Basel, and at Chatsworth, there are a number of small circular designs with figure-subjects which were evidently intended for such purposes. Unfortunately, only in one single case has a design been found among his sketches which corresponds with the gold-and-enamel badge worn by the sitter in one of his finished pictures—the beautiful little drawing of “Lot and his Daughters” in the British Museum (Pl. 50 (2)), which, as recently pointed out by Mr. Lionel Cust, was the design for the medallion shown in the portrait of Catherine Howard.[664] Very possibly some of the other enseignes or pendant roundels represented in his portraits were of his own devising, but they are painted on so small a scale that the subjects upon them are difficult to decipher.
Footnote 664:
See pp. 195-196.
The medallion of “Lot and his Daughters” forms one of a numerous series of roundels, usually about 2½ in. in diameter, with subjects taken from the Old Testament, the greater number of which are in the Basel sketch-book. Among the latter are three different studies on one sheet for the subject of Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness,[665] and a fourth with Sarah giving Hagar to her husband;[666] the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel;[667] Jacob embracing Rachel;[668] Jacob causing the stone to be removed from the well for Rachel,[669] a very beautiful little drawing with an interesting group of buildings in the background; David and the Woman of Tekoah kneeling before him;[670] the Sacrifice of Elijah, in which a jewel is inset to depict the fire on the altar;[671] and Moses and the destruction of Korah and his company.[672] This last is set within an open-work border with mermaids and cupids amid scroll-work. Several other subjects from the Old Testament, such as Judah and Tamar, and David playing before Saul, are to be found among the engravings made by Wenceslaus Hollar from drawings by Holbein, now lost, when in the Arundel Collection. Among the subjects from the New Testament at Basel are the Baptism of Christ,[673] the Last Judgment,[674] and the Repentant Magdalen.[675] Two designs of the Archangel Michael slaying the Dragon are for the badge accompanying a chain of the order of St. Michael, and may have been drawn from the badge belonging to Dinteville.[676] Another represents the kneeling figures of a young couple in English dress holding a cup with a heart over it, evidently for “a valentine of goldsmith’s work.”[677] Among the unknown subjects is one in which a nude man is standing upon a prostrate knight, who with one hand shatters Cupid’s bow and with the other breaks the fallen man’s sword;[678] one which repeats one of the subjects of the Basel Town Hall wall-paintings—the blinding of Zaleucus;[679] and others representing Juno and Callisto, Pomona, Leucothea on a dolphin, and two Centaurs.[680]
Footnote 665:
Woltmann, 110 (37-43). Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. Schwz. Mstr., ii. 5.
Footnote 666:
Woltmann, 110 (67). Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 45.
Footnote 667:
Woltmann, 110 (71).
Footnote 668:
Woltmann, 110 (68).
Footnote 669:
Woltmann, 110 (76). Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 45.
Footnote 670:
Woltmann, 110 (70).
Footnote 671:
Woltmann, 110 (63, 65).
Footnote 672:
Woltmann, 110 (77). Reproduced by Ganz, Hdz. von H. H. dem Jüng., Pl. 42.
Footnote 673:
Woltmann, 110 (73).
Footnote 674:
Woltmann, 110 (75).
Footnote 675:
Woltmann, 110 (55, 56).
Footnote 676:
Woltmann, 110 (64).
Footnote 677:
Woltmann, 110 (88).
Footnote 678:
Woltmann, 110 (62).
Footnote 679:
Woltmann, 110 (61).
Footnote 680:
Woltmann, 110 (53, 74, 81, 83).
The subjects of similar medallions in the British Museum include one of the Annunciation,[681] with the legend “ORIGO MVNDI MELIORIS” round it, with a border of daisies in yellow and green enamel; one of the Trinity,[682] with the legend “TRINITATIS GLORIA SATIABIMVR” (Pl. 50 (5)), and a border of roses in enamel, both of which are in pen and ink washed with water-colours; and a third with a standing figure of St. John the Baptist (Pl. 50 (3)).[683] Yet another depicts Time extracting Truth from the Rock (Pl. 50 (1),[684] also with a Latin quotation round the edge, and a second, with the motto, “PRVDENTEMENT ET PAR COMPAS INCONTINENT VIENDRAS,” already described.[685] Further designs for enseignes contain such subjects as a sleeping boy lying under a fountain, which jets its water upon him (Pl. 50 (9));[686] and a woman in flames, with her father and mother lamenting over her, which is said by Woltmann to represent Dido on the funeral pyre.[687] Among other roundels, two contain Holbein’s own coat of arms (Pl. 50 (6)),[688] and two others a device with a hand issuing from a cloud and resting on a book which lies on a rock, and the Italian motto, “SERVAR’ VOGLIO QVEL CHE HO GVIRATO” (Pl. 50 (7)).[689]
Footnote 681:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (k). Woltmann, 199 (19). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 682:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (l). Woltmann, 199 (13). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 683:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 35 (c).
Footnote 684:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 35 (d).
Footnote 685:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (i). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 686:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (g). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 687:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (h). Woltmann, 199 (15). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 688:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (e, f). Woltmann, 199 (42). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
Footnote 689:
Brit. Mus. Catg., 29 (b, c). Woltmann, 199 (22). Reproduced by His, Pl. xl.
At Chatsworth there is a sheet of drawings containing six enseignes and one larger design which appears to be for some kind of a sheath.[690] They are among the very finest examples of Holbein’s work in this field, drawn with the greatest delicacy, and admirable in composition. They represent (1) Hagar and Ishmael (Pl. 53 (2)), a variant of the Basel design, in which the angel is flying towards Hagar, who is seated under a tree, with the naked infant asleep under a bush, and on a scroll the names “Hagar” and “Ismael”; (2) The Last Judgment (Pl. 53 (3)), with Christ seated on clouds, and men and women kneeling below, with figures struggling out of graves, and on one side the yawning mouth of a dragon representing hell; (3) Icarus falling into the sea (Pl. 53 (1)), his wings melted by the sun, and Phœbus driving his chariot drawn by four winged horses through the sky; (4) Diana and Actæon (Pl. 53 (5)), with four nude women standing in water on the left, and Actæon on the bank already turning into a stag, with his dogs attacking him, and others rushing through the wood in the background; (5) three beehives on a wooden stand under a roof of rushes (Pl. 53 (6)), with Cupid, blindfolded, his bow on the ground, holding up his hands as though stung by the bees which are flying round him, and below a shield for a coat of arms, coloured blue, and the motto, “NOCET EMPTA DOLORE VOLUPTA,” on a ribbon scroll, the whole surrounded by a band of conventional scroll pattern; (6) a man in sixteenth-century costume, with folded arms, asleep on the grass, under an oak tree on a rocky piece of ground (Pl. 53 (7)). On the right is a large clock with hanging weights, the hands pointing to twelve o’clock, and the figure of a small child pulling the rope of the hammer which strikes the bell. Round the trunk of the tree is a scroll with the legend “ASPETTO LA HORA” (I await the hour). This is possibly the design for a watch-back. These medallions are in pen and bistre, with touches of red in some of the figures, and green here and there in trees or grass. The remaining design seems to be for a short, broad sheath, but not, apparently, for a weapon (Pl. 53 (4)). It represents the Rape of Helen, who stands on the seashore, seized by the arms by two men, one wearing a helmet. A boat containing figures—some of them waving their hands—is coming towards them over the water. There are some buildings on the left, and at the bottom, in the foreground, two nude figures with long spades digging in the sand. The leg of one of these two figures projects beyond the boundary-line of the sheath, showing that the design was not intended for a flat ornament, but was to be continued on both sides of the object.[691]
Footnote 690:
Woltmann, 131-7. All reproduced by S. Arthur Strong, in his Drawings by Old Masters at Chatsworth, and in Critical Studies and Fragments, Pl. xviii. p. 132; and in Burlington Magazine, vol. i. No. iii., May 1903, frontispiece.
Footnote 691:
In the Burlington Magazine (vol. i. No. iii., May 1903, p. 354) some doubt is thrown upon the correctness of the attribution of the Chatsworth roundels to Holbein, but in every touch his handiwork is unmistakable.
The wide range of subject shown in these badges affords remarkable proof of the fertility of Holbein’s invention. The great number of them, too, indicates that he must have found regular and lucrative employment in work for the London jewellers and goldsmiths. Possibly those which remain formed only a small part of his total output. It has been suggested, indeed, that none of the studies which have survived were actually carried out as ornaments, but were rather designs either rejected by the goldsmith or the patron for whom Holbein was working, or were merely drawn by the artist as part of his stock-in-trade, from which clients could make their selection.[692] This supposition is based on the fact that the drawings have always been carefully preserved in the original sketch-books, and bear no traces of having undergone the rough usage of a goldsmith’s workshop. It does not seem at all probable, however, that this was the case; it is, indeed, absurd to suppose that these designs, several hundreds in number, and many of them of the greatest beauty, could have been rejected as not good enough by those for whom they were prepared. It has been seen that the design for the medallion with the subject of Lot and his Daughters was actually carried out for the adornment of Catherine Howard, to say nothing of those larger drawings for the Jane Seymour Cup and the Denny astronomical clock, which, in any case, cannot have been rejected designs. A much simpler explanation is that Holbein kept his original designs by him for future reference, and made other versions or copies, possibly sometimes more elaborate in detail, for the use of the craftsmen who carried them out.
Footnote 692:
See R. E. D. Sketchley, “Holbein as Goldsmith’s Designer,” in Art Journal, June 1910, p. 175.
With the exception of the cup designed for Hans of Antwerp, which shows that the two men worked together, it is impossible to connect Holbein’s name directly with that of any one of the many goldsmiths who served the court; but it is probable that he was employed by at least several of them, and almost certainly by Cornelis Hayes. There were an extraordinary number of such craftsmen, both native and foreign, in London at that period, and many others, more particularly Frenchmen and Italians, who paid periodical visits to England in order to sell works of art and jewels to the King and the nobility.
[Sidenote: THE KING’S JEWELLERS]
The leading London jeweller of the earlier part of Henry’s reign was Robert Amadas, of Lombard Street, an alderman, who in 1526 was appointed Master of the Jewel House, a post which he held until his death in 1532, when he was succeeded by Thomas Cromwell. Other leading goldsmiths were Alderman Sir John Mundy, appointed justice to the merchants of the Steelyard in 1525,[693] Alderman Robert Fenrother, Gerard Hughes, Robert Lord, Nicholas and Henry Wooley, Thomas Trappes, William Holland, John Twiselton, John van Utricke, and Henry Holtesweller. Large sums were spent in New Year’s gifts, the King both giving and receiving many very valuable presents. Thus in 1520 £1208, 17_s._ 6_d._ was paid to Amadas, Twiselton, and Holland for supplying such gifts, and in 1521 no less than £1679, 15_s._ 10_d._, while smaller sums were received by other goldsmiths.[694] There was also constant demand for gold and silver plate for presentation to foreign ambassadors and envoys, and for christening presents for the children of the King’s favourites. Amadas supplied many of these, as well as seals, jewels, spangles and other ornaments for the jackets of the King’s Guards, silver bells, bosses, and nails for his Majesty’s use, and many other articles which need not be specified. Amadas was dead before Holbein became attached to the court, and it is not at all likely that the latter designed for him. He must, however, have been well acquainted with the Dutchman, Cornelis Hayes, or Heyes, who became a naturalised Englishman in January 1523,[695] and was afterwards one of the most regularly employed of the goldsmiths specially appointed to the King’s service. He received licence to keep six alien apprentices and twelve journeymen, notwithstanding the statute of 14 & 15 Hen. VIII.[696] He supplied many jewels for Anne Boleyn, including “a diamond in a brooch of our Lady of Boulogne,” and was employed, after Wolsey’s downfall, to remove the coat of arms from the Cardinal’s plate and place thereon the royal arms instead. He was also frequently occupied in repairing and altering the royal jewels and badges. His possible co-operation with Holbein, in 1534, in connection with the making of a silver cradle and figures of Adam and Eve has been already mentioned,[697] and also that the piece of plate given to Holbein by the King in return for the portrait of Prince Edward was made by Hayes.[698] Holbein and Hayes had a common friend in Bourbon, the French poet, who stayed with the goldsmith when in London.
Footnote 693:
C.L.P., vol. iv. pt. i. 1298.
Footnote 694:
C.L.P., vol. iii. pt. ii. pp. 1539, 1544 (King’s Book of Payments).
Footnote 695:
C.L.P., vol. iii. pt. ii. 2807 (28).
Footnote 696:
In May 1531. C.L.P., vol. v. 278 (8).
Footnote 697:
See pp. 92-93.
Footnote 698:
See p. 164.
Another goldsmith of importance was the Welshman Morgan Wolf, Fenwolf, or Phillip, one of the sewers of the chamber, and keeper of the castle and lordship of Abergavenny. Both he and the Englishman John Freeman supplied many New Year’s gifts and other goldsmith’s work to Henry. The latter was a protégé of Cromwell’s, who found him much employment in connection with the dissolution of the monasteries, and granted him a number of fat appointments. Morgan Wolf engraved the Great Seal of England in 1543.[699] Among the foreign jewellers who came frequently to England, and some of whom eventually settled here, were Alart Plumier, or Plymmer, as he is called in the royal accounts, of Paris, who had frequent dealings with the King; Jehan Lange, of the same city, who came over as the representative of several Parisian houses; Hubert Morett,[700] Christopher Herrault, Peter Romaynes, Guillim Ottener, John Crispin, Latronet, and Martin Garrard, the latter obtaining a patent of denization in 1535. To prolong the list of names would be only tedious, for it is impossible to connect Holbein’s name definitely with any one of them, though there is every probability that Cornelis Hayes and John of Antwerp both worked in conjunction with him.
Footnote 699:
C.L.P., vol. xviii. pt. i. 463 (f. 87).
Footnote 700:
See p. 68.
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