The copy at Arundel Castle, about which still less is known, is so good that it is only when it is placed side by side with the Windsor version, as it was in the Tudor Exhibition in 1890, that the latter is seen to be by far the finer work of the two. The Arundel picture is slightly the smaller, and was last exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (No. 49). There is a second version of this portrait in the Norfolk collection, at Norfolk House, in which various alterations have been made in the position and the dress, and a more elaborate background has been added. It is a work of comparatively little merit, and appears to have been painted during the seventeenth century by some inferior artist.

At the time he sat to Holbein the Duke was at the height of his power. He had been the bitter enemy of both Wolsey and Cromwell, and had assisted to bring about the downfall of both, and had arrested the latter with his own hands. After Cromwell’s execution he became the most powerful of Henry’s subjects, and reached his highest summit of greatness. His influence over the King, however, waned after the fall of his niece, Catherine Howard, when he was supplanted by his enemies, the Earl of Hertford and the Seymours. In 1546 he was attainted, together with his son, the Earl of Surrey, for high treason, and only escaped the latter’s fate by the death of the King on the day the warrant for his execution was made out. He remained in the Tower throughout the reign of Edward VI, but was released on the accession of Queen Mary in 1553, and his titles and estates were restored to him, but he only lived to enjoy them for a year.

That Holbein painted his son, Henry, Earl of Surrey, is proved by the small portrait on the wall in Fruytiers’ version of Van Dyck’s picture of the Arundel family. The inscription on this miniature copy gives his age as twenty-five; and as he was born about 1517, Holbein must have painted him about 1541. He is represented with reddish hair and beard, and brown eyes, the head slightly turned to the right, and wears a black cap with a feather, and a black mantle from the folds of which the right hand appears. There is a small drawing in the Windsor Collection wrongly inscribed “Tho. Howard E. of Surrey,”[423] which bears some likeness to the Earl in the Fruytiers drawing, and is supposed to represent Henry Howard. It is badly rubbed, and has suffered from retouching and certain coarse alterations, and has the slightly-wavering touch which marks the so-called “Melanchthon” in the same collection. It is apparently the original study for the portrait which was engraved by Hollar when it was in the Arundel Collection.[424] There are two other heads at Windsor also named Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, but the attribution cannot be correct, as Surrey’s son, Thomas, was a small boy of only six or seven at the time of Holbein’s death. Whether the drawings represent the poet himself is also doubtful. One of them, inscribed “Thomas Earl of Surry” (Pl. 26),[425] in which he is shown full-face, clean-shaven, with hair cut straight across the forehead and partly covering the ears, and wearing a black cap with scalloped edges and an ostrich feather, is one of the finest drawings in the whole collection, conspicuous for the delicacy of the modelling and the freedom and expressiveness of the draughtsmanship. The face is one of considerable charm, which is not to be seen in the third drawing,[426] inscribed “Tho. Earle of Surry,” perhaps a little later in date, in which the head is turned slightly to the left, and the hair entirely covered with the black skull-cap he wears beneath the feathered bonnet. The dress is only slightly indicated, and is rubbed, and a circular medallion suspended from a broad ribbon hangs on his breast. A portrait of his wife is also to be found among the Windsor heads,[427] full-face, wearing the angular English head-dress with black fall, and a round jewelled ornament hanging from a chain round her neck, and a second medallion on her breast. The dress which, like the ornaments, is badly rubbed, was of rose-coloured velvet, according to a note in Holbein’s handwriting. The portrait for which this drawing was the study, like that of her husband, cannot now be traced. The two full-length portraits of Henry Howard, dated 1546, at Arundel Castle and at Knole respectively, are usually ascribed to the Netherlandish painter Guillim or Gillam Stretes, on account of Strype’s statement, already quoted,[428] that in 1551 the Privy Council ordered a picture “of the late Earl of Surrey, attainted,” to be fetched away from “the said Guillim’s house.” The Duke of Norfolk’s version of the portrait[429] has a very elaborate architectural setting, coarsely painted in stone colour, and apparently of a somewhat later date than the rest of the picture, while the one belonging to Lord Sackville at Knole shows the figure only, and is looked upon by some authorities as the original. The attribution of these two pictures to Stretes is extremely doubtful. The Arundel portrait, in particular, suggests the hand of an Italian, and the name of Nicolas Beilin of Modena may be tentatively suggested. One of them was in the collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, where it was attributed to Holbein. It is described in the inventory of 1655 as “il ritratto del Conte de Surry grande del naturale.”

Only three dated works of the year 1541 remain; the two fine portraits of men in the Berlin and Vienna Galleries, and the miniature of Charles Brandon, the younger son of the Duke of Suffolk. The Berlin panel,[430] (No. 586 C), is inscribed at the top, in gold, on either side of the cap, “ANNO 1541,” and lower down, in smaller letters, level with the sitter’s ears: “ETATIS : SVÆ : 37.” The coat of arms, enamelled in red and white, on the gold ring on his left hand, indicates that in all probability this young man was a member of the Dutch family of Vos van Steenwijk, though the writer has failed to trace the name, or any indication of a sojourn in or visit to England on the part of its bearer, in the Calendars of the English State Papers. It is a half-length portrait, considerably less than life-size, head and body turned to the right, but both eyes shown. The eyes are grey, and the finely painted beard and moustache are a reddish brown. In his clasped hands he holds a pair of brown gloves. He wears a black silk under-dress and a surcoat of black or very dark brown, with the collar turned over to show the lining of black watered silk, and his flat cap of the same colour has a turned-down brim. He is gazing to the spectator’s right with a far-away and slightly melancholy look in his eyes, which are wonderfully painted, as is the beautiful and expressive left hand. It comes from the Von Sybel, Elberfeld, Merlo of Cologne, and Suermondt collections, having been purchased from the last-named owner in 1874.

The picture of an unknown man, aged twenty-eight, at Vienna[431] (No. 1479) (Pl. 27), is still finer in expression, and, indeed, is one of the most brilliant portraits of Holbein’s later years. It is one of his customary half-length figures, less than life-size, seated at a table, the body turned to the right, and the face looking out at the spectator. His doublet is of purple-brown silk, and over it he wears the usual black cloak with a deep collar and lining of brown fur, and black cap with a brim. The collar of his white shirt is beautifully embroidered with black Spanish work and tied with black laces. His grey gloves are held in his left hand, and his right rests on the olive-green cloth of the table, the forefinger being thrust within the pages of a gilt-edged book, near which is placed an inkstand with a red cord. On one of his rings is an intaglio. The clean-shaven face, showing blue on chin and upper lip, is of a ruddy brown complexion, and the hair, which does not cover the ears, is almost concealed by the hat. The unknown sitter, who appears to be an Englishman, is comely in features, and the eyes have a far-seeing, visionary expression, which Holbein has rendered with extraordinary vividness and subtlety of drawing. The upper part of the background consists of a blue-grey wall, with wooden panelling, or the back of a long wooden seat, below, and the panel is inscribed on either side of the head: “ANNO · DNI · 1541 · ETATIS · SVÆ · 28.” It was in the collection of the Archduke Leopold William in the seventeenth century. There is an old copy of this picture in the Palermo Gallery (Woltmann, 223).

To the year 1542 belongs the small portrait of an unknown Englishman in the Hague Gallery (No. 277) (Pl. 28),[432] which, again, is brilliant in execution, the details painted with the minutest care, but with a touch both delicate and free from all hardness, and unusual richness of colour. The head is full-face, the body turned slightly to the left. His closely cropped hair is chestnut in colour, turning to red at the ends of his moustache and short pointed beard. It is almost the only portrait by Holbein in which the sitter is shown without a hat. He wears a dress of black velvet and watered silk with a pattern, slashed with red silk at the shoulder and wrist. On his left hand, which is gloved, stands his falcon, a large bell on its claw. His right hand, in which he holds the bird’s hood, is ungloved, with a gold ring set with a stone on the little finger. The light falls from the right, and the shadow on the left side of the face is more strongly marked than in most of Holbein’s portraits. The modelling is fine, the face full of strong character, and, as usual, the hands are most expressively painted, the whole presentment being most vivid and life-like. The background is a plain blue-grey, of much the same tone as that in the portrait of 1541 at Vienna. Across the panel is inscribed, on either side of the head, the date 1542, and lower down “ANNO · ETATIS · SVÆ · XXVIII.” Little is known about the history of this picture, except that it was at one time in the royal collections of England, and that it was taken to Holland by William III, and was included in the list of works of art reclaimed by Queen Anne after that King’s death.[433] Like the portrait of Cheseman, however, it remained abroad. It is inscribed on the back “The manner of Holbein,” and in old catalogues was absurdly described as a portrait of Sir Thomas More.

It is probable that during this year Holbein painted Sir William Fitzwilliam, created Earl of Southampton in 1538, who died at Newcastle in 1543. There is a fine drawing of the head in the Windsor Collection,[434] turned three-quarters to the right, wearing a black cap with a medallion, and ear-flaps, or a coif, tied under the chin; slight whiskers are indicated on the cheek-bones. It is a face of strong individuality, with a big nose, finely and boldly drawn, the dress only roughly indicated. There is a full-length portrait of the Earl, 6 ft. × 3 ft. 3 in., in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (No. ii. 164),[435] which is described in the catalogue as probably a copy of the original picture by Holbein which, in 1793, was destroyed by fire at Cowdray House, the estate purchased by the Earl in 1528. He is represented standing to the right, and wearing a black cap tied under the chin as in the Windsor drawing, a long black cloak with fur collar reaching to the knees, dark hose and shoes, and the collar and jewel of the Garter round his neck. He grasps a gold-headed staff in both hands, and stands on a terrace with a low parapet and a pavement of black and red tiles, overlooking a distant landscape consisting of wooded country and a land-locked harbour or estuary of a river with ships. His coat of arms is in the top left-hand corner, and in the right an inscription giving his titles and offices, as Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the date 1542. The supposition that this picture is a copy after a lost original by Holbein is probably correct; it is quite in his manner, though in workmanship it in no way reaches to his mastery, the landscape background in particular showing an indecisive touch quite unlike his firm handling. A copy of the head, evidently taken from this picture, a small panel, 13⅛ in. × 9¾ in., was lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909 (No. 34),[436] by the Duke of Devonshire, which is inscribed across the brown background, in an eighteenth-century hand, “Sir Thomas Moore.” The compilers of the Burlington Club catalogue do not accept the Cambridge portrait on which it is based as a copy after Holbein, but as an original work, and clearly by the same hand as the Earl of Surrey at Knole, the full-length of a young man in Hampton Court Palace, and the Sir Thomas Gresham in Mercers’ Hall, with which the name of Guillim Stretes has been connected, though on somewhat flimsy foundations.[437] The Windsor head, however, is in such close accord with the Fitzwilliam Museum picture that it seems reasonable to suppose that the latter was based on it, or, rather, upon some painting of Holbein’s for which it formed the preliminary study. There were two portraits of the Earl in the Arundel Collection, both attributed to Holbein.[438]

In 1542 John Leland’s “Naeniae” on the death of Sir Thomas Wyat was published, with the small circular woodcut of the poet after a drawing by Holbein, which has been already described;[439] but otherwise the only dated portrait of this year is the one of the young man with the falcon at the Hague, though there are several which must have been painted shortly before his death. Those of Dr. John Chamber and Sir William Butts and his wife must have been produced in 1542 or the earlier half of 1543, while others, such as the “Elderly Man” at Berlin, the small portrait of an English lady at Vienna, and the Simon George at Frankfurt, may be attributed with some certainty to the last seven or eight years of Holbein’s life. It is probable, too, that he painted at about this time another portrait of the Prince of Wales. No such painting now exists, but the full-faced head with a cap in the Windsor Collection[440] represents Edward as a boy of about five or six years of age, and certainly older than in the Hanover picture, while in the profile head with cap and feather in the same collection of drawings,[441] which forms the basis of numerous portraits in the National Portrait Gallery and elsewhere, the boy seems even older, though he was only six at the time of Holbein’s death.

The portrait of an Unknown Man, aged fifty-four, in the Berlin Gallery (No. 586 I) (Pl. 29 (1)),[442] is another work of great power in its suggestion of life-like portraiture, and of high technical excellence. He is shown to the waist, slightly turned to the right. The face is a dignified one, with a long nose, and a slight droop in the right eyelid, and a look of melancholy absorption about his dark grey eyes. The hair and long beard are black, the latter with numerous grey hairs finely indicated with all Holbein’s customary minute care. The hands are thrust out of sight within the sleeves. His doublet, of which only the lower part of the sleeves is visible, is of ruby-red silk or satin, over which is a black or dark-brown coat with bands of black velvet, and lined with a patterned watered silk. The black cap has gold tags. The plain background is a greyish-blue, and on either side of the head is inscribed in gold lettering, “ÆTATIS · SVÆ · 54.” On the back of the panel are the letters “W.E.P.L.C.,” apparently in a sixteenth-century hand, probably the mark of some early English collector. The same letters appear on the back of the portrait of Robert Cheseman at the Hague, and on the portrait of a young man by Joos van Cleve in Berlin (No. 633 A), which was formerly in the Marlborough Collection, where it was at one time attributed to Holbein. Nothing of the early history of the portrait under discussion is known. It belonged at one time to Sir J. E. Millais, and was lent by him to the Holbein Exhibition in Dresden in 1871, where it was acknowledged by the leading German critics to be a splendid example of the master’s later English period. It was purchased at the Millais sale, in 1897, for 3000 guineas for the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. There is a poor and lifeless copy of the head of this portrait in the collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, of Philadelphia.[443] The panel is a pastiche, for the copyist has attached the head of the Millais portrait to the body of the Unknown Young Man aged twenty-eight in the Vienna Gallery. In the copy of the head the hat is without the gold tags, the beard is slightly shorter, and the sitter appears to be somewhat younger. In that of the body the dress, hands, the rings, gloves, and book follow the Vienna picture closely, but the copyist has removed the two rings on the little finger of the right hand to the more usual ring-finger. Mr. C. Ricketts regards it as “almost certainly modern. In draughtsmanship it is without subtlety, the nostril is preposterous, the under lip like a muffin.”[444] Mr. F. J. Mather considers it to be old, and of fair quality.

“It is pretty surely of Holbein’s century, and of better quality than the reproduction indicates.”[445]

The portrait of an unknown English lady in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna (No. 1483) (Pl. 29 (2)),[446] is almost miniature in size, and is characterised by the most delicate brush-work and great charm and richness of colour. She is shown to the waist, full-face, the body turned slightly to the left, and her hands clasped in front of her. The dress is of dark brown or puce, with the yoke and central hanging part of the sleeves of black velvet. The sleeves from the elbow are of red velvet slashed with white at the wrists. She wears a French head-dress of white and gold, with black fall, closely resembling the one in the portrait of Catherine Howard. The hair is a dark reddish brown. At her breast is suspended a circular gold ornament upon which is represented figures sacrificing at an altar, possibly of Holbein’s designing. The background is a deep grey-blue, surrounded by a frame imitating stonework. It has no inscription.

Another small work of much beauty and delicacy of workmanship, and charm of expression, is the portrait of Simon George, of Quocote, in Cornwall, in the Städel Institut in Frankfurt (No. 71),[447] a profile portrait to the left, showing the head and shoulders only, and the right hand, in which the sitter holds a carnation. He has dark, closely-cropped hair and pointed beard, with a black cap over the right ear, elaborately ornamented with a white feather, many gold tags, an oval medallion with a representation of Leda and the Swan, and a small bunch of enamelled pansies. His dress is a rich one, and the open collar of the shirt is covered with black embroidery of a floral pattern of conventional design. The background is of greenish blue, and some letters of a two-lined inscription, of later date than the painting, mutilated by the reduction of the panel, which appears to have been originally round, can still be traced, including the letters NOB and part of the painter’s signature, “IOHA : H.” It was acquired in 1870 from the Brentano-Birckenstock sale. The original study for the head is in the Windsor Collection,[448] and shows the same slight frown wrinkling the forehead as in the picture. The hairs of the moustache are very carefully drawn, but the beard only shows a few days’ growth. It is inscribed at the bottom, in cursive writing, “S. George of Cornwall.”

The portrait of Dr. John Chamber or Chambre in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna (No. 1480) (Pl. 30),[449] is one of Holbein’s most powerful portraits of old men, the deeply-lined, clean-shaven face being full of individuality. He is shown to the waist, turned three-quarters to the right, in a plain black doctor’s cap, which covers the hair and hides all but the lobe of the ears, and a black gown with brown fur collar; and he holds a pair of grey gloves in his hands. The background is a very dark blue, and is inscribed, on either side of the head, “ÆTATIS SVE 88.” The date of John Chamber’s birth has not been traced, but the portrait was probably painted in 1541 or 1542, when Holbein was engaged upon the big “Barber-Surgeons” picture, in which Chamber is introduced in much the same position as in the Vienna portrait. He died at an advanced age, well over ninety, in 1549. He was one of the King’s physicians, and his name was the first on the roll of six doctors who in 1518 received letters patent from the Crown giving them the privilege of admitting other physicians to practise medicine in London, which was the original foundation of the Royal College of Physicians. Chamber was joint author with Dr. Butts and two others of a manuscript “Pharmacopœia” for the use of Henry VIII. As Court physician he attended Anne Boleyn at Greenwich Palace at the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, and it was he who reported to the Privy Council the critical condition of Jane Seymour when Edward VI was born. He married Joan Wardell in 1545, when he was nearly ninety, and their son was christened in the following year, both he and his wife dying within a few weeks of one another in 1549. His career, however, was more remarkable for the many religious preferments he gained, than for his medical skill. Born in Northumberland, he became a priest in early life, and was a Fellow, and afterwards Warden, of Merton College, Oxford. In 1502 he went to Italy and graduated in physic in Padua. On his return to England he succeeded Linacre as the King’s chief physician. In 1522 he was Canon of Windsor, in 1536 Dean of the Collegiate Church of St. Stephen, and later on Archdeacon of Meath. A very excellent copy of this portrait is in the possession of Merton College, Oxford, and was included in the Oxford Exhibition of Historical Portraits in 1904 (No. 27). It is inscribed on the back: “Dr. Chamber, phisician of King Henry VIII, copied from Hanns Holbein’s original by H. Reinhart. The original, once belonging to the collection of King Charles I, was, together with several other pictures of the same master, after the execution of this Monarch, sold and became the property of Archduke Leopold, Stadtholder of the Low Countries, from whence by legacy it passed into the Gallery of the Emperors of Austria (Ob. 1549).” The original portrait, however, does not appear at any time to have been included in the collection of Charles I, but it formed part of the wonderful series of works by Holbein got together by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. In the Dictionary of National Biography the date of his birth is given as 1470, while the Oxford catalogue suggests the date 1469, but neither can be correct, or otherwise the date of the Vienna picture would be 1557 or 1558, fourteen years or so after Holbein’s death. If the age of the sitter, eighty-eight, as given on the panel, is correct, and it is accepted that the portrait was painted about 1542, Chamber must have been born about 1454. The Merton College copy was exhibited at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1901-2 (No. 155), as a work of the school of Holbein. In 1894 the Royal College of Physicians became possessed of a miniature portrait of Chamber, painted on the back of the ten of clubs, and said to be by Isaac Oliver. This is a careful copy of the Vienna picture, and has a long Latin inscription, giving Chamber’s titles, and the date of his death, round the frame. The original, when in the Arundel Collection, was engraved by Hollar (Parthey, 1372), with the inscription “D. Chambers Anno Ætatis Svæ 88. Holbein pinxit.” In the Arundel inventory it is described as “Doctore John Chambers.” It is possibly one of the pictures which remained on the Continent after the death of the Countess of Arundel in 1654.

The portraits of Sir William and Lady Butts,[450] which have suffered, more particularly the former, from coarse repainting, are probably of about the same date as the Dr. Chamber, for Butts is also one of the prominent figures in the “Barber-Surgeons” group. The portrait of the husband has an inscription which has been repainted by an ignorant copyist, and now reads “ANNO ATATS SVE LIX.” Unfortunately, as in the case of Chamber, the year of Butts’ birth is not known, so that the exact date of the portrait cannot be proved. It is given in the National Portrait Gallery Catalogue as 1485 (?). His tombstone at Fulham bears only the date of his death, 1545. The portraits show the heads and shoulders only. Sir William is represented in profile to the right, in black cap and furred gown, and a heavy gold chain upon his shoulders. His face is clean-shaven, and his grey hair almost covers the ears. Lady Butts is painted almost full-face, but turned slightly to the left. She wears the angular English head-dress with black fall, a plain dress with fur-trimmed mantle, and a large enamelled rose at her breast. Above her head is inscribed “ANNO ÆTATIS SVE LVII.” Both portraits were in the National Portrait Exhibition, 1866, lent by Mr. W. H. Pole-Carew, and are now in the collection of Mrs. John Gardner, Fenway Court, Boston, U.S.A. They are about 18 in. × 14 in., and the green backgrounds and inscriptions of both pictures have been badly repainted. There is a good copy or replica of Sir William in the National Portrait Gallery[451] (No. 210), and copies of both husband and wife, apparently seventeenth-century work, in the collection of Mr. F. A. Newdegate-Newdigate, at Arbury, Warwickshire. There is no head of Butts among the Windsor drawings, but that collection contains a masterly one of his wife,[452] in which the lines of the face are very strongly marked. She was a daughter of John Bacon of Cambridgeshire. The portrait of their third son, Edmund Butts, of Thornham, Norfolk, who died at the age of thirty in 1549, is in the National Gallery (No. 1496), and is regarded as a work of that little-known English painter John Bettes. This portrait is dated 1545, and the age of the sitter is given as twenty-six, and on a card on the back is the inscription “faict par Johan Bettes Anglois.”[453]

In the exhibition held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh lent a portrait (No. 30), also dated 1545, said to represent Edmund Butts, and attributed by the owner to Bettes. The armorial bearings on this picture indicate a member of the Butts family, but the person represented is certainly not the same as in the National Gallery portrait, nor do the two appear to be the work of the same painter.

Dr. Butts was in receipt of a salary of £100 a year from the King, and was the favourite physician about the Court. He was a native of Norfolk, and educated at Cambridge. Many prescriptions in his handwriting are preserved in the British Museum. He appears as one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (Act v. sc. 2), and his name occurs in a number of contemporary letters. Thus, in 1537, the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote thanking Cromwell “for asking the King to licence Dr. Buttes to come to him”;[454] and on October 6, 1542, the Earl of Southampton wrote to Wriothesley from York, when upon the expedition against Scotland: “Recommend me to Butts, and thank him for his pills. I would not have foregone them at this time for all the good I have.”[455] In spite of the pills, however, the Earl died at Newcastle nine days later.

A small half-length portrait of an Unknown Man in the Basel Collection (No. 327),[456] belongs to the later period of Holbein’s English residence. He is turned three-quarters to the left, and wears the customary dark fur-lined surcoat and black cap, and dark purple sleeves, and holds his gloves and a paper, upon which the inscription is now illegible, in his clasped hands. The beard, moustache, and hair are dark. This picture, which was purchased in Basel in 1862, has been more than once restored, so that Holbein’s handiwork has suffered considerably. Another small picture which is also now in a damaged state is the portrait of a young English lady in the collection of Count Lanckoronski in Vienna,[457] which was regarded by Woltmann as probably by Holbein, but when exhibited in the Dresden Exhibition of 1871 was declared by the critics to be a genuine work. It is similar in style to the small portrait of a Lady in the Vienna Gallery, and of about the same date. She is shown at half-length, turned a little to the spectator’s right, with clasped hands, and wearing a dark dress with red puffings and gold tags from shoulder to wrist, and a French hood with bands of gold ornaments and a black fall. Round her neck is a gold chain with a pendant with seven flat stones, a second gold chain, and a large brooch fastened at her breast with a cameo of a double head, a young man’s shown full-face, attached to one of a lady in profile. Across the plain green background, on either side of her head, is inscribed “Anno etatis svæ xvii.” In appearance she is stolid and unattractive, but this may be partly due to the present state of the picture.