Chapter XXIV: The Last Years: 1540-1543 (2)

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

Footnote 434:

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

Footnote 435:

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

Footnote 436:

Reproduced in the Catalogue, Pl. v.

Footnote 437:

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

Footnote 438:

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

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

Footnote 439:

See p. 80.

Footnote 440:

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

Footnote 441:

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

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

Footnote 442:

Woltmann, 211. Reproduced in the Berlin Catalogue, p. 178; Ganz,
_Holbein_, p. 142; and in colour in _Early German Painters_, folio vi.

Footnote 443:

Reproduced in the _Burlington Magazine_, vol. ix., August 1906, p.
357; and Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 228. It has no inscription.

Footnote 444:

_Burlington Magazine_, vol. ix., September 1906, p. 426.

VOL. II., PLATE 29A
PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN ELDERLY MAN
KAISER FRIEDRICH MUSEUM, BERLIN
]

* * * * *

VOL. II., PLATE 29B
PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN ENGLISH LADY
IMPERIAL GALLERY, VIENNA
]

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

Footnote 445:

_Burlington Magazine_, vol. x., November 1906, p. 138.

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIMON GEORGE]

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

Footnote 446:

Woltmann, 253. Reproduced in Vienna Catalogue, p. 346; Knackfuss, fig.
138; Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 140; and in colour in _Early German
Painters_, folio iii.

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

Footnote 447:

Woltmann, 151. Reproduced by Knackfuss, fig. 137; Ganz, _Holbein_, p.
139; and in colour in _Early German Painters_, folio vi.

Footnote 448:

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

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

Footnote 449:

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

VOL. II., PLATE 30
DR. JOHN CHAMBER
IMPERIAL GALLERY, VIENNA
]

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHN CHAMBER]

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

Footnote 450:

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

Footnote 451:

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

Footnote 452:

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

Footnote 453:

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

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

[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIR WILLIAM BUTTS]

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

Footnote 454:

_C.L.P._, vol. xii. pt. i. 328.

Footnote 455:

_C.L.P._, vol. xvii. 912.

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

Footnote 456:

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

Footnote 457:

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

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

Footnote 458:

Woltmann, 128.

Footnote 459:

Wornum, p. 296.

Footnote 460:

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

Footnote 461:

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

Footnote 462:

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

[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S SELF-PORTRAITS]

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

Footnote 463:

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

Footnote 464:

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

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

Footnote 465:

Reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 138.

Footnote 466:

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

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

Footnote 467:

Parthey, 1371.

Footnote 468:

pp. 196-200.

Footnote 469:

Parthey, 1544.

Footnote 470:

Parthey, 1551 and 1543.

Footnote 471:

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

Footnote 472:

Parthey, 1387.

Footnote 473:

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

Footnote 474:

Parthey, 1554.

Footnote 475:

Parthey, 1550.

Footnote 476:

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

Footnote 477:

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

Footnote 478:

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

[Sidenote: DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM’S COLLECTION]

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

Footnote 479:

See Randall Davies, _Burlington Magazine_, vol. x., March 1907, pp.
376-82. Also Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, vol. i. p. 94.

Footnote 480:

See pp. 9-14.

[Sidenote: THE “DANCING PICTURE”]

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

Footnote 481:

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

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