(In the Louvre)
This portrait of Sir Henry Wyatt, a bust on panel with green
background, was long thought to stand for the painter's friend
and patron Sir Thomas More, and it has been left for modern
research to discover the mistake. Holbein painted this portrait
twice. There is a replica in the National Gallery of Ireland.
[Illustration]
If this was his intention, he can at least plead that it was entirely
successful. Not only did it delight the magnates of the Steelyard,
who showered commissions upon him as long as he could execute them, it
carried the story of his fame to the last corner of the earth where the
story of a man's achievement can obtain a generous hearing, that is to
his own city. Burgomaster Meier zum Hirten, not to be confused with that
other Meier who married Dorothea Kannegiesser and looks at us to-day from
the walls of the Basle Museum, wrote to Holbein in London inviting him
to return, with the promise of a retainer of thirty gulden annually. But
the painter had learned that the tender mercies of the inartistic are
cruel, and he was now beyond the need for any of the service that Basle
could offer.
Of Holbein's work for the Steelyard, the greater part has been lost. It
will be remembered that the Guild fell on troublous times in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, and its Hall suffered a long period of neglect.
We may say that we should not have a very complete knowledge of the
artist's output had his sketches been no better preserved than his
finished work. We know, too, that the Council of the Steelyard recognised
in the painter of George Gisze a man whose attainments covered every
field of art; and a year after he had distinguished himself in their
service for the first time, he was put in charge of the pageant arranged
by the Steelyard in honour of the Coronation of the unfortunate Anne
Boleyn. He painted the "Triumph of Riches" and "Triumph of Poverty"
for the Steelyard, but nothing remains of these pictures save a sketch
for the former that may be studied to-day in Paris.
Whether Holbein's work outside the circle of the merchants was
the result of his earlier association, or came to him through the
intimate connection between the great guild and a certain section of the
aristocracy, is a disputed point; but we incline to the belief that the
painter's position was fully recognised, and that if work was rather slow
in reaching him from the ranks of the men he had known on the occasion
of his first visit, the times were to blame. Statesmen and churchmen
had been his patrons, now they were fighting for their lives. But very
soon after he had painted the portrait of George Gisze, Holbein gave to
the world the famous picture known as "The Ambassadors," now hanging
in our National Gallery, and reproduced here. The man on the left is
generally held to be Sieur Jean de Dinteville, French Ambassador to the
Court of Henry VIII., and his companion is said to be George de Selve,
who was French Ambassador to the Court of the great Emperor Charles V.
When Anne Boleyn had suffered the fullest possible penalty for marrying
Henry VIII., Holbein painted her successor. He prepared a chalk drawing
of the unfortunate Jane Seymour and painted two portraits from it,
one being in Vienna and the other at Woburn Abbey; and he painted Henry
himself for the Privy Chamber, which was burnt out in the closing years
of the seventeenth century. The usual study in chalks was made for this
picture, and is now in Munich. In the Bodleian Library there is a drawing
by Holbein of his exquisite design for the gold cup that was made when
Edward VI. was born; and as soon as Jane Seymour was dead the painter
went to Milan to paint his striking portrait of the young Christina
of Denmark, who was Duchess of Milan, and a widow at the early age of
sixteen. She it is who is said to have declined the offer of King Henry's
hand, on the ground that she had but one head and wished to keep it on
her shoulders. So she became the Duchess of Lorraine instead--small blame
to her. We have referred already to the portrait of Anne of Cleves, now
in the Louvre; before that was painted Holbein had given the world what
is often regarded as his greatest effort in portraiture, the portrait
of the goldsmith Hubert Morett, now to be seen in the Dresden Gallery.
For many years this picture was supposed to be the work of Leonardo da
Vinci. It is one of the special functions of art criticism to give the
credit of unknown pictures to Da Vinci or Giorgione--apparently to allow
the next generation of criticism to take that credit away again. One may
remark in passing that Leonardo da Vinci has fared very badly of late,
but doubtless he will soon be restored to critical favour.
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and twice uncle to the king by marriage,
was painted when Anne of Cleves had been retired on a pension, and the
star of Catherine Howard was in its brief ascendant. Holbein is said
to have painted the new queen. There is a miniature as well as a chalk
drawing in Windsor that is said to stand for her. And doubtless the king
would have continued to find new wives, and Holbein would have continued
to paint them, but for the fact that both king and painter were
nearing their end. The portraits of the doctors of the royal household,
Dr. Butt and Dr. Chambers, are among the last of the great works he
accomplished. In the month of October 1843, at the time when the Plague
was in London, the artist made a will which was found some years ago
in the City of London. By this document Hans Holbein sought to protect
two of his illegitimate children of tender age, directing that all his
goods should be sold, and the proceeds applied for their benefit as soon
as certain debts had been paid. Curiously enough, we have no means of
finding out who the children were, we do not know the mother's name,
all is obscure. But we know that Holbein had settled an earlier legacy
upon his wife and legitimate issue, that he had apprenticed his eldest son
to a jeweller in Paris, and that he had never been unmindful of his legal
obligations to his family. For the rest, he had made a hasty marriage
that was not founded upon affection so much as upon convenience--and it
is not for us to judge him save as an artist, and then modestly and with
due thought of our own limitations. He was buried either in the Church
of St. Andrew Undershaft or St. Catherine Cree; in the hour of his death
there was no anxiety to do more than get the dead underground as soon
as possible. It will be remembered that another of the world's great
painters, Titian Vecelli, died of the Plague too, but Titian had reached
a very great age, while Holbein was in the prime of life, capable, had
he been spared, of much more work in every branch of art.
He worked for about thirty years in the light of history for the "Virgin
and Child," the picture with panels in the Renaissance mood is dated
1514, and the picture of Dr. Chambers belongs to the early forties. To
sum up his known achievements with no more than a brief description would
exhaust all the pages of this little sketch. His work retains much of
its freshness, although time and the restorer have combined to do it
wrong; and there are pictures that pass for the work of Holbein's hand,
though it is more than likely that he never saw them. He must have been
a man of infinite capacity, untiring industry, and considerable strength
of character; he owed little to outside help, for when he left Augsburg
for Basle he was almost without friends and influence, while, when he
left London for the bourn from which no traveller returns, he had made
a reputation that has lasted to this hour, and will never be destroyed
while western civilisation endures.
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