THE BARBER-SURGEONS PICTURE AND THE PAINTER’S DEATH
Holbein’s last important work, the Barber-Surgeons picture, left
unfinished by him—Description of it—Copy of it made for James I—Pepys’
attempt to purchase the original—Holbein’s death from the plague in
the autumn of 1543—Discovery of his will—His executor, John of
Antwerp, and his witnesses, Anthony Snecher, Olryck Obinger, and Harry
Maynert—Old mistake in the date of his death—History of Holbein’s
family—Englishmen named Holbein—His imitators—Painters who were
working in England at the time of his death and shortly
afterwards—Johannes Corvus and Gerlach Fliccius—Guillim Stretes—Hans
Eworthe—Thomas and John Bettes—Nicholas Lyzarde—Amberger—Copies of
Holbein’s pictures in English collections.
The last important work upon which Holbein was engaged, a work left
unfinished owing to his sudden death, was the large picture still
hanging in the old hall of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company in Monkwell
Street, London (Pl. 54).[701] It was painted to commemorate the
unification of the Company of Barbers and the Guild of Surgeons by Act
of Parliament in the thirty-second year of Henry’s reign (1540-41), and
must have been begun shortly after the passing of the Act. At an earlier
period the barbers and the surgeons of London had formed a single
company, but in course of time had become separated; and upon their
second coming together Holbein was called in to furnish a permanent
record of the event. During the progress of the work he painted separate
portraits of at least two of the sitters in the big picture—Dr. John
Chamber and Sir William Butts—just as he had painted individual
likenesses of Sir Thomas and Lady More when engaged upon the big group
of the Chancellor’s family.
Footnote 701:
Woltmann, 202. Reproduced by A. F. Pollard, _Henry VIII_, p. 270;
Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 130.
The truth of Van Mander’s statement that Holbein left this large picture
unfinished is apparent after even a cursory examination of it. That
writer, who regarded it as an “unusually splendid work,” says:
“According to the feeling of some, Holbein is said not to have completed
the piece himself, but that the deficient parts were painted by some one
else. Nevertheless, if this be the truth, it must lead to the conclusion
that the completer of the work must have understood how to follow
Holbein’s manner so judiciously that no painter or artist can from good
reasons decide that various hands have been engaged in it.”[702]
Footnote 702:
Quoted by Woltmann, i. p. 474. Eng. trans., p. 444.
The latter part of Van Mander’s statement, however, is far from correct,
for the hand of a very inferior craftsman is plainly enough to be
discerned over a greater part of the picture. The general arrangement of
the kneeling figures in the front rank, and the position assigned to the
King, were evidently Holbein’s, who had probably finished the heads, and
even the robes, of several of the leading members of the Guild, while
the heads of others had possibly been traced on the panel from his own
preliminary studies before death cut short his labours. For the rest,
the picture appears to have suffered from more than one later attempt to
finish it.
[Sidenote: DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE]
The composition consists of nineteen figures. Henry VIII is shown
full-length on his throne, which is not placed in the centre of the
picture, but somewhat to the spectator’s left. He is crowned and dressed
in his full robes of state, holding the sword in his right and the
charter in his left hand. He is represented as far larger in size than
the other figures kneeling in front of him, something in the manner of
earlier days, when the importance of the principal person in a painting
was brought home to the spectator by the simple plan of depicting him
much bigger than those who surrounded him. This is a trick to which such
a master as Holbein would never have descended; indeed, the figure of
the King, who stares straight out of the picture with a dull, wooden
countenance, without evincing the slightest interest in the ceremony in
which he is the chief performer, cannot even have been sketched in by
Holbein, and is a stiff and clumsy performance at the best. The head has
evidently been copied from one of the numerous likenesses of Henry of
the type of the Warwick portrait, without any attempt to alter the
position of the face or to connect it with the presentation which is
taking place. The position of the head may have been indicated by
Holbein on the panel, and Woltmann is probably right in his conjecture
that it was his intention to represent him standing on the steps of the
throne, and not seated, which would account for the height of the face
as it now is above the surrounding figures.[703] On the King’s right
hand only three members of the Guild are kneeling—Chamber in the front,
with Butts next, and T. Alsop behind him. The three may have been thus
placed in the position of honour as the King’s personal physicians. All
three wear a furred gown and a doctor’s cap. The head of Chamber is
excellent, and appears to be wholly Holbein’s work, with little or no
retouching; that of Butts has suffered more severely from incompetent
hands, while the Alsop is much weaker. It is in this part of the
picture, and in one or two of the heads on the opposite side, that
Holbein carried his work almost entirely to completion. Eight men kneel
in the front row on the King’s left, headed by T. Vicary, who receives
the charter from the royal hand, five of them with beards, and some of
them with skull-caps, and wearing more elaborate costumes and gowns than
those opposite to them. The second figure, T. Aylif, the Warden, is one
of the most effective, the head, though here again retouching is very
evident, being perhaps the best of all. The heads of Harman and Monforde
are noteworthy among the remainder of the figures, the greater number of
which have been so badly repainted that no touch of Holbein’s hand is
now visible; though it is possible that in some cases he was responsible
for the outline. According to Dr. Woltmann, traces of the pinholes by
means of which the transference of Holbein’s original sketches of the
heads to the panel was made, can still be seen in several instances.
Behind the eight kneeling members of the Company on the spectator’s
right there appears an upper row of seven figures, which must have been
added at a considerably later date than that of the finishing process
given to the picture at some time shortly after Holbein’s death. These
later figures are so badly placed that they entirely spoil the
composition, and are quite devoid of artistic merit, being the work of a
still weaker hand than that of the unknown “finisher.” They evidently
formed no part of the original arrangement, but represent later members
of the company who wished their portraits to be included. The panel is
further marred by the fact that over each sitter, with the exception of
five in the last-named row, his name is inscribed in large letters.
Another late addition, which also helps to spoil the general effect, is
a large white tablet on the wall on the right, which contains a long
Latin inscription in prose and verse in praise of the King. Originally
this space was occupied by a window, through which could be seen the old
tower of the church of St. Bride’s, showing that the ceremony was
represented as taking place in the palace of Bridewell. Behind the King
hangs a large gold-embroidered curtain, and on either side of it the
space is roughly filled in with flowers and fruit representing tapestry.
According to Dr. Ganz,[704] it is the same chamber, with the same
hangings, probably the throne-room in Whitehall, as in the large picture
of the family of Henry VIII at Hampton Court (No. 340 (510)),[705] which
has been attributed by some writers to Guillim Stretes; and again, in a
portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the possession of the Earl of
Buckinghamshire. It is possible that the King may have sat for the
picture at Whitehall, and that Holbein made use of the surroundings at
his hand, but the view from the window in the copy of the
Barber-Surgeons painting, mentioned below, seems to indicate that the
room represented was in Bridewell. There is no resemblance between the
patterns of the carpets in the two pictures. It is painted on a panel
made up of a number of thick, vertical oak boards, and is 10 ft. 3 in.
wide by 6 ft. high. In Woltmann’s opinion, “the picture is nothing but a
ruin, in which we have to search with difficulty for the traces of
Holbein.”[706]
Footnote 703:
Woltmann, i. p. 475.
Footnote 704:
See _Holbein_, p. 243.
Footnote 705:
The central part of this picture, showing Henry VIII enthroned, with
Edward VI and Queen Catherine Parr on either side of him, is
reproduced by Mr. Ernest Law in _The Royal Gallery of Hampton Court_,
p. 130.
Footnote 706:
Woltmann, Eng. trans., p. 446.
This opinion, and an almost similar one given by Wornum, were regarded
by the late Sir Charles Robinson as far too scathing.[707] He considered
that Holbein’s hand had worked more or less over every part of the great
panel—very elaborately and minutely in some parts and very slightly in
others; but that nowhere had the finishing touches and work required to
give final truth and perfection of representation been bestowed. He
thought that an interval of some twenty or thirty years must have
elapsed before the Barber-Surgeons, in an inauspicious moment,
determined on the completion of their picture, the superadded work
seeming to be that of a somewhat advanced Elizabethan period. It must
always be a matter of deep regret that they did not leave it in the
state in which it came to them from Holbein’s studio, for it would have
been of infinitely greater value than it is now. Finished by him it
could not have been less than a masterpiece; but even in its incomplete
state it would have been of equal interest as forming an invaluable
example of his technique and methods of working.
Footnote 707:
In a letter to _The Times_, 28th August 1895.
[Sidenote: COPY MADE FOR JAMES I]
On the 13th of January 1618 James I wrote from Newmarket to the Company
asking that the picture should be lent to him, as he was anxious to have
a copy made of it, and promising that this should be done expeditiously,
and the original redelivered safely. “We are informed,” he said, “there
is a table of Painting in your Hall whereon is the Picture of our
Predecessor of famous memorie K. Henry the 8th., together w^h diverse of
y^r Companie, w^h being both like him and well done Wee are desirous to
have copyd.”[708] Holbein’s name is not mentioned in this letter. The
copy then made is in all probability the one now in the possession of
the Royal College of Surgeons,[709] which is smaller than the original,
and an indifferent version of it, on paper attached to canvas. The
figure of Alsop, on the extreme right of the King, is omitted, and in
place of the tablet with the inscription, the window with a view of the
church tower is shown, proving that even if it is not the copy ordered
by James I, it is at least a very early version of the original. It was
at one time in the collection of Desenfans, and at his sale in 1786 was
purchased by the Surgeons’ Company for fifty guineas. It has been
incorrectly described as the original cartoon for the picture, and it
has also been said, but this again is wrong, that it belonged at one
time to the Barber-Surgeons’ Company, and that when the two branches of
the Guild were finally separated in 1745, the College retained the copy
or cartoon and the Company kept the picture.[710]
Footnote 708:
The original letter is in the possession of the Company.
Footnote 709:
The College also possesses a second copy of the picture.
Footnote 710:
In 1789 this copy was cleaned and put in order by a man named Lloyd,
who asked £400 for his labours, but eventually took fifty guineas.
The next reference to the picture occurs in Pepys’ _Diary_, under the
date August 29, 1668. The entry runs: “At noon, comes by appointment
Harris to dine with me; and after dinner, he and I to Chirurgeons’ Hall,
where they are building it new, very fine; and there to see their
theatre, which stood all the fire, and, which was our business, their
great picture of Holbein’s, thinking to have bought it, by the help of
Mr. Pierce, for a little money. I did think to give 200_l._ for it, it
being said to be worth 1000_l._; but it is so spoiled that I have no
mind to it, and is not a pleasant though a good picture.” The fire of
which Pepys speaks was the great fire of 1666, and the damage to which
he refers may have been caused to some extent by the smoke, though it is
more probable that the injury he noted was merely that caused by time
and restoration. Wornum suggests that it underwent restoration shortly
after the Great Fire, and that the tablet with the inscription was then
introduced in place of the original window.[711] The entry in the
_Diary_ further shows how high a value the Company placed on the picture
even in those days, and also that they were prepared to sell it at their
own price.[712]
Footnote 711:
Wornum, p. 352, who quotes the whole of the Latin inscription.
Footnote 712:
See Appendix (M).
In 1734 the Company commissioned Bernard Baron to engrave the picture
for the sum of 150 guineas. The plate, which is a large one, and a
fairly accurate transcript of the original, except that it is reversed,
was published in 1736. It was dedicated to the Earl of Burlington, with
a Latin inscription. In 1856 it was engraved on wood for the
_Illustrated London News_ by Henry Linton.[713] In 1895 the Company were
again anxious to sell it, and an effort was made to purchase it for the
nation, but unfortunately the scheme fell through, possibly because the
extravagant price of £15,000 was asked for it.
Footnote 713:
Reproduced in Mantz, p. 172.
While still engaged upon this important work, Holbein’s life was cut
short by the plague, which raged so severely in London in the summer and
autumn of 1543 that hundreds of people died each week from it. According
to Hall, “Thys yeare was in London a great death of the Pestilence, and
therefore Mighelmas Tearme was adjourned to Saynt Albons”; and Stow
repeats this statement almost word for word.[714] Holbein succumbed to
it on some date between the 7th of October and 29th of November. This
was proved by the discovery of his will in February 1861, by Mr. W. H.
Black, F.S.A., who found it in one of the Registers of the Commissary of
London, at that time preserved in the Record Room at St. Paul’s
Cathedral. It is included in the book called “Beverly,” on folios 116
and 121, that volume covering the period from 1539 to 1548. It runs as
follows:
Footnote 714:
Hall, _The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Families of Lancastre
and Yorke_, 1548, p. 257. Stow, _The Annales_, &c., 1615, p. 585.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S WILL]
“_Holbeine._—In the name of God the father, sonne, and holy
gohooste, I, Johñ Holbeine, servaunte to the Kynges Magestye,
make this my Testamente and last will, to wyt, that all my
goodes shalbe sold and also my horse, and I will that my debtes
be payd, to wete, fyrst to Mr. Anthony, the Kynges servaunte, of
Grenwiche, y^e of [_sic_] summe of ten poundes thurtene
shyllynges and sewyne pence sterlinge. And more over I will that
he shalbe contented for all other thynges betwene hym and me.
Item, I do owe unto Mr. John of Anwarpe, goldsmythe, sexe
poundes sterling, wiche I will also shalbe payd unto hym with
the fyrste. Item, I bequeythe for the kynpyng [keeping] of my
two Chylder wich be at nurse, for every monethe sewyn shyllynges
and sex pence sterlynge. In wytnes, I have sealed and sealed
[_sic_] this my testament the vijth day of Octaber, in the yere
of o^r Lorde God M^lvCxliij. Wytnes, Anthoney Snecher, armerer,
Mr. Johñ of Anwarpe, goldsmythe before said, Olrycke Obynger,
merchaunte, and Harry Maynert, paynter.”
To this the following official act was appended on the 29th November:
“XXIX^o die mensis Novembris anno Domini predict. Johannes
Anwarpe executor nominat, in testamento sive ultima voluntate
Johannis alias Hans Holbein nuper parochie sancti Andree
Vndershafte defuncti comparuit coram Magistro Johanne Croke,
&c., Commissario generali, ac renunciavit omni executioni hujus
modi testamenti, quam renunciationem dominus admisit, deinde
commisit administracionem bonorum dicti defuncti prenominato
Johanni Anwarpe in forma juris jurato et per ipsum admissa
pariter et acceptata. Salvo jure cujuscumque. Dat. etc.”
[On the 29th November in the aforesaid year of our Lord, John
Anwarpe, appointed executor in the testament or last will of
John _alias_ Hans Holbein, recently deceased in the parish of
St. Andrew Undershaft, appeared before Master John Croke,
Commissary-General, and renounced the execution of the said
will, which renunciation was allowed, and the administration of
the property left was consigned to the before-mentioned John
Anwarpe as sworn in, which was admitted and accepted by him. The
right of each intact.
This is followed on folio 121 of the book by the entry:
“_Holbene._—XXIX^{no} die mensis predicti commissa fuit
administracio bonorum Johannis alias Hans Holbeñ parochie sancti
Andrei Undershaft nuper abintestato defuncti Johanni Anwarpe in
forma juris jurato, ac per ipsum admissa pariter et acceptata.
Salvo jure cujuscumque. Dicto die, mens, &c.”
[_Holbene._—The 29th of the aforesaid month the administration
of the property of John _alias_ Hans Holben, recently deceased
_ab_ _intestato_ in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, was
consigned to John Anwarpe as sworn in, and was admitted and
accepted by him. The right of each intact. Said day of month,
&c.][715]
Footnote 715:
See Sir A. W. Franks, _Archæologia_, vol. xxxix., p. 2, and W. H.
Black, same vol., p. 275.
According to these entries, John of Antwerp was Holbein’s executor,
although he is not so mentioned in the will, and on the 29th November he
renounced all execution of it, and took out letters of administration
only. The will itself appears to have been drawn up carelessly and in
haste; probably Holbein was already sickening when he made it, so that
it had to be done in a hurry, or he may have been merely alarmed, owing
to the number of people daily dying around him, including, as Mr. Lionel
Cust points out,[716] some members of John of Antwerp’s own household,
in whose dwelling, he suggests, Holbein may himself have contracted the
disease. The meaning of the two official acts is not easy to follow, but
the explanation given by Sir Augustus W. Franks, F.S.A., procured from a
legal source, is no doubt the correct one. “Though the two official acts
which follow the copy of the Will may at first appear inconsistent both
with the Will and also with each other; yet, if we suppose that John
Anwarpe was considered to have been appointed executor by implication
(which the law allowed), much of the seeming inconsistency will
disappear. The object of the renunciation may have been either to
obviate some doubt which existed as to whether John Anwarpe was so made
executor (for the language is hardly strong enough), or to avoid certain
liabilities that would have affected him as executor, but not as
administrator. Formerly a person was said to have died intestate, not
only when he left no Will, but also when he left a Will and appointed no
executor, or appointed executors and they all renounced. In this
administration act the testator is accordingly said to have died
intestate. The great difficulty in these official acts is how John
Anwarpe could have been executor and Mr. Anthony not. The second of the
two is almost a repetition of the first, and both are dated on the same
day.”[717]
Footnote 716:
_Burlington Magazine_, vol. viii., February 1906, p. 360. See also p.
13.
Footnote 717:
_Archæologia_, vol. xxxix. p. 15.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S WILL]
The will is of great interest, not only as proving the date of Holbein’s
death within a week or two, but also as affording some information as to
his worldly position and his personal friends. Although his practice in
London was a large one, he died somewhat heavily in debt, and the
inference is that he had not saved money. What his personal possessions
consisted of, the document, so hastily drawn, does not say, but, unlike
a number of his fellow-artists, he does not seem to have owned any
property in London. It does not necessarily follow, however, that he was
extravagant in his habits, though he kept a horse and owed money. It has
been assumed that the frequent payment of his salary in advance was due
to improvidence; but there is nothing beyond the terms of his will to
support this, or to show that he spent all his income on himself, and
that he failed to send money regularly to Basel in support of his wife
and family. The reference to his two children at nurse indicates some
irregular connection in England, which may have been one of the reasons
which made him disinclined to return permanently to Basel in accordance
with the wish of his fellow-townsmen. Considering the laxity of morals
at that period, the fact that he had a second family in London is not
very surprising. It has been suggested that the mother of these children
died of the plague shortly before the artist, and that his will was made
through anxiety to provide for them should he in turn be taken with the
rapid and usually fatal disease, to which most victims succumbed within
three days. The amount bequeathed for these children’s maintenance,
about three half-pence a day each, does not seem much, but when the
relative value of money at that time is taken into consideration, it was
no doubt enough for their simple needs. What eventually became of them
is not known.
With regard to the four witnesses to the will, all of whom were, no
doubt, personal friends of the painter, nothing is known with any
certainty except as regards John of Antwerp. The Mr. Anthony of
Greenwich, one of the King’s servants, to whom Holbein owed the
considerable amount of £10, 13_s._ 7_d._, is evidently the same
individual who witnessed the will as Anthony Snecher, armourer, although
the words “before said” do not occur against his name as witness as they
do in the case of John of Antwerp. Both Mr. Black and Sir A. Franks,
however, appear to have regarded them as two distinct persons.[718] The
former suggested that “Mr. Anthony” was Anthony Anthony, one of the
officers of the Ordnance Department, who had some skill as an
illuminator, if the embellishments of certain rolls dealing with the
navy and signed by him were from his hand, as is probable. The latter
thought that Anthony Snecher was possibly one of the body of German
armourers in the regular employment of the King at Greenwich, of whom
Erasmus Kirkheimer was the chief, and that Holbein may have supplied him
with designs for the ornamentation of weapons. Mr. J. Gough Nichols
suggested that Mr. Anthony may have been Anthony Toto, the painter, with
whom Holbein must have been acquainted, and with whom he may have worked
in conjunction with other foreign artists upon the decoration of Nonsuch
Palace.
Footnote 718:
See _Archæologia_, vol. xxxix. pp. 13-14, and 274.
Of Olryck Obinger, the merchant, nothing is known, but from his name he
must have been a Swiss or German, possibly a merchant of the Steelyard,
though there is no reference to him in the State Papers, which contain
the names of a large number of the members of that body. From his name,
too, Harry Maynert, the painter, also appears to have been a German or a
Fleming. He remains an indefinite figure at present.[719] Mr. Black
suggested that he might be a relation of the John Maynard who was one of
the painters employed on the tomb of Henry VII. A relationship is also
possible with the Katherine Maynors, of Antwerp, a painter, who obtained
letters of denization in England in 1540, at which time she was a widow.
Footnote 719:
The fine miniature by Holbein at Munich, bearing the initials H. M.,
which Dr. Ganz suggests may be a portrait of Harry Maynert, is
described on pp. 241-2.
[Sidenote: THE PLACE OF HIS BURIAL]
The discovery of the will put an end to the tradition which had existed
from the beginning of the seventeenth century that Holbein died in 1554.
This mistake is to be traced back to the publication of Carel van
Mander’s _Het Schilder Boeck_, published in 1604, two years before the
writer’s death. In his account of Holbein he concludes by saying: “Soo
is Holbeen in groote benoutheydt te Londen ghestorven van de Pest A^o
1554, oudt 56 Jaren.” [Thus did Holbein die in London, of the plague, in
great distress, in the year 1554, fifty-six years old. Succeeding
writers copied from Van Mander. Joachim von Sandrart repeated the
statement in his _Teutsche Akademie_—“Wurde er 1554 im 56 Jahre seines
Alters von der damals in Londen wütenden Pest hingerafft”—and later
biographers continued the error, which led to great confusion, as it
added eleven years to the painter’s life, and caused almost all Tudor
portraits bearing dates between 1544 and 1554 to be attributed to him.
Wornum suggests that the letter from the Burgomaster of Basel to Jacob
David, the Parisian goldsmith, with reference to Philip Holbein, which
is dated 1545 and speaks of Holbein, the father, as then deceased, may
have been shown to Van Mander or copied for him, and that in
transcribing it, or even in the printing of his book, the last two
figures of the date were accidentally transferred, so that 45 was turned
into 54.[720] Such mistakes are not of uncommon occurrence, and this
solution may be the true one. There was no plague raging in London in
1554, while in 1543 there was an unusually severe visitation. Otherwise
Van Mander’s account of the painter’s death is substantially correct.
The place of his burial remains uncertain, but according to tradition,
as voiced by Strype, he was interred in the church of St. Catherine
Cree. Strype, in his additions to Stow’s _Survey of the Cities of London
and Westminster_,[721] says: I have been told that _Hans Holben_, the
great and inimitable painter in King Henry VIII’s Time, was buried in
this Church; and that the Earl of _Arundel_, the great Patron of
Learning and Arts, would have set up a Monument to his Memory here, had
he but known whereabouts the Corps lay.”
Footnote 720:
Wornum, p. 23.
Footnote 721:
1720, Book II. p. 64.
The same story was told by Sandrart, without mentioning the church. He
supposed that the Earl’s difficulty arose from the fact that so many
people were dying daily, and had to be buried in such haste, that
Holbein probably shared a common grave with others, and that no record
would be kept. There can be little doubt that he would be buried in or
near the parish in which he was residing. The church of St. Catherine
Cree, though in the next parish, is not many hundred yards distant from
the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, and it is probable that Holbein was
interred in one or the other of them, possibly the latter, confusion as
to the exact locality having arisen at a later date owing to the close
proximity of the two churches. Unfortunately no registers of the time
are available. St. Andrew Undershaft escaped the Great Fire, but its
register from 1538 to 1579 has disappeared, while that of St. Catherine
Cree begins only in 1663.
Holbein’s wife and family are not mentioned in his will, and what little
is known of their further history is largely due to the researches of
Dr. His-Heusler in the Basel archives. His wife survived him for six
years, dying early in 1549, after a somewhat lengthy illness, as on the
9th of July in the preceding year she appointed, for this reason, a
deputy to manage her affairs. It is to be gathered that she was left by
Holbein in a fairly comfortable position, what with the annual pension
allowed her by the civic authorities, the two houses which her husband
had purchased fifteen years earlier, and the legacy from his uncle
Sigmund, which the painter does not appear to have touched. Nor does it
follow, because she was not mentioned in the will, that he had failed to
send to her at least a part of his English earnings. An inventory taken
on the 8th of March 1549, shortly after her death, shows that she was
fairly well provided with worldly goods. In addition to furniture, an
ample supply of linen, and the more ordinary household utensils, she
possessed two silver-gilt covered cups, six silver goblets, a dozen
silver-plated spoons, and a valise with a portion of her deceased
husband’s wardrobe, including a black cap, a Spanish cape trimmed with
velvet, a doublet of smoke-coloured Florentine taffeta, and others of
black satin, crimson silk, and black damask. These garments must have
been left behind by Holbein when he visited Basel in 1538, rather than
forwarded after his death by his executor, who, according to the terms
of the will, was obliged to sell everything. His stepson, Franz Schmid,
who carried on his father’s tanning business, died before his mother,
leaving two children.
[Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S DESCENDANTS]
Some years after 1545, Holbein’s eldest son, Philip, having completed
his apprenticeship to Jacob David in Paris, from whose service he only
obtained release after the Basel Town Council had come to his
assistance, worked for a time as a goldsmith in Lisbon, and finally
settled in Augsburg, where he founded a diamond-cutting business. He in
turn had a son named Philip, who, in 1611, petitioned the Emperor
Matthias for a confirmation and augmentation of “his old and noble coat
of arms.” In this document, in which he describes himself as Imperial
court jeweller and a citizen of Augsburg, he speaks of his grandfather
Johann, as “the painter at that time celebrated throughout Europe,” and
asserts that the Holbeins were descended from a noble family of the
“city of Uri.” This last statement, however, was largely imaginary, and
had its sole foundation in the fact that the Holbein arms[722] were the
same as those of the canton of Uri, with the exception that the latter
lacked the star between the bull’s horns. This Philip Holbein, who,
according to Von Mechel, had been living in Vienna since 1600, had his
petition granted on the 1st October in the following year, 1612. In 1756
one of his descendants, Johann Georg Holbein, who was connected with the
Court of Chancery, obtained a confirmation of the noble rank granted to
his family in 1612, with the surname of Holbeinsberg, and in 1787 was
raised to the rank of a Knight of the Empire, with the title of a noble
of Holbeinsberg.
Footnote 722:
See Vol. i. p. 83.
Holbein’s elder daughter, Katherine, married in 1545 a butcher named
Jacob Gyssler, a widower with a grown-up daughter. Among the papers of
Ludwig Iselin there is a list of all the deaths which occurred in Basel
between 1588 and 1612, from which we learn that she died on February 8,
1590. She is described as Katharina Holbeinin, daughter of the deceased
Hans Holbein, the distinguished painter, wife of a butcher. The second
daughter, Küngolt, or Kunigunde, after the death of her mother, married
a miller named Andreas Syff. They had a numerous family, and one of
their granddaughters married Friedrich Merian, brother of the well-known
engraver, Matthaüs Merian. Küngolt, according to Iselin’s list, died
seven months after her sister, on September 15, 1590. She is described
in the same terms, as the daughter of the celebrated artist. In this
list there also occurs the name of a third lady of the Holbein family,
who died on the 17th September 1594, but she is merely described as
“Felicitas Holbein, wife of Conrad Volmar, died of the plague,” and it
is not certain that she was one of the painter’s daughters. Nothing is
known of the younger son, Jacob Holbein, except that he also became a
goldsmith, and that he came to England and died in London in the summer
of 1552. In 1549, at the time of his mother’s death, he was still a
minor, and the document in the Basel archives dealing with the division
of his property after his death is dated June 27, 1552. No other record
of his presence in London has been so far traced.
The name occurs in England both before and after Hans Holbein’s
residence here, but in every case the bearers of it were almost
certainly Englishmen. Walpole mentions a Holbein, on the authority of an
entry in a register at Wells,[723] as living in the reign of Henry VII,
and conjectures him to have been a foreigner, and even a relation of
Hans, and the possible author of some early paintings, including a
portrait of Henry VII. In this, however, he was wrong. His Holbein was
evidently an English country gentleman, and probably some relative of a
certain Johannes Holbyn of North Stoke, close to Bath, who died in 1548,
and left a sum of money to the Cathedral of Wells. The wills of two
other well-to-do persons of this name occur in the registry of the
Archidiaconal Court of Canterbury—that of John Holbein of Folkestone,
dated August 21, 1534, who bequeathed forty-six shillings and eightpence
for a new covered font for the parish church, and of his widow, who died
shortly after him, which is dated November 25, 1534, and was proved in
the following January. These people were all English, and had no
connection with the painter.[724]
Footnote 723:
Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 49.
Footnote 724:
See Sir A. W. Franks, _Archæologia_, vol. xxxix. p. 16; W. H. Hart,
_Proceedings Soc. of Antiq._, 16th April 1863; and Wornum, p. 372.
Holbein founded no school of painting either in England or Switzerland,
and there is no evidence to show that he had any pupils. It is probable
that he employed assistants when engaged upon such wall-paintings as
those he carried out in Whitehall, but whoever they may have been, their
engagement was only a temporary one. As already noted, there is no
record, as there is in the case of several other foreign artists then
resident in this country, of a royal warrant according him the privilege
of employing in regular service a number of alien assistants or servants
in spite of the Act which made such a proceeding illegal. No pupil of
his is mentioned by any of his early biographers, and it seems almost
certain that no one directly studied under him. If there had been such a
painter, some record of him is almost certain to have survived. There
are a number of portraits, as a rule of no very great artistic merit, in
various private collections in England, which were evidently painted
indirectly under his influence. Such examples are to be expected, for it
was impossible for so great a master to be at work in London for so many
years without a certain number of imitators springing up, who attempted
to work in his methods and to copy his style. It is hardly possible now
that even the names of these third-rate imitators and ineffectual rivals
will be unearthed.
[Sidenote: GUILLIM STRETES]
As already stated, prior to the discovery of his will almost all
paintings bearing dates between 1543 and 1554 were ascribed to him; even
to-day, in some instances, the owners, in spite of the impossibility,
still adhere to the great name, as the catalogues of most of the
exhibitions held within recent years dealing with the Tudor period
afford proof. The authorship of these pictures must be sought for
elsewhere, though in many cases the task is one of extreme difficulty.
Several painters of considerable talent were at work at the English
court during the years immediately following Holbein’s death, and in
some instances signed and authenticated works by them exist which enable
comparisons to be made and certain unsigned works from their hands to be
identified with some confidence. Such men as these were Johannes Corvus
and Gerlach Fliccius; but in other cases, such as that of Guillim
Stretes, only the names and a few scanty records remain, and it is
impossible to point to any picture which can be said with absolute
certainty to have been produced by them. Lucas Hornebolt died in 1544,
about six months later than Holbein, and in the same year Girolamo da
Treviso was killed by a cannon-ball at the siege of Boulogne. Several of
the leading Italian artists, however, continued to serve the court
during the remainder of Henry VIII’s life and throughout the succeeding
reign, such as Antonio Toto, the sergeant-painter, his colleague,
Bartolommeo Penni, and Nicolas Bellin of Modena, though no signed or
authenticated picture by any one of them has survived.
One of the most important of Holbein’s immediate successors was the
Dutch painter, Guillim or Gillam Stretes, though so far no mention of
him has been found prior to the accession of Edward VI. Strype’s extract
from the records of the Privy Council, having reference to a payment of
fifty marks made to him for two pictures of the young King and one of
the Earl of Surrey, has been already quoted,[725] as well as the fact
that in 1553 he was receiving, as King’s painter, an annuity of £62,
10_s._, more than double Holbein’s salary, showing that he was a person
of importance among the painters of Edward’s reign. Reference has also
been made to the attribution to Stretes of the full-length portrait of
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in the collection of the Duke of Norfolk
at Arundel Castle,[726] and of the duplicate version, without the
painted framework, at Knole.[727] The attribution of these two works to
Stretes is based entirely on the Privy Council order. Dr. Waagen[728]
stated that the Arundel Castle portrait was inscribed “William Strote,”
but no one else has succeeded in discovering this signature, and very
possibly the name he quotes was seen by him on some old label then
attached to the frame and since removed. These two portraits, as already
noted, have been grouped with several other full-lengths, including the
young man in red at Hampton Court Palace (No. 345 (315)), wrongly
described as a portrait of the Earl of Surrey,[729] that of Sir Thomas
Gresham, dated 1544, in Mercers’ Hall, the beautiful portrait of William
West, Lord Delawarr,[730] belonging to Lieut.-Col. G. L. Holford,
C.I.E., C.V.O., and the one of the Earl of Southampton, 1542, in the
Fitzwilliam Museum.[731] These portraits display somewhat close
affinities, though it is not possible to allow that all are by the same
hand. The portrait of William West is a work of great power and
character, and has been attributed to Holbein himself, but the style of
the painting does not accord with his. All these works are of
considerably earlier date than that of the Privy Council order, which is
the earliest reference so far discovered touching this painter, and it
is extremely doubtful whether he had anything to do with them. One is on
safer ground in attributing to him some of the portraits of King Edward,
which exist in considerable numbers, two of which he certainly painted,
and very possibly others. These portraits of the young King, and
Stretes’ probable connection with them, have been dealt with in an
earlier chapter.[732] One other picture Stretes is known to have
painted, for it is recorded that on New Year’s Day, 1556, he presented
Queen Mary with “a table of her Majesty’s Marriage.”[733] This picture,
which must have been one of particular interest, has completely
disappeared. Dr. Williamson records a signed miniature by him of Edward
VI, almost full-face, wearing a jewelled cap, in Earl Beauchamp’s
collection at Madresfield Court,[734] and he also attributes to the same
painter a second miniature of the young King, as a little boy, in the
Rijks Museum, Amsterdam.[735]
Footnote 725:
See pp. 168-170.
Footnote 726:
Exhib. Burl. Fine Arts Club, 1909, No. 54. Reproduced Arundel Club,
1907, No. 3; Pollard, _Henry VIII_, p. 284.
Footnote 727:
See p. 201.
Footnote 728:
Waagen, _Treasures of Art in Great Britain_, vol. iii. p. 30.
Footnote 729:
Reproduced by Law, _Royal Gallery of Hampton Court_, p. 136.
Footnote 730:
Exhibited Royal Academy Winter Exhibitions, 1870, No. 23; 1880, No.
167; 1908, No. 2; Burl. Fine Arts Club, 1909, No. 51. Reproduced
Arundel Club, 1908, No. 10; and Burl. Fine Arts Club Catalogue, Pl.
xvii.
Footnote 731:
See pp. 204-205.
Footnote 732:
See pp. 168-170.
Footnote 733:
_Queen Elizabeth’s Progresses_, vol. i. p. xxxv., and Nichols’
_Illustrations of Ancient Times_, p. 14.
Footnote 734:
Williamson, _History of Portrait Miniatures_, 1904, vol. i. p. 12.
Reproduced, Pl. v. fig. 3.
Footnote 735:
_Ibid._, Pl. xlvii. fig. 6.
[Sidenote: GERLACH FLICCIUS]
Of Johannes Corvus, the Fleming, and his portraits of Richard Foxe,
Bishop of Winchester, and of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, the one
undated, and the other of the year 1532, some account has been already
given.[736] Little is known of this painter, or of Gerlach Fliccius or
Flicke, who, like Holbein, was German, and appears to have settled in
London towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, where he died in 1558.
Recent researches by Miss Mary Hervey[737] have, however, added
considerably to our knowledge of this painter and his work. His will,
recently discovered, which is dated 24th January 1558, and was proved by
his widow on the 11th February following, shows that he was living in
the parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate, and that he possessed lands
and goods in Osnabrüch, of which place he was no doubt a native. In this
document he calls himself “Drawer,” and gives his name as Garlick
Flicke, and it was under the name of Garlick that he was generally known
in this country. The Lumley inventory includes three portraits by him—a
full-length, described as “The Statuary of Thomas first Lo: Darcy of
Chiche, created by King Edw. 6. L^d Chamberlayne to the said K. Edw.:
drawn by Garlicke,” and two small ones of “Queen Marye, drawne by
Garlicke,” and “Thomas, the third Duke of Northfolke, drawne by
Garlicke.” Unfortunately these three portraits have disappeared—the
full-length of Lord Darcy in quite modern times. Until 1854 it was
hanging in Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire, but in that year the house and its
contents were sold, and the present whereabouts of the picture has so
far not been traced. Miss Hervey gives a list of eight portraits which
can be attributed with more or less certainty to Fliccius. In addition
to the three from the Lumley Collection, there are three others in the
collection of the Marquis of Lothian at Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith, the
portrait of Archbishop Cranmer in the National Portrait Gallery, and the
small double portrait of the painter himself and his friend, Richard
Strangeways. The three at Newbattle Abbey[738] are of great interest,
though it is impossible to describe them in detail here. The finest,
which is dated 1547, and is signed “Gerlacius Fliccūs Germanūs
faciebat,” represents an unknown man of the age of forty, whom Miss
Hervey tentatively suggests to be William, Lord Grey of Wilton, clad in
a slit buff jerkin and a black velvet surcoat trimmed with fur. It is a
portrait of considerable power, and though it has suffered from
repainting still appears to have been the work of a man of more than
ordinary artistic talents. The second portrait at Newbattle—of Sir Peter
Carew—has many points in common with it, and was probably painted at
about the same time. The portrait of Archbishop Cranmer in the National
Portrait Gallery is stiffer in style than these, and suggests a more
obvious attempt to follow the manner of Holbein, but though very
carefully painted and with every appearance of truth of portraiture,
lacks the vitality which stamps everything from the hand of the master.
It is signed “Gerbicus Flicciis Germanus faciebat,” and though undated
was, according to the sitter’s age, painted in 1545. The curious double
portrait, on a small oak panel, of Flicke and his friend Strangeways or
Strangwish, the gentleman privateer, known as the “Red Rover,” was
painted in prison in 1554. The artist seems to have been mixed up in
Wyat’s rebellion, and as a result he and his friend were imprisoned, but
afterwards released. Over each head is painted a verse, that above
Flicke’s in Latin, which, translated, runs: “Such in appearance was
Gerlach Fliccius, what time he was a painter in the City of London. This
portrait he painted from a mirror for his dear friends, that they might
be able to remember him after his death.” The lines over Strangeways are
in English:
“Strangwish thus strangely depicted is,
One prisoner for thother hath done this;
Gerlin hath garnisht for his delight,
This woorck whiche you se before youre sight.”
Footnote 736:
See Vol. i. p. 269.
Footnote 737:
See _Burlington Magazine_, vol. xvii., May 1910, pp. 71-9, and June
1910, pp. 147-8, from which most of the following facts have been
taken; and J. G. Nichols, _Archæologia_, xxxix. pp. 40-41.
Footnote 738:
All reproduced by Miss Hervey in _Burlington Magazine_, as quoted.
The background is blue. The present ownership of this picture is
unknown. The remaining picture, at Newbattle Abbey, is a small portrait
of Jacques de Savoie, duc de Nemours, showing the head and shoulders
only of a young man with fair hair and a very slight beard and
moustache, in French dress, and wearing the Order of St. Michael. It
betrays the influence of the French school, and is in style of marked
difference to his other known works. It was identified in 1909 by M.
Dimier, who discovered three crayon drawings taken from it, all of them
bearing the title given above. The original picture is signed “G.
Fliccus ft.,” and on the back is an old label with “Origl. Fliccus ft.”
Miss Hervey suggests that it was painted on the Continent about
1555.[739]
Footnote 739:
Reproduced by Miss Hervey, _Burlington Magazine_, vol. xvii., June
1910, p. 148, together with one of the French drawings.
[Sidenote: HANS EWORTHE OR EEUWOUTS]
Recent researches on the part of Mr. Lionel Cust have established the
identity of another foreign painter of considerable skill, who was at
work in England some years after Holbein’s death, but who hitherto has
been known only under the initials H. E.[740] This monogram occurs on a
number of pictures of important personages bearing dates from 1550 to
1568, the earliest of them being on a portrait at Longford Castle,
formerly known as Sir Anthony Denny, but now recognised as Sir Thomas
Wyndham. These portraits have usually been given to Lucas d’Heere,[741]
of Ghent, although all that is known of that painter’s life, including
the fact that he did not come to England before 1568, made the
attribution of any one of them to him one of great difficulty. Mr. Cust,
by means of certain entries in the Lumley inventory, has proved that the
real author of them was a certain Jan Eeuwouts, of Antwerp, whose name
became anglicised into Haunce or Hans Eworthe. Three of the Lumley
portraits are described as the work of Eworthe—“Mr. Edw. Shelley slayne
at Mustleborough fielde, drawen by Haunce Eworthe”; “Haward a Dutch
Juello^r, drawne for a Maisters prize by his brother, Haunce Eworthe”;
and “Mary Duches of Northfolke, daughter to the last Earle of Arundell
Fitzallan, doone by Haunce Eworthe,” the last one being in all
probability the portrait now at Arundel Castle, which is signed H. E. in
monogram. Several other portraits in the Lumley inventory, though no
painter’s name is given, still exist, and bear this monogram, such as
the small double portrait of Lord Darnley and his brother, Charles
Stewart, at Windsor Castle; Lord Maltravers at Arundel Castle; Sir John
Lutterel, dated 1550, at Dunster Castle; and Sir Thomas Wyndham, also
dated 1550, at Longford Castle.[742] These portraits prove that Eworthe
was much employed by Lord Lumley or his father-in-law, the last Earl of
Arundel, at Nonsuch Palace. Mr. Cust has traced him as a resident alien
in London in 1552 in the parish of St. Saviour’s, Southwark. He is
described in the return as “John Ewottes, paynter,” and assessed at the
high rate of eight guineas, and he employed a servant named John
Mychell, who was assessed at eightpence. As “Jan Eeuwouts, schilder,” he
was admitted a free master of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1540.
It is thus possible that he was a native of that city.[743]
Footnote 740:
See _Burlington Magazine_, vol. xiv., pp. 366-8.
Footnote 741:
For an account of d’Heere’s work in England, see Lionel Cust in _Dict.
of National Biography_, 1888, vol. xiv., in the _Magazine of Art_,
1891, and in the _Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London_, vol.
vii. No. 1, 1903.
Footnote 742:
Reproduced in the Catalogue of the Earl of Radnor’s Pictures, 1909,
No. 165.
Footnote 743:
For further details concerning Hans Eworthe, see Mr. Cust’s paper,
already quoted, in the _Burlington Magazine_, and Mr. W. Barclay
Squire’s notes to the portrait of Sir Thomas Wyndham in the Earl of
Radnor’s Catalogue. The latter describes all the portraits which so
far can be attributed to Eworthe with any degree of certainty.
The present writer ventures to suggest that Eworthe was also the author
of a picture included in the inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s
pictures at York House in 1635. The entry is as follows: “Hans Evolls—A
little head of Queen Mary.”[744] The spelling of most of the names in
this inventory is largely phonetic, and evidently the work of some
person with little knowledge of such matters, so that he may easily have
turned Eworthe into Evolls.[745] The following statement of Walpole’s
also suggests a possible connection with Eworthe: “Another picture of
Edward VI was in the collection of Charles I, painted by Hans Hueet, of
whom nothing else is known. It was sold for 20_l._ in the civil
war.”[746]
Footnote 744:
See _Burlington Magazine_, vol. x., March 1907, p. 382.
Footnote 745:
Or the double _l_ may be merely a mistake of the compiler of the
catalogue for a double _t_.
Footnote 746:
Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 136.
[Sidenote: THOMAS AND JOHN BETTES]
It is impossible to mention more than the names of certain better-known
foreigners who practised in England under Mary and Elizabeth, such as
Mor, who came over in 1553, Joos van Cleve, who did so in 1554, and
Lucas d’Heere. Of the few known native painters working in London in the
years immediately following Holbein’s death the records are so scanty
that little remains but their names, but, taking them as a body, they
must have been men of very modest talent, and in portraiture, when they
essayed it, merely feeble imitators either of Holbein or one of the
other leading foreigners at Henry’s court. Among them were John Shute,
painter and architect, and John Bettes, both of whom are described as
miniature painters by Richard Haydock in his translation of _Lomazzo on
Painting_ (1598), and, apparently, as contemporaries of Nicholas
Hilliard. “Limnings,” he says, “much used in former times in
church-books, as also in drawing by the life in small models, of late
years by some of our countrymen, as _Shoote_, _Betts_, &c., but brought
to the rare perfection we now see by the most ingenious, painful, and
skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard.”[747] Meres, in _Palladis Tamia, Wits
Treasury_, the second part of his _Wits Commonwealth_, also published in
1598, in giving a list of the leading painters in England at that time,
mentions “Thomas and John Bettes.” From these two entries it seems clear
that Bettes was an Elizabethan miniature painter, and Vertue, who was of
opinion that he learned from Hilliard, mentions a miniature by him of
Holbein’s sitter, Sir John Godsalve, in which he was represented with
his spear and shield, with the inscription “Captum in castris ad
Boloniam 1540.”[748] There is, however, in the National Gallery a small
portrait of Edmund Butts (No. 1496), a son of Sir William Butts, another
of Holbein’s sitters, to which reference has been already made,[749]
which is attributed to John Bettes, and bears the date 1545. If this
attribution, based on a French inscription on the back of the panel, be
correct, the date indicates that the painter was at work at a
considerably earlier period than is to be inferred from the only two
almost contemporary references to him, quoted above, which have been so
far discovered, and that he may even have been personally acquainted
with Holbein. The portrait in the National Gallery is a work of
considerable merit, and possesses certain Holbeinesque characteristics.
In any case, the date upon it makes it impossible, if painted by Bettes,
that he could have been Hilliard’s pupil, as Vertue asserted. Little or
nothing is known of his work, though, according to Dr. Williamson, there
is a fine miniature of an unknown man by him in the Montagu House
Collection, signed “J. B. 1580”;[750] and a second, of a somewhat
earlier date, a portrait of Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France,
apparently unsigned, in Lord Beauchamp’s possession at Madresfield
Court.[751] Dr. Williamson also notes a quaint miniature of Edward VI as
a baby in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, which in an old inventory of the
Dutch royal possessions is attributed to Bettes.[752] Fox, in his
_Ecclesiastical History_, states that John Bettes drew the vignettes for
Hall’s _Chronicle_. Still less is known of Thomas Bettes, but there was
a miniature in the Propert Collection of John Digby, Earl of Bristol,
which was given to him.
Footnote 747:
Quoted by Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 172.
Footnote 748:
Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 138.
Footnote 749:
See p. 210.
Footnote 750:
Williamson, _History of Portrait Miniatures_, 1904, vol. i. p. 13;
reproduced Pl. iv. fig. 2.
Footnote 751:
_Ibid._, Pl. iv. fig. 1.
Footnote 752:
_Ibid._, Pl. xlvii. fig. 4.
Another painter, of whom little is known but his name, was Nicholas
Lyzarde, who is generally considered to have been an Englishman, though
Mr. Digby Wyatt speaks of him as Nicolo Lizardi.[753] He was employed
about the Court during the last years of Henry VIII’s reign. Thus, in
1543-4 he was at the head of a band of painters engaged on work in
connection with some revels at Hampton Court, for which he received
higher wages than the others—“Wages to painters: Nich^s Lezard 18_^d_
per diem”; and in 1544-5 he supplied various materials and properties
for some other masque—“Paste work and painting, Nicholas Lizarde,
painter, for gyldinge under garments for women, of white and blue
sarcenet, with party gold and silver, 4 _li._; 8 pastes for women,
20_d._; 8 long heads for women, made of past gilded, with party gold and
silver, 43_s._ 4_d._” &c. He was afterwards in the regular employment of
the Court throughout the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, being
serjeant-painter to the last-named Queen, with a pension or salary of
£10 a year. Nothing of his work remains that can be identified, but that
he painted “subject” pictures is to be gathered from a New Year’s gift
he presented to Queen Mary in 1556 of a “table painted with the Maundy,”
while in 1558 his gift to Queen Elizabeth was “a table painted of the
history of Assuerus,” for which he received a gilt cruse of some 8 oz.
in weight. He died in April 1571, and at the time was living in the
parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and left a family of five sons and
four daughters.[754]
Footnote 753:
“Foreign Artists in England,” &c., _Transactions Royal Inst. Brit.
Architects_, 1868, pp. 218 and 235. It may be suggested that this
painter was the “Master Nycolas” or “Nicholas Florentine” who worked
with Holbein on the decorations of the Greenwich Banqueting Hall in
1527; while a possible, though not very probable, connection between
Nicholas Lyzarde and Nicholas Lasora, who was engaged upon similar
work at Westminster Palace in 1532, has been already pointed out.
Lasora, however, in spite of his Italian-sounding name, appears to
have been a Teuton, for he may be identified with some probability as
the “Nic. Leysure, a German,” mentioned more than once in the royal
accounts. See vol. i. p. 314 and note.
Footnote 754:
J. G. Nichols, _Archæologia_, vol. xxxix. p. 45. That he was not
English seems probable from the fact that he was assessed and taxed at
the customary rate for foreigners. See pp. 188-9.
[Sidenote: HIS IMITATORS AND COPYISTS]
In the wider field of European art, also, it is impossible to point to
any painter who was a pupil, or even a direct follower, of the master.
Sandrart says that Christopher Amberger “followed the famous artist
Holbein in his manner of painting, and especially in portraiture,” but
modern criticism does not endorse this statement. In any case, his
opportunities of studying Holbein’s works must have been few, though
Woltmann considered that he certainly did so, and regarded him, if not
as an actual pupil, yet as a real follower of the master.[755] It is not
to be expected, indeed, that Holbein should have formed any definite
school, though he must have influenced painting in Basel during his
first and longest residence in that city; but, except for that period,
his life was more or less a wandering one, and he never, during his
short career, settled for a long enough time in any one place to have
allowed him to gather any considerable body of pupils around him.[756]
Footnote 755:
Woltmann, i. p. 488.
Footnote 756:
On this point, however, see Elsa Frölicher, _Die Porträtkunst Hans
Holbeins des Jüngeren und ihr Einfluss auf die schweizerische
Bildnismalerei im XVI Jahrhundert_, 1909, in which she traces the
influence of Holbein’s art on a number of contemporary Swiss painters
and others practising in the latter half of the sixteenth century,
such as Hans Asper, Tobias Stimmer, Kluber, Clauser, and Hans Bock the
Elder.
The work of his imitators and copyists, such as they were, is to be
found in the portraits scattered about the older country houses and
mansions of England, where they are usually attributed to Holbein
himself, often when the date upon them makes it impossible that he could
have painted them. Among them are numerous old copies of still-existing
portraits by him, which indicate the estimation in which his work was
held for years after his death. For instance, in the fire which burnt
down Knepp Castle, Sussex, in January 1904, a number of pictures were
destroyed, including no less than eight attributed to Holbein. The
titles of nearly all of them were familiar enough—Sir Henry and Lady
Guldeford, Anne of Cleves, Thomas Cromwell, Sir Richard Rich, and
Ægidius—indicating that they were most probably merely replicas or
copies. It is true that Holbein occasionally painted a replica, but this
was very rarely, and in most cases the portraits in question were the
work of far less skilful men, and owed their existence to the desire of
the descendants of Holbein’s original sitters to possess copies of the
older family portraits.
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