The sketch-book bequeathed to the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753 contains nearly two hundred drawings, almost all of them designs for jewellery and other small objects for personal use or adornment, such as belt tassels and buckles, book covers with rings for attachment to girdles, seals, portable sundials, pendants and brooches. Henry VIII was lavish in his use of jewellery, and the fashion he set was slavishly followed by his courtiers. Dresses were loaded with gems and elaborate specimens of the goldsmith’s art, and this delight in finery was carried to such an extent that it was a topic for jest and sarcasm among foreigners. More than one contemporary account gives details of the King’s costume and the many jewels which adorned it, and the long inventories of his clothes and personal ornaments which still exist prove that continental visitors to his court did not exaggerate in the descriptions of his person which they sent home. French and Italian jewellers paid frequent visits to London, and sold him many gems and beautiful specimens of gold and silver work and other art objects, while he regularly employed a large number of English and resident foreign jewellers. Their services were most in demand about New Year’s Day, when gifts were showered upon his Majesty, and he in return made many presents, often of great value. There is no doubt that some of these gifts were designed by Holbein, and that he served as designer to several of the leading London goldsmiths. The British Museum Collection contains many designs for pendants and for jewels which were suspended round the neck by a ribbon or chain, this attachment being shown in a number of the studies (Pl. 48). In most of them table diamonds and other flat stones, together with pearls, are arranged in geometric patterns, the interstices being filled with strap, scroll, or ribbon-work, or some conventional floral design. Occasionally at the top of the jewel there is a small grotesque or nude figure (Pl. 49). Many of the designs have a black ground indicating niello or champlevé enamel. In some instances, however, the blackening may have been done merely to indicate the design more clearly to the craftsman who was to carry it out. Some of them are coloured and are often touched with gold, so that it is possible to tell the jewels and materials it was intended to use. Several pendants are in the shape of a cross, and others heart-shaped; one of the latter is of gold, with three pendant pearls, and two doves billing on a green bough in enamel, with the motto, TVRTVRVM CONCORDIA (Pl. 48 (3)).[647] Another shows the bust of a woman in Tudor dress holding between her hands a large table-cut stone, across which is written, apparently in another hand, “Well Laydi Well” (Pl. 49 (9)).[648] Several pendants are in the form of monograms, a very fine one consisting of the letters R. and E. in gold, with two rubies, an emerald, and a garnet at the four corners, hung by a ribbon above and with three pearls below (Pl. 48 (7));[649] many of the designs, in fact, show one or more pearls suspended in this fashion. A jewel very similar to the last-named, formed of the sacred monogram, is worn by Jane Seymour in her portrait at Vienna. Another pendant monogram, with the initials H and I and an emerald in the centre (Pl. 48 (6)), was evidently designed for the King and his third Queen.[650] Several of them have mottoes, such as QVAM ACCIPERE DARE MVLTO BEATIVS (Pl. 49 (7)),[651] or PRVDENTEMENT ET PAR COMPAS INCONTINENT VIENDRAS,[652] the latter on a round device of two horns of plenty, two dolphins and a pair of compasses with serpents writhing round them (Pl. 50 (8)). Among the brooches there is one consisting of three diamonds enwreathed by a scroll, on which is inscribed, Mi Ladi Prinsis, and the same motto occurs on a second.[653]

There are two designs for book bindings with rings for suspension, no doubt covers for a prayer book. They are decorated with metal and enamel in arabesque patterns, and one of them has the initials T.W. in the centre, which are repeated in the corners, T.W. above and W.T. below.[654] On the second the same initials are combined with an I,[655] and in both cases it is probable that they were intended for Sir Thomas Wyat. Two very similar designs appear to be for a jewelcase, or perhaps a portable reliquary.[656] There is also an interesting drawing of a seal with the coat of arms of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, within the garter and its motto, and around the whole a circular band inscribed CAROLVS DVX SVFFYCIE PRO HONORE SVO RICHEMOND (Pl. 50 (4)).[657] Among the remaining studies are various devices, coats of arms, including Holbein’s own (Pl. 50 (6)), book clasps, bracelets, chains (Pl. 51 (3, 4, and 5)), collars, rings, a number of monograms (Pl. 48 (1)), some of them containing as many as eleven letters, probably concealing a complete name or the initials of the words of some device, grotesque figures, winged warriors, nude women, and satyrs—the latter in some cases certainly intended for the foot of a vase, box, or salt-cellar, or some such table ware—together with a variety of ornaments for which the exact purpose is not indicated. These last are largely fragments of circular borders or segments of discs, decorated with arabesques on enamel (Pl. 52). In some of these designs for enamel the pattern is in white on a ground of blue and red or blue and black.

Among the designs at Basel is a very charming and humorous upright band or panel, for goldsmith’s work (#Pl. 45 (2):pl-45),[658] in which eight bears are shown climbing among the leaves of a vine accompanied by a little man with a high peaked cap blowing a trumpet and beating a drum, a design no doubt suggested to Holbein by the sight of some travelling showman with a troupe of performing animals. Two other bands of ornament in the Basel Gallery, in which the design is arranged horizontally, represent in one case a humorous frieze with nude children,[659] and in the other similar children with dogs hunting a hare, chasing one another, and blowing horns (Pl. 51 (1 and 2))[660] The latter is a carefully-finished drawing, in which the small figures are arranged with great decorative effect among curved Renaissance ornamentation of conventional floriated design. In the same collection there are several elaborately decorated mirror-frames.

There remains one particular form of personal ornament for which Holbein’s services as designer were in constant demand. This was the circular medallion or enseigne worn on the hat, and also, in the case of ladies, as a pendant at the end of a chain or ribbon, or in the shape of a brooch fastened to the front of the dress. They usually bore some figure-subject, the earlier examples being, as a rule, religious, with figures or emblems of saints or scenes from the Scriptures. In course of time subjects taken from classical story or mediæval legend were used, and designs of a fanciful and allegorical nature. They became highly popular forms of personal adornment, and French and Italian jewellers brought numbers of them over to London. “Every one, from the highest rank downwards,” says Mr. H. Clifford Smith, “had his personal devise or impresa, or more often a series of them. It was worn as an emblem—an ingenious expression of some conceit of the wearer, the outcome of his peculiar frame of mind. It usually contained some obscure meaning, the sense of which, half hidden and half revealed, was intended to afford some play for the ingenuity of the observer. The love of the time for expressing things by riddles led to the publication of sets of emblems, like those of Alciatus, which had imitations in all directions. Every one, in fact, tried his hand at these ‘toys of the imagination.’”[661]

That these hat-badges and brooches were worn by almost every one at Henry’s court is shown by their representation in many of Holbein’s pictures and in a large number of the Windsor drawings. In the latter, unfortunately, the subjects are so slightly indicated that it is impossible in most cases to make them out. They are to be found almost invariably in the portraits of courtiers, the learned doctors and the more soberly-attired German merchants not using them. Those worn by the more wealthy were generally of gold, with the design in repoussé work, frequently enamelled in colours, and often with precious stones set in them. They were, as a rule, surrounded by a border or framework of similar workmanship, sometimes set with jewels. Some of them were fastened with a pin, like a brooch, others had loops or small holes round the edges so that they could be sewn to the hat. Henry VIII possessed a large collection of these ornaments. In a list dated 1526 there is mentioned, among many others, a crimson velvet bonnet, double turfed, with a brooch of St. Michael set with diamonds, and a white rose on one side and a red rose on the other; and another of a buttoned cap of black velvet with a diamond and a brooch of Paris work of St. James. Other hats had brooches representing “three men and a pearl in the back of one of them”; a lady leading a brace of greyhounds; Venus and Cupids; a lady holding a heart in her hand; another lady holding a crown; another with a cameo head and a hanging pearl; “a man standing on a faggot of fire”; “a handful of feathers”; “a gentleman in a lady’s lap”; and St. George, Hercules, and so on.[662] In another list, two years later in date, there is mentioned “a brooch with a gentlewoman luting, with a scripture over it.”[663] Occasionally these enseignes are described as “valentines of goldsmith’s work.” Most of the King’s hats were also lavishly decorated with gold aglets.

None of the jewels included in these earlier lists can have been designed by Holbein; but after he became attached to the court he appears to have been constantly employed in this way, and it became, no doubt, the fashion to wear an enseigne or medallion of his devising. Among his drawings, in the British Museum, at Basel, and at Chatsworth, there are a number of small circular designs with figure-subjects which were evidently intended for such purposes. Unfortunately, only in one single case has a design been found among his sketches which corresponds with the gold-and-enamel badge worn by the sitter in one of his finished pictures—the beautiful little drawing of “Lot and his Daughters” in the British Museum (Pl. 50 (2)), which, as recently pointed out by Mr. Lionel Cust, was the design for the medallion shown in the portrait of Catherine Howard.[664] Very possibly some of the other enseignes or pendant roundels represented in his portraits were of his own devising, but they are painted on so small a scale that the subjects upon them are difficult to decipher.

The medallion of “Lot and his Daughters” forms one of a numerous series of roundels, usually about 2½ in. in diameter, with subjects taken from the Old Testament, the greater number of which are in the Basel sketch-book. Among the latter are three different studies on one sheet for the subject of Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness,[665] and a fourth with Sarah giving Hagar to her husband;[666] the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel;[667] Jacob embracing Rachel;[668] Jacob causing the stone to be removed from the well for Rachel,[669] a very beautiful little drawing with an interesting group of buildings in the background; David and the Woman of Tekoah kneeling before him;[670] the Sacrifice of Elijah, in which a jewel is inset to depict the fire on the altar;[671] and Moses and the destruction of Korah and his company.[672] This last is set within an open-work border with mermaids and cupids amid scroll-work. Several other subjects from the Old Testament, such as Judah and Tamar, and David playing before Saul, are to be found among the engravings made by Wenceslaus Hollar from drawings by Holbein, now lost, when in the Arundel Collection. Among the subjects from the New Testament at Basel are the Baptism of Christ,[673] the Last Judgment,[674] and the Repentant Magdalen.[675] Two designs of the Archangel Michael slaying the Dragon are for the badge accompanying a chain of the order of St. Michael, and may have been drawn from the badge belonging to Dinteville.[676] Another represents the kneeling figures of a young couple in English dress holding a cup with a heart over it, evidently for “a valentine of goldsmith’s work.”[677] Among the unknown subjects is one in which a nude man is standing upon a prostrate knight, who with one hand shatters Cupid’s bow and with the other breaks the fallen man’s sword;[678] one which repeats one of the subjects of the Basel Town Hall wall-paintings—the blinding of Zaleucus;[679] and others representing Juno and Callisto, Pomona, Leucothea on a dolphin, and two Centaurs.[680]

The subjects of similar medallions in the British Museum include one of the Annunciation,[681] with the legend “ORIGO MVNDI MELIORIS” round it, with a border of daisies in yellow and green enamel; one of the Trinity,[682] with the legend “TRINITATIS GLORIA SATIABIMVR” (Pl. 50 (5)), and a border of roses in enamel, both of which are in pen and ink washed with water-colours; and a third with a standing figure of St. John the Baptist (Pl. 50 (3)).[683] Yet another depicts Time extracting Truth from the Rock (Pl. 50 (1),[684] also with a Latin quotation round the edge, and a second, with the motto, “PRVDENTEMENT ET PAR COMPAS INCONTINENT VIENDRAS,” already described.[685] Further designs for enseignes contain such subjects as a sleeping boy lying under a fountain, which jets its water upon him (Pl. 50 (9));[686] and a woman in flames, with her father and mother lamenting over her, which is said by Woltmann to represent Dido on the funeral pyre.[687] Among other roundels, two contain Holbein’s own coat of arms (Pl. 50 (6)),[688] and two others a device with a hand issuing from a cloud and resting on a book which lies on a rock, and the Italian motto, “SERVAR’ VOGLIO QVEL CHE HO GVIRATO” (Pl. 50 (7)).[689]

At Chatsworth there is a sheet of drawings containing six enseignes and one larger design which appears to be for some kind of a sheath.[690] They are among the very finest examples of Holbein’s work in this field, drawn with the greatest delicacy, and admirable in composition. They represent (1) Hagar and Ishmael (Pl. 53 (2)), a variant of the Basel design, in which the angel is flying towards Hagar, who is seated under a tree, with the naked infant asleep under a bush, and on a scroll the names “Hagar” and “Ismael”; (2) The Last Judgment (Pl. 53 (3)), with Christ seated on clouds, and men and women kneeling below, with figures struggling out of graves, and on one side the yawning mouth of a dragon representing hell; (3) Icarus falling into the sea (Pl. 53 (1)), his wings melted by the sun, and Phœbus driving his chariot drawn by four winged horses through the sky; (4) Diana and Actæon (Pl. 53 (5)), with four nude women standing in water on the left, and Actæon on the bank already turning into a stag, with his dogs attacking him, and others rushing through the wood in the background; (5) three beehives on a wooden stand under a roof of rushes (Pl. 53 (6)), with Cupid, blindfolded, his bow on the ground, holding up his hands as though stung by the bees which are flying round him, and below a shield for a coat of arms, coloured blue, and the motto, “NOCET EMPTA DOLORE VOLUPTA,” on a ribbon scroll, the whole surrounded by a band of conventional scroll pattern; (6) a man in sixteenth-century costume, with folded arms, asleep on the grass, under an oak tree on a rocky piece of ground (Pl. 53 (7)). On the right is a large clock with hanging weights, the hands pointing to twelve o’clock, and the figure of a small child pulling the rope of the hammer which strikes the bell. Round the trunk of the tree is a scroll with the legend “ASPETTO LA HORA” (I await the hour). This is possibly the design for a watch-back. These medallions are in pen and bistre, with touches of red in some of the figures, and green here and there in trees or grass. The remaining design seems to be for a short, broad sheath, but not, apparently, for a weapon (Pl. 53 (4)). It represents the Rape of Helen, who stands on the seashore, seized by the arms by two men, one wearing a helmet. A boat containing figures—some of them waving their hands—is coming towards them over the water. There are some buildings on the left, and at the bottom, in the foreground, two nude figures with long spades digging in the sand. The leg of one of these two figures projects beyond the boundary-line of the sheath, showing that the design was not intended for a flat ornament, but was to be continued on both sides of the object.[691]

The wide range of subject shown in these badges affords remarkable proof of the fertility of Holbein’s invention. The great number of them, too, indicates that he must have found regular and lucrative employment in work for the London jewellers and goldsmiths. Possibly those which remain formed only a small part of his total output. It has been suggested, indeed, that none of the studies which have survived were actually carried out as ornaments, but were rather designs either rejected by the goldsmith or the patron for whom Holbein was working, or were merely drawn by the artist as part of his stock-in-trade, from which clients could make their selection.[692] This supposition is based on the fact that the drawings have always been carefully preserved in the original sketch-books, and bear no traces of having undergone the rough usage of a goldsmith’s workshop. It does not seem at all probable, however, that this was the case; it is, indeed, absurd to suppose that these designs, several hundreds in number, and many of them of the greatest beauty, could have been rejected as not good enough by those for whom they were prepared. It has been seen that the design for the medallion with the subject of Lot and his Daughters was actually carried out for the adornment of Catherine Howard, to say nothing of those larger drawings for the Jane Seymour Cup and the Denny astronomical clock, which, in any case, cannot have been rejected designs. A much simpler explanation is that Holbein kept his original designs by him for future reference, and made other versions or copies, possibly sometimes more elaborate in detail, for the use of the craftsmen who carried them out.