Part 3

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and twice uncle to the king by marriage, was painted when Anne of Cleves had been retired on a pension, and the star of Catherine Howard was in its brief ascendant. Holbein is said to have painted the new queen. There is a miniature as well as a chalk drawing in Windsor that is said to stand for her. And doubtless the king would have continued to find new wives, and Holbein would have continued to paint them, but for the fact that both king and painter were nearing their end. The portraits of the doctors of the royal household, Dr. Butt and Dr. Chambers, are among the last of the great works he accomplished. In the month of October 1843, at the time when the Plague was in London, the artist made a will which was found some years ago in the City of London. By this document Hans Holbein sought to protect two of his illegitimate children of tender age, directing that all his goods should be sold, and the proceeds applied for their benefit as soon as certain debts had been paid. Curiously enough, we have no means of finding out who the children were, we do not know the mother's name, all is obscure. But we know that Holbein had settled an earlier legacy upon his wife and legitimate issue, that he had apprenticed his eldest son to a jeweller in Paris, and that he had never been unmindful of his legal obligations to his family. For the rest, he had made a hasty marriage that was not founded upon affection so much as upon convenience--and it is not for us to judge him save as an artist, and then modestly and with due thought of our own limitations. He was buried either in the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft or St. Catherine Cree; in the hour of his death there was no anxiety to do more than get the dead underground as soon as possible. It will be remembered that another of the world's great painters, Titian Vecelli, died of the Plague too, but Titian had reached a very great age, while Holbein was in the prime of life, capable, had he been spared, of much more work in every branch of art.

He worked for about thirty years in the light of history for the "Virgin and Child," the picture with panels in the Renaissance mood is dated 1514, and the picture of Dr. Chambers belongs to the early forties. To sum up his known achievements with no more than a brief description would exhaust all the pages of this little sketch. His work retains much of its freshness, although time and the restorer have combined to do it wrong; and there are pictures that pass for the work of Holbein's hand, though it is more than likely that he never saw them. He must have been a man of infinite capacity, untiring industry, and considerable strength of character; he owed little to outside help, for when he left Augsburg for Basle he was almost without friends and influence, while, when he left London for the bourn from which no traveller returns, he had made a reputation that has lasted to this hour, and will never be destroyed while western civilisation endures.

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The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London

The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh

In The Same Series

Artist. Author.

VELAZQUEZ. S. L. Bensusan. REYNOLDS. S. L. Bensusan. TURNER. C. Lewis Hind. ROMNEY. C. Lewis Hind. GREUZE. Alys Eyre Macklin. BOTTICELLI. Henry B. Binns. ROSSETTI. Lucien Pissarro. BELLINI. George Hay. FRA ANGELICO. James Mason. REMBRANDT. Josef Israels. LEIGHTON. A. Lys Baldry. RAPHAEL. Paul G. Konody. HOLMAN HUNT. Mary E. Coleridge. TITIAN. S. L. Bensusan. MILLAIS. A. Lys Baldry. CARLO DOLCI. George Hay. GAINSBOROUGH. Max Rothschild. TINTORETTO. S. L. Bensusan. LUINI. James Mason. FRANZ HALS. Edgcumbe Staley. VAN DYCK. Percy M. Turner. LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. Brockwell. RUBENS. S. L. Bensusan. WHISTLER. T. Martin Wood. HOLBEIN. S. L. Bensusan.

_In Preparation_

BURNE-JONES. A. Lys Baldry. VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. Haldane MacFall. CHARDIN. Paul G. Konody. J. F. MILLET. Percy M. Turner. MEMLINC. W. H. James Weale. ALBERT DÜRER. Herbert Furst. FRAGONARD. C. Haldane MacFall. CONSTABLE. C. Lewis Hind. RAEBURN. James L. Caw. BOUCHER. C. Haldane MacFall. WATTEAU. C. Lewis Hind. MURILLO. S. L. Bensusan.

And Others.

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Transcriber's Note: The booklist advertisement above has been moved from physical page ii to the end of the text.