Painter’s predicament entertaining bishop at home

Usage examples of holbein.

We may compare this story with a similar and later story of Holbein and Henry VIII.

He was the son of a painter, and belonged to a family of painters, one or more of whom had preceded Hans Holbein in leaving Augsburg, and taking up his residence at Basle.

There Holbein was under the patronage of, and on terms of friendly intercourse with, the great scholar Erasmus.

One bad result proceeded from this friendly familiarity, that of establishing or originating the charge that Holbein, as a young man, at least, was coarse and dissipated in his habits.

Erasmus, which Holbein, not being a scholar, could not have read for himself, but which, according to tradition, Erasmus himself, or some other friend, read to him, while Holbein was so delighted with the satire that he covered the margin of the book with illustrative sketches.

A fancied confirmation to the unhappiness of the marriage is found in the expression of the wife in a portrait which Holbein painted of her and his children when he was at Basle.

Elssbeth Schmid, was a widow with one son when Holbein married her, and has conjectured that she was probably not only older than Holbein, but in circumstances which rendered her independent of her husband.

So far the critic has done something to clear Hans Holbein from the miserable accusation often brought against him, that he abandoned his wife and children to starve at Basle, while he sunned himself in such court favour as could be found in England.

But, indeed, while Hans Holbein may have been honest and humane enough to have been above such base suspicions, there is no trace of him which survives that goes to disprove the probability that he was a self-willed, not over-scrupulous man, if he was also a vigorous and thorough worker.

There was even a theory, creditable to Hans Holbein, drawn from this conclusion, that he might have adopted the Protestant views of his late gracious master, and have stood by them stoutly, and so far forfeited all recognition from the bitter Catholic Mary.

In spite of court patronage Holbein did not die a rich man, and there is an impression that he was recklessly improvident in his habits.

But Holbein certainly availed himself of the older painting, to draw from it the grim satire of his wood-cuts.

He was a proud man, dissatisfied both with himself and his calling, resenting, with less reason than Hans Holbein showed, that he should be condemned to portrait painting, yet by no means undervaluing or slurring over his work.

John, Catharine, Matthew, London 88 Wolgemut, Crucifixion, Munich 89 Duerer, Praying Virgin, Augsburg 90 Holbein, Portrait, Hague Mus.

With Duerer and Holbein German art reached its apogee in the first half of the sixteenth century, yet their work was not different in spirit from that of their predecessors.