Holbein’s entry into Henry VIII’s service—Painting of “Adam and Eve”—Portraits of Henry VIII—The Whitehall fresco—Van Leemput’s copies of it—The life-size cartoon of Henry VII and Henry VIII—Drawing at Munich—Portraits of the King at Belvoir Castle, Petworth, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Chatsworth, Warwick Castle, Hampton Court, Windsor, Rome, and elsewhere—The portrait at Althorp—Portraits and miniatures of Jane Seymour.

THE exact date of Holbein’s entry into the royal service is unknown. Three records of the household expenditure of the King are in existence: the Accounts of Bryan Tuke, Treasurer of the Chamber, which extend from 1st October, 20th Hen. VIII (1528) to May, 23rd Hen. VIII (1531), during which period Holbein was out of England; the Privy Purse Expenses of the King, from November 1529 to December 1532; and further Accounts of Tuke, as Treasurer, from Lady Day, 29th Hen. VIII (1538) to Midsummer, 33rd Hen. VIII (1541). Although Holbein was in England during the latter half of 1532, his name does not occur in the Privy Purse expenses, as it certainly would have done had he then been in the King’s employment. Unfortunately, no accounts have been preserved for the period between 1533 and 1537, and so it is not until 1538 that we have definite proof that the painter was in receipt of a regular salary from the royal purse. The first entry referring to him is at Lady Day, 1538, when the following occurs: “Item, for Hans Holben, paynter, viili. xs.” As his salary of £30 a year, paid quarterly, was not as a rule paid in advance, he must have already been in the royal service at least three months earlier, that is in December 1537.

The first actual reference to him as painter to the King is contained in the letter of Nicolas Bourbon, already quoted, written early in 1536, in which he speaks of him as the “royal painter,” and it is to be inferred from it that Holbein already held that position in 1535, when the poet was in England and made his acquaintance. The circular miniature of Jane Seymour by Hilliard in the Windsor Collection, apparently copied from an original by Holbein, is inscribed “Anō Dnī 1536 ætatis svæ 27”; and the great painting of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth of York, and Jane Seymour, with which Holbein covered one of the walls of the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, was done in 1537. None of the earlier portraits of Henry or of his two first queens, usually ascribed to Holbein, are authentic works of his, which affords some proof that he did not enter the royal service until after Jane Seymour had been crowned Queen in 1536, or, if Bourbon is to be believed, that at least he did not do so until towards the end of Anne Boleyn’s life. The small portrait of Henry VIII on the frontispiece of Coverdale’s Bible, printed in 1535, bears little real likeness to the King, and may well have been designed by Holbein without any sitting from him; though, on the other hand, it may also be taken as some indication that he was already the King’s servant in that year. It is safer, however, to assume, as the evidence for an earlier year is so scant, that he received his first pay from the royal purse in the autumn of 1536.

It is extraordinary, and indeed almost inexplicable, that Holbein was at work for so long a time in England before he received royal recognition. That this did not happen during his first sojourn in London is surprising enough, but that on his return he should remain for three or four years busily employed in painting portraits of people about Henry’s court, some of which the King must have seen, is still more difficult of explanation. Henry entered into keen but friendly rivalry with Francis I in his patronage of art, and was anxious at all times to induce good foreign artists to settle in England; and yet here was a painter of gifts which placed him high above his fellows, who, apparently, went quite unrecognised. This is the more remarkable when it is remembered that the King was well acquainted with, and had expressed his delight in, at least one work of Holbein done during his first English visit—“The Battle of Spurs,” which decorated the back of the arch of the temporary Banquet Hall at Greenwich. It is hardly possible that it was owing to any disinclination on Holbein’s own part, however anxious he may have been to retain his rights as a citizen of Basel. He could have entered Henry’s service for a year or two without renouncing his burghership, or becoming a naturalised English subject, and that he did obtain the post in the end seems to indicate that the obstacle, whatever it may have been, was not one of his own making. It was, on the other hand, an honour to which he would aspire, and the possibility of holding some such position must have been one of the reasons which induced him to visit this country, as it was with all the foreign artists and craftsmen who made London their temporary home. A satisfactory explanation of this mystery is hard to find, and unless further evidence is discovered, it must remain unsolved.

That there is some possibility that Holbein was indirectly employed by the Crown even earlier than 1535 is suggested by an interesting memorandum dealing with goldsmiths’ work published in the Calendars of Letters and Papers. The paper is undated, but is placed by the editor under the year 1534. It is an account rendered to the King’s Secretary, Thomas Cromwell, by the Dutchman Cornelis Hayes, one of the leading foreign goldsmiths in London during Henry’s reign, who was constantly employed by the King and the court. The articles supplied were apparently for the royal service, the chief among them being an elaborately decorated silver cradle, which may possibly have been for the use of the Princess Elizabeth, who was born on the 7th September 1533. The document runs as follows:

“Parcels delivered to Mr. Secretary by me, Cornelys Hayes, goldsmith. A silver cradle, price 16li. For making a silver plate, altering the images, making the roses underneath the cradle, the roses about the pillars, and new burnishing, 13s. 4d. For the stones that were set in gold in the cradle, 15s.; for fringes, the gold about the cushions, tassels, white satin, cloth of gold, lining, sypars, and swadyl-bands, 13s. 6d. Total, 18li. 1s. 10d. The silver that went to the dressing of the Adam and Eve, the making of all the apples, the gilding of the foot and setting of the currall (coral), 33s. 4d. To Hance, painter, for painting the same Adam and Eve, 20s.”[200] Other items are included in the account which need not be quoted.

The “Hance, painter,” who supplied this picture of “Adam and Eve,” was undoubtedly Holbein, who was acquainted with Hayes, as we learn from Bourbon’s letter, and for whom he almost certainly provided designs for jewellery.[201] The document is not very clear, and on a first reading it would appear that the “Adam and Eve” formed part of the decoration of the cradle; but it is more probable that it had nothing to do with it, but was a separate piece of work, either a picture or a carving in wood, honestone, or alabaster, which Holbein was employed to colour; possibly the latter, as the fee paid, twenty shillings, was a small one for an original painting from his brush. Whether picture or carving, it was evidently set in a very elaborate silver frame, decorated with silver apples in relief, as appropriate to the subject it contained, and with coral inset. No trace of this work remains, but the possibility that Holbein’s share in it was a small picture recalls that earlier “Adam and Eve” of the first Basel years, which, as already noted,[202] bears a considerable resemblance to the heads in the picture of the same subject by Mabuse in Hampton Court.

Among the numerous portraits of Henry VIII to be met with in so many of the great houses of this country and in several European museums, which, in almost all cases, are attributed by their owners to Holbein, only three[203] can be ascribed to him with any certainty. These are the large cartoon for the left-hand half of the Whitehall wall-painting, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire; the beautiful little panel portrait in Earl Spencer’s collection at Althorp; and the crayon study in the Munich Gallery. The greater number of the remaining portraits of him, most of them based on the Whitehall likeness, are merely inferior copies, and copies of copies, “shop” pieces supplied to order by Henry’s painters for presentation to foreign potentates and ambassadors, and to his own statesmen and courtiers as a reward for faithful service. Less frequently one is met with which is a good and original work by some painter of lower rank than Holbein, and such portraits, in their turn, have been multiplied by assistants in order to meet the constant demand for the King’s likeness.

The great Whitehall fresco was painted in 1537, and was the first work of importance which Holbein undertook for the Crown. It achieved immense popularity, and for one hundred and fifty years or so every foreign visitor of distinction was taken to see it, while all artists who had an opportunity of examining it spoke loudly in its praises. It covered one of the walls in the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, and was painted on either side and over the top of a window, or, more probably, the fireplace, and consisted of four great figures, Henry VIII and his father, Henry VII, on one side, and his mother, Elizabeth of York, and his third wife, Jane Seymour, on the other, arranged within an elaborately designed architectural setting. This great work, which added so much to Holbein’s fame among his contemporaries, was destroyed in the fire at Whitehall in January 1698; but happily, owing to the foresight of Charles II, we still possess, in the small copy of it by the Flemish artist Remigius van Leemput, in Hampton Court[204] (No. 601 (308)), a very valuable record of the composition of the work. The copy is evidently a very faithful one, and though, of course, it lacks all the greatness of style, the vividness of character, and the beauty of colour of the original—for Remée was a poor artist—it reproduces the composition with some exactitude, and so is invaluable to students of the master. This copy was made by Van Leemput in 1667, the probable reason being that the fresco was then beginning to show signs of decay, and that Charles was anxious to retain an accurate record of it before it was ruined. Patin, who visited England about 1670, and saw both the painting and the copy, said that the latter was ordered by the King “pour en estendre la posterité s’il faut ainsi dire, et n’abandonner pas une si belle chose à la fortune des temps.”[205] Walpole says that Remée, as he was familiarly called here, received £150 for his work,[206] which was a very large fee for those days, and shows how highly the King valued the original.

The wall-painting itself was still in perfect condition when Van Mander saw it in 1604. He was deeply impressed by this “over-heerlijk Portret” of Henry, which, he wrote, was so true to life that it filled the spectator with dismay.[207] “The King, as he stood there, majestic in his splendour, was so life-like, that the spectator felt abashed, annihilated, in his presence.” Earlier travellers who saw it and praised it were Johann Fischart, in 1576,[208] and Hentzner, who visited England in 1598; while Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony, who was here in 1613, was also taken to see it; it is noted in the records of his journey, “upon this his Royal Highness was conducted into the King’s apartment; it was small but hung with beautiful tapestries on all sides. In this room were the full-length portraits of Henrici VIII, and his father, Henrici VII. They were regarded as special works of art, and similar works are said not to be seen throughout England.” Both Pepys and Evelyn mention it in their diaries. The latter, under the date 11th February 1656, says he was glad to find, on revisiting Whitehall for the first time for many years, that “they had not much defac’d that rare piece of Hen. VII, &c., don on the walles of the King’s privy chamber.” This entry proves that ten or eleven years before Charles II ordered the copy to be made the fresco was beginning to show signs of decay. It narrowly escaped destruction in the earlier fire at Whitehall in 1691, but the conflagration of 1698 was a much more serious one. It burnt down the entire Palace, with the exception of the Banqueting House and a few buildings adjoining it. More than a thousand apartments perished in the flames, and a number of pictures in the Matted Gallery and elsewhere, mentioned by Evelyn, were destroyed. “This terrible conflagration, which broke out about four in the afternoon and lasted upwards of seventeen hours, originated through the neglect and carelessness of a laundress, a Dutch woman, who had left some linen to dry in front of a fire, in the lodging of a certain Colonel Stanley. She and twelve other persons, so it is reported, perished in the flames.”[209]

By the aid of the large cartoon and Van Leemput’s copy a very good idea of the general effect and composition of the picture can be obtained. It is divided into two stages. On the spectator’s left hand stands Henry VIII, turned fully to the front, with arms akimbo, and legs stretched widely apart, and opposite him, on the other side of the picture, is Jane Seymour. Behind and above the King, and to the right of him, on a raised step or low platform, stands his father, Henry VII, and in a corresponding position on the other side, his mother, Elizabeth of York. Henry was very proud of his legs, and Holbein has depicted him in his favourite attitude. He holds a glove in his right hand, and with the left the cord of his dagger, gold hilted, with a gold and blue velvet sheath. His gold-brown doublet is richly jewelled, and his red surcoat is trimmed with fur and elaborately brocaded with gold thread; a heavy jewelled chain crosses his shoulders, and from another hangs a pendant. His flat black bonnet is ornamented with pearls, devices in gold, and white feathers. The figure is rather larger than life-size, but looks colossal. His shoulders appear enormous, partly owing to the dress, and partly, no doubt, through some exaggeration on the artist’s part to flatter the vanity of his royal sitter. Henry VII is shown in simpler costume; with his right hand he holds together the folds of his long ermine-trimmed gown, his left elbow resting on the marble pedestal which Van Leemput has placed in the centre in lieu of the window or chimney-piece which occupied the same position in the wall itself. He holds his gloves in his left hand, and has the Garter collar across his breast. Unlike his son, he is beardless, and his long hair falls to his shoulders. Jane Seymour is wearing a dress of tawny gold, full ermine sleeves, and several necklaces of pearls. Her hands are clasped in front of her, and a small white dog is lying on the long skirt of her gown. Behind her, Elizabeth of York stands with her arms crossed, and holding up her dress with her right hand. The floor is covered with a Turkey carpet, and the background consists of richly-decorated pilasters and capitals, niches, and a frieze, in various coloured marbles, in the Renaissance style of which Holbein made such brilliant use. In the frieze on either side are figures supporting a shield. The shield shown in the cartoon bears the initials H and J; the other, no doubt, gave the date. In Van Leemput’s copy the initials have been changed to “ANo. Dō.” with “1537” in the corresponding panel, while the centre of the picture is filled with a high marble pedestal, with two cushions on the top, and on the front of it a long Latin inscription in praise of the two monarchs. Below this is inscribed: “Prototypvm Magnitvdinis Ipso Opere Tectorio Fecit Holbenivs Ivbente Henrico VIII,” and a little below, on a plinth: “Ectypvm A Remigio Van Leempvt Breviora Tabella Describi Volvit Carolus II. M.B.F.E.H.R. A°. Dni. m.dclxvii.”

Van Leemput’s inferiority as an artist is shown most clearly in his rendering of the faces. In that of Henry VIII, in particular, the drawing is weak and lacking in character, and as a likeness it bears no close resemblance to the many portraits still existing which were copied or adapted from the fresco. It must be regarded, therefore, as a not very reliable record of the facial appearance of the four sitters as Holbein painted them.

The pedestal was, no doubt, Van Leemput’s own invention, and the Latin verses must have been specially written for the purpose of his copy. As already pointed out, the wall on which the fresco was painted contained either a window or a fireplace. Charles Patin describes it as “sur le pignon de la croisée”; but it has been suggested that “croisée” is a typographical error for “cheminée.” Patin, however, was not a very careful observer, for he speaks of the subject as “de la main d’Holbein, le portrait d’Henry huit et des Princes ses enfants.”[210] In this, nevertheless, he may not be so completely wrong as at first sight appears. In 1897 Mr. Ernest Law, the historian of Hampton Court Palace, discovered another copy of the great wall-painting, also by Van Leemput, and of the same size and scale as the Hampton Court example, but with one important difference. In the middle foreground the copyist has placed a standing figure of Edward VI. This interesting little picture belongs to Lord Leconfield, and is in one of the private bedrooms at Petworth, Sussex. Patin may have seen this copy, and afterwards may have confused it with the wall-painting; or again, he may have confused the fresco with the picture of Henry VIII and his family, by an unknown artist of the school of Holbein, now in Hampton Court, No. 340 (510), but probably in Patin’s day hanging in Whitehall.[211]

The life-size cartoon of Henry VIII and his father, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, until recently at Hardwick Hall (Pl. 18),[212] is, though only a working drawing, a superb example of Holbein’s mastery of composition on a monumental scale. It is the original design for the left-hand part of the Whitehall fresco, and along its outlines the prickings are still visible by means of which the design was pounced on the wall. It provides evidence that Van Leemput’s copy was a faithful one, for, with one important exception, the two agree in all points. The exception is in the position of the King’s head. In the cartoon it is about three-quarters to the right, but in the copy it has been turned so that the monarch is looking directly at the spectator. Woltmann is, no doubt, right when he suggests that the change was made by the express wish of Henry himself while the wall-painting was in progress.[213] He desired to be shown full-fronted to the world, for he was proud of his appearance, more particularly of his calves, as more than one contemporary anecdote shows. In his younger days, at the beginning of his reign, he was the most commanding figure at the English court, praised by all for his good looks, and celebrated for his great bodily strength and for his proficiency in all manly sports and exercises. He is thus described by the Venetian ambassador Pasqualigo in 1515; “His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg; his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion; and a round face so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick.”[214]

When Holbein painted him he was forty-six years old, and his face had coarsened and had lost all its youthful freshness and good looks, but his figure was still erect and kingly, and retained much of its earlier vigour. In the cartoon he stands boldly and firmly on his legs, active and alert, though massive in build, and made still broader in appearance by his rich apparel, heavily padded about the shoulders. It is in the face that his age and the habits of his life are beginning to leave ugly indications, though this is not to be gathered from the cartoon, in which his features, badly rubbed, are now barely discernible. This, however, may not be entirely due to the accidents of time, for as the cartoon was made for the purpose of transferring the leading lines of the composition to the wall, Holbein possibly only indicated the main outlines, leaving the more careful modelling to be done on the wall itself. Sadly damaged as the cartoon is, a mere fragment of the first conception of a great masterpiece, it nevertheless remains a remarkable and precious work of art, doubly valuable in that it not only shows us Holbein’s methods of work, but is also the only record from his own hand we possess to-day in this country of the most important and celebrated painting he produced while in England. The whole composition is drawn in with the point of the brush, in the manner, as Mr. S. Arthur Strong points out, at once broad and minute, of which Holbein seems to have been the solitary master. In this crowd of particulars almost everyone else would have lost sight of the whole, and given us a map instead of a view.[215] Mr. Roger E. Fry speaks of it as one of Holbein’s greatest creations. “It has all the grandeur of style, the lucidity and ease of arrangement of the greatest monumental design of Italy, together with a particularity and minuteness which would seem incompatible with those greater qualities of style had they not been thus wonderfully united. In all the decorative details, too, this great work gives us a measure of Holbein’s impeccable taste at a time when taste was by no means as universal as it had been in earlier centuries.”[216]

This cartoon was in 1590 in the possession of John, Lord Lumley, at Lumley Castle, and is entered in the inventory of the pictures as “The Statuary of King Henry the Eight and his father Kinge Henry the Seventh Joyned together, doone in white and black by Haunce Holbyn.” It passed subsequently into the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been preserved ever since at Hardwick Hall.[217]

When it was decided to change the position of the face, it became necessary for the King to give the painter another sitting, and the full-face drawing now in the Munich Gallery[218] is, no doubt, the very study Holbein made for the purpose. This is not only evident from its agreement with Van Leemput’s copy, but also from its dimensions. It is life-size, and thus considerably bigger than any other preliminary portrait-study by Holbein which has survived. It is in black and red chalks, on paper prepared with body-colour in the manner practised by the painter at that period. The study is of the face alone, part of the hat, the collar, and a small portion of fur on the shoulders being roughly indicated. The short, scanty beard and the still scantier whiskers do not conceal the shape of the massive, almost square face, with its thin eyebrows, fat, heavy cheeks, which from their size make the mouth look small. He gazes in front of him, his eyes unconscious of the spectator, as though the thoughts of the sitter were entirely given to himself. The modelling is masterly, and is obtained by the simplest means; but the sketch, simple as it appears to be, produces a wonderful effect of perfect truth to life. Here is the King exactly as he was, as none other but Holbein could have drawn him. He has given not only an absolutely faithful rendering of the face itself, but has laid bare much of the complex character which lurked behind it, and the drawing must always remain both one of the artist’s very finest portrait-studies and also a living document of the utmost value in the history of Tudor England. How this drawing came to be in Munich is not known. It was discovered among a number of other drawings, put aside as of no particular value, by Herr J. H. von Hefner-Alteneck when he was keeper of the Print Room. It does not appear to have ever formed a part of the Windsor series of drawings.

The Whitehall painting became the prototype of nine-tenths of the very numerous portraits of Henry which were produced during his reign and for some little time afterwards. With one possible exception, these works are not from Holbein’s own hand; they were all the work of the less important artists attached to the English court. These, again, are of very varying degrees of skill, some being but coarse and common productions, while others have considerable artistic merits. There is great probability that some of the best of them were from the workshop of Gerard and Lucas Hornebolt, more particularly those half-lengths of which the portrait in Warwick Castle is perhaps the finest example. All, however, had their real origin in the Whitehall painting; in every one of them the King is shown full-face, and in the same characteristic attitude.

Interesting as the subject is, the scope of this book does not permit any attempt to describe, or even to compile a list of, all the portraits of Henry VIII still remaining in England. A few of the principal ones may be mentioned briefly. Several of them are full-lengths. Among these one of the most interesting is in Belvoir Castle.[219] It was purchased by the fourth Duke of Rutland at Lord Torrington’s sale in 1787 for £211. Except in some minor details of the dress, it follows the Whitehall painting very closely. The King is wearing “white hose, with the Garter on his left leg; a gold chain round his neck with the letter H, with a pendant circular gold case without any device; another gold chain or collar across the shoulder over the surcoat is mounted in jewels set in gold-and-enamel. The whole of the dress and ornaments is most elaborately painted and gilded, and in excellent effect of light and colour, being in an absolutely perfect state of preservation.”[220] The copyist has made the face younger and more handsome, and much more lacking in expression than the Munich sketch. The background is a curtain with an elaborate design in panels, each one surmounted by a crown. Dr. Waagen thought it to be a genuine work by Holbein. “Although painted on canvas,” he says, “the picture is of such truth, delicacy, and transparency, that I consider it an original.” A similar whole-length on wood, belonging to the Seymour family, is described by Dr. Woltmann, who regarded it as an excellently painted contemporary copy, which very possibly came into the possession of that family through their connection with Jane Seymour.[221] There is a far finer example at Petworth, much more transparent and delicate in its tones, which Wornum describes as “really magnificent.”[222] This work is by no means an exact copy; it differs in various details, more particularly in the dress, which is of silver brocade with a blue mantle lined with ermine. It is possibly the work of a Fleming. The background is architectural. There is another full-length version at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, with a further variation of the background and the floor. Other repetitions are at Chatsworth,[223] Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the possession of Viscount Dillon at Ditchley, Enstone.[224]

The half-length and three-quarter-length versions, of which the portraits at Rome and in Warwick Castle are, perhaps, the most important, are still more numerous. In these the King is shown in the same position, and apparently several years older, the cheeks fatter and more shapeless, and with greyer beard, while in a number of them, instead of holding his dagger, he has a stick in his left hand. The Warwick picture, which is life-size, to the knees, and full-front, was considered by Dr. Waagen to be a genuine work by Holbein of about the date 1530, but more recent criticism has shown him to be wrong in both these assertions. “The square face is so fat,” he says, “that the several parts are quite indistinct. There is in these features a brutal egotism, an obstinacy, and a harshness of feeling, such as I have never yet seen in any human countenance. In the eyes, too, there is the suspicious watchfulness of a wild beast, so that I became quite uncomfortable from looking at it a long time; for the picture, a masterpiece of Holbein, is as true in the smallest details as if the king himself stood before you. In the very splendid dress much gold is employed. The under-sleeves are of gold, with brown shadows; the hands most strikingly true to nature; in the left he has a cane, and in the right a pair of gloves; on his head a small cap. The background is bright green. The want of simplicity of the forms, the little rounding of the whole, notwithstanding the wonderful modelling of all the details, the brownish red local tone of the flesh, the grey of the shadows, and the very light general effect, show this picture to be a transition from the second to the third manner of Holbein, and that it may have been painted about 1530.”[225]

It is, however, impossible that the portrait can have been painted in that year, when Henry was not forty. He appears to be at least fifteen years older than this. The head and hands are good, but the style of painting has little in common with that of Holbein, while the details of the dress lack the beauty, delicacy, and truth of draughtsmanship which are to be found in his work. There is a portrait in the collection of the Marquis of Bute, which, according to Dr. Waagen, is “exactly like the picture by Holbein at Warwick Castle, only less finished.”[226] When he saw it, as far back as 1854, it was ascribed to “Gerard Horebout,” and there is every probability that this attribution is the correct one, for it is not to be expected that the almost forgotten name of Hornebolt would have been substituted for the much better known one of Holbein, and the fact that the former name has clung to the picture for so long is strong evidence in favour of the contention that Hornebolt was the painter of it. For this reason the Warwick portrait, and others like it, are now tentatively attributed by most modern writers to the workshop of Gerard and Luke Hornebolt.

The portrait in the National Gallery, Rome (Pl. 19),[227] which was formerly in the Corsini Collection, is a three-quarter length, and is inscribed across the plain background, on either side of the head, “Anno · ætatis · svæ · xlix,” and was, therefore, painted in 1539 or 1540. In dress and position it closely follows Van Leemput’s copy, and the Windsor and other versions, in which the left hand holds the dagger-cord. With the exception of the substitution of brown fur for ermine, and different embroidery on the upper sleeves, the Rome and the Windsor portraits are in exact agreement as to the costume. The face in the Rome portrait is decidedly younger than in the Warwick and Windsor versions, as the date would indicate, so that it is possibly one of the earliest of the contemporary copies, taken directly from the wall-painting under Holbein’s own supervision. It is undoubtedly the best of the later portraits of the King, the face being full of character finely rendered, and it is regarded by a number of modern critics, including Dr. Ganz, as a work from Holbein’s own brush.

An important example of this type of the portraits of Henry VIII is the three-quarter length belonging to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, which was last exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 23). The dress is very similar to the Warwick portrait. The King is grasping in his left hand a black staff mounted in gold. The background is dark, and on it is inscribed: “Anno [~d][~n]i 1544. ætatis svæ 55,” which is incorrect, as Henry did not enter his fifty-fifth year until 1545.[228] The portrait in Windsor Castle,[229] which, as Mr. Ernest Law points out, is the only contemporary likeness of Henry in the whole of the royal collections which has anything of an Holbeinesque character, was evidently copied from the Whitehall fresco. In the attitude and in the details of the dress it follows the original with considerable closeness, though slight differences are to be noted, as in the position of the right hand, which is here placed over the sword-belt, instead of below it as in Van Leemput’s copy. Its agreement with the Rome portrait has been already pointed out. The face, however, more closely resembles the Warwick portrait. Mr. Ernest Law suggests that it was executed several years later than the Holbein prototype, by some pupil or imitator, such as Guillim Stretes, after the master’s death,[230] the general attitude, pose, dress, and accessories of the original being carefully adhered to, but the features modified, and the beard shown as thinner and turning grey, to suit his added years, though in outline they still closely resemble Holbein’s drawing at Munich. The size of the panel is 3 ft. 3¾ in. high × 2 ft. 5½ in. wide. It may be the picture which was No. 866 in James II’s catalogue: “King Henry VIII at half-length, with gloves in his right hand”; though this description suits equally well the smaller portrait (18 in. × 16 in.) at Hampton Court, No. 606.