Contemporary with Dürer lived another great artist, Hans Holbein. He was
born at Augsburg, in 1497. Comparing him with Albrecht Dürer, Kugler
says that “as respects grandeur and depth of feeling, and richness of
his invention and conception in the field of ecclesiastical art, he
stands below the great Nuremberg painter. Though not unaffected by the
fantastic element which prevailed in the Middle Ages, Holbein shows it
in his own way.” What we know of Holbein’s life must be told briefly. He
was painting independently, and for profit, when only fifteen. He was
only twenty when he left Augsburg and went to Bâle. There he painted his
earliest known works, which still remain there. In 1519, after a visit to
Lucerne, we find him a member of the Guild of Painters at Bâle, and years
later he was painting frescoes for the walls of the Rathaus—frescoes
which have yielded to damp and decay, and of which fragments only remain.
These are in the Museum of Bâle, as well as eight scenes from “The
Passion,” which belong to the same date. Doubtless Holbein had gone
to Bâle poor, and in search of any remunerative work. It is said that
he and his brother Ambrose visited that city with the hope of finding
employment in illustrating books, an art for which Bâle was famous. Hans
Holbein was destined, however, to find a new home and new patrons. In
1526, Holbein went to England. The house of Sir Thomas More, in Chelsea,
received him, and there he worked as an honored guest—painting portraits
of the ill-fated Chancelor and his family. Of other portraits painted at
this time that of “Sir Bryan Tuke,” treasurer of the king’s chamber, now
in the collection of the Duke of Westminster, and that of “Archbishop
Warham,” in the Louvre, are famous specimens. Having returned to Bâle for
a season, hard times forced Holbein to seek work once more in England.
This was in 1532, when he was taken into the service of Henry VIII., a
position not without its dangers. He was appointed court-painter at a
salary of thirty-four pounds a year, with rooms in the palace. The amount
of this not very magnificent stipend is proved from an entry in a book at
the Chamberlain’s office, which, under the date of 1538, contains these
words: “Payd to Hans Holbein, Paynter, a quarter due at Lady Day last, £8
10_s._ 9_d._”
Holbein was employed to celebrate the marriage of Anne Boleyn by painting
two pictures in tempera in the Banqueting Hall of the Easterlings, at the
Steelyard. He chose the favorite subjects for such works, “The Triumph of
Riches,” and “The Triumph of Poverty.” The pictures probably perished in
the Great Fire of London. In 1538, Holbein was engaged on a very delicate
mission, considering the matrimonial peculiarities of his royal master.
He was sent to Brussels to paint the “Portrait of Christina,” widow of
Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, whom Henry would have made his queen,
had she been willing. Soon after, having refused an earnest invitation
from Bâle to return there, Holbein painted an aspirant to the royal hand,
Anne of Cleves. Perhaps the painter flattered the lady; at all events
the original was so distasteful to the king that he burst into a fit of
rage which cost Thomas Cromwell his head. Holbein continued his work as a
portrait painter, and has left us many memorials of the Tudor Court. He
died in 1543, of the plague, but nothing is known of his burial place.
Some time before his death we hear of him as a resident in the parish of
St. Andrew Undershaft, in the city.
The fame of this great master rests almost entirely upon his power as
a portrait painter. In the collection of drawings at Windsor, mostly
executed in red chalk and Indian ink, we are introduced to the chief
personages who lived in and around the splendid court in the troublous
times of the second Tudor.