APPENDIX
(A) Early Drawing by Holbein in the Maximilians Museum, Augsburg. (Vol. i. p. 43)
The drawing of “Calvary” in the Maximilians Museum, Augsburg (Woltmann, 3), is probably the earliest one by Holbein of which we have any knowledge. It is a silver-point drawing, touched with the brush in brown, white being used for the high lights and red for the representation of Christ’s wounds. It is a carefully wrought, youthful piece of work, at the same time showing considerable feeling in its rendering of the sacred subject. The Cross rises on the left, turned away from the spectator, so that the body of Christ is seen almost in profile against the sky. Mary and John stand below on the right, the former with hands clasped in prayer and head bent in grief. Lower down the rock, in the centre, kneels Mary Magdalen with uplifted arms, and on the left of the Cross a man is standing with his back to the spectator, wearing a tall hat of “beaver” pattern. In the background beyond him is a second cross with one of the thieves, the ladder still placed against it. Down below the heights there is a glimpse of a mountain and buildings. This interesting early example has been recently reproduced in the important publication of facsimiles of the complete series of Holbein’s drawings, now in the course of appearing under the editorship of Dr. Ganz—Die Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, viii. 1.
(B) Designs for Painted Glass of the Lucerne Period. (Vol. i. p. 79)
The design for painted glass with the arms of Hans Fleckenstein, of Lucerne, in the Ducal Gallery, Brunswick (not in Woltmann), is the earliest in date of the series of designs for this purpose in which Holbein made such fine decorative use of the landsknechte with their picturesque costumes as supporters of the shield bearing the coat of arms of the patron for whom the glass was ordered. In the Fleckenstein design the warrior on the left is bearded, and wears a hat with very large feathers, and a great sword, while a long lance is held aloft in his right hand, his left resting on the top of the shield, towards which he leans, and behind which his left leg is hidden. The man on the right is younger and beardless. His head is turned over his shoulder towards the right, and his flat black cap is worn jauntily over one ear and covers one side of his face, while a large hat with a huge mass of feathers is slung upon his back. His right hand rests on his sword-hilt, and his left on the top of the shield. The background is one of plain architecture, in striking contrast to the highly elaborated ones to be seen in most of Holbein’s glass designs produced after his visit to Italy. A barrel-roof is supported by flat columns with a round arch, across which two iron bars run, as in the Solothurn Madonna picture. On either side of this arch, on the top of the columns, stand figures of St. Barbara and St. Sebastian. The shield contains in two of the quarterings the Fleckenstein “house-sign” surmounted by a bar, the other two being filled with lozenge-shaped divisions. On the band at the bottom, left empty for an inscription, is written “hans Fleckenstein, 1517,” and “J. Holbain,” the signature not being in the artist’s own handwriting. It is reproduced by Dr. Ganz in Die Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, v. 4.
The fact that the landscape backgrounds in several of Holbein’s glass designs afford evidence of a journey across the Alps has been touched upon in the text (see vol. i. p. 77), and further proof of this is to be found in another design of this period, made, in all probability, during a leisurely journey from Lucerne to Lombardy in 1518. This is the striking design representing the Banner-bearer of the Urseren Valley, in the Uri district—the valley watered by the Reuss, in which Andermatt is the chief village. This drawing, which is in the Royal Print Room, Berlin, is mentioned by Woltmann, ii. p. 120, as, in his opinion, not by Holbein, but by some “good Swiss master.” The landsknecht, a bearded man, stands full-face, with legs stretched wide apart, and the banner held aloft in his right hand. His left rests on his hip, and he carries a great sword. This animated, vigorously drawn figure is evidently a portrait. The banner, an important part of the design, bears on the left the figure of a bishop with crozier in the act of benediction, and on the right a church, with the bull of Uri in the sky above it, one hoof resting on the steeple. In the background is represented the old pack-horse road over the St. Gotthard, up which men are climbing with horses and mules loaded with barrels and bales. On the summit rises the small church which is depicted on the banner. The landscape is evidently one actually seen by the artist. The setting is a very effective one, consisting of plain pillars and an arch, the former with vine branches and bunches of grapes trained round them in spirals, the leaves forming the capitals and bases, while other branches stretch across the archway. Above the latter is a representation of the Judgment of Paris, with the three nude goddesses on the right, and Paris reclining on the ground on the left. Mercury, holding the apple, and Venus, the outer figures of this group, are placed upon the tops of the pillars on either side. The outlines have been put in with a pen in brown, while the banner-bearer’s face has been finished in water-colours, and the background slightly washed with green. Reproduced in Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, iv. 4.
The glass design containing the coat of arms of the Lachner family, of Basel, in the Print Room of the National Museum, Stockholm (not in Woltmann), is a year or two later in date, the elaborately imagined architectural background indicating that it must have been made shortly after Holbein’s return from Italy, when the recollections of the Lombardic buildings he had studied with such keen interest were still fresh in his memory. On one side stands a young, beardless warrior as shield-bearer, his face in profile to the right, his lance over his shoulder, and his right hand on his hip. Opposite to him is the completely nude figure of a woman, her face turned towards the spectator, and both hands resting on the shield. Her hair hangs down her back in two great plaits, which are fastened together at the ends with a long loop. This is a realistic study from the life, and one of the very few drawings of the nude by Holbein which remain. The coat of arms on the curved Italian shield consists of a pair of outstretched wings, and these are repeated on the helmet which forms the crest, from which masses of finely designed scroll-work fall on either side. The two figures stand on a platform, below which are two crouching fauns holding a tablet for an inscription. The background, as already stated, is very elaborate, consisting of an open loggia with a roof like the later “St. Elizabeth” glass design (see vol. i. p. 149 and Pl. 44), and friezes and a semicircular arch supported by pairs of columns with grotesque capitals, the arch being decorated with a band of ox-heads and foliage. Other friezes are covered with carved leaf and scroll-work, and above them are grotesque sculptured figures and roundels with heads. Through the openings at the back only the sky is indicated. This is a fine design, more particularly in the figure of the man, and in the helmet with its scroll-work. It is a washed drawing, with the knight’s face and hands and the body of the woman put in with water-colour. Reproduced in Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, iv. 6.
(C) Early Drawings for wall-paintings. (Vol. i. p. 101)
In addition to the studies for wall-paintings made by Holbein shortly after his return from Lucerne to Basel, described in vol. i. pp. 98-101, there is another in the Ducal Gallery, Brunswick (Woltmann, 127), representing the Virgin Mary, as Queen of Heaven, with the Infant Christ in her arms, which is signed and dated “1520, H. H.” Her long hair falls in curls over her shoulders, and a plain circular halo is placed behind her crown. She is looking down upon the Child, whom she holds with both hands, and he is smiling back at her. She is placed in a perfectly plain architectural niche, with two empty circles for medallions on either side. According to an inscription on the back, this drawing, which is in black chalk washed with grey, was, towards the end of the sixteenth century, in the possession of Daniel Lindtmeyer, the glass painter of Schaffhausen. Reproduced in Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, iv. 3.
(D) Glass Designs with the Coats of Arms of the Von Andlau and Von Hewen Families. (Vol. i. p. 145)
A third design for painted glass, representing the martyrdom of the Holy Richardis, wife of the Emperor Carl the Big, is of about the same date, and very probably belongs to the same series, as the two designs bearing the coats of arms of the Von Andlau and Von Hewen families, the second of which is dated 1520. St. Richardis, wrongfully accused of unfaithfulness, proved her innocence by submitting herself to the ordeal by fire. She was the patron saint of the convent of Andlau in Alsace, which, according to the legend quoted by Dr. Paul Ganz, was erected upon ground which had been scraped up by a bear. It is most probable, therefore, that Holbein’s design was commissioned for the decoration of this particular religious house. The drawing, which is in the Basel Gallery (Woltmann, 50), shows the saint kneeling on the funeral pyre, her hands clasped in prayer, her head bent, and her long curls falling below her waist. She wears a large cross at her breast, and has a circular halo inscribed “S. RIGARDIS VIRGO.” On the right is a small kneeling figure of an abbess or nun, with open prayer-book, and on the left the bear of the legend. Two flying angels, with draperies very effectively arranged, hold the martyr’s crown above her head. The ordeal takes place beneath a cupola, with an opening in the centre, supported by pillars of fantastic design, the bases of the nearer ones being decorated with medallions hanging from chains. Below is the customary blank tablet for an inscription, held by two grotesque sea-monsters with human heads. At the back, seen through the open arcading of the building, there is a view of a small walled town in a hilly country, with church and cloisters and watch-towers, and, lower down, the red roofs of a cluster of houses. This is one of the most charming of the numerous landscape backgrounds which Holbein introduced into his glass designs and book illustrations. The drawing is washed with grey, and the background lightly touched in with water-colours. It is reproduced in Handzeichnungen Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren, xi. 8.
Miss Mary F. S. Hervey, in her Holbein’s Ambassadors (p. 22, note), draws attention to some cartoons for tapestry representing scenes from the Passion designed by Holbein. The reference occurs in a letter from Carlos de la Traverse, written from St. Ildefonse in Spain in 1779 to M. d’Angeviller, in which he proposes that the latter should buy the cartoons. The offer, however, was declined on the ground that Holbein was “un peintre sec et demi-gothique” (See Nouvelles Archives de l’Art Français, 2nd series, vol. i. pp. 258-62). It is possible that these designs were not for tapestry but for glass, and they may even have been the set in Sir Thomas Lawrence’s collection, now in the British Museum.
(E) The Faesch Museum. (Vol. i. pp. 88, 166-8, 180, and 239-41)
Among the miscellaneous contents of the Faesch Museum, formed by Dr. Remigius Faesch, or Fäsch, the most important are the few works by and after Holbein. Most of these came to him by inheritance from his grandfather, the earlier Remigius Faesch, burgomaster of Basel, who married Rosa Irmi, the granddaughter of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, and so became possessed, not only of the double portrait of Meyer and his wife, Dorothea Kannengiesser, painted in 1516, and the two fine silver-point studies for the same, but also the famous Meyer Madonna now at Darmstadt. This last picture, unfortunately for the Basel Public Picture Collection, he sold to Lucas Iselin in 1606. Dr. Faesch’s father, Johann Rudolf Faesch (1574-1660), also burgomaster of Basel, became in turn the owner of the Meyer portraits and drawings, and he added a number of other pictures to the collection. He was acquainted with the painter Bartholomäus Sarburgh, who from 1620 to 1628 was busily occupied in painting portraits in Basel, and to whom, in 1621, he gave a commission for a likeness of his son Remigius, an excellent work now in the Basel Gallery. (Reproduced by Dr. Emil Major in the sixtieth annual report of the Basel Picture Collection, 1908.) From Sarburgh, when that painter was in Holland, Johann Rudolf Faesch obtained the copies of Holbein’s series of Prophets, nine pairs (see vol. i. p. 88). The originals were in water-colour, but were copied by Sarburgh in oil. He is said to have taken the originals with him to the Netherlands, since which time all traces of them have disappeared. These copies are in the depot of the Basel Gallery; two of the pairs are reproduced by Dr. Ganz in Holbein, p. 191.
Remigius Faesch the second (1595-1667) became a doctor of law and a professor in the Basel University. He was an ardent collector throughout his life, not only of pictures, but of books, medals, examples of goldsmiths’ art, and antiquities. On the death of his father he became the possessor of the Meyer portraits and the Sarburgh “Prophets.” To these he added a small square portrait of Erasmus of the Holbein school, and in 1630, Johannes Lüdin, a pupil of Sarburgh, then in Belgium, copied for him the heads of Jakob Meyer’s son and daughter from the Meyer Madonna picture; apparently not from the original, but from the copy now in the Dresden Gallery, which, according to Dr. Major, was most probably the work of Sarburgh (see vol. i. pp. 239-41). In 1648 Johann Sixt Ringlin copied for him one of the versions of the double portrait of Erasmus and Froben (see vol. i. pp. 166-8). Again, in 1667, the year of Faesch’s death, Lüdin presented him with a small portrait of Holbein which he had painted from Hollar’s etching dated 1641. Faesch also possessed a second small portrait of Erasmus, copied from the roundel in the Basel Gallery, several drawings of the Holbein school, and, among other things, the original wood-block of the “Erasmus im Gehäuse.” On his death Faesch left his collections and the mansion containing them in trust as a Museum, with usufruct to his descendants for so long as there should be a doctor of law among the members of his family, failing which everything was to become the property of the Basel University. The last of these doctors of law was Johann Rudolf Faesch, who died in 1823, when the Museum and its contents were handed over to the University, the pictures, drawings, and engravings eventually finding a permanent home in the Basel Public Picture Collection.
Dr. Remigius Faesch spent many years in the compilation of a manuscript, in Latin, now in the University Library of Basel, which he called “Humanæ Industriæ Monumenta.” One section of this deals briefly with the life of Holbein and with his chief works then in Basel in the Amerbach Cabinet and Faesch’s own possession, to which reference has been made more than once in these pages. The original text is given by Woltmann, ii. pp. 48-51, and extracts from it in Das Fäschische Museum und die Fäschischen Inventare, by Dr. Emil Major, which forms part of the Annual Report (1908) of the Basel Gallery, already mentioned. It is from this exhaustive and highly interesting account of the Faesch collections and the various inventories and lists, printed in full, that the facts in this note have been taken.
The reference to the double portrait of Erasmus and Froben in the “Humanæ Industriæ Monumenta” is as follows:
“Erant 2 tabulæ junctæ, ligamentis ferreis ut aperiri et claudi potuerint, in tabula dextra Effigies Johan. Frobenii Typographi, in altera Erasmi sine dubio ab ipso Erasmo in gratiam et honorem Frobenii, quem impense amabat, curatæ, et eidem ab Erasmo oblatæ, unde et eidem dextram cessit: Ex his tabulis nobis exempla paravit pictor non imperitus Joh. Sixtus Ringlinus Basil, An. 1648, quæ extant inter effigies nostras.”
Faesch’s account of the sale of the Meyer Madonna runs thus:—
“An. 163 . . . suprad. pictor Le Blond hic à vidua et hæredibus Lucæ Iselii ad S. Martinum emit tabulam ligneam trium circiter ulnarum Basiliensium tum in altitud. tum longitud. in qua adumbratus prædictus Jac. Meierus Consul ex latere dextra una cum filiis, ex opposito uxor cum filiabus omnes ad vivum depicti ad altare procumbentes, unde habeo exempla filii et filiæ in Belgio à Joh. Ludi pictore ex ipsa tabula depicta. Solvit is Le Blond pro hac tabula 1000 Imperiales, et postea triplo majoris vendidit Mariæ Mediceæ Reginæ Galliæ viduæ Regis Lud. 13 matri, dum in Belgio ageret, ubi et mortua: Quorsum postea pervenerit incertum. Tabula hæc fuit Avi nostri Remigii Feschii Consulis, unde Lucas Iselius eam impetravit pro Legato Regis Galliarum, uti ferebat, et persolvit pro ea Centum Coronatos aureos solares. An. circ. 1606.”
In this paragraph Faesch speaks of Johannes Lüdin as Ludi, but in an earlier one, describing the portrait of Holbein after Hollar which Lüdin sent him, apparently as a new year’s gift, he calls the painter Joh. Lydio.
In an inventory drawn up early in the nineteenth century by the last keeper of the Museum, Johann Rudolf Faesch, the Sarburgh “Prophets” are described as follows:
“13 a 21. Ferners befinden sich in dem Faeschischen Museo noch hienach-folgende Neun Gemählde auf Tuch, welche von Bartholomäus von Saarbrücken nach Holbeinischen Original Gemählden copirt worden sind, solche werden von Patin in dem Eingangs gemeldten Indice also beschrieben:
“‘Prophetæ omnes majores & minores, in novem tabulis bicubitalibus, ita ut binos quævis illarum exhibeat, coloribus aqueis nullo admixto oleo depicti. Has tabulas Bartholomæus Sarbruck, Pictor eximius, in Belgium Basilea detulit, atque hic illarum apographa manu sua depicta reliquit, quæ servantur in Musæo Feschiano.’
“Nach dieser Beschreibung wären also die Originalien mit Wasserfarb, die Copien von Barth. v. Saarbrücken aber, so sich im Faeschischen Museo befinden, sind in Oehl gemahlt. Die sämtl. Propheten sind ganze Figuren u. die Tableaux sind 3 Schuh 1¼ Z. hoch u. 2 S. 3½ Z. breit.”
(F) Hans Holbein and Dr. Johann Fabri. (Vol. i. p. 175)
It is very probable that Holbein’s absences from Basel in search of work during his second sojourn in that city (1519-1526) were more frequent than has been generally supposed. It is not to be expected that many records of such journeys should remain, and for this reason the recent discovery, by Dr. Hans Koegler, of such an absence during 1523 is of exceptional interest. His article, describing this discovery, entitled “Hans Holbein d. J. und Dr. Johann Fabri,” was published by him in Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. xxxv. pts. 4 and 5, (1912), pp. 379-84. Fabri was Vicar-General of Constance, and afterwards Bishop of Vienna, and a friend and correspondent of Erasmus. During the autumn of 1523, at some place not yet identified, but evidently in the neighbourhood of Constance, Holbein and Dr. Fabri became acquainted, or renewed an earlier intercourse, for the Vicar-General made use of him as the bearer of some letter, message of greeting, or gift to Erasmus, and from the latter’s reply in acknowledgment it is to be gathered that the relationships between the painter and the author of The Praise of Folly were very friendly ones. The letter from Erasmus to Fabri, written in November or December 1523, begins:
“Reverendo Domino, Joanni Fabro, Canonico et Vicario Constantien. domino plurimum observando.—Salutem, vir amantissime, ex tua salutatione quam mihi per Olpeium misisti, melius habui. Erat enim accurata, et veniebat ab amico, et per hominem amicum. Spongiarum rursus tria milia sunt excusa, sic visum est Frobenio...,” &c.
In this letter Fabri’s messenger is spoken of as “Olpeius,” and the point for decision is whether this refers to Hans Holbein, or to a second Olpeius occasionally mentioned in the correspondence of Erasmus—one Severinus Olpeius, who acted as letter-carrier for Erasmus more than once, and appears to have been in the employ of the bookseller Koberger of Nuremberg. In one or two of the letters of Erasmus the name “Olpeius” is undoubtedly intended for Holbein, as in the one conveying his thanks to Sir Thomas More for the drawing of the Family Group which More had sent to him by the hands of the painter. In this letter, which is dated from Freiburg, September 1529 (see vol. i. p. 341), Erasmus says:
“Utinam liceat adhuc semel in vita videre amicos mihi charissimos, quos in pictura quam Olpeius exhibuit, utcunque conspexi summa cum animi mei voluptate. Bene vale cum tibi charissimis omnibus.”
Again, in a second letter from Erasmus to Bonifacius Amerbach written from Freiburg on April 10, 1533 (wrongly dated 1535 in the manuscript), first published by Dr. C. Chr. Bernoulli in 1902 (see below, Appendix (J)), the “Olpeius” of whom the sage speaks so severely was almost certainly Holbein. Dr. Koegler brings forward convincing arguments to prove that the artist was also the “Olpeius” of the letter to Dr. Fabri, and that the place of encounter was somewhere in the Lake of Constance district. He also suggests that as Dr. Fabri was connected in his official capacity with the Maria-Wallfahrts Church in Rickenbach, for which Holbein’s earliest known picture, the Virgin and Child of 1514, was painted, and as he was also the personal friend of the orderer of that little work, Canon Johann von Botzheim of Constance, he must have been already acquainted with Holbein. In any case, it seems certain that, thanks to Dr. Kœgler, we have here definite, though scanty, information of one more of the painter’s wanderings in search of work.
(G) The Trade-mark of Reinhold Wolfe. (Vol. i. p. 202)
The charming device of boys throwing sticks at an apple tree, which Holbein made for the publisher Reinhold Wolfe, seems to have been familiar to most English schoolboys in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as it was to be found in a Latin Grammar much in use. There is an amusing reference to it in Henry Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman (reprint of the 1634 edition, Clarendon Press, 1906, pp. 126-7). He says:
“Painting is a quality I love (I confesse) and admire in others, because ever naturally from a child, I have beene addicted to the practice hereof: yet when I was young I have beene cruelly beaten by ill and ignorant Schoolemasters, when I have been taking, in white and blacke, the countenance of some one or other (which I could doe at thirteene and foureteene yeeres of age: beside the Mappe of any Towne according to Geometricall proportion, as I did of Cambridge when I was of Trinity Colledge, and a Junior Sophister), yet could they never beate it out of me. I remember one Master I had (and yet living not farre from S. Albanes) tooke me one time drawing out with my penne that peare-tree and boyes throwing at it, at the end of the Latine Grammar: which hee perceiving, in a rage strooke me with the great end of the rodde, and rent my paper, swearing it was the onely way to teach me to robbe Orchards; beside, that I was placed with him to be made a Scholler and not a Painter, which I was very likely to doe; when I well remember he construed me the beginning of the first Ode in Horace, Edite, set ye forth, Maecenas, the sports, atavis Regibus, of our ancient Kings: but leaving my ingenious Master, to our purpose.”
(H) Nicolas Bellin of Modena. (Vol. i. pp. 282-4)
(i.) Extract from a Letter from Sir John Wallop, ambassador to France, to Henry VIII, respecting the extradition of “Blanche Rose” from France, and of Nicolas Bellin from England, dated Mantes, 27 September 1540. (State Papers, vol. viii. pt. v. cont., No. dcxxviii., p. 439.)
“... Which the Cardynall of Tornon confessed to be true, saying, ‘his (i.e. Blanche Rose) mother was Englissh, and duelled in Orleance, and in the Cardynalles tyme of Yorke being brought uppe in England’; and with stayed, saing that the said fellowe shoued hym many other thinges, that he cauled not to remembraunce: and so left that pourposse, and axed me why Your Majestie delivered not Modena, when he was send for, showing me what was the cause why they desired hym so much, being uppon acompte of a houndreth thousand crownes, that the President Jentill had begiled the King, not yet ended. ‘Whye,’ quod I, ‘then, if ye dyd extyme hym so moch, wherfore dyd ye not kipe hym (i.e. Blanche Rose), that I demaunded, in prison, till ye had knowledge, what aunswar should be made for the said Modena; whom if ye had extymed, ye would have so doon? but I perceyve,’ quod I, ‘that ye thinke to have a greate personnaige of the said noughty fellowe, who I ensure you to be of as ill qualities as canbe, and his father a poore man; and fourthre ye considre not howe gentelly the King my maister deliverd you of late Adryan Cappes.’”
(ii.) Extract from a Letter from Sir John Wallop to Henry VIII, referring to the work done at Fontainebleau by Nicolas Bellin, dated Mélun, 17th November 1540. (State Papers, vol. viii. pt. v. cont., No. dcxlii., p. 484.)
“... and from thense browght me into his (i.e. Francis I) gallerey, keping the key therof Hym self, like as Your Majestie useth, and so I shewed Hym, wherewith He toke plesur. And after that I had wel behold the said gallerey, me thought it the most magnifique, that ever I sawe, the lenght and bredthe no man canne better shewe Your Majestie then Modon, who wrought there in the begynnyng of the same, being at that tyme nothing in the perfection, as it is nowe. The rowff therof ys seeled with walnott tree, and made after an other forme then Your Majestie useth, and wrought with woode of dyvers cullers, as before I have rehersed to Your Majestie, and is partly gilt; the pavement of the same is of woode, being wrought muche after that sort; the said gallerey is seeled rownde abowte, and fynely wrowght three partes of it; upon the fourthe parte is all antique of such stuff as the said Modon makith Your Majesties Chemenyes; and betwixt every windowe standes grete anticall personages entier, and in dyvers places of the said gallerey many fayre tables of stories, sett in, very fynely wrowgth, as Lucretia, and other, as the said Modon can muche better declare the perfytnes of the hole to Your Majestie, then I. And in the gallerey at St. James the like wold be wel made, for it is bothe highe and large. Yf your pleasure be to have the paterne of this here, I knowe right wel the Frenche King woll gladly geve it me.”
(I) The More Family Group. (Vol. i. pp. 291-302)
There is a very interesting manuscript book, dated 1859, in the possession of Lord St. Oswald, which contains a descriptive catalogue of the pictures at Nostell Priory, together with “Some brief Notices of the sundry pictures of the Family of Sir Thomas More, Knt., Lord High Chancellor of England, Temp. Henry VIII,” from which, through the courtesy of the owner, the writer is enabled to give some extracts. It was written by Lord St. Oswald’s grandfather, Mr. Charles Winn, whose chief purpose seems to have been to controvert Horace Walpole’s adverse criticism, based on George Vertue’s manuscript notes, of the Nostell picture. Mr. Winn gives a short history and description of the various versions of the Family Group. Speaking of the Nostel Priory version, called throughout his notes the “Roper” picture, he says:
“This picture formerly belonged to William Roper, Esqre., son of William Roper, Esqre., Prothonotary of the Court of King’s Bench, temp. Henry VIII, who married Margaret, the oldest, and favourite daughter of the celebrated Sir Thos. More, Knt., Lord High Chancellor of England; and was painted for him by that renowned artist Hans Holbein in the year 1530, as appears from the monogram and date on the picture. It remained in this family till the death of Edwd. Roper, the last in the direct male line of the Ropers of Well Hall, nr. Eltham, Co. of Kent, and of St. Dunstans, nr. Canterbury; he had only one child, a daughter, who married Charles Henshaw, Esqre., who on her father’s death inherited all his property. The issue of this marriage was three daughters, the eldest of whom married Sir Edward Dering, Bart., of Surrenden Dering in the County of Kent; the second married Col. Strickland of Beverly, in the East Riding of the Co. of York; and the third, Susannah, married my great-grandfather, Sir Roland Winn, Bart., of Nostel, in the West Riding of the Co. of York. Mrs. Strickland died without leaving issue, and on the death of Mr. Henshaw, his two surviving daughters succeeded to his real, as well as personal property. The Holbein picture was valued at £3000, and Sir Edward Dering preferring to have his share in money, my ancestor paid him a moiety of the valuation, and thus became possessed of the picture, which was conveyed to Nostel, where it still remains.”
Mr. Winn was of opinion that the version, with life-size figures, painted in distemper, which belonged to Andries de Loo, was not the picture at Nostell, the latter being painted in oil. He considered that the De Loo version was the one formerly at Heron in Essex (afterwards at Thorndon—see vol. i. p. 300), and that it was purchased at De Loo’s death by Giles Heron, who married Sir Thomas More’s second daughter,
Cecilia. Heron Hall was the seat of his family, and the property passed into the possession of the Tyrrell family by the marriage of Sir John Tyrrell with Margaret, daughter and heiress of Sir William Heron, of Heron, Kt. Quoting Walpole’s statement that the Heron picture “having been repainted, it is impossible to judge of its antiquity,” he goes on to say that this “appears to me to go very far in proof of the correctness of the opinion I have hazarded, as to who was the purchaser of the De Loo picture, for it is hardly to be credited that had this (Heron) picture been painted in oil colour it would have become so injured as to require its being repainted to an extent to render it impossible to judge of its antiquity.” Mr. Winn thought that Holbein himself must have sold the distemper version to De Loo—though why he should do so it is not easy to imagine, as it is natural to suppose that Sir Thomas More or some member of his family would have retained it—and that the East Hendred picture, in Mr. Winn’s time at Barnborough Hall (see vol. i. p. 300), was the actual work painted by Holbein for the Chancellor, either from the Basel sketch or the De Loo example. It is not likely, he says, that Sir Thomas
“would have allowed the picture in Distemper to be disposed of to De Loo, ‘till he had secured a copy of it. I can hardly therefore entertain a doubt that Sir Thomas did possess one of these large Family pieces, and that the picture at Barnborough Hall is the identical one. John More had this picture conveyed to Barnborough, when he took up his abode there on the death of Mr. Cresacre, his wife’s father.”
The inference is that John More, as head of the family, inherited the version of the Group expressly painted for his father. Mr. Winn says of this picture that it is
“in the number and arrangement of the persons represented a facsimile of the original sketch, or drawing, and I deem it far from improbable that it may be the picture which was painted, by Holbein, for Sir Thomas; for although it is now in a very deplorable state, caused by most unpardonable neglect, yet there are parts which shew that the picture, in its original state, was painted by no ‘prentice hand.’ It is now in a low room panelled with oak, and has unfortunately been curtailed, both in width, and depth, to fit it into the panel where it is placed, and this may probably account for the absence of the monogram of the painter, and the date. The present size of the picture is length, ten feet; height, eight feet. The figures represented are the size of life.”
Of the Burford picture (see vol. i. pp. 301-2 and Pl. 76) he says:
“This picture was formerly in the possession of a branch of the More family, who resided at Gobions, or Gubbins, not far from Barnet, in Hertfordshire, for whom I have no doubt it was painted, and probably by Zuccaro, as it bears the date 1593—some of the figures are copied from one of the pictures already alluded to (most likely from that at Barnborough); these are Sir John More, Knt., Sir Thomas More, Knt., John More, Margaret Roper, Cecilia Heron, Elizabeth Dancey, and Anne Cresacre. The other figures (four in number, whose names I have given at page 12) are represented in the costume of the period in which the picture was painted, viz. temp. Eliz. How this picture came into the possession of the Lenthall family is not certain, but the last possessor of it, of that name, told a relative of mine that it had been purchased by their ancestor the Speaker Lenthall, on the sale of Gobions and its contents.”
After pointing out the differences between the Roper picture, the other versions, and the Basel sketch, Mr. Winn concludes by saying:
“There are other differences observable between the Sketch and the Roper picture which though unimportant in themselves, yet when considered in connection with those I have named, do I think afford most satisfactory proof that the Roper picture is no copy, but that it is, as Vertue asserts, an original production by Hans Holbein.”
It is not possible, however, to follow Mr. Winn in every one of his conclusions, which would necessitate the belief that Holbein himself painted no less than three versions of the Family Group—the one in distemper, which was sold by the artist to De Loo, and afterwards purchased by Giles Heron, now so injured that “it is impossible to judge of its authenticity”; the one in oil painted for Sir Thomas, which remained at Barnborough in the possession of John More and his descendants, and has been cut down and subjected to “unpardonable neglect”; and the Roper picture now at Nostell Priory. It seems almost certain that Holbein had no hand in the painting of the two first, and that they are merely early copies or adaptations from the Nostell picture, though at the same time it should be pointed out that they follow the Basel sketch more closely than the latter, and do not show, as it does, various alterations in the design, such as the introduction of the figure of the secretary Harris. This affords some support to the contention that they are of earlier date, or copied from some earlier version, than the Roper canvas. The Basel sketch would not be available for the purpose, as it was taken with him by Holbein when he left England in 1528. Still, in spite of this, the fact remains that the Nostell Priory version is the only one that has any pretensions to be regarded, even in a small part, as an original work by Holbein, and until further proof is forthcoming it is safest to conclude that
Holbein, after making his preliminary studies, began a large canvas which for some unknown reason was left by him in a very incomplete state, and that Sir Thomas More had it finished by some other hand in 1530, and that this picture was the one which came into De Loo’s possession, and is now at Nostell Priory.
One other point remains to be touched upon. Mr. Winn asserts that in Vertue’s opinion the Roper picture is an original work by Holbein, and he quotes in support of this statement from a manuscript by Vertue in his possession which he bought at the Walpole sale. He gives several extracts from it, among them the following, upon which, apparently, he bases his contention:
“But the original painting by Holbein of this family (More) has long been preserved by the family of Roper at Eltham in Kent, and was till of late years there to be seen, but of late at Greenwich in the King’s House in the Park inhabited by Sir John Jennings, the family of Roper having desired leave to place it there till their house at Eltham was rebuilt.”
There is, however, a second account of this picture by Vertue in his diaries preserved in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 25071, f. 4), first published by Mr. Lionel Cust in the Burlington Magazine, October 1912, pp. 43-4; and in this memorandum, in which the picture is described in greater detail, there is no suggestion made that it is an original work. Mr. Winn’s manuscript appears to be rather earlier in date. In it Vertue speaks of his examination as having been made at Greenwich (“I compared the first sketch and the large picture together at Greenwich”—the “first sketch” he speaks of being Caroline Patin’s engraving of the Basel drawing), but in the British Museum memorandum he states that he examined it, at the request of the Earl of Oxford, after it had been removed from Greenwich to Sir Roland Winn’s house in Soho Square, when he “in a more particular manner observd that the picture differs from the others, this seeming to be the most compleated.” He goes on to say:
“First that design at Basil, presented to Erasmus by Sr. Th. More, I conceive to be the first sketch on lines on a sheet of paper, or Holbein’s first draught, and in this large painting of the Family containd the picture of Sir John Mores wife, a young Lady to whom he was then lately married (and there is left out Margaret Giggs) as in the design of the first, she only being a companion to his daughters and a favorite of Mrs. More Sr. Thomas Lady. Then there is also another person comeing in the room with srole in his hand—whose name is ... Harisius ... famulus, and behind a person setting reading on a desk—at bottom are two dogs favorites, probably put in afterwards by another hand.... There really does not appear to be that certainty of drawing, strength of colouring, as in many other pictures of Holben. Therefore in the oppinion of several judges & professors of painting it is doubtfull.”
He goes on to say:
“Upon another review of the Family peice of Sr. Thomas More—I observe that the light & shade of the persons represented are various, which is not consistent to nature nor practice in the art of painting, for as it is a view of this Family represented at once, the light ought to proceed from one point throughout the whole picture, which it doth not but some of the figures there represented, the light proceeds from the right side and others from the left side. And the light on the face of Sr. Thomas proceeds from the left and his father Sr. John is from the right. And also the Lady of Sr. Tho. the light on her face proceeds from the left so in several there is a disagrement of light and shade.”
Vertue’s explanation of the painting of the picture is that Holbein, after taking various portraits of members of the More family, drew, at Sir Thomas’s request, a design for a big Family Group, but that before a start could be made on the picture by the artist Henry VIII paid a visit to Chelsea, and was at once so captivated by the examples of Holbein’s art which he saw there that he carried the painter off to Court at once, and gave him so much to do that More’s commission had to be abandoned. Sir Thomas, therefore, “after 1530” employed someone else to paint the picture from the original design and the finished family portraits, “perhaps, and not unlikely, some scholar of Holbein’s with his knowledge and consent,” this pupil “so forwarding it with as much skill as he was able ready for Holbein to go over again and review and finish it.” This would be a matter of time, and during the progress of the work several alterations and additions were made, such as the introduction of the figure of Harris, which figure, in Vertue’s opinion, showed “most visible difference in painting and drawing,” so that it could not be copied from any painting by Holbein, but was the original work of the assistant, who in this “ventured to show all his skill with full liberty.” In conclusion he remarks that “Raphael made many designs in small which were executed in large by his scholars, some before his death and some after,” and suggests that Holbein made the design for this Family Group with the same intention—“Especially as it may be observd none of these faces, hands coppyd from Holben’s painted pictures are not labouriously finishd, but left broad and light, fitly disposed to receive any improvments by Holbens hand—when, on the contrary, all the still life in the picture, the jewells, ornaments, gold are highly finished.”
Since the Nostell Priory picture was photographed, thanks to the kindness of Lord St. Oswald, for the purposes of this book, it has undergone a thorough and very careful cleaning, with the result that many details, previously almost obscured, can now be seen quite clearly, while the general effect of the work as a whole has been greatly enhanced. As noted in the text (see vol. i. pp. 295-6), the chief points in which this picture differs from the Basel sketch is in the change of position in the figures of Elizabeth Dancey and Margaret Gigs, and the introduction of John Harris. Elizabeth Dancey, who now stands next to Sir John More, is in exactly the same position and dress as in the sketch, whereas Margaret Gigs, who now forms the outer figure of the group on the left, is wearing a plain white head-dress, as in the preliminary study at Windsor, in place of the angular hood with black fall of the sketch; and she now stands upright, instead of stooping, with her right hand resting on the book, indicating a passage with her forefinger. The secretary, John Harris, on the opposite side of the picture, has been brought from within the inner room, in which he was indicated with another person in the sketch, and now leans against one of the posts of the “porch” within the larger chamber, having a roll with seals in his right hand; while his companion is shown standing at the distant window, his back to the spectator, reading a book he holds in both hands. The cleaning of the picture has made clear the details of the furniture and various objects placed about the room. The chief changes in these have been already noted. The most important occurs in connection with the large fitting or buffet on the left, which in the sketch appears as a sideboard reaching to the ceiling, with panels of linen-work surmounted by a carved canopy. In the picture this has been changed to a more simple fitting or table, such as is shown in “The Two Ambassadors,” covered with a Turkish cloth or carpet, the lower part of which forms a cupboard, with a bottle and glass visible through one of the open doors. Upon this, some of the plate, including the dish and the jug with the cloth over it, have been retained, but pushed into the background, with the two musical instruments placed in front of them, while to the single vase with flowers another has been added. One of these holds lilies and carnations, and the other iris and columbines, while the window-ledge on the extreme right, behind Lady More, has now a large vase with flowers, instead of the jug, book, and flickering candle. The clock is seen to be an astronomical one.
In the foreground, where rushes are roughly indicated, the small footstool and the scattered books have been removed, their place being taken by the two feebly-painted dogs. Happily, during the recent cleaning, the larger and more painful of these has been carefully removed, to the very great advantage of the picture. Finally, Lady More no longer kneels at a prie-dieu, but is seated, and the chained monkey, instead of scrambling against her skirts, is placed on its perch at her feet, looking at the spectator. The name and age of each sitter is written over the head or across the dress, the one over Margaret Gigs being in a different style of lettering from the others. This last-named is merely “Uxor Johannes Clements,” whereas in the East Hendred version, which seems to have been based more directly on the original design than that at Nostell Priory, it is “Margareta Giga Mori Filiabus condiscipula et cognata, Ao 22.” This has been taken to indicate that the East Hendred picture was painted first, before the lady married John Clements.