href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@29150@[email protected]#himg24" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">SIR BRYAN TUKE

Oils. (Munich Gallery.) From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 25. ELSBETH, HOLBEIN'S WIFE, WITH THEIR TWO ELDEST CHILDREN Oils. (Basel Museum.) From a Photograph in the Rischgitz Collection. 26. "BEHOLD TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE." SAMUEL DENOUNCING SAUL Washed drawing. (Basel Museum.) From a photograph in the Rischgitz Collection. 27. JÖRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE Oils. (Berlin Museum.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 28. "THE AMBASSADORS" Oils. (National Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 29. THE MORETT PORTRAIT Oils. (Dresden Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 30. QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 31. KING HENRY VIII. AND HIS FATHER Fragment of cartoon used for the Whitehall wall-painting. (Duke of Devonshire's Collection.) 32. KING HENRY VIII. (Life Study; probably for the Whitehall Painting.) Chalks. (Munich Collection.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 33. DESIGN FOR THE "JANE SEYMOUR CUP" (Bodleian Library.) 34. CHRISTINA OF DENMARK, DUCHESS OF MILAN Oils. (National Gallery.) Lent by the Duke of Norfolk. 35. ANNE OF CLEVES Oils. (The Louvre.) From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris. 36. THOMAS HOWARD, THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK Oils. (Windsor Castle.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. 37. CATHERINE HOWARD Chalk drawing. (Windsor Castle.) 38. DR. CHAMBER Oils. (Vienna Gallery.) From a photograph by F. Hanfstaengl.

 

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HOLBEIN ¹

 

CHAPTER I

Historical epoch and antecedents—Special conditions and character of early Christian art—Ideals and influence of the monk—Holbein's relation to mediæval schools—His father, uncle, and Augsburg home—Probable dates for his birth and his father's death—Troubles and dispersion of the Augsburg household—From Augsburg to Basel—His brother Ambrose—Erasmus and the Praise of Folly; some erroneous impressions of both—Erasmus and Holbein no Protestants at heart—Holbein and the Bible—Illustrated vernacular Bibles in circulation before Luther and Holbein were born—Holbein's earliest Basel oil paintings—Direct and indirect education—Historical, geographical, and scientific revolutions of his day—Beginning of his connection with the Burgomaster of Basel—Jacob Meyer zum Hasen—Holbein's woodcuts—His studies from nature—Sudden visit to Lucerne—Italian influence on his art—Work for the Burgomaster of Lucerne.

The eighty-three years stretching from 1461 to 1543—between the probable year of the elder Hans Holbein's birth and that in which the younger, the great Holbein, died—constitute one of those periods which rightly deserve the much-abused name of an Epoch. The Christian era of itself had known many: the Yellow-Danger of the fifth century making one hideous smear across Europe; the Hic Jacet with which this same century entombed an Empire three continents could not content; the new impulse which Charlemagne and Alfred had given to Progress in the ninth century; the triumphant establishment of Papal Supremacy, that Napoleonic idea of Gregory VII.—Sanctus Satanas, of the eleventh, and grand architect in a vaster Roman Empire which still "humanly contends for glory"; and lastly, at the very threshold of the Holbeins, the invention of movable printing types about 1440, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which combined to drive the prodigies and potencies of Greek genius through the world.

Each of these had done its own special work for the advancement of man—as for that matter all things must, whether by help or helplessness. Not less than Elijah did the wretched priests of Baal serve those slow, sure, eternal Purposes, which include an Ahab and all the futile fury of his little life as the sun includes its "spots."

But although the stream of History is one, and its every succeeding