collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle, was purchased for
the nation in 1890. Until that year the left-hand figure was always
supposed to represent Sir Thomas Wyatt, poet and diplomatist, and his
companion some unknown friend and fellow Ambassador, who, Dr. Woltmann
suggested, was John Leland. When the picture was first exhibited in the
National Gallery many suggestions were made as to their real identity,
the most important being that of Mr. W. F. Dickes, who wrote several
long articles to prove that they were the German Counts Palatine Otto
Henry and his brother Philip, and that the picture represented “The
Nuremberg Treaty of Religious Freedom between the Catholics and
Protestants.” Happily, the matter was settled in 1895 by Miss Mary F. S.
Hervey, who discovered documentary evidence of so exact a kind that no
doubt remains that the portraits are those of Jean de Dinteville,
seigneur de Polizy, bailly de Troyes, and a knight of the French Order
of St. Michael, and his friend, George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. Mr.
Dickes, however, has recently returned to the charge (1901), doubts the
evidence, and still pins his faith to his Counts Palatine.
Dinteville came here as French Ambassador more than once, and was in
London in that capacity from February to November, 1533, the year in
which the picture was painted, and during that time De Selve paid him a
visit. George de Selve was appointed to the see of Lavaur in 1526, when
only eighteen, but was not consecrated Bishop until 1534, and so in the
picture is not shown in episcopal dress. He was one of six brothers,
nearly all of whom gained distinction as Ambassadors. He himself served
as Ambassador on a number of occasions, and his piety, his profound
learning, and his keen interest in all intellectual pursuits, as Miss
Hervey tells us in her exhaustive study of these two men and their
picture, made him one of the most remarkable men of his day.
The two men stand on each side of a high, two-shelved table. Dinteville,
on the left, is gorgeously dressed in a doublet of rose satin, with a
black jacket and surcoat lined with ermine. His dark hair is cut
straight across his forehead. De Selve, on the right, is clad in a long
brocaded gown of chocolate colour, lined with brown fur. His hair and
beard are also dark. Both shelves of the table are covered with a number
of books, mathematical, musical, and other instruments, including a
celestial and a terrestrial globe, sundial, lute, flutes, and other
emblems of the pursuits in which they were interested. The curious
object in the foreground is merely a distorted skull, which, when looked
at from the side, assumes its proper proportions--a kind of optical
puzzle, which had some vogue in the sixteenth century. The pattern of
the pavement of coloured marbles was copied by the artist from the one
in the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey.
The many details of the picture have been painted with Holbein’s usual
accuracy and perfection. The faces of the two men are finely and
delicately modelled, though their character is not quite so subtly
expressed as in such a portrait as the _Duchess of Milan_. The dark,
penetrating eyes and well-chiselled mouth of Dinteville give vitality to
his intellectual face. De Selve is grave in contrast, with dark eyebrows
and a more pallid complexion, and his countenance has less expression
than is to be found in the other. The nobility of type of these two
well-born, intellectual men is, however, admirably depicted by Holbein
in a picture which is splendid both in colour and in treatment.
* * * * *
Holbein seems to have painted Erasmus three or four times, and as the
originals were multiplied by copyists during the artist’s life, there
are still a large number of portraits of the great scholar in existence,
all to-day ascribed to our painter. At least two of them were sent to
England by Erasmus as presents to Sir Thomas More and Archbishop
Wareham, one of which was the picture now at Longford Castle, and the
other the fine profile in the Louvre, which was formerly in Charles I.’s
collection.
The Earl of Radnor’s _Erasmus_ is a masterly and lifelike portrait. It
forms a companion picture to the portrait of Peter Ægidius, by Quentin
Matsys, also at Longford. For a long time both pictures were thought to
be by the latter painter, as in 1517 these two learned men commissioned
Matsys to paint a double portrait of them, which was sent as a present
to Sir Thomas More.
Erasmus is represented in his black doctor’s robes, heavily trimmed with
fur, and a black cap. His hands rest upon a book, bearing the
inscription, partly in Greek and partly in Latin, “The Herculean labours
of Erasmus of Rotterdam.” A curtain is behind his head, and on the left
a stone pillar carved with fine Renaissance design. On the right a
number of books are placed upon
[Illustration:
_Gray photo._] [_Longford Castle._
PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS.
[_By special permission of the Earl of Radnor._]]
a small shelf, and on one of the volumes is the date 1523, and a
half-effaced Latin distich, in which Holbein’s name can still be read.
The philosopher, turned slightly to the left, is gazing in front of him,
deep in thought.
Mr. Claude Phillips has admirably described this picture (_Art Journal_,
April, 1897). He says: “Holbein has rarely painted with a more exquisite
subtlety or a firmer grip of his subject than here. The modelling of the
head and hands is perfect in its searching truth and fine balance,
showing none of that exaggeration and hardness of facial detail which so
often mars the pictorial and obscures the intellectual conceptions in
the portraits of Albrecht Dürer. Bodily suffering and advancing age have
a little extinguished physical energy, but yet the great scholar of
Rotterdam appears here surely but undemonstratively portrayed in his
true character. He was the chief representative of the broader humanism
in the Reformation, the one man able to look calmly at the world as it
was--able to weigh, to judge, but also to show toleration--that is,
provided his own comfort and security were not thereby interfered with.”
The Louvre example, showing Erasmus writing, in profile, is smaller and
richer in colour than the Longford example, and even more searching in
its rendering of truth and character.
* * * * *
The superb portrait of _Georg Gisze_, member of the Hanse League and the
London Steelyard, painted in 1532, shortly after Holbein’s return to
England, and now in the Berlin Gallery, is finer in its colour and more
delicate in the rendering of its details than any other of the Steelyard
portraits done by the artist about this time. It is almost Flemish in
the minuteness and care of its finish and its clear colour, and seems to
have had unusual pains bestowed upon it, perhaps as a kind of show-piece
to tempt other sitters.
The young merchant is shown in his office, behind a table covered with a
cloth of Eastern design, with the various objects that he requires in
his business scattered in front of him and about the room. Among them is
a graceful Venetian glass holding carnations. Papers and letters are
fastened to the walls, one of which he is just opening, upon which can
be read the address: “To the honourable Georg Gisze, my brother, in
London, England.” On the wall hangs a paper with his motto: “Nulla sine
merore voluptas.” He has fair hair, and is dressed in red, with black
cap and overcoat, and a white shirt with a collar of Spanish work. All
the accessories, whether of silk, or linen, or gold, or steel, or glass,
are painted with a fidelity to nature never excelled by the Dutchmen or
Flemings of the following century, who devoted their whole career to the
rendering of still-life. In Holbein’s work, however, this elaboration of
detail is soon forgotten in the fascination which the vivid
representation of the sitter’s personality produces in the spectator and
the power displayed by the artist in seizing the essentials of a
character.
[Illustration:
_Hanfstängl photo._] [_Berlin._
GEORG GISZE, MERCHANT OF THE STEELYARD]
Ruskin has described this portrait for us in words so eloquent and so
glowing (_Cornhill Magazine_, March, 1860) that no excuse is needed for
quoting a sentence or two here: “Every accessory is perfect with a fine
perfection: the carnations in the glass vase by his side; the ball of
gold, chased with blue enamel, suspended on the wall; the books, the
steelyard, the papers on the table, the seal-ring with its quartered
bearings--all intensely there, and there in beauty of which no one could
have dreamed that even flowers or gold were capable, far less parchment
or steel. But every change of shade is felt, every rich and rubied line
of petal followed, every subdued gleam in the soft blue of the enamel
and bending of the gold touched with a hand whose patience of regard
creates rather than paints. The jewel itself was not so precious as the
rays of enduring light which form it, beneath that errorless hand. The
man himself what he was--not more; but to all conceivable proof of
sight, in all aspect of life or thought--not less. He sits alone in his
accustomed room, his common work laid out before him; he is conscious of
no presence, assumes no dignity, bears no sudden or superficial look of
care or interest, lives only as he lived--but for ever. It is
inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards the attention
with a continually increasing sense of wonderfulness. It is also wholly
true. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour,
form, and character, rendered with an unaccusable faithfulness.”
According to Dr. Woltmann, Gisze belonged to a family residing in the
neighbourhood of Basle, and even to-day, in the small adjacent town of
Liestall, the name, in the form of Gysin, is to be seen over many
houses. Even on the picture it is spelt in more ways than one. Miss
Hervey considers it to be a variation of the surname Gueiss, one of the
most distinguished in the annals of the Steelyard, and well known in
Cologne. Georg Gisze was deputy Alderman of the Steelyard in 1533.
* * * * *
Shortly after the death of Queen Jane Seymour, in October, 1537, the
Privy Council began to urge the King to marry again. The lady chosen was
Christina, niece of the Emperor Charles V., daughter of the King of
Denmark, and the young widow of Francesco Maria Sforza, last Duke of
Milan, whom she married in 1534, when she was only eleven. He died in
the following year, and in 1538 she was residing in Brussels at the
Court of her aunt, the Regent of the Netherlands. Holbein, as “a man
very excellent in taking phisanymies,” was sent over to paint her
portrait, and arrived there on March 10, accompanied by Sir Philip
Hobby. A long letter to Cromwell from John Hutton, English Envoy to
Flanders, gives us full details of this expedition. The lady’s portrait
had just been painted by some local artist, and despatched to Cromwell,
on the eve of Holbein’s arrival. When Hutton, however, saw the likeness
which the latter produced in the space of three hours, which he
considered “very perffight,” he sent a messenger in haste to stay the
delivery of the other, telling Cromwell that it was but “sloberid” in
comparison. Holbein probably made one of his usual black-and-white
crayon studies touched with colour, and from this, after his return to
London, painted the full-length portrait belonging to the Duke of
Norfolk, which he has lent so generously for a number of years to the
National Gallery.
Christina stands, almost the size of life, facing the spectator, dressed
in “mourning aparel after the manner of Italy”--a black satin gown, and
over it a long black cloak lined with yellow sable. A black hood covers
her hair and part of her forehead, and a ruby ring is her only ornament.
You cannot call her very beautiful, but her expression is fascinating in
the highest degree. It is painted with the utmost simplicity and
directness, and yet is stamped with real grandeur of style in every
delicate stroke of the brush. Her slender form (“She is of taller
stature than either of us,” wrote the Ambassadors Wriothesley and
Vaughan) is admirably rendered, and Holbein, in the spirit of a true
artist, has chosen to depict her in all the severity of her widow’s
weeds, rather than in the bravery of the Brussels court lady, thus
giving an added effect to her sweet childish countenance, which is
modelled in the most masterly fashion. Her dark eyes, from under fair
eyebrows, seem to admit one to her most secret thoughts, and the red
lips are full of expression. The flesh tints are unusually transparent,
and a faint rosy glow of health just flushes her cheeks. “She is not so
white as the late Queen,” says Hutton, “but she hath a singular good
countenance, and when she chanceth to smile there appeareth two pits in
her cheeks and one in her chin, the which becomith her excellently well.
She is higher than the Regent, a goodly personage of body and competent
of beauty, of favour excellent, soft of speech, and very gentle in
countenance.” It is an exquisite portrait, and one of the most precious
in the country.
For some reason, probably the Papal excommunication of Henry, the
Emperor suddenly became hostile to this alliance, and the negotiations
were broken off. She herself seems to have been not unwilling to become
an English Queen. Sir Thomas Wyatt reported that she was somewhat
flighty, but Hutton, on the other hand, mentions “her honest
countenance, and the few words she wisely spoke.” The popular tradition
runs that she sent a respectfully sarcastic refusal to Henry, saying
that “she had but one head; if she had two, one of them should be at His
Majesty’s service.” She married Francis, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, in
1541.
* * * * *
One of the best of Holbein’s portraits of English commoners is that of
_Robert Cheseman_ in the Hague Gallery, which was formerly in the royal
collections of England. With his usual directness and faultless mastery
of handling, he has given us here another example of exact portraiture,
illuminated by a deep insight into
[Illustration:
_Hanfstängl photo._ [_The Hague._
ROBERT CHESEMAN WITH HIS FALCON.]
character. Cheseman, who is forty-eight, wears a silk doublet of
purplish-red, with the customary black overcoat trimmed with fur. His
curly hair is beginning to turn gray. He holds a hooded hawk on his
gloved left hand, and strokes its feathers with his right. The bird is
splendidly painted, and the keen, piercing eyes and clean-cut face of
its master are wonderfully rendered. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who noted it
during his travels in Holland, speaks of it as “admirable for its truth
and precision, and extremely well coloured.”
This picture is called erroneously in all the books “Henry VIII.’s
Falconer,” but he was a person of much more importance. Robert Cheseman,
of Dormanswell, near Norwood, in Middlesex, and Northcote, in Essex, was
a man of wealth, and one of the leading commoners of his county. He was
born in 1485, son and heir of Edward Cheseman, Cofferer and Keeper of
the Wardrobe to Henry VII., and succeeded to the family estates in 1517.
He was made a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex in 1528, and during his
life served on a number of commissions for collecting tithes, subsidies,
and so on. In 1530 he was one of the commissioners on an inquiry into
the possessions of Thomas Wolsey after he was attainted, and was on the
Grand Jury at the trials of Sir Geoffrey Pole and others (1538), and
Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham for treason (1541). He was one of
the gentlemen selected to welcome Anne of Cleves when she first landed
in England, and was, in fact, one of some half-dozen men of position who
represented Middlesex on such public occasions. In 1536 he supplied
thirty men for the army against the Northern rebels, so that he must
have been a man of substance. He married Alice, daughter of Henry
Dacres, of Mayfield, Staffordshire, a Merchant Tailor and Alderman of
London. These curtailed biographical notes are inserted here, as they
have not been previously published.
* * * * *
A small work of great beauty in Hampton Court Palace, representing _Mary
Magdalen at the Sepulchre_, sometimes called _Noli Me Tangere_, is of
unusual value to English students, as being the only sacred painting by
Holbein now in this country. It has darkened greatly with age, and has
suffered other damage, but is considered by most judges to be an
undoubted original by the master, although Dr. Woltmann attributed it to
Bartholomew Bruyn, of Cologne.
Both in treatment and in feeling this picture is very similar to the
altar-piece of the Passion, in eight compartments, in the Basle Museum,
and must have been painted about the same time, between 1520 and 1527.
In sentiment it is one of the most poetical of Holbein’s compositions,
and an admirable example of his rendering of light and shade in his
first Basle period. “The early morning when it was yet dark” is most
successfully suggested in the painting of the landscape background. Dawn
is just breaking over the sky and distant Calvary, while the foreground
is still in darkness, except for the light which radiates from the open
sepulchre, where
[Illustration:
_Hanfstängl photo._] [_Hampton Court._
MARY MAGDALEN AT THE SEPULCHRE.
(_Also called_ NOLI ME TANGERE.)]
the two angels can be seen seated at the head and the foot of the empty
grave. Mary, who holds a cup of spikenard in her left hand, has turned
round hastily in eager surprise, and stretches out her right hand
towards the Saviour. Our Lord draws back from her, saying, “Touch Me
not!” The dramatic action of the two figures is most expressive. In the
background the two disciples, who have been before her at the sepulchre,
are seen hastening away. Peter, still dubious as to the truth of the
Resurrection, is talking eagerly and with animated gestures as he
expresses his doubts; but John, who “saw and believed,” turns back his
head in reproach at a comrade who can doubt even for a moment. The
composition, as a whole, is marked by a simple but impressive dignity.
* * * * *
It seems almost certain that the first portrait painted by Holbein in
England was that of _Sir Thomas More_. Mr. Huth’s finished portrait, a
half-length of the Chancellor, is dated 1527. There are two studies for
More’s head among the Windsor drawings almost identical. They are
life-size, three-quarter face, looking to the right, with black cap and
fur collar, done with black and red chalk. The drawing reproduced here
is 16 inches high by 12 inches wide, and has been pricked for tracing.
Holbein sketched the members of the More family on a larger scale than
was usual with him, and all these drawings were preliminary studies for
the large family group now lost, or hidden under the paint of some
feebler contemporary artist in the Nostell Priory version of the
picture. In these two drawings, in Mr. Huth’s portrait, and in the large
sketch for the family group now at Basle, Sir Thomas is represented in
the same position, so that it is probable he only gave one sitting to
the artist.
This drawing is masterly, and is a splendid example of how easily
Holbein seized upon the leading characteristics of a face and with a few
swift strokes fixed them for our admiration for ever. In his youth More
had been handsome, and, according to Erasmus, was of a fair complexion,
with dark-brown hair and gray eyes. His firmly-compressed lips and his
penetrating glance give to his face a sternness which he seldom
displayed, except in his detestation of heretics; but fine judgment and
nobility of feeling, and that mental harmony which springs from inward
peace, are the leading characteristics in his face as the artist has
drawn it for us here. One can see at a glance that here was a man who
would always be just in his dealings with others, and unchangeable in
carrying out what he knew to be his duty--a student and a man of deep
learning, and yet a man of affairs and of the world, trusted by his King
and admired by his equals, and losing his head on the block through his
invincible honesty. Erasmus well said of him: “He possesses that
beautiful ease of mind, or, still better, that piety and prudence, with
which he joyfully adapts himself to everything that comes, as though it
were the best that could come.”
[Illustration: _Colls photo._]
[_Windsor Castle._
SIR THOMAS MORE, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR.
[_From a drawing._]]
LIST OF THE ARTIST’S CHIEF WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES
GREAT BRITAIN.
_WINDSOR CASTLE._
SIR HENRY GUILDFORD, MASTER OF THE HORSE, 1527.
HANS OF ANTWERP AND OF THE STEELYARD, 1532.
DERICH BORN, OF THE STEELYARD, 1533.
THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK, ABOUT 1540.
CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN, 1538.
A small panel, showing head and hands only, possibly an earlier study
than the full-length belonging to the Duke of Norfolk.
_HAMPTON COURT PALACE._
ELIZABETH, LADY VAUX.
Small bust, partly repainted. There is a replica in Prague.
JOHN RESKEMEER, OF MURTHYN, CORNWALL.
MARY MAGDALEN AT THE SEPULCHRE.
(See illustration and p. 58.)
_NATIONAL GALLERY._
JEAN DE DINTEVILLE AND GEORGE DE SELVE (“THE AMBASSADORS”), 1533.
(See illustration and p. 47.)
CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN, 1538
(See illustration and p. 54.)
_BARBER SURGEONS’ HALL._
HENRY VIII. GRANTING A CHARTER TO THE NEW CORPORATION OF BARBER
SURGEONS.
Holbein’s last work, left unfinished.
_NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND._
SIR HENRY WYATT.
Replica of the picture in the Louvre, and formerly in the Magniac
Collection.
AUSTRIA.
_VIENNA, IMPERIAL GALLERY._
GERYCK (OR DERICH) TYBIS OF DUISBURG AND THE STEELYARD, 1533.
QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR, ABOUT 1537.
A small half-length; there is a copy of it at Woburn Abbey.
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN, AGED 28, 1541.
A very fine portrait, probably of an Englishman.
DR. JOHN CHAMBER, ABOUT 1541.
A small half-length of a very old man. Chamber’s portrait in the Barber
Surgeons’ picture is one of the few heads in that work in which the hand
of Holbein can now be traced.
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY.
With an elaborate head-dress. Small half-length.
PORTRAIT OF AN ENGLISHMAN, AGED 30, 1534.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY, AGED 28, 1534.
Two small rounds on canvas; portraits of some English courtier and his
wife, the man in a scarlet coat, with the letters H.R. embroidered in
gold.
FRANCE.
_PARIS, LOUVRE._
WILLIAM WAREHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 1527.
A replica of the portrait in Lambeth Palace.
SIR HENRY WYATT, 1527 OR 1528.
The father of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet. Formerly called a portrait of
Sir Thomas More. There is a replica of it in the National Gallery of
Ireland.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS, 1523.
Profile, turned to the left, writing. The oil-study for it is in the
Basle Museum. Probably sent to England for More or Wareham, and
exchanged by Charles I. with Louis XIII. for a _St. John Baptist_, by
Leonardo.
SIR RICHARD SOUTHWELL, 1536.
A replica of the portrait in the Uffizi Gallery, but not so good.
Another copy was exhibited by Mr. H. E. Chetwynd-Stapylton at South
Kensington, 1866.
NICHOLAS KRATZER, OF MUNICH, 1528.
Henry VIII.’s Royal Astronomer.
ANNE OF CLEVES, 1539.
GERMANY.
_BERLIN, ROYAL GALLERY._
GEORG GISZE, OF THE STEELYARD, 1532.
(See illustration and p. 51.)
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN, AGED 34, 1533.
Said to be a member of the Trelawney family, and perhaps a brother of
the young man whose portrait, dated 1532, is in Count Schönborn’s
Collection, Vienna.
PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH A LONG BEARD, AGED 54.
Formerly in the possession of Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A. Painted about
1535 (?).
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN, AGED 37, 1541.
Probably a Dutchman, of the Vos van Steenwijk family.
_BRUNSWICK GALLERY._
AMBROSIUS (OR CYRIACUS?) FALLEN, OF THE STEELYARD, 1533.
Much repainted.
_CARLSRUHE, KUNSTHALLE._
ST. URSULA WITH THE ARROWS.
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.
Two panels, evidently parts of an altar-piece, one of them dated 1522.
Some critics doubt the ascription, but they may have been designed by
Holbein and completed by some other painter.
_DARMSTADT, OLD PALACE._
THE MEYER MADONNA, ABOUT 1526.
(See illustration and p. 44.)
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN, 1515.
Dated and signed “H. H.”
_DRESDEN GALLERY._
THOMAS GODSALVE, OF NORWICH, AND HIS SON, SIR JOHN GODSALVE, 1528.
Two portraits on one panel. There is a fine drawing of Sir John in the
Windsor collection.
CHARLES DE SOLIER, COMTE DE MORETTE, OF PIEDMONT, ABOUT 1534.
THE MEYER MADONNA.
A copy, with alterations, of the Darmstadt picture. (See p. 45.)
The Dresden Gallery also possesses copies of Erasmus and Henry VIII.,
after Holbein, and a picture, _The Death of Virginia_, said to be after
some lost original.
_FRANKFORT, STÄDEL INSTITUTE._
SIMON GEORGE, OF CORNWALL.
_FREIBURG-IM-BREISGAU, MINSTER._
THE NATIVITY.
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
Altar-panels, painted for Hans Oberriedt, of Basle.
_HANOVER, ROYAL GALLERY._
EDWARD VI. WHEN PRINCE, 1538.
Half-length, life size. Other portraits of the Prince in the possession
of the Duke of Northumberland (Syon House) and the Earl of Yarborough.
PHILIP MELANCTHON.