In addition to works of this nature, Ambrosius produced, during the few years he was in Basel, a considerable number of designs for title-pages, initial letters, and other decorations for books, issued by Froben, Cratander, Adam Petri, Thomas Wolff, and Pamphilus Gegenbach. One of the best known is the “Calumny of Apelles,”^[152] the painting described by Lucian, which bears the monogram of Ambrosius and the date 1517. It was first used in Erasmus’ version of the New Testament, published by Froben in 1519. He had a share, too, in the numerous illustrations and ornaments which Froben provided for the first edition of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, upon which work his brother, Urs Graf, and others, were also engaged. Ambrosius was the designer of the charming little picture representing the scene in the garden of Petrus Ægidius in Antwerp in which Raphael Hythlodæus, the traveller, is describing to his host and Sir Thomas his adventures in the island of Utopia.^[153] A larger woodcut, with a bird’s-eye view of the island, on which the chief places are marked as given in the text, with Hythlodæus in the foreground pointing out its features to Ægidius and More, is also his work (Pl. 22).^[154] It is difficult in every case to separate the designs of the two brothers in this field of art, more particularly as in many instances they have been so badly cut that much of the beauty of the original line has been lost. In book-illustration the art of the two young men had much in common, though Ambrosius was never as powerful or varied in conception as Hans, nor possessed of as great a mastery of technical execution. His woodcuts are not so thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of the Italian Renaissance, nor had he the same gift of producing the effect of largeness of design within an inch or two of space. His figures, too, are often too short, with the head out of proportion to the body. Yet much of his decorative work has considerable charm, and fulfils its purpose admirably. Some forty woodcuts after his designs, including a number of initial letters, are known, of which it is impossible to attempt any description here.^[155] His skill as a designer for glass-painting has been already noted; and among his few drawings are two small roundels, in the Karlsruhe Gallery, of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” and “Hercules and Antæus,”^[156] which are very pleasing, and in their delicate and somewhat “pretty” handling have great resemblance to a number of the marginal drawings to the Praise of Folly which are now given to him.

In painting he was overshadowed by his younger brother. Like Hans, he had inherited a considerable gift for portraiture from his father, as the few works of this nature which remain show very clearly. In his studies for portraits the draughtsmanship is looser and more free than in the corresponding work of the younger Hans in his earlier Basel period, and there is less searching after exact truth of line. His portraits, nevertheless, display an original talent of no mean order, which, had he lived, would have gained for him a place of some distinction among the leading German painters of his day. Such a drawing as the “Anne” is filled with a very tender feeling, and a sympathetic expression of the wistful charm of childhood; and much of the same appreciation of youthful character is to be seen in the portraits of the two small boys in the Basel Gallery, while there is a careful and realistic drawing of the head and body of a baby, supported by the mother’s hand, in the British Museum, evidently a study for a Madonna and Child, which is very attractive. It is inscribed “Hans Holbein, 1522,” by some later hand, over some earlier signature, now obliterated. According to Dr. Hes, however, it is not by Ambrosius.^[157]

The records of Hans Holbein’s residence in Lucerne are scanty ones, but such as they are, they extend from 1517 to 1519. Shortly after his arrival he joined the painters’ guild, the Brotherhood of St. Luke, which had been formed in 1506. In the book of the confraternity his name is entered as having paid one gulden for admission: “Meister Hanns Holbein hat j gulden gen.” Unfortunately the year-date is not given. The original book has disappeared, but a copy exists which was made by Zacharias Bletz, the town registrar, in 1541, but in transcribing it he has omitted the dates which would fix the exact details of Holbein’s membership.

His first recorded commission was a badly-paid one. On the Sunday before the feast of Saints Simon and Jude (October 28), 1517, he received one florin nine shillings for a design for a glass window. In the same year, on December 10, an entry in the town records shows him engaged in less reputable occupation. He and a certain Caspar, a goldsmith, were each fined five livres for fighting in the streets. “Item Caspar goldschmid vnnd der Holbein soll jeder 5 ll. buss als sy vber ein andern zuckt hand.” This same Caspar, one learns from the town books, was by nature a brawler, for he was in trouble of the same kind on more than one occasion. The punishment in this particular case was heavy, so that the disturbance must have been a serious one, and it has been suggested that on account of it Holbein left Lucerne for a time, in order that the affair might blow over, and that he took the opportunity of paying a visit to Lombardy. It is not likely, however, that he crossed the Alps in the winter.

In one of the rooms of the Hertenstein house, at the time of its demolition early in the last century, there still remained the date 1517 on one of the wall decorations, which suggests that his work in the interior of the mansion was well advanced, if not completed, during that year. The outer walls were still unfinished when Holbein left Lucerne, for what reason is not known, but it does not seem probable that he would have abandoned an important commission for several months merely on account of some small trouble with the town authorities. The visit to Italy, it seems certain, took place in the spring or early summer of 1518, after the decorations of the Hertenstein house had been well advanced. These decorations, as far as can be judged from the few existing remains, show a certain Italian influence, but for the greater part not so strongly that it cannot be accounted for by the teaching of his father, the study of prints and engravings, and other second-hand sources. There is, however, a drawing in the Basel Gallery, described below, a preliminary study of architectural decoration for the lower part of the façade of the house, which, as Dr. Ganz points out, must have been made after Holbein’s return from Italy, for in it this new influence can be seen much more clearly and strongly, just as it can in similar work undertaken by him in Basel a year or two later, after a visit to Lombardy had brought him into personal contact with the works of some of the leading Italian masters in painting and architecture. It is clear, therefore, that the journey over the Alps formed an interlude of some duration between two sojourns in Lucerne, each extending over several months, and that during the second period he completed the Hertenstein wall-paintings.

Lucerne was one of the first towns in Switzerland to feel the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and the fashion, copied from the southern country, of decorating the fronts of its houses with wall-paintings, had been adopted before Holbein worked there. As early as 1435 the Frey family owned a house which was covered with such paintings; a second house with sixteenth-century decorations was demolished in 1871, while others of the same period retained traces of wall-paintings until comparatively modern times. Certain fragments of this early wall-painting still exist, and there has been a revival of the art in Lucerne in recent years. Augsburg was probably the first town outside Italy to adopt this method of house decoration, to which the painters who practised it owed so much of the freedom of their style; but many of the towns immediately to the north of the Alps followed suit in course of time, and modified the architecture of their buildings in order to meet the requirements of the new fashion, abandoning to a certain extent the structural Gothic decorative forms to which they were accustomed, in order to make room for the provision of large flat wall surfaces, broken only by plain rectangular windows and doors, upon which the painters would have free scope for their work. It became the habit, too, among the wealthier of the citizens, to decorate the inner walls of their mansions in the same way.

Jakob von Hertenstein, who, when he gave the commission to Holbein for the painting of his new house, was the chief magistrate of Lucerne, was a member of one of the oldest families in Switzerland. His father, Caspar von Hertenstein, held many important civic and military offices, and led the Swiss rearguard at the battle of Murten. His son inherited many of his dignities, and was also a notable soldier, and in 1515, in which year he was mayor, commanded the men of Lucerne at the battle of Marignano. His ancestral castle stood on a steep rock on the shore of the lake of Lucerne, near Weggis, and from it the family took its name. Jakob was married four times, in each instance to a lady of a patrician Swiss family, and in the decoration of the façade of his new dwelling, Holbein introduced the coats of arms of all four of them. In 1511 he purchased of Hans Wolf an old wooden house which stood on the Kappelplatz at the corner of a small street leading to the Sternen Platz, near the Corn Market, and in the heart of the city. This house he pulled down, and erected in its place a fine stone mansion, which was finished, and ready for its decorations, by 1517.

It has been suggested that Holbein obtained this commission through the good services of Oswald Molitor, who was a friend of one of Hertenstein’s sons; but, however it may have been gained, it was one of great importance to so young an artist, and he made the most of his opportunities. The house was one of four storeys, and the whole of its frontage he covered with paintings. It was still standing in 1824, with its decorations for the greater part well preserved; but it was then pulled down, and all that remains of its painted glories is comprised in a number of very inadequate copies of certain portions, a single fragment of one of the original paintings, together with a small study for one of the pictures, and the architectural design already mentioned for part of the ground floor decoration, both from Holbein’s own pencil. It is thus to-day almost impossible to obtain any adequate impression of the actual effect of the painter’s earliest undertaking of importance, as it was in the days of its first freshness and beauty.

The ground floor was left undecorated, with the exception of the painting of certain architectural details, and on the floor above, which had numerous windows of varying sizes, and little wall space, Holbein’s work was confined to three single female figures, one at each corner, and one between the windows in the middle. Immediately over the windows on the left, which were irregular in arrangement, the decoration consisted of ornaments and figures adapted to fit the window crowns; and on the right, where the windows were considerably higher and stood in a straight line, a long frieze of fighting children was introduced. All these decorations were painted in grisaille, but between the two groups was a larger picture in colours, the upper part of which extended to the floor above. This picture was so arranged that its framework had the appearance of a large projecting bay, semicircular in shape, with an arched opening supported by pillars, through which a view was obtained of what appeared to be a large inner chamber of the house. Within this room Holbein depicted a story from the Gesta Romanorum, the one which tells of the old king who tested the love of his three sons and their right to succeed him by offering his dead body as a target to their arrows. This picture was still in a fairly good condition at the time of the destruction of the house, so that from the copy then made it is possible to gain an idea of the artist’s conception of the scene. He represented the white-haired monarch, death-pale in face, still seated upright on his throne, though his heart has ceased to beat. Two of the sons have shot their arrows, and one points to the cruel wound he has made, and claims the crown; but the third, rather than aim at such a target, breaks his bow in indignation, and is acclaimed the victor by the assembled courtiers. On the third storey, between the windows, were placed the coats of arms of Hertenstein and his four wives, within arched openings with hanging wreaths.

Between the windows of the third storey and those of the floor above it, there ran a long triumphal procession from right to left, broken up into groups by pilasters placed at intervals, giving the effect of an open arcading through which the passing show was seen. This design was borrowed in its main details and arrangement from Andrea Mantegna’s engraved “Triumph of Caesar.” In this he followed his original so closely as to clothe the figures in antique costumes, whereas in the pictures drawn from classical sources painted on other parts of the building, he made use of the costumes of his own day. On the topmost storey five pictures were placed between the windows reaching up to the cornice of the roof. These, too, were chosen from classical literature, apparently for the purpose of providing moral lessons, not only for the members of Hertenstein’s own family, but for all the citizens of Lucerne who paused to admire their mayor’s new residence. They included the stories of the treacherous schoolmaster who attempted to betray the town of Falerii to Camillus, Tarquin and Lucretia, the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius, Mucius Scævola before Porsenna, and Leæna, who bit off her tongue rather than betray her lover Aristogiton to the judges after the murder of Hipparchus.

The only original study for these painted stories now remaining is the one for the last-named subject, which is preserved in the Basel Gallery (Pl. 23 (1)).^[158] It is a washed monochrome drawing, in which Leæna, in the costume of Holbein’s own day, stands before her two judges, her hand lifted to her tongue in sign of her determination to keep silence. The story is told with the aid of but few figures. A gaoler stands near Leæna, and behind the two judges are two other seated men. The scene takes place in a vaulted hall with open archways at the back, and has been cleverly arranged to fill in the irregular spaces between the brackets supporting the cornice. This study is of great interest, as it marks a great advance in Holbein’s power of drawing the human figure when compared with the schoolmaster’s sign-board of the previous year, and shows much greater freedom of draughtsmanship. The heads of one or two of the figures still retain something of the grotesqueness of type which characterises those of the early Passion series of pictures, but the figure of Leæna is a graceful one, and the judge in the centre, in a furred robe and cap, with one finger lifted in admonition and a rod of justice or sword grasped in his left hand, is natural and dignified. The only fragment of the actual wall-painting itself which now remains is a small portion of the Tarquin and Lucretia fresco,^[159] showing the latter’s hand grasping the dagger, the figure of her husband before whom she is about to kill herself, the right arm of a woman attendant who stands behind her, and part of the architectural background. This fragment was built into the wall of the house which replaced the older one, and can still be seen on the upper floor of the façade. It is insignificant enough in itself, and has greatly darkened with age and exposure, but it is of value as the only actual evidence of the broad and vigorous manner in which the whole façade was painted.^[160]

A second original drawing by Holbein in the Basel Gallery is a study for a part of the ground-floor façade of this house (Pl. 23 (2)).^[161] It is a pen and wash drawing slightly touched with colour. Groups of pillars support a frieze with flat carving in the Gothic manner. Above the pointed doorway on the left he has thrown a circular arch, round which the pattern of the frieze is continued, filled in with grotesque sculptured figures supporting a tablet for a date. On the right he has placed an open loggia, to which a flight of stone steps descends, with square pillars, inlaid with marble panels, on either side supporting a wide, flattened arch richly ornamented. The space over the frieze on the right is filled in with a procession of naked boys, some dragged along by their comrades, and others carried on litters, and above this again, hanging garlands of leaves with swinging putti, one blowing a trumpet. According to Dr. Ganz, this last motive, as well as other parts of the architectural design, are reminiscent of details to be seen in the cloisters and on the façade of the Certosa of Pavia, and suggest that Holbein must have taken them directly from that building.^[162] If this be so, it proves that a part at least of the wall decoration of the Hertenstein house was not finished until after Holbein’s visit to Lombardy.

It seems certain that Holbein began his work in the interior of the house, and that he covered the walls of at least five rooms, chiefly on the third floor, with paintings. In 1825 many of them still remained in an excellent state of preservation. In contradistinction to those on the outer walls, they consisted of religious pictures, and scenes from ancient fables and from everyday life in which humour found a prominent place. The sacred decorations were in a large hall which served as the family chapel. One of them represented the legend of the fourteen saints who are said to have appeared to a shepherd in 1445 at a church in the neighbourhood of Bamberg. Holbein depicted them in an elaborate landscape, with mountains and a church in the background, grouped on their knees round the Infant Christ, with the shepherd, a striking figure, kneeling in adoration with his sheep round him. A second picture in this room contained portraits of Hertenstein, his wife, and three sons, very diminutive figures, kneeling before seven saints, among them St. Benedictus, the patron saint of Lucerne. A third picture showed a religious procession, with a bishop and other ecclesiastics, headed by banners, issuing from the walls of a town in a hilly country. In the large hall of the house, on the third floor, which at the time of the demolition was still in its original state, were a number of landscapes with hunting scenes, in one of which, a stag-hunt, the ancient castle of the Hertensteins on a hill by the lake of Lucerne was introduced. In these scenes portraits of the chief magistrate and members of his family were included. In one of them Hertenstein, his fourth wife, and two sons, Benedikt and Leodegar, all mounted, are hunting wild ducks by the side of the lake, accompanied by dogs. Husband and wife appear again in the painting representing a stag-hunt in the woodland below the castle at Weggis. In a third scene hares are being hunted with a pack of hounds over hilly country. Near the fireplace was a representation of a subject which was popular with German painters—the Fountain of Youth. In this a certain amount of latitude was permitted, and Holbein depicted some of the incidents with a rough, unrefined humour. Nude men and women are sitting crowded together in a small circular fountain, some still old, others already rejuvenated by its waters. In the centre of the basin rises a pillar with a banner bearing the arms of Hertenstein and his fourth wife. From all sides old people come crowding and hurrying up, some in carts, some on donkeys, one pushed in a wheelbarrow, and others carried in litters or on the backs of less feeble seekers after perpetual youth. In one instance an ugly old woman, seated in a basket slung on the back of a sturdy young man, holds in her arms an equally old and ugly dog, in order that it, too, may benefit from the bath. A second painting next to it continued the story. Other old men and women are crowded into a long cart drawn by four horses, into the back of which a lame man has scrambled, while a second limps painfully after it. In other rooms the decorations were so dilapidated and damaged that it was impossible to make copies of them; but they included battle scenes, and various Renaissance ornaments and devices. In one of these latter rooms occurred the date 1517 under the family shield.^[163] In one of the chambers was a wooden pillar, carved with the likeness of Heini von Uri, court fool of Duke Leopold of Austria, for which Holbein appears to have supplied the design from which the carver worked. Hollar made an etching from this drawing, or from a woodcut of it, as he has inscribed it, “H. Holbein incidit in lignum,” when it was in the Arundel Collection, in 1647.^[164]

In carrying out this monumental work, Holbein, in addition to possible help from his brother, must have employed more than one assistant. He made, no doubt, designs for every part of it, and painted the principal pictures himself, but much of the remainder was very probably done by others under his personal direction. North of the Alps such work was not particularly well paid, nor was great care displayed in carrying it out. Both artist and employer were satisfied if a good decorative effect in design and colour was produced; the former, considering the large amount of surface to be covered, could not waste much time over the careful painting of details, nor was the latter prepared to pay more than a very moderate price for it. There is no doubt, however, that Holbein’s work in this field was far in advance of anything hitherto carried out in Switzerland, more particularly in the elaborate architectural settings in which he placed his wall pictures, and in the use made of perspective, so that the scenes depicted appeared to be taking place within the rooms of the house itself, and the eye was deceived into supposing that a building of somewhat plain design was in reality a mansion erected in the richest style of the Italian Renaissance.

In 1825 the Hertenstein house came into the possession of a Lucerne banker named Knörr, who pulled it down in order to replace it by a more modern building. In spite of the efforts of a few art-lovers, this work of demolition was carried out, and the town authorities made no attempt to stop such an act of vandalism, or to save the only surviving record they possessed of the art of by far the greatest artist their walls had ever sheltered—a record which to-day would be rightly regarded as one of their greatest treasures. It was only through the efforts of Colonel May von Büren and Colonel Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, who employed certain local artists to make copies of the frescoes before the house was finally destroyed, that any record at all of the decorations remains. Time and the damp climate had so dimmed them, however, that it was found necessary to wash them down with the town’s fire-engine before they could be seen clearly enough for the artists to copy them. The copies, which were made by the Lucerne painters Schwegler, Ulrich von Eschenbach, Eglin, Marzohl, and an Italian, Trolli von Lavena, had to be hurriedly done, and they naturally possess little or nothing of the combined delicacy and force of the originals. Much of the purely decorative work, the scroll and wreath ornament, and details in the Renaissance style, in the use of which Holbein was to become so great a master, had to be left uncopied, attention being concentrated on the pictures and figure subjects. Still, what was done was sufficient to show something of the ideas Holbein brought to the undertaking, the influences he came under in his choice of subjects, and the methods he employed in carrying them out. Colonel May persuaded Usteri, the painter and poet, to visit Lucerne in order to give his opinion as to the value of the paintings, but he was unable to do so until 1825, when the demolition had already begun. Usteri directed the making of the copies, and saw to it that the artists adhered as faithfully as possible to the originals. No “restoration” was permitted; those parts which had perished were left blank in the copies. The latter were made with the view of publication, but they proved too inadequate, and the scheme was dropped. In 1851 they were presented by Colonel May to the town library of Lucerne, together with Usteri’s letters concerning them.^[165]