A B C DE F G HI K L MN O P QR S T VW X Y ZThere is a set of proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, printed on one sheet, preserved in the Public Library at Basle, and underneath is printed in moveable letters the nameHAnns Lützelburger formschnider, genannt Franck,—that is, “Hanns Lutzelburger, wood engraver, named Franck.” The first H is an ornamented Roman capital; the other letters of the name are in the German character. The size of the cuts in this alphabet of the Dance of Death is one inch by seven-eighths. The reason for supposing that Hans Lutzelburger was the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death are: 1. The similarity of style between the latter and those of the Basle alphabet of the same subject; and 2. The correspondence of the mark in the cut of the Duchess with the initial letters of the name H[ans] L[utzelburger], and the fact of his being a wood engraver of that period. Mr. Douce, in the seventh chapter of his work, professes to353examine the “claim of Hans Lutzelburger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death,” but his investigations seem very unsatisfactory; and his chapter is one of those “in which,” as Fielding says, “nothing is concluded.” He gives no opinion as to whether Lutzelburger was the designer of the Lyons cuts or not, though this is one of the professed topics of his investigation; and even his opinion, for the time being, as to the engraver, only appears in the heading of the following chapter, where it is thus announced: “List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of Lutzenburger.”VI.26His mind, however, does not appear to have been finally made up on this point; for in a subsequent page, 215, speaking of the markHLin the cut of the Duchess, which he had previously mentioned as that of Hans Lutzelburger, he says, “but to whomsoever this mark may turn out to belong, certain it is that Holbein never made use of it.” His only unalterable decision appears to be that Holbein did not design the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, and in support of it he puts forth sundry arguments which are at once absurd and inconsistent; rejects unquestionable evidence which makes for the contrary opinion; and admits the most improbable that seems to favour his own.Mr. Douce, in his seventh chapter, also gives a list of cuts, which he says were executed by Hans Lutzelburger; but out of the seven single cuts and three alphabets which he enumerates, I am inclined to think that Lutzelburger’s name is only to be found attached to one single cut and to one alphabet,—the latter being that of the initial letters representing a Dance of Death. The single cut to which I allude—and which, I believe, is the only one of the kind that has his name underneath it,—represents a combat in a wood between some naked men and a body of peasants. Within the cut, to the left, is the mark, probably of the designer, on a reversed tablet,symbolthus; and underneath is the following inscription, from a separate block:Hanns . Leuczellburger . Furmschnider× 1.5.2.2. An impression of this cut is preserved in the Public Library at Basle; and an alphabet of Roman capitals, engraved on wood, is printed on the same folio, below Lutzelburger’s name. In not one of the other single cuts does this engraver’s name occur, nor in fact any mark that can be fairly ascribed to him. The seventh cut, described by Mr. Douce,—a copy of Albert Durer’s Decollation of John the Baptist,—is ascribed to Lutzelburger on the authority of Zani. According to this writer,—for I have not seen the cut myself any more than Mr. Douce,—it has “the mark H. L. reversed,” which perhaps may prove to be L. H. “In the index of names,” says Mr. Douce, “he (Zani) finds his name thus written,Hans354Lutzelburger Formschnider genant(chiamato)Franck, and calls him the true prince of engravers on wood.” In what index Zani found the reversed mark thus expounded does not appear; I, however, am decidedly of opinion that there is no wood-cut in existence with the mark H. L. which can be ascribed with anything like certainty to Lutzelburger; and his name is only to be found at lengthunderthe cut of the Fight above mentioned, and printed in moveable characters on the sheet containing the proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death.VI.27The title of “true prince of engravers on wood,” given by Zani to Lutzelburger, can only be admitted on the supposition of his being the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death; but it yet remains to be proved that he ever used the markHLor the separate letters H. L. on any previous or subsequent cut. Though, from his name appearing on the page containing the alphabet of the Dance of Death, and from the correspondence of his initials with the mark in the cut of the Duchess in the Lyons Dance of Death, I am inclined to think that he was the engraver of the cuts in the latter work, yet I have thought it necessary to enter thus fully into the grounds of his pretensions to the execution of those, and other wood engravings, in order that the reader may judge for himself.Hegner, in his Life of Holbein, treats the claims that have been advanced on behalf of Lutzelburger too lightly. He not only denies that he was the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons work, but also that he executed the cuts of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, although his name with the addition of “wood engraver”—formschnider—be printed on the sheet of proofs. If we cannot admit the inscription in question as evidence of Lutzelburger being the engraver of this alphabet, we may with equal reason question if any wood engraver actually executed the cut or cuts under which his name only appears printed in type, or which may be ascribed to him in the title of a book. Mr. Douce, speaking of the three alphabets,—of peasants, boys, and a Dance of Death,—all of which he supposes to have been engraved by Lutzelburger, says that the proofs “may have been deposited by him in hisnativecity,” meaning Basle. Hegner, however, says that there is no trace of him to be found either in registers of baptism or burger-lists of Basle. He further adds, though I by no means concur with him in this opinion, “It is indeed likely that, as a travelling dealer in works of art—who, according to the custom of that period, took up their temporary residence sometimes in one place, sometimes in another,—he had obtained possession of those blocks, [of the alphabet of Death’s Dance, and the Fight, with his name,] and that he sold impressions from them in355the way of trade.”VI.28Mr. Douce says that it may admit of a doubt whether the alphabets ascribed to Lutzelburger were cut on metal or on wood. It may admit of a doubt, certainly, with one who knows very little of the practice of wood engraving, but none with a person who is accustomed to see cuts executed in a much more delicate style by wood engravers of very moderate abilities. To engrave them on wood, would be comparatively easy, so far as relates to the mere delicacy of the lines; but it would be a task of great difficulty to engrave them in relief in any metal which should be much harder than that of which types are composed. To suppose that they might have been executed in type-metal, on account of the delicacy of the lines, would involve a contradiction; for not only can finer lines be cut on box-wood than on type-metal, but also with much greater facility.It perhaps may not be unnecessary to give here two instances of the many vague and absurd conjectures which have been propounded respecting the designer or the engraver of the cuts in the Lyons editions of the Dance of Death. In a copy of this work of the edition 1545 now in the British Museum, but formerly belonging to the Reverend C. M. Cracherode, a portrait of a painter or engraver named Hans Ladenspelder is inserted opposite to the cut of the Duchess, as if in support of the conjecture thathemight be the designer of those cuts, merely from the circumstance of the initial letters of his name corresponding with the markHL. The portrait is a small oval engraved on copper, with an ornamental border, round which is the following inscription: “Imago Joannis Ladenspelder, Essendiensis, Anno ætatis suæ xxviii. 1540.”VI.29The markLis perceived on this portrait, and underneath is written the following MS. note, referring to the mark in the cut of the Duchess: “HLthe mark of the designer of these designs of Death’s Dance, not H. Holbein. By several persons that have seen Holbein’s Death Dance at Basil, it is not like these, nor in the same manner.” This note, so far as relates to the implied conjecture about Ladenspelder, may be allowed to pass without remark for what it is worth; but it seems necessary to remind the reader that the painting of the Dance of Death at Basle, here evidently alluded to,was notthe work of Holbein, and to observe that this note is not in the handwriting of Mr. Cracherode, but that it has apparently been written by a former owner of the volume.In a copy of the first edition, now lying before me, a former owner has written on the fly-leaf the following verses from page 158 of the Nugæ—Lyons, 1540,—of Nicholas Borbonius, a French poet:356“Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide,Accersat a BritanniaHansum Ulbium, et Georgium ReperdiumLugduno ab urbe Galliæ.”The meaning of these verses may be thus expressed in English:Whoever wishes to behold,Painters like to those of old,To England straightway let himsend,And summon Holbein to attend;Reperdius,VI.30too, from Lyons bring,A city of the Gallic King.To the extract from Borbonius,—or Bourbon, as he is more frequently called, without the Latin termination,—the writer has added a note: “An Reperdius harum Iconum sculptor fuerit?” That is: “Query, if Reperdius were the engraver of these cuts?”—meaning the cuts contained in the Lyons Dance of Death. Mr. Douce also cites the preceding verses from Nicholas Bourbon; and upon so slight and unstable a foundation he,more solito, raises a ponderous superstructure. He, in fact, says, that “it isextremely probablethat he might have begun the work in question [the designs for the Dance of Death], and have died before he could complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might have afterwards employed Holbein to finish what was left undone, as well as to make designs for additional subjects which appeared in the subsequent editions. Thus would Holbein be so connected with the work as to obtain in future such notice as would constitute him by general report the real inventor of it.”Perhaps in the whole of the discussion on this subject a more tortuous piece of argument is not to be found. It strikingly exemplifiesMr.Douce’s eagerness to avail himself of the most trifling circumstance which seemed to favour his own views; and his manner of twisting and twining it is sufficient to excite a suspicion even in the mind of the most careless inquirer, that the chain of argument which consists of a series of such links must be little better than a rope of sand. Mr. Douce must have had singular notions of probability, when, upon the mere mention of the name of Reperdius, by Bourbon, as a painter then residing at Lyons, he asserts that it isextremely probablethat he, Reperdius, might have begun the work: it is evident that he does not employ the term in its usual and proper sense. If for “extremely probable” the words “barely possible” be substituted, the passage will be unobjectionable; and will then fairly represent the value of the conjecture of Reperdius having designed any of the cuts in question. If it beextremely probable357that the cuts of the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death were designed by Reperdius, from the mere occurrence of his name in Bourbon, the evidence in favour of their being designed by Holbein ought with equal reason to be considered asplusquam-perfect; for the voices of his contemporaries are expressly in his favour, the cuts themselves bear a strong general resemblance to those which are known to be of his designing, and some of the figures and details in the cuts of the Dance of Death correspond so nearly with others in the Bible-cuts designed by Holbein, and also printed at Lyons by the brothers Trechsel, and in the same year, that there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any impartial inquirer who shall compare them, that either both series must have been designed by the same person, or that Holbein had servilely copied the works of an unknown artist greater than himself. Upon one of the horns of this dilemma, Mr. Douce, and all who assert that the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Deathwere not designed by Holbein, must inevitably be fixed.One of the earliest evidences in favour of Holbein being the designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death is Nicholas Bourbon, the author of the epigram previously cited. In an edition of his Nugæ, published at Basle in 1540, are the following verses:VI.31De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili.Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginem exprimit,Tanta arte mortem retulit ut mors vivereVideatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibusParem Diis fecerit operis hujus gloria.Now,—after premising that the termpictawas applied to designs engraved on wood, as well as to paintings in oil or water-colours,VI.32—it may be asked to what work of Holbein’s do these lines refer? The painting in the church-court at Basle was not executed by Holbein; neither was it ascribed to him by his contemporaries; for the popular error which assigns it to him appears to have originated with certain travellers who visited Basle upwards of a hundred years after Holbein’s decease. It indeed may be answered that Bourbon might allude to thealphabetof the Dance of Death which has been ascribed to Holbein. A mere supposition of this kind, however, would be untenable in this instance; for there is no direct evidence to show that Holbein was the designer of this alphabet, and the principal reason for supposing it to358have been designed by him rests upon the previous assumption of his being the designer of the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death. Deny him the honour of this work, and assert that the last quoted verses of Bourbon must relate to some other, and the difficulty of showing by anything like credible evidence, that he was the designer of any other series of cuts, or even of a single cut, or painting, of the same subject, becomes increased tenfold. Mr. Douce, with the gross inconsistency that distinguishes the whole of his arguments on this subject, ascribes the alphabet of the Dance of Peasants to Holbein, and yet cautiously avoids mentioning him as the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though the reasons for this conclusion are precisely the same as those on which he rests the former assertion. Nay, so confused and contradictory are his opinions on this point, that in another part of his book he actually describes both alphabets as being the work of the same designer and the same engraver.“Some of the writers on engraving,” says Mr. Douce, “have manifested their usual inaccuracy on the subject of Holbein’s Dance of Peasants. . . . . . . There is, however,no doubtthat his beautiful pencil was employed on this subject in various ways, of which the following specimens are worthy of being recorded. In a set of initial letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere,” &c. After thus having unhesitatingly ascribed the Dance of Peasants to Holbein, Mr. Douce, in a subsequent page,—when giving a list of cuts which he ascribes to Hans Lutzelburger,—writes as follows: “8. An alphabet with a Dance of Death, the subjects of which, with a few exceptions, are the same as those in the other Dance; the designs, however, occasionally vary,” &c. On concluding his description of this alphabet, he thus notices the alphabet of the Dance of Peasants, having apparently forgot that he had previously ascribed the latter to Holbein. “9. Another alphabetby the same artists. It is a Dance of Peasants, intermixed with other subjects, some of which are not of the most delicate nature.”VI.33It is, however, uncertain if Mr. Douce really did believe Holbein to be the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though from the preceding extracts it is plainly, though indirectly asserted, that hewas. In his wish to claim the engraving of the Dance of Peasants for Lutzelburger, Mr. Douce does not seem to have been aware that from the words “by the same artists,” coupled with his previous assertion, of Holbein being the designer of that alphabet, it followed as a direct consequence that he was also the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death. Putting this charitable construction on Mr. Douce’s words, it follows thathisassertion of Lutzelburger being the engraver of the Dance of Peasants is purely gratuitous. If Mr. Douce really believed359that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, he ought in fairness to have expressly declared his opinion; although such declaration would have caused his arguments, against Holbein being the designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, to appear more paradoxical and absurd than they are when unconnected with such an opinion; for what person, with the slightest pretensions to rationality, could assert that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death executed in 1530, the subjects, with few exceptions, the same as those in the Dance of Death published at Lyons in 1538, and yet in direct opposition to contemporary testimony, and the internal evidence of the subjects themselves, deny that he was the designer of the cuts in the latter work, on the sole authority of the nameless writer of a preface which only appeared in the first edition of the book, and which, there seems reason to suspect, was addressed to an imaginary personage? Was Madame Jehanne de Touszele likely to feel herself highly complimented by having dedicated to her a work which contains undeniable evidences of the artist’s having been no friend to popery? In one cut a couple of fiends appear to be ridiculing his “Holiness” the pope; and in another is a young gallant with a guitar, entertaining a nun in her bed-chamber. If a pious abbess of St. Peter’s, Lyons, in 1538, should have considered that such cuts “tended to edification,” she must have been an extremely liberal woman for her age. It is exceedingly amusing, in looking over the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, to contrast the drollery and satire of the designer with the endeavours of the textuary and versifier to give them a devout and spiritual turn.As it is certain from the verses of Bourbon, in praise of Holbein as the painter or designer of a subject, or a series of subjects, representing “Death as if he were alive,”—ut mors vivere videatur,—that this celebrated artisthad designeda Dance of Death, Mr. Douce, being unable to deny the evidence thus afforded, paradoxically proceeds to fit those verses to his own theory; and after quoting them, at page 139, proceeds as follows: “It has already been demonstrated that these lines could not refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at the Dominican convent, whilst from the important dedication to the edition of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in 1538, it is next to impossible that that work could then have been in Borbonius’s contemplation. It appears from several places in his Nugæ that he was in England in 1535, at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a manner as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copy of verses . . . . . . He returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he was there in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentary lines in Holbein’s Biblical designs a short time before their publication, either out of friendship to the painter, or at the instance of the Lyons publisher, with whom he was360certainly connected.—Now, if Borbonius, during his residence at Lyons, had been assured that the designs in the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death were the production of Holbein, would not his before-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewise introduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least into some subsequent editions, in none of which is any mention whatever made of Holbein, although the work was continued even after the death of that artist? The application, therefore, of Borbonius’s lines must be sought for elsewhere; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has not adverted to the place where the painting,VI.34as he seems to call it, was made.”Mr. Douce next proceeds in his search after the “painting,” and he is not long in finding what he wishes for. According to his statement, “very soon afterthe calamitous fire at Whitehall, 1697, which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person, calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William III, and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist,” made etchings after nineteen of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death. Impressions of those etchings, accompanied with manuscript dedications, appear to have been presented by this T. Nieuhoff Piccard to his friends or patrons, and among others to a Mynheer Heymans, and to “the high, noble, and well-born Lord William Denting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendraght,” &c. The address to Mynheer Heymans contains the following important piece of information respecting a work of Holbein’s, which appears most singularly to have escaped the notice of every other writer, whether English or foreign. “Sir,—The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII, contains, among other performances of art, a Dance of Death,painted by Holbein, in its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been reduced to ashes.”VI.35In the dedication to the “high, noble, and well-born Lord William Benting,” the information respecting this curious work of art,—all memory of which would have perished had it not been for the said T. Nieuhoff Piccard,—is rather more precise. “Sir, [not My Lord,]—In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art, it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans Holbein, neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself hadpainted as large as life, in fresco, on the walls of Whitehall.” Who Mynheer Heymans was will probably never be discovered, but he seems to have been a person of some consequence in his day, though unfortunately never mentioned in any history or memoirs of the period, for it appears that the court thought proper, in consideration of his singular deserts, to361cause a dwelling to be built for him at Whitehall. My Lord William Benting,VI.36—though from his name and titles he might be mistaken for a member of the Bentinck family,—appears to have been actually born in the palace. It is, however, very unfortunate that his name does not occur in the peerage of that time; and as neither Rhoon nor Pendraght are to be found in Flanders or Holland, it is not unlikely that these may be the names of two of his lordship’scastles in Spain.T. Nieuhoff Piccard’s express testimony of Holbein having painted a Dance of Death in fresco, at Whitehall, is, in Mr. Douce’s opinion, further corroborated by the following circumstances: 1. “In one of Vanderdort’s manuscript catalogues of the pictures and rarities transported from St. James’s to Whitehall, and placed there in the newly erected cabinet room of Charles I, and in which several works by Holbein are mentioned, there is the following article: ‘A little piece, where Death with a green garland about his head, stretching both his arms to apprehend a Pilate in the habit of one of the spiritual Prince-Electors of Germany. Copied by Isaac Oliver from Holbein.’ There cannot be a doubt that this refers to the subject of the Elector as painted by Holbein in the Dance of Death at Whitehall, proving at the same time the identity of the painting with the wood-cuts, whatever may be the inference. 2. Sandrart, after noticing a remarkable portrait of Henry VIII. at Whitehall, states ‘that there yet remains at that palaceanother work, by Holbein, that constitutes him the Apelles of his time.’ This is certainlyvery like an allusionto a Dance of Death. 3. It isby no means improbablethat Matthew Prior may have alluded to Holbein’s painting at Whitehall, as it is not likely that he would be acquainted with any other.‘Our term of life depends not on our deed,Before our birth our funeral was decreed;Nor aw’d by foresight, nor misled by chance,Imperious Death directs the ebon lance,Peoples great Henry’s tombs, and leads up Holbein’s Dance.’Prior, Ode to the Memory of George Villiers.”VI.37Mr. Douce having previouslyprovedthat Holbein wasnotthe designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, thus, in a mannerequally362satisfactory, accounts for the verses of Bourbon, by showing, on theunexceptionableevidence of “a person, calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard,probablybelonging to the household of William III,” that the great work of Holbein—by the fame of which he had made himself equal with the immortal gods—was painted as large as life, in fresco, on the walls of Whitehall. The ingenuity displayed in depriving Holbein of the honour of the Lyons cuts is no less exemplified in proving him to be the painter of a similar subject in Whitehall. The key-stone is worthy of the arch.Though thefactsandargumentsput forth by Mr. Douce, in proof of Holbein having painted a Dance of Death on the walls of the old palace of Whitehall, and of this having been the identical Dance of Death alluded to by Bourbon, might be summarily dismissed as being of that kind which no objection could render more absurd, yet it seems necessary to direct the especial attention of the reader to one or two points; and first to the assertion that “it is next to impossible that the Lyons Dance of Death of 1538 could then have been in Borbonius’s contemplation.” Now, in direct opposition to what is here said, it appears to me highly probable thatthiswas the very work on account of which he addressed his epigram to Holbein; and it is moreover evident that Bourbon expresses in Latin verse almost precisely the same ideas as those which had previously been expressed in French by the writer of the address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele, when speaking of the merits of the nameless artist who is there alluded to as the designer or engraver of the cuts.VI.38As Holbein is not certainly known to be the painter or designer of any other Dance of Death which might merit the high praise conveyed in Bourbon’s verses, to what other work of his will they apply? Even supposing, as I do, that the alphabet of the Dance of Death was designed by Holbein, I conceive it “next to impossible,” to use the words of Mr. Douce, that Bourbon should have described Holbein as having attained immortality through the fame of those twenty-four small letters, a perfect set of which I believe is not to be found in any single volume.363That Bourbondidknow who was the designer of the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death there can scarcely be the shadow of a doubt; he was at Lyons in the year in which the work was published; he was connected with the printers; and another work, the Icones Historiarum Veteris Testamenti, also published by them in 1538, has at the commencement a copy of verses written by Bourbon, from which alone we learn that Holbein was the designer of the cuts,—the first four of which cuts, be it observed, being from the same blocks as the first four in the Dance of Death, published by the same printers, in the same year. What might be the motives of the printers for not inserting Bourbon’s epigram in praise of Holbein in the subsequent editions of the Dance of Death, supposing him to be the designer of the cuts, I cannot tell, nor will I venture toguess. They certainly must have had some reason for concealing the designer’s name, for the writer of the prefatory address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele takes care not to mention it even when speaking in so laudatory a style of the excellence of the designs. Among the other unaccountable things connected with this work, I may mention the fact of the French prefatory address to the abbess of St. Peter’s appearing only in the first, and being omitted in every subsequent edition.With respect to T. Nieuhoff Piccard, whose manuscript addresses to “Mynheer Heymans” and “Lord William Benting” are cited toprovethat Bourbon’s verses must relate to a painting of the Dance of Death by Holbein in the old palace of Whitehall, nothing whatever is known; and there is not the slightest reason to believe that a Lord William Benting, born in the old palace of Whitehall, “Lord of Rhoon, Pendraght,” &c. ever existed. I am of opinion that the addresses of the person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard are a clumsy attempt at imposition.VI.39Though Mr. Douce had seen both those addresses, and also another of the same kind, he does not appear to have made any attempt to trace their former owners, nor does he mention the names of the parties in whose possession they were at the time that he saw them. He had seen the address to “Lord William Benting” previous to the publication of his364observations on the Dance of Death in 1794, when, if he had felt inclined, he might have ascertained from whom the then possessor had received it, and thus obtained a clue to guide him in his inquiries respecting the personal identity of the Lord of Rhoon and Pendraght. But this would not have suited his purpose; for he seems to have been conscious that any inquiry respecting such a person would only have tended to confirm the doubts respecting the paper addressed to him by Piccard. It is also uncertain at what time those pretended addresses were written, but there are impressions of the etchings which accompanied them with the date 1720; and I am inclined to think that if the paper and handwriting were closely examined, it would be found that those pretended presentation addresses were manufactured about the same, or perhaps at a later period. Whoever the person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard may have been, or at whatever time the addresses to Mynheer Heymans and others may have been written, the only evidence of there having been a painting of the Dance by Holbein at Whitehall rests on his unsupported statement. Such a painting is not mentioned by any foreign traveller who had visited this country, nor is it noticed by any English writer prior to 1697; it is not alluded to in any tragedy, comedy, farce, or masque, in which we might expect that such a painting would have been incidentally mentioned had it ever existed. Evelyn, who must have frequently been in the old palace of Whitehall, says not a word of such a painting, though he mentions the Lyons Dance of Death under the title of Mortis Imago, and ascribes the cuts to Holbein;VI.40and not the slightest notice of it is to be found in Vertue or Walpole.The learned Conrad Gesner, who was born at Zurich in 1516, and died there in 1565, expressly ascribes the Lyons Dance of Death to Holbein;VI.41and, notwithstanding the contradictory statement in the preface to the365first edition of this work, such appears to have been the general belief of all the artist’s contemporaries. Van Mander, who was born in 1548, and who died in 1606, appears to have been the first person who gave any account of the life of Holbein. His work, entitled Het Schilder Boek, consisting of biographical notices of painters, chiefly Germans and Flemings, was first published in 1604; and, when speaking of Holbein, he mentions the Lyons Dance of Death among his other works. Sandrart, in common with every other writer on art of the period, also ascribes the Lyons work to Holbein, and he gives the following account of a conversation that he had with Rubens respecting those cuts: “I remember that in the year 1627, when the celebrated Rubens was proceeding to Utrecht to visit Honthorst, I accompanied him as far as Amsterdam; and during our passage in the boat I looked into Holbein’s little book of the Dance of Death, the cuts of which Rubens highly praised, recommending me, as I was a young man, to copy them, observing, that he had copied them himself in his youth.” Sandrart, who seems to have been one of the earliest writers who supposed that Durer, Cranach, and others engraved their own designs, without any just grounds describes Holbein as a wood engraver. Patin, in his edition of the “Stultitiæ Laus” of Erasmus, 1676, repeats the same story; and Papillon in his decisive manner clenches it by asserting that “most of the delicate wood-cuts and ornamental letters which are to be found in books printed at Basle, Zurich, and towns in Switzerland, at Lyons, London, &c. from 1520 to about 1540, were engraved by Holbein himself.” Papillon also says that it is believed—on croit—that Holbein began to engrave in 1511, when he was about sixteen. “What is extraordinary in this painter,” he further adds, “is, that he painted and engraved with the left hand, so that he consequently engraved the lines on the wood from right to left, instead of, as with us, engraving from left to right.”VI.42Jansen, and a host of other compilers, without inquiry, repeat the story of Holbein having been a wood engraver, and that the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death were engraved by himself. That he was the designer of those cuts I am thoroughly convinced, though I consider it “next to impossible” that he should have been also the engraver.Holbein’s Bible Cuts, as they are usually called, were first published at Lyons, in 1538, the same year, and by the same printers, as the Dance of Death. The book is a small quarto, and the title is as follows: “Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones ad vivum expressæ. Una cum brevi, sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem et Latina et Gallica366expositione. Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi.M.D.XXXVIII.”VI.43On the title-page is an emblematic cut, with the mottoUsus me genuit, similar to that on the title-page in the first edition of the Dance of Death, but not precisely the same; and at the end is the imprint of the brothers Melchior and Caspar Trechsel within an ornamental border, as in the latter work. I am greatly inclined to think that the brothers were only the printers of the first editions of the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts, and that the real proprietors were John and Francis Frellon, whose names appear as the publishers in subsequent editions.This opinion seems to be corroborated by the fact of there being an address from “Franciscus Frellaeus” to the Christian Reader in the Bible cuts of 1538 and 1539, which in subsequent editions is altered to “FranciscusFrellonius.” That the same person is designated by those names, I think there can be little doubt, as the addresses are literally the same. From adopting the form “Frellaeus,” however, in the editions of 1538 and 1539, it would seem that the writer was not wishful to discover his name. When the work becomes popular he writes it Frellonius; and in the second edition of the Dance of Death, when the character of this work is also established, and there seems no longer reason to apprehend the censures of the church of Rome, we find the names of John and Francis Frellon on the title-page under the “shield of Cologne.” Whatever might be their motives, it seems certain that the first publishers of the Dance of Death were wishful to withhold their names; and it is likely that the designer of the cuts might have equally good reasons for concealment. Had the Roman Catholic party considered the cuts of the Pope, the Nun, and two or three others as the covert satire of areformedpainter, the publishers and the designer would have been as likely to incur danger as to reap profit or fame.The address of Franciscus Frellaeus is followed by a copy of Latin verses by Nicholas Bourbon, in which Holbein is mentioned as the designer; and immediately preceding the cuts is an address “aux lecteurs,” in French verse, by Gilles Corrozet, who, perhaps, might be the poet that supplied the French expositions of those cuts, and the “descriptions severement rithmées” of the Dance of Death. The following is an extract from Bourbon’s prefatory verses, the whole of which it appears unnecessary to give.367“Nuper in Elysio cum fortè erraret ApellesUna aderat Zeuxis, Parrhasiusque comes.Hi duo multa satis fundebant verba; sed illeInterea mœrens et taciturnus erat.Mirantur comites, farique hortantur et urgent:Suspirans imo pectore, Coûs ait:O famæ ignari, superis quæ nuper ab oris(Vana utinam!) Stygias venit ad usque domos:Scilicet, esse hodie quendam ex mortalibus unumOstendat qui me vosque fuisse nihil:Qui nos declaret pictores nomine tantum,Picturæque omneis ante fuisse rudes.Holbius est homini nomen, qui nomina nostraObscura ex claris ac prope nulla facit.Talis apud manes querimonia fertur: et illosSic equidem merito censeo posse queri,Nam tabulam siquis videat, quam pinxerit HansusHolbius, ille artis gloria prima suæ,Protinus exclamet, Potuit Deus edere monstrumQuod video? humanæ non potuere manus.Icones hæ sacræ tanti sunt, optime lector,Artificis, dignum quod venereris opus.”Besides those verses there is also a Greek distich by Bourbon, to which the following translation “pene ad verbum” is appended:“Cernere vis, hospes, simulacra simillima vivis?Hoc opus Holbinæ nobile cerne manus.”WhenMr.Douce stated that it was “extremely probablethat the anonymous painter or designer of the Dance might have been employed also by the Frellons to execute a set of subjects for the Bible previously to his death, and that Holbein was afterwards employed to complete the work,” he seems to have forgot that such a testimony of Holbein being the designer was prefixed to the Bible cuts. In answer to Mr. Douce it may be asked, in his own style, if the Frellons knew that another artist was the designer of the cuts of the Dance of Death, and if he also had been originally employed to design the Bible cuts, how does it happen that they should allow Bourbon to give all the honour of the latter to Holbein, who, if the Dance of Death be not his, was certainly much inferior as a designer to the nameless artist whose unfinished work he was employed to complete?The total number of the Bible cuts in the first edition of the work is ninety, the first four of which are the same as the first four of the Dance of Death; the other eighty-six are of a different form to the first four, as will be perceived from the specimens, which are of the same size as the originals. Those eighty-six cuts are generally much inferior in design to those of the Dance of Death, and the style in which they are engraved is very unequal, some of them being executed with considerable368neatness and delicacy, and others in a much coarser manner. The following cut, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, GenesisXXII, is one of those which are the best engraved; but even these, so far as regards the expression of the features and the delicate marking of the hands, are generally much inferior to the cuts of the Dance of Death.see textThough most of the Bible cuts are inferior both in design and execution to those of the Dance of Death, and though several of them are rudely drawn and badly engraved, yet many of them afford points of such perfect identity with those of the Dance of Death, that it seems impossible to come to any other conclusion than that either the cuts of both works have been designed by the same person, or that the designer of the one series has servilely copied from the designer of the other, and, what is most singular, in many trifling details which seem the least likely to be imitated, and which usually constitute individual peculiarities of style. For instance, the small shrubby tree in the preceding cut is precisely of the same species as that seen in the cut of the Old Woman in the Dance of Death; and the angel about to stay Abraham’s hand bears a strong general resemblance to the angel in Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise.The cut on the opposite page—the Fool, PsalmLIII—is copied from one of those executed in a coarser style than the preceding. The children in this cut are evidently of the same family as those of the Dance of Death.In the first cut, the Creation, a crack is perceived running nearly down the middle from top to bottom, in the edition of the Dance of Death of 1545. It is also perceptible in all the subsequent Lyons editions of this work and of the Bible cuts. It is, however, less obvious in the Bible cuts of the edition 1549 than in some of the preceding,369probably in consequence of the block having been cramped to remedy the defect. Mr. Douce speaks, at page 105, as if the crack were not discernible in the Bible cuts of 1549; it is, however, quite perceptible in every copy that has come under my notice. Some of the latter editions of this work contain four additional cuts, which are all coarsely executed. In the edition of 1547 they form the illustrations to EzekielXL; EzekielXLIII; JonahI,II, andIII; and Habakkuk. The Bible cuts were also printed with explanations in English. The title of a copy now before me is as follows: “The Images of the Old Testament, lately expressed, set forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche vuith a playn and brief exposition. Printed at Lyons by Johan Frellon, the yere of our Lord God, 1549,” 4to. In the latter editions there are wood-cuts of the four Evangelists, each within an oval border, on the last leaf. They bear no tokens of Holbein’s style.see textAmong the many instances of resemblance which are to be perceived on comparing the Dance of Death with the Bible cuts, the following may be enumerated as the most remarkable. The peculiar manner in which fire with smoke, and the waves of the sea, are represented in the Dance of Death can scarcely fail to strike the most heedless observer; for instance, the fire in the cut of Death seizing the child, and the waves in the cut of the Seaman. In the Bible cuts we perceive the same peculiarity; there is the same kind of fire in Moses directing the manner of burnt offerings, LeviticusI; in the burning of Nadab and Abihu, LeviticusX; and in every other one of those cuts where fire is seen. In the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, ExodusXIV, are the same kind of curling waves. Except in the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts,370I have never seen an instance of fire or water represented in such a manner. If those cuts were designed by two different artists, it is certainly singular that in this respect they should display so perfect a coincidence of idea. The sheep in the cut of the Bishop in the Dance of Death are the same as those in the Bible cut of Moses seeing God in the burning bush, ExodusIII; and the female figure in the cut of the Elector in the former work is perceived in the Bible cut of the captive Midianites, NumbersXXXI. The children introduced in both works are almost perfectly identical, as will be perceived on comparing the cut of Little Children mocking Elijah, chapterII, KingsII, with those of the Elector, and Death seizing the child, in the Dance of Death. The face of the Duchess in the latter work is the same as that of Esther in the Bible cut, Esther, chapterII; and in this cut ornaments on the tapestry, like fleurs-de-lis, behind the throne of Ahasuerus, are the same as those on the tapestry behind the King in the Dance of Death. The latter coincidence has been noticed by Mr. Douce, who, in direct opposition to the evidence of the German or Swiss costume of the living characters of the Dance of Death, considers it as contributing to demonstrate that both the series of those cuts are of Gallic origin.VI.44It is needless to enumerate more instances of almost complete identity of figures and details in the cuts of the Dance of Death and those of the Bible illustrations; they are too frequent to have originated from a conventional mode of representing certain objects and persons; and they are most striking in minor details, where one artist would be least likely to imitate another, but where the same individual designer would be most likely to repeat himself. “As to the designs of these truly elegant prints,” says Mr. Douce, speaking of the cuts of the Dance of Death, “no one who is at all skilled in the knowledge of Holbein’s style and manner of grouping his figures would hesitate immediately to ascribe them to that artist.”VI.45As this opinion is corroborated by a comparison of the Dance of Death with the Bible cuts, and as the internal evidence of the cuts of the371Dance of Death in favour of Holbein is confirmed by the testimony of his contemporaries, the reader can decide for himself how far Holbein’s positive claims to the honour of this work ought to be affected by the passage in the anonymous address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele, which forms the groundwork of Mr. Douce’s theory.Having now examined the principal arguments which have been alleged to show that Holbeinwas notthe designer of the Dance of Death, and having endeavoured to justify his claims to that honour by producing the evidences on which they rest, I shall now take leave of this subject, feeling thoroughly assured thatHolbein was the designer of the cuts of the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death; and trusting, though with no overweening confidence, that the preceding investigation will render it necessary for the next questioner of his title to produce stronger objections than the solitary ambiguous passage in the preface to the first edition of the work, and to support them with more forcible and consistent arguments than have been put forth by Mr. Douce. M. T. Nieuhoff Piccard, I am inclined to think, will never again be called as a witness in this cause; and before the passage in the preface can be allowed to have any weight, it must be shown that such a personage as Madame Jehanne de Touszelewasprioress of the convent of St. Peter at Lyons at the time of the first publication of the work: and even should such a fact be established, the ambiguity of the passage—whether the pretendedly deceased artist were the engraver or designer, or both,—and the obvious desire to conceal his name, remain to be explained.In 1538, the year in which the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts were first published at Lyons, Holbein was residing in England under the patronage of Henry VIII; though it is also certain that about the beginning of September in that year he returned to Basle and he remained there a few weeks.VI.46As the productions of this distinguished painter occupy so large a portion of this chapter, it perhaps may not be unnecessary to give here a few particulars of his life, chiefly derived from Hegner’s work, previous to his coming to England. Hans Holbein, the Younger, as he is often called by German writers to distinguish him from his father, was the son of Hans Holbein, a painter of considerable reputation. The year and place of his birth have not been positively ascertained, but there seems reason to believe that he was born in 1498, at Augsburg,VI.47372of which city his father was a burgher, and from whence he appears to have removed with his family to Basle, about the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century. Young Holbein was brought up to his father’s profession, and at an early age displayed the germ of his future excellence. There is a portrait in oil by young Holbein of the date of 1513, which, according to Hegner, though rather weak in colour and somewhat hard in outline, is yet clearly and delicately painted. From the excellence of his early productions, Patin, in his Life of Holbein, prefixed to an edition of the Laus Stultitiæ of ErasmusVI.48thinks that he must have been born in 1495. That he was born in 1498 there can, however, be little doubt, for Hegner mentions a portrait of him, at Basle, when in the forty-fifth year of his age, with the date 1543. Several anecdotes are told of Holbein as a jolly fellow, and of his twice or thrice discharging his account at a tavern by painting a Dance of Peasants. Though there seems reason to believe that Holbein was a free liver, and that he did paint such a subject in a house at Basle, the stories of his thus settling for his liquor are highly improbable. He appears to have married young, for in a painting of his wife and two children, executed before he left Basle for England in 1526, the eldest child, a boy, appears to be between four and five years old.VI.49The name of Holbein’s wife is unknown; but it is said that, like Durer’s, she was of an unhappy temper, and that he enjoyed no peace with her. It is not, however, unlikely that his own unsettled disposition and straitened circumstances also contributed to render his home uncomfortable. Like most other artists of that period, he appears to have frequently travelled; but his journeys do not seem to have extended beyond Switzerland and Suabia, and they were for the most part confined to the former country. He seems to have travelled rather in search of employment than to improve himself by studying the works373of other masters. Perhaps of all the eminent painters of that period there is no one whose style is more original than Holbein’s, nor one who owes less to the study of the works of his contemporaries or predecessors. Though there can be no doubt of his talents being highly appreciated by his fellow-townsmen, yet his profession during his residence at Basle appears to have afforded him but a scanty income. The number of works executed by him between 1517 and 1526 sufficiently testify that he was not deficient in industry, and the exercise of his art seems to have been sufficiently varied:—he painted portraits and historical subjects; decorated the interior walls of houses, according to the fashion of that period, with fanciful and historical compositions; and made designs for goldsmiths and wood-engravers. It is said that so early as 1520, the Earl of Arundel,VI.50an English nobleman, having seen some of his works in passing through Basle, advised him to try his fortune in England. If such advice were given to Holbein at that period, it is certain that it was not adopted until several years after, for he did not visit this country till 1526.see text and captionTHE SHEATH OF A DAGGER, INTENDED AS A DESIGN FOR A CHASER.VI.51Before he left Basle he had painted two or three portraits of Erasmus, and there is a large wood-cut of that distinguished scholar which is said not only to have been painted, but also engraved by Holbein. This cut is of folio size, and the figure of Erasmus is a whole length. His right arm rests upon a terminus, and from a richly ornamented arch is suspended a tablet, with the inscription,Er. Rot.Some old impressions have two verses printed underneath, which merely praise the likeness without alluding to the painter, while others have four which contain a compliment to the genius of Erasmus and to the art of Holbein.VI.52The original block is still preserved in the Public Library at Basle; but there is not the slightest reason for believing that it was engraved by Holbein. In 1526 Holbein left Basle for England: Patin says, because he could no longer bear to live with his imperious wife. Though this might not be the chief cause, it is easy to conceive that a person of Holbein’s character would feel but little regret at parting from such a helpmate. Van Mander says that he took with him a portrait which he had painted of Erasmus, with a letter of recommendation from the latter to Sir Thomas More, wherein it was observed that this portrait ‘was374much more like him than any of Albert Durer’s.’ Hegner, however, thinks that what Van Mander says about the contents of this letter is not375correct, as no such passage is to be found in the published correspondence of Erasmus with Sir Thomas More. Erasmus had already sent two portraits of himself to England;VI.53and as Sir Thomas More was personally acquainted with him, Hegner is of opinion that it would be unnecessary to mention that the portrait was a better likeness than any of those painted by Albert Durer. It is, however, by no means unlikely that Erasmus in speaking of a portrait of himself by Holbein—whether forwarded by the latter or not—might give his own opinion of it in comparison with one from the pencil of Durer.It would appear that in 1525 Erasmus had already mentioned Holbein’s desire of trying his fortune in England to Sir Thomas More, for in a letter written by Sir Thomas to Erasmus, dated from the court at Greenwich, 18th of December 1525, there is a passage to the following effect: “Your painter, dear Erasmus, is an excellent artist, but I am apprehensive that he will not find England so fruitful and fertile as he may expect. I will, however, do all that I can in order that he may not find it entirely barren.”VI.54From a letter, dated 29th of August 1526, written by Erasmus to his friend Petrus Aegidius at Antwerp, it seems reasonable to conclude that Holbein left Basle for England about the beginning of September. Though Holbein’s name is not expressly mentioned in this letter, there cannot be a doubt of his being the artist who is thus introduced to Aegidius: “The bearer of this is he who painted my portrait. I will not annoy you with his praises, although he is indeed an excellent artist. Should he wish to see Quintin, and you not have leisure to go with him, you can let a servant show him the house. The arts perish here; he proceeds to England to gain a few angels; if you wish to write [to England] you can send your letters by him.”VI.55In this extract we discover a trait of the usual prudence of Erasmus, who, in introducing his humbler friends to persons of power or influence, seems to have been particularly careful not to give annoyance376from the warmth of his recommendations. How gently, yet significantly, does he hint to Aegidius that the poor painter who brings the letter is a person about whom he need give himself no trouble: if he has notleisureto introduce him personally to Quintin—that is, Quintin Matsys—he can send a servant to show him his house. The suggestion of the servant was a hint from Erasmus that he did not expect the master to go with Holbein himself.Holbein on his arrival in England appears to have been well received by Sir Thomas More; and it is certain that he resided for some time with the learned and witty chancellor in his house at Chelsea. It is indeed said that he continued with him for three years, but Walpole thinks that this is very unlikely. Whether he may have resided during the whole of the intermediate time with Sir Thomas More or not, there seems reason to believe that Holbein entered the service of Henry VIII. in 1528. About the autumn of 1529VI.56, he paid a short visit to Basle, probably to see his family, which he had left in but indifferent circumstances, and to obtain permission from the magistracy for a further extension of his leave of absence, for no burgher of the city of Basle was allowed to enter into the service of a foreign prince without their sanction. Patin, in his Life of Holbein, says that during his visit he spent most of his time with his old tavern companions, and that he treated the more respectable burghers, who wished to cultivate his friendship, with great disrespect. Hegner, however, considers all those accounts which represent Holbein as a man of intemperate habits and dissolute character, as unworthy of credit; in his opinion it seems impossible that he who was a favourite of Henry VIII, and so long an inmate of Sir Thomas More’s house, should have been a dissolute person. M. Hegner throughout his work shows a praiseworthy regard for Holbein’s moral character, but his presumption in this instance is not sufficient to counterbalance the unfavourable reports in the opposite scale.About the latter end of 1532, or the beginning of 1533, Holbein again visited Basle; and his return appears to have been chiefly377influenced by an order of the magistracy, which was to the following effect: “To M. Hans Holbein, painter, now in England. We Jacob Meier, burgomaster and councillor, herewith salute you our beloved Hans Holbein, fellow-burgher, and give you to understand that it is our desire that you return home forthwith. In order that you may live easier at home, and provide for your wife and child,VI.57we are pleased to allow you the yearly sum of thirty guilders, until we can obtain for you something better. That you may make your arrangements accordingly, we acquaint you with this resolution. Given, Monday, 2nd September 1532.”VI.58It is uncertain how long Holbein remained at Basle on his second visit, but it was probably of short duration. Though he obeyed the summons of the magistracy to return, he seems to have had sufficient interest to obtain a further extension of his leave of absence. For the third and last time he revisited Basle in 1538; and from a licence, signed by the burgomaster Jacob Meier, dated 16th November in that year, it appears that he obtained permission to return to England and remain there for two years longer. In this licence fifty guilders per annum are promised to Holbein on his return to Basle, and till then the magistrates further agree to allow his wife forty guilders per annum to be paid quarterly, and the first quarter’s payment to commence on the eve of St. Lucia next ensuing,—that is, on the 12th of December. As the mention of the allowance to Holbein’s wife would seem to imply that she was not very well provided for by her husband, Hegner attempts to excuse his apparent neglect by suggesting “that the great sometimes forget to pay, and will not bear dunning;” and in illustration of this he refers to the passage in Albert Durer’s Journal which has been previously given at page 269.Holbein’s three visits to Basle have been here especially noticed in order that the reader might judge for himself as to the probability of his making the drawings for the Lyons Dance of Death on any of those occasions. As this work was published in 1538, and as Holbein on his last visit appears to have arrived at Basle about the beginning of September in that year, it is impossible that he should have made the drawings then; for if the forty-one cuts were executed by one person—as378from the similarity and excellence of the style there seems every reason to believe—it would require at the least half a year to engrave them, supposing that the artist worked as expeditiously as a wood engraver of modern times. As it is highly probable that Holbein both made designs and painted on his former visits, in 1529, and in 1532 or 1533, I think it most likely that they were made on the latter occasion,—that is, supposing them to have been designed on one of those visits. It is, however, just as probable that the designs were made in England, and forwarded to a wood engraver at Basle.Of the various paintings executed by Holbein during his residence in England it is not necessary to give any account here; those who wish for information on this point are referred to Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting.VI.59Of his life in England there are few particulars. “In some household accounts of Henry VIII,” says Mr. Douce, “there are payments to him in 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541, on account of his salary, which appears to have been thirty pounds per annum. From this time little more is recorded of him till 1553, when he painted Queen Mary’s portrait, and shortly afterwards died of the plague in 1554.” Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the great patron of artists, in the time of Charles I, was desirous of erecting a monument to the memory of Holbein, but gave up the intention as he was unable to discover the place of the artist’s interment. As Holbein seems to have left no will, and as his death appears to have excited no notice, it is likely that he died poor, and in comparative obscurity. If his satirical drawingsVI.60of Christ’s Passion, ridiculing the Pope and the popish clergy, were known to Mary, or any of her spiritual advisers, it could not be expected that he should find favour at her court.Wood engraving in England during the time of Holbein’s residence in this country appears to have been but little cultivated; but though there cannot be a doubt that the art was then practised here by native wood379engravers, yet I very much question if it were practised by any person in England as a distinct profession. It is not unlikely that many of the wood-cuts which appear in books printed in this country about that period were engraved by the printers themselves. It has indeed been supposed that most of the wood-cuts in English books printed at that period were engraved on the continent; but this opinion seems highly improbable—there could be no occasion to send abroad to have wood-cuts so rudely executed. Perhaps the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of finding a wood engraver in England capable of doing justice to his designs might be one reason why Holbein made so few for the booksellers of this country during his long residence here. The following portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, who died in 1541, was probably drawn on the block by Holbein. It is given on the reverse of the title of a small work in quarto, printed at London, 1542, and entitled “Næniæ in mortem Thomæ Viati equitis incomparabilis. Joanne Lelando antiquario autore.” The verses, which are printed underneath the cut, seem decisive of the drawing having been made by Holbein. There is a drawing of Sir Thomas Wyatt by Holbein, in the Royal Collection, which is engraved in Chamberlain’s work, entitled “Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein,” folio, 1792. There is little similarity between the drawing and the cut, though on comparison it is evident that both are intended for the same person.
A B C DE F G HI K L MN O P QR S T VW X Y Z
There is a set of proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, printed on one sheet, preserved in the Public Library at Basle, and underneath is printed in moveable letters the nameHAnns Lützelburger formschnider, genannt Franck,—that is, “Hanns Lutzelburger, wood engraver, named Franck.” The first H is an ornamented Roman capital; the other letters of the name are in the German character. The size of the cuts in this alphabet of the Dance of Death is one inch by seven-eighths. The reason for supposing that Hans Lutzelburger was the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death are: 1. The similarity of style between the latter and those of the Basle alphabet of the same subject; and 2. The correspondence of the mark in the cut of the Duchess with the initial letters of the name H[ans] L[utzelburger], and the fact of his being a wood engraver of that period. Mr. Douce, in the seventh chapter of his work, professes to353examine the “claim of Hans Lutzelburger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death,” but his investigations seem very unsatisfactory; and his chapter is one of those “in which,” as Fielding says, “nothing is concluded.” He gives no opinion as to whether Lutzelburger was the designer of the Lyons cuts or not, though this is one of the professed topics of his investigation; and even his opinion, for the time being, as to the engraver, only appears in the heading of the following chapter, where it is thus announced: “List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of Lutzenburger.”VI.26His mind, however, does not appear to have been finally made up on this point; for in a subsequent page, 215, speaking of the markHLin the cut of the Duchess, which he had previously mentioned as that of Hans Lutzelburger, he says, “but to whomsoever this mark may turn out to belong, certain it is that Holbein never made use of it.” His only unalterable decision appears to be that Holbein did not design the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, and in support of it he puts forth sundry arguments which are at once absurd and inconsistent; rejects unquestionable evidence which makes for the contrary opinion; and admits the most improbable that seems to favour his own.
Mr. Douce, in his seventh chapter, also gives a list of cuts, which he says were executed by Hans Lutzelburger; but out of the seven single cuts and three alphabets which he enumerates, I am inclined to think that Lutzelburger’s name is only to be found attached to one single cut and to one alphabet,—the latter being that of the initial letters representing a Dance of Death. The single cut to which I allude—and which, I believe, is the only one of the kind that has his name underneath it,—represents a combat in a wood between some naked men and a body of peasants. Within the cut, to the left, is the mark, probably of the designer, on a reversed tablet,symbolthus; and underneath is the following inscription, from a separate block:Hanns . Leuczellburger . Furmschnider× 1.5.2.2. An impression of this cut is preserved in the Public Library at Basle; and an alphabet of Roman capitals, engraved on wood, is printed on the same folio, below Lutzelburger’s name. In not one of the other single cuts does this engraver’s name occur, nor in fact any mark that can be fairly ascribed to him. The seventh cut, described by Mr. Douce,—a copy of Albert Durer’s Decollation of John the Baptist,—is ascribed to Lutzelburger on the authority of Zani. According to this writer,—for I have not seen the cut myself any more than Mr. Douce,—it has “the mark H. L. reversed,” which perhaps may prove to be L. H. “In the index of names,” says Mr. Douce, “he (Zani) finds his name thus written,Hans354Lutzelburger Formschnider genant(chiamato)Franck, and calls him the true prince of engravers on wood.” In what index Zani found the reversed mark thus expounded does not appear; I, however, am decidedly of opinion that there is no wood-cut in existence with the mark H. L. which can be ascribed with anything like certainty to Lutzelburger; and his name is only to be found at lengthunderthe cut of the Fight above mentioned, and printed in moveable characters on the sheet containing the proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death.VI.27The title of “true prince of engravers on wood,” given by Zani to Lutzelburger, can only be admitted on the supposition of his being the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death; but it yet remains to be proved that he ever used the markHLor the separate letters H. L. on any previous or subsequent cut. Though, from his name appearing on the page containing the alphabet of the Dance of Death, and from the correspondence of his initials with the mark in the cut of the Duchess in the Lyons Dance of Death, I am inclined to think that he was the engraver of the cuts in the latter work, yet I have thought it necessary to enter thus fully into the grounds of his pretensions to the execution of those, and other wood engravings, in order that the reader may judge for himself.
Hegner, in his Life of Holbein, treats the claims that have been advanced on behalf of Lutzelburger too lightly. He not only denies that he was the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons work, but also that he executed the cuts of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, although his name with the addition of “wood engraver”—formschnider—be printed on the sheet of proofs. If we cannot admit the inscription in question as evidence of Lutzelburger being the engraver of this alphabet, we may with equal reason question if any wood engraver actually executed the cut or cuts under which his name only appears printed in type, or which may be ascribed to him in the title of a book. Mr. Douce, speaking of the three alphabets,—of peasants, boys, and a Dance of Death,—all of which he supposes to have been engraved by Lutzelburger, says that the proofs “may have been deposited by him in hisnativecity,” meaning Basle. Hegner, however, says that there is no trace of him to be found either in registers of baptism or burger-lists of Basle. He further adds, though I by no means concur with him in this opinion, “It is indeed likely that, as a travelling dealer in works of art—who, according to the custom of that period, took up their temporary residence sometimes in one place, sometimes in another,—he had obtained possession of those blocks, [of the alphabet of Death’s Dance, and the Fight, with his name,] and that he sold impressions from them in355the way of trade.”VI.28Mr. Douce says that it may admit of a doubt whether the alphabets ascribed to Lutzelburger were cut on metal or on wood. It may admit of a doubt, certainly, with one who knows very little of the practice of wood engraving, but none with a person who is accustomed to see cuts executed in a much more delicate style by wood engravers of very moderate abilities. To engrave them on wood, would be comparatively easy, so far as relates to the mere delicacy of the lines; but it would be a task of great difficulty to engrave them in relief in any metal which should be much harder than that of which types are composed. To suppose that they might have been executed in type-metal, on account of the delicacy of the lines, would involve a contradiction; for not only can finer lines be cut on box-wood than on type-metal, but also with much greater facility.
It perhaps may not be unnecessary to give here two instances of the many vague and absurd conjectures which have been propounded respecting the designer or the engraver of the cuts in the Lyons editions of the Dance of Death. In a copy of this work of the edition 1545 now in the British Museum, but formerly belonging to the Reverend C. M. Cracherode, a portrait of a painter or engraver named Hans Ladenspelder is inserted opposite to the cut of the Duchess, as if in support of the conjecture thathemight be the designer of those cuts, merely from the circumstance of the initial letters of his name corresponding with the markHL. The portrait is a small oval engraved on copper, with an ornamental border, round which is the following inscription: “Imago Joannis Ladenspelder, Essendiensis, Anno ætatis suæ xxviii. 1540.”VI.29The markLis perceived on this portrait, and underneath is written the following MS. note, referring to the mark in the cut of the Duchess: “HLthe mark of the designer of these designs of Death’s Dance, not H. Holbein. By several persons that have seen Holbein’s Death Dance at Basil, it is not like these, nor in the same manner.” This note, so far as relates to the implied conjecture about Ladenspelder, may be allowed to pass without remark for what it is worth; but it seems necessary to remind the reader that the painting of the Dance of Death at Basle, here evidently alluded to,was notthe work of Holbein, and to observe that this note is not in the handwriting of Mr. Cracherode, but that it has apparently been written by a former owner of the volume.
In a copy of the first edition, now lying before me, a former owner has written on the fly-leaf the following verses from page 158 of the Nugæ—Lyons, 1540,—of Nicholas Borbonius, a French poet:
“Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide,Accersat a BritanniaHansum Ulbium, et Georgium ReperdiumLugduno ab urbe Galliæ.”
“Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide,
Accersat a Britannia
Hansum Ulbium, et Georgium Reperdium
Lugduno ab urbe Galliæ.”
The meaning of these verses may be thus expressed in English:
Whoever wishes to behold,Painters like to those of old,To England straightway let himsend,And summon Holbein to attend;Reperdius,VI.30too, from Lyons bring,A city of the Gallic King.
Whoever wishes to behold,
Painters like to those of old,
To England straightway let himsend,
And summon Holbein to attend;
Reperdius,VI.30too, from Lyons bring,
A city of the Gallic King.
To the extract from Borbonius,—or Bourbon, as he is more frequently called, without the Latin termination,—the writer has added a note: “An Reperdius harum Iconum sculptor fuerit?” That is: “Query, if Reperdius were the engraver of these cuts?”—meaning the cuts contained in the Lyons Dance of Death. Mr. Douce also cites the preceding verses from Nicholas Bourbon; and upon so slight and unstable a foundation he,more solito, raises a ponderous superstructure. He, in fact, says, that “it isextremely probablethat he might have begun the work in question [the designs for the Dance of Death], and have died before he could complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might have afterwards employed Holbein to finish what was left undone, as well as to make designs for additional subjects which appeared in the subsequent editions. Thus would Holbein be so connected with the work as to obtain in future such notice as would constitute him by general report the real inventor of it.”
Perhaps in the whole of the discussion on this subject a more tortuous piece of argument is not to be found. It strikingly exemplifiesMr.Douce’s eagerness to avail himself of the most trifling circumstance which seemed to favour his own views; and his manner of twisting and twining it is sufficient to excite a suspicion even in the mind of the most careless inquirer, that the chain of argument which consists of a series of such links must be little better than a rope of sand. Mr. Douce must have had singular notions of probability, when, upon the mere mention of the name of Reperdius, by Bourbon, as a painter then residing at Lyons, he asserts that it isextremely probablethat he, Reperdius, might have begun the work: it is evident that he does not employ the term in its usual and proper sense. If for “extremely probable” the words “barely possible” be substituted, the passage will be unobjectionable; and will then fairly represent the value of the conjecture of Reperdius having designed any of the cuts in question. If it beextremely probable357that the cuts of the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death were designed by Reperdius, from the mere occurrence of his name in Bourbon, the evidence in favour of their being designed by Holbein ought with equal reason to be considered asplusquam-perfect; for the voices of his contemporaries are expressly in his favour, the cuts themselves bear a strong general resemblance to those which are known to be of his designing, and some of the figures and details in the cuts of the Dance of Death correspond so nearly with others in the Bible-cuts designed by Holbein, and also printed at Lyons by the brothers Trechsel, and in the same year, that there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any impartial inquirer who shall compare them, that either both series must have been designed by the same person, or that Holbein had servilely copied the works of an unknown artist greater than himself. Upon one of the horns of this dilemma, Mr. Douce, and all who assert that the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Deathwere not designed by Holbein, must inevitably be fixed.
One of the earliest evidences in favour of Holbein being the designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death is Nicholas Bourbon, the author of the epigram previously cited. In an edition of his Nugæ, published at Basle in 1540, are the following verses:VI.31
De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili.Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginem exprimit,Tanta arte mortem retulit ut mors vivereVideatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibusParem Diis fecerit operis hujus gloria.
Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginem exprimit,
Tanta arte mortem retulit ut mors vivere
Videatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibus
Parem Diis fecerit operis hujus gloria.
Now,—after premising that the termpictawas applied to designs engraved on wood, as well as to paintings in oil or water-colours,VI.32—it may be asked to what work of Holbein’s do these lines refer? The painting in the church-court at Basle was not executed by Holbein; neither was it ascribed to him by his contemporaries; for the popular error which assigns it to him appears to have originated with certain travellers who visited Basle upwards of a hundred years after Holbein’s decease. It indeed may be answered that Bourbon might allude to thealphabetof the Dance of Death which has been ascribed to Holbein. A mere supposition of this kind, however, would be untenable in this instance; for there is no direct evidence to show that Holbein was the designer of this alphabet, and the principal reason for supposing it to358have been designed by him rests upon the previous assumption of his being the designer of the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death. Deny him the honour of this work, and assert that the last quoted verses of Bourbon must relate to some other, and the difficulty of showing by anything like credible evidence, that he was the designer of any other series of cuts, or even of a single cut, or painting, of the same subject, becomes increased tenfold. Mr. Douce, with the gross inconsistency that distinguishes the whole of his arguments on this subject, ascribes the alphabet of the Dance of Peasants to Holbein, and yet cautiously avoids mentioning him as the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though the reasons for this conclusion are precisely the same as those on which he rests the former assertion. Nay, so confused and contradictory are his opinions on this point, that in another part of his book he actually describes both alphabets as being the work of the same designer and the same engraver.
“Some of the writers on engraving,” says Mr. Douce, “have manifested their usual inaccuracy on the subject of Holbein’s Dance of Peasants. . . . . . . There is, however,no doubtthat his beautiful pencil was employed on this subject in various ways, of which the following specimens are worthy of being recorded. In a set of initial letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere,” &c. After thus having unhesitatingly ascribed the Dance of Peasants to Holbein, Mr. Douce, in a subsequent page,—when giving a list of cuts which he ascribes to Hans Lutzelburger,—writes as follows: “8. An alphabet with a Dance of Death, the subjects of which, with a few exceptions, are the same as those in the other Dance; the designs, however, occasionally vary,” &c. On concluding his description of this alphabet, he thus notices the alphabet of the Dance of Peasants, having apparently forgot that he had previously ascribed the latter to Holbein. “9. Another alphabetby the same artists. It is a Dance of Peasants, intermixed with other subjects, some of which are not of the most delicate nature.”VI.33
It is, however, uncertain if Mr. Douce really did believe Holbein to be the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though from the preceding extracts it is plainly, though indirectly asserted, that hewas. In his wish to claim the engraving of the Dance of Peasants for Lutzelburger, Mr. Douce does not seem to have been aware that from the words “by the same artists,” coupled with his previous assertion, of Holbein being the designer of that alphabet, it followed as a direct consequence that he was also the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death. Putting this charitable construction on Mr. Douce’s words, it follows thathisassertion of Lutzelburger being the engraver of the Dance of Peasants is purely gratuitous. If Mr. Douce really believed359that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, he ought in fairness to have expressly declared his opinion; although such declaration would have caused his arguments, against Holbein being the designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, to appear more paradoxical and absurd than they are when unconnected with such an opinion; for what person, with the slightest pretensions to rationality, could assert that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death executed in 1530, the subjects, with few exceptions, the same as those in the Dance of Death published at Lyons in 1538, and yet in direct opposition to contemporary testimony, and the internal evidence of the subjects themselves, deny that he was the designer of the cuts in the latter work, on the sole authority of the nameless writer of a preface which only appeared in the first edition of the book, and which, there seems reason to suspect, was addressed to an imaginary personage? Was Madame Jehanne de Touszele likely to feel herself highly complimented by having dedicated to her a work which contains undeniable evidences of the artist’s having been no friend to popery? In one cut a couple of fiends appear to be ridiculing his “Holiness” the pope; and in another is a young gallant with a guitar, entertaining a nun in her bed-chamber. If a pious abbess of St. Peter’s, Lyons, in 1538, should have considered that such cuts “tended to edification,” she must have been an extremely liberal woman for her age. It is exceedingly amusing, in looking over the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, to contrast the drollery and satire of the designer with the endeavours of the textuary and versifier to give them a devout and spiritual turn.
As it is certain from the verses of Bourbon, in praise of Holbein as the painter or designer of a subject, or a series of subjects, representing “Death as if he were alive,”—ut mors vivere videatur,—that this celebrated artisthad designeda Dance of Death, Mr. Douce, being unable to deny the evidence thus afforded, paradoxically proceeds to fit those verses to his own theory; and after quoting them, at page 139, proceeds as follows: “It has already been demonstrated that these lines could not refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at the Dominican convent, whilst from the important dedication to the edition of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in 1538, it is next to impossible that that work could then have been in Borbonius’s contemplation. It appears from several places in his Nugæ that he was in England in 1535, at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a manner as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copy of verses . . . . . . He returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he was there in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentary lines in Holbein’s Biblical designs a short time before their publication, either out of friendship to the painter, or at the instance of the Lyons publisher, with whom he was360certainly connected.—Now, if Borbonius, during his residence at Lyons, had been assured that the designs in the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death were the production of Holbein, would not his before-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewise introduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least into some subsequent editions, in none of which is any mention whatever made of Holbein, although the work was continued even after the death of that artist? The application, therefore, of Borbonius’s lines must be sought for elsewhere; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has not adverted to the place where the painting,VI.34as he seems to call it, was made.”
Mr. Douce next proceeds in his search after the “painting,” and he is not long in finding what he wishes for. According to his statement, “very soon afterthe calamitous fire at Whitehall, 1697, which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person, calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William III, and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist,” made etchings after nineteen of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death. Impressions of those etchings, accompanied with manuscript dedications, appear to have been presented by this T. Nieuhoff Piccard to his friends or patrons, and among others to a Mynheer Heymans, and to “the high, noble, and well-born Lord William Denting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendraght,” &c. The address to Mynheer Heymans contains the following important piece of information respecting a work of Holbein’s, which appears most singularly to have escaped the notice of every other writer, whether English or foreign. “Sir,—The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII, contains, among other performances of art, a Dance of Death,painted by Holbein, in its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been reduced to ashes.”VI.35In the dedication to the “high, noble, and well-born Lord William Benting,” the information respecting this curious work of art,—all memory of which would have perished had it not been for the said T. Nieuhoff Piccard,—is rather more precise. “Sir, [not My Lord,]—In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art, it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans Holbein, neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself hadpainted as large as life, in fresco, on the walls of Whitehall.” Who Mynheer Heymans was will probably never be discovered, but he seems to have been a person of some consequence in his day, though unfortunately never mentioned in any history or memoirs of the period, for it appears that the court thought proper, in consideration of his singular deserts, to361cause a dwelling to be built for him at Whitehall. My Lord William Benting,VI.36—though from his name and titles he might be mistaken for a member of the Bentinck family,—appears to have been actually born in the palace. It is, however, very unfortunate that his name does not occur in the peerage of that time; and as neither Rhoon nor Pendraght are to be found in Flanders or Holland, it is not unlikely that these may be the names of two of his lordship’scastles in Spain.
T. Nieuhoff Piccard’s express testimony of Holbein having painted a Dance of Death in fresco, at Whitehall, is, in Mr. Douce’s opinion, further corroborated by the following circumstances: 1. “In one of Vanderdort’s manuscript catalogues of the pictures and rarities transported from St. James’s to Whitehall, and placed there in the newly erected cabinet room of Charles I, and in which several works by Holbein are mentioned, there is the following article: ‘A little piece, where Death with a green garland about his head, stretching both his arms to apprehend a Pilate in the habit of one of the spiritual Prince-Electors of Germany. Copied by Isaac Oliver from Holbein.’ There cannot be a doubt that this refers to the subject of the Elector as painted by Holbein in the Dance of Death at Whitehall, proving at the same time the identity of the painting with the wood-cuts, whatever may be the inference. 2. Sandrart, after noticing a remarkable portrait of Henry VIII. at Whitehall, states ‘that there yet remains at that palaceanother work, by Holbein, that constitutes him the Apelles of his time.’ This is certainlyvery like an allusionto a Dance of Death. 3. It isby no means improbablethat Matthew Prior may have alluded to Holbein’s painting at Whitehall, as it is not likely that he would be acquainted with any other.
‘Our term of life depends not on our deed,Before our birth our funeral was decreed;Nor aw’d by foresight, nor misled by chance,Imperious Death directs the ebon lance,Peoples great Henry’s tombs, and leads up Holbein’s Dance.’Prior, Ode to the Memory of George Villiers.”VI.37
‘Our term of life depends not on our deed,
Before our birth our funeral was decreed;
Nor aw’d by foresight, nor misled by chance,
Imperious Death directs the ebon lance,
Peoples great Henry’s tombs, and leads up Holbein’s Dance.’
Prior, Ode to the Memory of George Villiers.”VI.37
Mr. Douce having previouslyprovedthat Holbein wasnotthe designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, thus, in a mannerequally362satisfactory, accounts for the verses of Bourbon, by showing, on theunexceptionableevidence of “a person, calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard,probablybelonging to the household of William III,” that the great work of Holbein—by the fame of which he had made himself equal with the immortal gods—was painted as large as life, in fresco, on the walls of Whitehall. The ingenuity displayed in depriving Holbein of the honour of the Lyons cuts is no less exemplified in proving him to be the painter of a similar subject in Whitehall. The key-stone is worthy of the arch.
Though thefactsandargumentsput forth by Mr. Douce, in proof of Holbein having painted a Dance of Death on the walls of the old palace of Whitehall, and of this having been the identical Dance of Death alluded to by Bourbon, might be summarily dismissed as being of that kind which no objection could render more absurd, yet it seems necessary to direct the especial attention of the reader to one or two points; and first to the assertion that “it is next to impossible that the Lyons Dance of Death of 1538 could then have been in Borbonius’s contemplation.” Now, in direct opposition to what is here said, it appears to me highly probable thatthiswas the very work on account of which he addressed his epigram to Holbein; and it is moreover evident that Bourbon expresses in Latin verse almost precisely the same ideas as those which had previously been expressed in French by the writer of the address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele, when speaking of the merits of the nameless artist who is there alluded to as the designer or engraver of the cuts.VI.38As Holbein is not certainly known to be the painter or designer of any other Dance of Death which might merit the high praise conveyed in Bourbon’s verses, to what other work of his will they apply? Even supposing, as I do, that the alphabet of the Dance of Death was designed by Holbein, I conceive it “next to impossible,” to use the words of Mr. Douce, that Bourbon should have described Holbein as having attained immortality through the fame of those twenty-four small letters, a perfect set of which I believe is not to be found in any single volume.363That Bourbondidknow who was the designer of the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death there can scarcely be the shadow of a doubt; he was at Lyons in the year in which the work was published; he was connected with the printers; and another work, the Icones Historiarum Veteris Testamenti, also published by them in 1538, has at the commencement a copy of verses written by Bourbon, from which alone we learn that Holbein was the designer of the cuts,—the first four of which cuts, be it observed, being from the same blocks as the first four in the Dance of Death, published by the same printers, in the same year. What might be the motives of the printers for not inserting Bourbon’s epigram in praise of Holbein in the subsequent editions of the Dance of Death, supposing him to be the designer of the cuts, I cannot tell, nor will I venture toguess. They certainly must have had some reason for concealing the designer’s name, for the writer of the prefatory address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele takes care not to mention it even when speaking in so laudatory a style of the excellence of the designs. Among the other unaccountable things connected with this work, I may mention the fact of the French prefatory address to the abbess of St. Peter’s appearing only in the first, and being omitted in every subsequent edition.
With respect to T. Nieuhoff Piccard, whose manuscript addresses to “Mynheer Heymans” and “Lord William Benting” are cited toprovethat Bourbon’s verses must relate to a painting of the Dance of Death by Holbein in the old palace of Whitehall, nothing whatever is known; and there is not the slightest reason to believe that a Lord William Benting, born in the old palace of Whitehall, “Lord of Rhoon, Pendraght,” &c. ever existed. I am of opinion that the addresses of the person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard are a clumsy attempt at imposition.VI.39Though Mr. Douce had seen both those addresses, and also another of the same kind, he does not appear to have made any attempt to trace their former owners, nor does he mention the names of the parties in whose possession they were at the time that he saw them. He had seen the address to “Lord William Benting” previous to the publication of his364observations on the Dance of Death in 1794, when, if he had felt inclined, he might have ascertained from whom the then possessor had received it, and thus obtained a clue to guide him in his inquiries respecting the personal identity of the Lord of Rhoon and Pendraght. But this would not have suited his purpose; for he seems to have been conscious that any inquiry respecting such a person would only have tended to confirm the doubts respecting the paper addressed to him by Piccard. It is also uncertain at what time those pretended addresses were written, but there are impressions of the etchings which accompanied them with the date 1720; and I am inclined to think that if the paper and handwriting were closely examined, it would be found that those pretended presentation addresses were manufactured about the same, or perhaps at a later period. Whoever the person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard may have been, or at whatever time the addresses to Mynheer Heymans and others may have been written, the only evidence of there having been a painting of the Dance by Holbein at Whitehall rests on his unsupported statement. Such a painting is not mentioned by any foreign traveller who had visited this country, nor is it noticed by any English writer prior to 1697; it is not alluded to in any tragedy, comedy, farce, or masque, in which we might expect that such a painting would have been incidentally mentioned had it ever existed. Evelyn, who must have frequently been in the old palace of Whitehall, says not a word of such a painting, though he mentions the Lyons Dance of Death under the title of Mortis Imago, and ascribes the cuts to Holbein;VI.40and not the slightest notice of it is to be found in Vertue or Walpole.
The learned Conrad Gesner, who was born at Zurich in 1516, and died there in 1565, expressly ascribes the Lyons Dance of Death to Holbein;VI.41and, notwithstanding the contradictory statement in the preface to the365first edition of this work, such appears to have been the general belief of all the artist’s contemporaries. Van Mander, who was born in 1548, and who died in 1606, appears to have been the first person who gave any account of the life of Holbein. His work, entitled Het Schilder Boek, consisting of biographical notices of painters, chiefly Germans and Flemings, was first published in 1604; and, when speaking of Holbein, he mentions the Lyons Dance of Death among his other works. Sandrart, in common with every other writer on art of the period, also ascribes the Lyons work to Holbein, and he gives the following account of a conversation that he had with Rubens respecting those cuts: “I remember that in the year 1627, when the celebrated Rubens was proceeding to Utrecht to visit Honthorst, I accompanied him as far as Amsterdam; and during our passage in the boat I looked into Holbein’s little book of the Dance of Death, the cuts of which Rubens highly praised, recommending me, as I was a young man, to copy them, observing, that he had copied them himself in his youth.” Sandrart, who seems to have been one of the earliest writers who supposed that Durer, Cranach, and others engraved their own designs, without any just grounds describes Holbein as a wood engraver. Patin, in his edition of the “Stultitiæ Laus” of Erasmus, 1676, repeats the same story; and Papillon in his decisive manner clenches it by asserting that “most of the delicate wood-cuts and ornamental letters which are to be found in books printed at Basle, Zurich, and towns in Switzerland, at Lyons, London, &c. from 1520 to about 1540, were engraved by Holbein himself.” Papillon also says that it is believed—on croit—that Holbein began to engrave in 1511, when he was about sixteen. “What is extraordinary in this painter,” he further adds, “is, that he painted and engraved with the left hand, so that he consequently engraved the lines on the wood from right to left, instead of, as with us, engraving from left to right.”VI.42Jansen, and a host of other compilers, without inquiry, repeat the story of Holbein having been a wood engraver, and that the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death were engraved by himself. That he was the designer of those cuts I am thoroughly convinced, though I consider it “next to impossible” that he should have been also the engraver.
Holbein’s Bible Cuts, as they are usually called, were first published at Lyons, in 1538, the same year, and by the same printers, as the Dance of Death. The book is a small quarto, and the title is as follows: “Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones ad vivum expressæ. Una cum brevi, sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem et Latina et Gallica366expositione. Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi.M.D.XXXVIII.”VI.43On the title-page is an emblematic cut, with the mottoUsus me genuit, similar to that on the title-page in the first edition of the Dance of Death, but not precisely the same; and at the end is the imprint of the brothers Melchior and Caspar Trechsel within an ornamental border, as in the latter work. I am greatly inclined to think that the brothers were only the printers of the first editions of the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts, and that the real proprietors were John and Francis Frellon, whose names appear as the publishers in subsequent editions.
This opinion seems to be corroborated by the fact of there being an address from “Franciscus Frellaeus” to the Christian Reader in the Bible cuts of 1538 and 1539, which in subsequent editions is altered to “FranciscusFrellonius.” That the same person is designated by those names, I think there can be little doubt, as the addresses are literally the same. From adopting the form “Frellaeus,” however, in the editions of 1538 and 1539, it would seem that the writer was not wishful to discover his name. When the work becomes popular he writes it Frellonius; and in the second edition of the Dance of Death, when the character of this work is also established, and there seems no longer reason to apprehend the censures of the church of Rome, we find the names of John and Francis Frellon on the title-page under the “shield of Cologne.” Whatever might be their motives, it seems certain that the first publishers of the Dance of Death were wishful to withhold their names; and it is likely that the designer of the cuts might have equally good reasons for concealment. Had the Roman Catholic party considered the cuts of the Pope, the Nun, and two or three others as the covert satire of areformedpainter, the publishers and the designer would have been as likely to incur danger as to reap profit or fame.
The address of Franciscus Frellaeus is followed by a copy of Latin verses by Nicholas Bourbon, in which Holbein is mentioned as the designer; and immediately preceding the cuts is an address “aux lecteurs,” in French verse, by Gilles Corrozet, who, perhaps, might be the poet that supplied the French expositions of those cuts, and the “descriptions severement rithmées” of the Dance of Death. The following is an extract from Bourbon’s prefatory verses, the whole of which it appears unnecessary to give.
“Nuper in Elysio cum fortè erraret ApellesUna aderat Zeuxis, Parrhasiusque comes.Hi duo multa satis fundebant verba; sed illeInterea mœrens et taciturnus erat.Mirantur comites, farique hortantur et urgent:Suspirans imo pectore, Coûs ait:O famæ ignari, superis quæ nuper ab oris(Vana utinam!) Stygias venit ad usque domos:Scilicet, esse hodie quendam ex mortalibus unumOstendat qui me vosque fuisse nihil:Qui nos declaret pictores nomine tantum,Picturæque omneis ante fuisse rudes.Holbius est homini nomen, qui nomina nostraObscura ex claris ac prope nulla facit.Talis apud manes querimonia fertur: et illosSic equidem merito censeo posse queri,Nam tabulam siquis videat, quam pinxerit HansusHolbius, ille artis gloria prima suæ,Protinus exclamet, Potuit Deus edere monstrumQuod video? humanæ non potuere manus.Icones hæ sacræ tanti sunt, optime lector,Artificis, dignum quod venereris opus.”
“Nuper in Elysio cum fortè erraret Apelles
Una aderat Zeuxis, Parrhasiusque comes.
Hi duo multa satis fundebant verba; sed ille
Interea mœrens et taciturnus erat.
Mirantur comites, farique hortantur et urgent:
Suspirans imo pectore, Coûs ait:
O famæ ignari, superis quæ nuper ab oris
(Vana utinam!) Stygias venit ad usque domos:
Scilicet, esse hodie quendam ex mortalibus unum
Ostendat qui me vosque fuisse nihil:
Qui nos declaret pictores nomine tantum,
Picturæque omneis ante fuisse rudes.
Holbius est homini nomen, qui nomina nostra
Obscura ex claris ac prope nulla facit.
Talis apud manes querimonia fertur: et illos
Sic equidem merito censeo posse queri,
Nam tabulam siquis videat, quam pinxerit Hansus
Holbius, ille artis gloria prima suæ,
Protinus exclamet, Potuit Deus edere monstrum
Quod video? humanæ non potuere manus.
Icones hæ sacræ tanti sunt, optime lector,
Artificis, dignum quod venereris opus.”
Besides those verses there is also a Greek distich by Bourbon, to which the following translation “pene ad verbum” is appended:
“Cernere vis, hospes, simulacra simillima vivis?Hoc opus Holbinæ nobile cerne manus.”
“Cernere vis, hospes, simulacra simillima vivis?
Hoc opus Holbinæ nobile cerne manus.”
WhenMr.Douce stated that it was “extremely probablethat the anonymous painter or designer of the Dance might have been employed also by the Frellons to execute a set of subjects for the Bible previously to his death, and that Holbein was afterwards employed to complete the work,” he seems to have forgot that such a testimony of Holbein being the designer was prefixed to the Bible cuts. In answer to Mr. Douce it may be asked, in his own style, if the Frellons knew that another artist was the designer of the cuts of the Dance of Death, and if he also had been originally employed to design the Bible cuts, how does it happen that they should allow Bourbon to give all the honour of the latter to Holbein, who, if the Dance of Death be not his, was certainly much inferior as a designer to the nameless artist whose unfinished work he was employed to complete?
The total number of the Bible cuts in the first edition of the work is ninety, the first four of which are the same as the first four of the Dance of Death; the other eighty-six are of a different form to the first four, as will be perceived from the specimens, which are of the same size as the originals. Those eighty-six cuts are generally much inferior in design to those of the Dance of Death, and the style in which they are engraved is very unequal, some of them being executed with considerable368neatness and delicacy, and others in a much coarser manner. The following cut, Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, GenesisXXII, is one of those which are the best engraved; but even these, so far as regards the expression of the features and the delicate marking of the hands, are generally much inferior to the cuts of the Dance of Death.
see text
Though most of the Bible cuts are inferior both in design and execution to those of the Dance of Death, and though several of them are rudely drawn and badly engraved, yet many of them afford points of such perfect identity with those of the Dance of Death, that it seems impossible to come to any other conclusion than that either the cuts of both works have been designed by the same person, or that the designer of the one series has servilely copied from the designer of the other, and, what is most singular, in many trifling details which seem the least likely to be imitated, and which usually constitute individual peculiarities of style. For instance, the small shrubby tree in the preceding cut is precisely of the same species as that seen in the cut of the Old Woman in the Dance of Death; and the angel about to stay Abraham’s hand bears a strong general resemblance to the angel in Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise.
The cut on the opposite page—the Fool, PsalmLIII—is copied from one of those executed in a coarser style than the preceding. The children in this cut are evidently of the same family as those of the Dance of Death.
In the first cut, the Creation, a crack is perceived running nearly down the middle from top to bottom, in the edition of the Dance of Death of 1545. It is also perceptible in all the subsequent Lyons editions of this work and of the Bible cuts. It is, however, less obvious in the Bible cuts of the edition 1549 than in some of the preceding,369probably in consequence of the block having been cramped to remedy the defect. Mr. Douce speaks, at page 105, as if the crack were not discernible in the Bible cuts of 1549; it is, however, quite perceptible in every copy that has come under my notice. Some of the latter editions of this work contain four additional cuts, which are all coarsely executed. In the edition of 1547 they form the illustrations to EzekielXL; EzekielXLIII; JonahI,II, andIII; and Habakkuk. The Bible cuts were also printed with explanations in English. The title of a copy now before me is as follows: “The Images of the Old Testament, lately expressed, set forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche vuith a playn and brief exposition. Printed at Lyons by Johan Frellon, the yere of our Lord God, 1549,” 4to. In the latter editions there are wood-cuts of the four Evangelists, each within an oval border, on the last leaf. They bear no tokens of Holbein’s style.
see text
Among the many instances of resemblance which are to be perceived on comparing the Dance of Death with the Bible cuts, the following may be enumerated as the most remarkable. The peculiar manner in which fire with smoke, and the waves of the sea, are represented in the Dance of Death can scarcely fail to strike the most heedless observer; for instance, the fire in the cut of Death seizing the child, and the waves in the cut of the Seaman. In the Bible cuts we perceive the same peculiarity; there is the same kind of fire in Moses directing the manner of burnt offerings, LeviticusI; in the burning of Nadab and Abihu, LeviticusX; and in every other one of those cuts where fire is seen. In the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, ExodusXIV, are the same kind of curling waves. Except in the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts,370I have never seen an instance of fire or water represented in such a manner. If those cuts were designed by two different artists, it is certainly singular that in this respect they should display so perfect a coincidence of idea. The sheep in the cut of the Bishop in the Dance of Death are the same as those in the Bible cut of Moses seeing God in the burning bush, ExodusIII; and the female figure in the cut of the Elector in the former work is perceived in the Bible cut of the captive Midianites, NumbersXXXI. The children introduced in both works are almost perfectly identical, as will be perceived on comparing the cut of Little Children mocking Elijah, chapterII, KingsII, with those of the Elector, and Death seizing the child, in the Dance of Death. The face of the Duchess in the latter work is the same as that of Esther in the Bible cut, Esther, chapterII; and in this cut ornaments on the tapestry, like fleurs-de-lis, behind the throne of Ahasuerus, are the same as those on the tapestry behind the King in the Dance of Death. The latter coincidence has been noticed by Mr. Douce, who, in direct opposition to the evidence of the German or Swiss costume of the living characters of the Dance of Death, considers it as contributing to demonstrate that both the series of those cuts are of Gallic origin.VI.44It is needless to enumerate more instances of almost complete identity of figures and details in the cuts of the Dance of Death and those of the Bible illustrations; they are too frequent to have originated from a conventional mode of representing certain objects and persons; and they are most striking in minor details, where one artist would be least likely to imitate another, but where the same individual designer would be most likely to repeat himself. “As to the designs of these truly elegant prints,” says Mr. Douce, speaking of the cuts of the Dance of Death, “no one who is at all skilled in the knowledge of Holbein’s style and manner of grouping his figures would hesitate immediately to ascribe them to that artist.”VI.45As this opinion is corroborated by a comparison of the Dance of Death with the Bible cuts, and as the internal evidence of the cuts of the371Dance of Death in favour of Holbein is confirmed by the testimony of his contemporaries, the reader can decide for himself how far Holbein’s positive claims to the honour of this work ought to be affected by the passage in the anonymous address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele, which forms the groundwork of Mr. Douce’s theory.
Having now examined the principal arguments which have been alleged to show that Holbeinwas notthe designer of the Dance of Death, and having endeavoured to justify his claims to that honour by producing the evidences on which they rest, I shall now take leave of this subject, feeling thoroughly assured thatHolbein was the designer of the cuts of the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death; and trusting, though with no overweening confidence, that the preceding investigation will render it necessary for the next questioner of his title to produce stronger objections than the solitary ambiguous passage in the preface to the first edition of the work, and to support them with more forcible and consistent arguments than have been put forth by Mr. Douce. M. T. Nieuhoff Piccard, I am inclined to think, will never again be called as a witness in this cause; and before the passage in the preface can be allowed to have any weight, it must be shown that such a personage as Madame Jehanne de Touszelewasprioress of the convent of St. Peter at Lyons at the time of the first publication of the work: and even should such a fact be established, the ambiguity of the passage—whether the pretendedly deceased artist were the engraver or designer, or both,—and the obvious desire to conceal his name, remain to be explained.
In 1538, the year in which the Dance of Death and the Bible cuts were first published at Lyons, Holbein was residing in England under the patronage of Henry VIII; though it is also certain that about the beginning of September in that year he returned to Basle and he remained there a few weeks.VI.46
As the productions of this distinguished painter occupy so large a portion of this chapter, it perhaps may not be unnecessary to give here a few particulars of his life, chiefly derived from Hegner’s work, previous to his coming to England. Hans Holbein, the Younger, as he is often called by German writers to distinguish him from his father, was the son of Hans Holbein, a painter of considerable reputation. The year and place of his birth have not been positively ascertained, but there seems reason to believe that he was born in 1498, at Augsburg,VI.47372of which city his father was a burgher, and from whence he appears to have removed with his family to Basle, about the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century. Young Holbein was brought up to his father’s profession, and at an early age displayed the germ of his future excellence. There is a portrait in oil by young Holbein of the date of 1513, which, according to Hegner, though rather weak in colour and somewhat hard in outline, is yet clearly and delicately painted. From the excellence of his early productions, Patin, in his Life of Holbein, prefixed to an edition of the Laus Stultitiæ of ErasmusVI.48thinks that he must have been born in 1495. That he was born in 1498 there can, however, be little doubt, for Hegner mentions a portrait of him, at Basle, when in the forty-fifth year of his age, with the date 1543. Several anecdotes are told of Holbein as a jolly fellow, and of his twice or thrice discharging his account at a tavern by painting a Dance of Peasants. Though there seems reason to believe that Holbein was a free liver, and that he did paint such a subject in a house at Basle, the stories of his thus settling for his liquor are highly improbable. He appears to have married young, for in a painting of his wife and two children, executed before he left Basle for England in 1526, the eldest child, a boy, appears to be between four and five years old.VI.49
The name of Holbein’s wife is unknown; but it is said that, like Durer’s, she was of an unhappy temper, and that he enjoyed no peace with her. It is not, however, unlikely that his own unsettled disposition and straitened circumstances also contributed to render his home uncomfortable. Like most other artists of that period, he appears to have frequently travelled; but his journeys do not seem to have extended beyond Switzerland and Suabia, and they were for the most part confined to the former country. He seems to have travelled rather in search of employment than to improve himself by studying the works373of other masters. Perhaps of all the eminent painters of that period there is no one whose style is more original than Holbein’s, nor one who owes less to the study of the works of his contemporaries or predecessors. Though there can be no doubt of his talents being highly appreciated by his fellow-townsmen, yet his profession during his residence at Basle appears to have afforded him but a scanty income. The number of works executed by him between 1517 and 1526 sufficiently testify that he was not deficient in industry, and the exercise of his art seems to have been sufficiently varied:—he painted portraits and historical subjects; decorated the interior walls of houses, according to the fashion of that period, with fanciful and historical compositions; and made designs for goldsmiths and wood-engravers. It is said that so early as 1520, the Earl of Arundel,VI.50an English nobleman, having seen some of his works in passing through Basle, advised him to try his fortune in England. If such advice were given to Holbein at that period, it is certain that it was not adopted until several years after, for he did not visit this country till 1526.
see text and caption
THE SHEATH OF A DAGGER, INTENDED AS A DESIGN FOR A CHASER.VI.51
Before he left Basle he had painted two or three portraits of Erasmus, and there is a large wood-cut of that distinguished scholar which is said not only to have been painted, but also engraved by Holbein. This cut is of folio size, and the figure of Erasmus is a whole length. His right arm rests upon a terminus, and from a richly ornamented arch is suspended a tablet, with the inscription,Er. Rot.Some old impressions have two verses printed underneath, which merely praise the likeness without alluding to the painter, while others have four which contain a compliment to the genius of Erasmus and to the art of Holbein.VI.52The original block is still preserved in the Public Library at Basle; but there is not the slightest reason for believing that it was engraved by Holbein. In 1526 Holbein left Basle for England: Patin says, because he could no longer bear to live with his imperious wife. Though this might not be the chief cause, it is easy to conceive that a person of Holbein’s character would feel but little regret at parting from such a helpmate. Van Mander says that he took with him a portrait which he had painted of Erasmus, with a letter of recommendation from the latter to Sir Thomas More, wherein it was observed that this portrait ‘was374much more like him than any of Albert Durer’s.’ Hegner, however, thinks that what Van Mander says about the contents of this letter is not375correct, as no such passage is to be found in the published correspondence of Erasmus with Sir Thomas More. Erasmus had already sent two portraits of himself to England;VI.53and as Sir Thomas More was personally acquainted with him, Hegner is of opinion that it would be unnecessary to mention that the portrait was a better likeness than any of those painted by Albert Durer. It is, however, by no means unlikely that Erasmus in speaking of a portrait of himself by Holbein—whether forwarded by the latter or not—might give his own opinion of it in comparison with one from the pencil of Durer.
It would appear that in 1525 Erasmus had already mentioned Holbein’s desire of trying his fortune in England to Sir Thomas More, for in a letter written by Sir Thomas to Erasmus, dated from the court at Greenwich, 18th of December 1525, there is a passage to the following effect: “Your painter, dear Erasmus, is an excellent artist, but I am apprehensive that he will not find England so fruitful and fertile as he may expect. I will, however, do all that I can in order that he may not find it entirely barren.”VI.54From a letter, dated 29th of August 1526, written by Erasmus to his friend Petrus Aegidius at Antwerp, it seems reasonable to conclude that Holbein left Basle for England about the beginning of September. Though Holbein’s name is not expressly mentioned in this letter, there cannot be a doubt of his being the artist who is thus introduced to Aegidius: “The bearer of this is he who painted my portrait. I will not annoy you with his praises, although he is indeed an excellent artist. Should he wish to see Quintin, and you not have leisure to go with him, you can let a servant show him the house. The arts perish here; he proceeds to England to gain a few angels; if you wish to write [to England] you can send your letters by him.”VI.55In this extract we discover a trait of the usual prudence of Erasmus, who, in introducing his humbler friends to persons of power or influence, seems to have been particularly careful not to give annoyance376from the warmth of his recommendations. How gently, yet significantly, does he hint to Aegidius that the poor painter who brings the letter is a person about whom he need give himself no trouble: if he has notleisureto introduce him personally to Quintin—that is, Quintin Matsys—he can send a servant to show him his house. The suggestion of the servant was a hint from Erasmus that he did not expect the master to go with Holbein himself.
Holbein on his arrival in England appears to have been well received by Sir Thomas More; and it is certain that he resided for some time with the learned and witty chancellor in his house at Chelsea. It is indeed said that he continued with him for three years, but Walpole thinks that this is very unlikely. Whether he may have resided during the whole of the intermediate time with Sir Thomas More or not, there seems reason to believe that Holbein entered the service of Henry VIII. in 1528. About the autumn of 1529VI.56, he paid a short visit to Basle, probably to see his family, which he had left in but indifferent circumstances, and to obtain permission from the magistracy for a further extension of his leave of absence, for no burgher of the city of Basle was allowed to enter into the service of a foreign prince without their sanction. Patin, in his Life of Holbein, says that during his visit he spent most of his time with his old tavern companions, and that he treated the more respectable burghers, who wished to cultivate his friendship, with great disrespect. Hegner, however, considers all those accounts which represent Holbein as a man of intemperate habits and dissolute character, as unworthy of credit; in his opinion it seems impossible that he who was a favourite of Henry VIII, and so long an inmate of Sir Thomas More’s house, should have been a dissolute person. M. Hegner throughout his work shows a praiseworthy regard for Holbein’s moral character, but his presumption in this instance is not sufficient to counterbalance the unfavourable reports in the opposite scale.
About the latter end of 1532, or the beginning of 1533, Holbein again visited Basle; and his return appears to have been chiefly377influenced by an order of the magistracy, which was to the following effect: “To M. Hans Holbein, painter, now in England. We Jacob Meier, burgomaster and councillor, herewith salute you our beloved Hans Holbein, fellow-burgher, and give you to understand that it is our desire that you return home forthwith. In order that you may live easier at home, and provide for your wife and child,VI.57we are pleased to allow you the yearly sum of thirty guilders, until we can obtain for you something better. That you may make your arrangements accordingly, we acquaint you with this resolution. Given, Monday, 2nd September 1532.”VI.58It is uncertain how long Holbein remained at Basle on his second visit, but it was probably of short duration. Though he obeyed the summons of the magistracy to return, he seems to have had sufficient interest to obtain a further extension of his leave of absence. For the third and last time he revisited Basle in 1538; and from a licence, signed by the burgomaster Jacob Meier, dated 16th November in that year, it appears that he obtained permission to return to England and remain there for two years longer. In this licence fifty guilders per annum are promised to Holbein on his return to Basle, and till then the magistrates further agree to allow his wife forty guilders per annum to be paid quarterly, and the first quarter’s payment to commence on the eve of St. Lucia next ensuing,—that is, on the 12th of December. As the mention of the allowance to Holbein’s wife would seem to imply that she was not very well provided for by her husband, Hegner attempts to excuse his apparent neglect by suggesting “that the great sometimes forget to pay, and will not bear dunning;” and in illustration of this he refers to the passage in Albert Durer’s Journal which has been previously given at page 269.
Holbein’s three visits to Basle have been here especially noticed in order that the reader might judge for himself as to the probability of his making the drawings for the Lyons Dance of Death on any of those occasions. As this work was published in 1538, and as Holbein on his last visit appears to have arrived at Basle about the beginning of September in that year, it is impossible that he should have made the drawings then; for if the forty-one cuts were executed by one person—as378from the similarity and excellence of the style there seems every reason to believe—it would require at the least half a year to engrave them, supposing that the artist worked as expeditiously as a wood engraver of modern times. As it is highly probable that Holbein both made designs and painted on his former visits, in 1529, and in 1532 or 1533, I think it most likely that they were made on the latter occasion,—that is, supposing them to have been designed on one of those visits. It is, however, just as probable that the designs were made in England, and forwarded to a wood engraver at Basle.
Of the various paintings executed by Holbein during his residence in England it is not necessary to give any account here; those who wish for information on this point are referred to Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting.VI.59Of his life in England there are few particulars. “In some household accounts of Henry VIII,” says Mr. Douce, “there are payments to him in 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541, on account of his salary, which appears to have been thirty pounds per annum. From this time little more is recorded of him till 1553, when he painted Queen Mary’s portrait, and shortly afterwards died of the plague in 1554.” Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the great patron of artists, in the time of Charles I, was desirous of erecting a monument to the memory of Holbein, but gave up the intention as he was unable to discover the place of the artist’s interment. As Holbein seems to have left no will, and as his death appears to have excited no notice, it is likely that he died poor, and in comparative obscurity. If his satirical drawingsVI.60of Christ’s Passion, ridiculing the Pope and the popish clergy, were known to Mary, or any of her spiritual advisers, it could not be expected that he should find favour at her court.
Wood engraving in England during the time of Holbein’s residence in this country appears to have been but little cultivated; but though there cannot be a doubt that the art was then practised here by native wood379engravers, yet I very much question if it were practised by any person in England as a distinct profession. It is not unlikely that many of the wood-cuts which appear in books printed in this country about that period were engraved by the printers themselves. It has indeed been supposed that most of the wood-cuts in English books printed at that period were engraved on the continent; but this opinion seems highly improbable—there could be no occasion to send abroad to have wood-cuts so rudely executed. Perhaps the difficulty, or rather the impossibility of finding a wood engraver in England capable of doing justice to his designs might be one reason why Holbein made so few for the booksellers of this country during his long residence here. The following portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, who died in 1541, was probably drawn on the block by Holbein. It is given on the reverse of the title of a small work in quarto, printed at London, 1542, and entitled “Næniæ in mortem Thomæ Viati equitis incomparabilis. Joanne Lelando antiquario autore.” The verses, which are printed underneath the cut, seem decisive of the drawing having been made by Holbein. There is a drawing of Sir Thomas Wyatt by Holbein, in the Royal Collection, which is engraved in Chamberlain’s work, entitled “Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein,” folio, 1792. There is little similarity between the drawing and the cut, though on comparison it is evident that both are intended for the same person.