There remains one other portrait of a lady of about this date—that of Lady Rich,[458] which until 1912 had been for many years in the possession of the Moseley family at Buildwas Park, Shropshire. The sitter is represented to the waist, slightly turned to the right, and wears the English diamond-shaped hood with black fall, and a black dress with a gold medallion decorated with the figures of a man and woman by a corpse, which, according to Wornum, are “exquisitely put in.”[459] According to the same writer, it is “a fine expressive portrait, with a thin rich carnation.” It is painted on wood, 17 in. by 13 in., and has suffered some retouching. The face is a most determined one, as can be seen from the fine preliminary drawing in the Windsor Castle Collection.[460] Lady Rich was the daughter and heiress of William Jenks or Gynkes, a rich London grocer, and she married, in 1535, Lord Chancellor Rich, of notorious memory, who helped to ruin many of the prominent men of his day, such as More and Fisher. In the seventeenth century the portrait became the property of the Rev. Herbert Croft, Bishop of Hereford, whose granddaughter, Elizabeth Croft, married Acton Moseley, of Staffordshire. In 1792 the portrait, with some other pictures, was bequeathed by Sir Archer Croft to his cousin, Mr. Walter Michael Moseley. The latter’s descendant, Captain H. R. Moseley, parted with the picture in 1912, and it is now in an American collection.[461] It was last exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington in 1866 as a portrait of “Queen Katherine of Arragon.” There is also a drawing of her husband, Richard Rich,[462] at Windsor, and Holbein must almost certainly have painted his portrait, but all traces of it have been lost. A version of it was among the pictures destroyed by fire at Knepp Castle in 1904.

Among the very last works from Holbein’s hand must have been the various miniature portraits of himself, dated 1543, described in the next chapter.[463] The self-portrait in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence,[464] which is evidently founded on one of them, or on one of the small oil-paintings, now lost, has few pretensions, in the writer’s opinion, to be regarded as an original work, though it is, of course, possible that beneath the brush-work of some later and inferior painter there may be an original work by Holbein now practically obliterated. It is only right, however, to point out that Dr. Ganz considers it to be an original though damaged drawing, and other writers are in agreement with him. It is in coloured crayons on a gold ground, and the comparatively modern inscription with the date 1543 has been painted over an earlier one, which can be still traced below. Dr. Ganz suggests that it is probably one of the two portraits which Van Mander saw in Amsterdam in 1604.

Of far greater interest is the recently-discovered portrait, first published in 1912 by Dr. Ganz,[465] which he considers to be a genuine self-portrait by Holbein, hitherto unknown. The likeness both to the numerous miniatures and to the Uffizi portrait is so great that the attribution is most certainly the correct one. It is in all ways much more attractive than the last-named work, and has far greater vitality and a more subtle expression of character. It is a drawing of the head and shoulders only, turned slightly to the spectator’s right, and the painter is wearing a dark fur-lined cloak and black cap. Part of the left hand only is shown. It is a coloured-crayon drawing touched with water-colour, on white paper which has been covered with a flesh-coloured ground. The paper has a Zürich water-mark, and was only manufactured between 1536-1540, so that the date of the drawing can be fixed with some accuracy, and was very probably done in Basel during Holbein’s short visit home in the autumn of 1538. It has, unfortunately, suffered considerable damage, and here and there has been touched up with Indian-ink. On the top right-hand comer of the blue background is inscribed, in a later hand, “H. H. 15 ...” It was purchased in England in the summer of 1910, and is now in Basel in the collection of Dr. Rudolph Geigy-Schlumberger.[466]

Several portraits by Holbein, which so far have not been traced, were etched by Hollar when they were in the Arundel Collection, and these prints, in the absence of the originals, form invaluable records for the use of students. Some few of them, however, though Hollar has placed Holbein’s name on them, cannot have been painted by him, as, for instance, the portrait of Thomas Chaloner,[467] which is dated 1548. All the more important of them are reproduced by Dr. Ganz in his Holbein (1912),[468] and several have been already described in these pages. Among those remaining there is one of an unknown bearded man in a black cap,[469] and two of unnamed boys.[470] The second of these boys, whose head is turned three-quarters to the left, appears, from the details of the dress he is wearing, to be a Swiss. Holbein’s original silver-point study for the portrait from which the etching was taken is in the Louvre, and is dated 1520. The connection between the two was first pointed out by Dr. Ganz.[471] The circular portrait of Sir Anthony Denny is inscribed “ANNO 1541 ÆTATIS SVÆ 29.”[472] The original painting, a small roundel, descended, according to Mr. W. Barclay Squire, to the Howards of Greystoke Castle, and is now in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, junr. There is an old copy of it at Longford Castle.[473] The large print of an elderly, grey-bearded man, with fur coat, and cap with a feather,[474] is usually said to represent Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, but though it bears considerable likeness to the authentic portraits of him, the attribution is doubtful. There are several portraits of English ladies among Hollar’s work. Of one, in which the sitter is turned to the right, and is wearing a round head-dress surmounted by a flat black cap with a large feather,[475] there is no study known, but for two others, which Hollar has reproduced as small roundels, the preliminary drawings are to be found in the Windsor Collection, one of them of an unknown lady, full-face, wearing the angular head-dress,[476] and the other the drawing inscribed “The Lady Mary after Queen.”[477] The profile portrait of a lady, which has been considered by some writers to represent Anne of Cleves,[478] does not appear to be after an original by Holbein, though Hollar has placed his name on it. It is possible, though not very probable, that some of these circular etchings were based on the drawings, and not on finished pictures.

Holbein’s practice during his last English period seems to have been devoted almost entirely to portraiture, so that an entry in an inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s pictures at York House, made in 1635,[479] is of exceptional interest, as it shows that he did occasionally paint subjects other than portraits. It runs as follows: “Hans Holbin.—Jupiter and Jo in Water Coulers.” This picture, of which all traces are lost, was hanging in the Vaulted Room. The Duke possessed a number of other works by or attributed to Holbein, but unfortunately the entries in the inventory are so tantalisingly vague that it is impossible to gather much information about them, though two of them seem to have been portraits of Steelyard merchants. They included “Erasmus Rotterodamm after Holbin”; “A Dutchman Sealing a Letter” (possibly the John of Antwerp now at Windsor);[480] “A Rare piece, being a Dutchman”; “A Queen”; “An other Lady”; “A little picture in Linnen”; and “A little picture of Holbin himself,” which was probably one of the miniatures. With the exception of the last-named, all are described as by “Holbin” or “Hans Holbin.”

Another subject-picture by Holbein is mentioned by Evelyn in his Diary, but so vaguely that it is impossible to guess what it could have been. He says, under the date May 8, 1654: “I also call’d at Mr. Ducie’s, who has indeede a rare collection of the best masters, and one of the largest stories of H. Holbein.” This, however, may have been some picture similar to “The Battle of Spurs” at Hampton Court, attributed to Holbein in Evelyn’s day, and not a genuine work of the master. His judgment was not always infallible, as he speaks of the well-known “Dancing Picture,”[481] which he saw at the Duke of Norfolk’s at Weybridge (23rd August 1678) as “that incomparable painting of Holbein’s.”