Painters in the Reign of Henry VIII. 131 



be his own and wife's portraits which hangs 

 in an obfcure clofet in the gallery at Wind- 

 for i and the portrait of a man opening a let- 

 ter with a knife, in the flandard- clofet in the 

 fanae palace. But at prefent an invaluable 

 treafure of the works of this mafler is pre- 

 ferved in one of our palaces. Soon after 

 the acceifion of the late king, queen Caro- 

 line found in a bureau at Kenfington a noble 

 coiledion of Holbein's oriojinal drawingrs 

 for the portraits of fome of the chief perfon- 

 ages of the court of Henry VIII. " How 

 they came there is quite unknown. They 

 did belong to * Charles I. who changed 

 them with William earl of Pembroke for a 

 St. George by Raphael, now at Paris. Lord 

 Pembroke gave them to the earl of Arun- 

 del, and at the difperfion of that colledlion, 

 they might be bought by or for the king. 

 There are eighty -nine f of them, a few of 

 I 1 which 



* After Holbein*s death they had been fold into 

 France, from whence they were brought and prefented 

 to king Charles by Monf. de Liencourt. Vanderdort, 

 who did nothing but blunder, imagined they were por- 

 traits of the French court. Saunderfon in his Gra- 

 phice p. jg, commends this book highly, but fays fome 

 of the drawings were fpoiled. 



t See the lilt of them, fubjoined to the catalogue of 



the 



