Nature and Art, November 1, 1866.] 
HOLBEIN IN GERMANY. 
165 
ful arrangement. Otherwise the portrait, which is 
dated 1513, might have vied in composition, as it 
does in colour, with Holbein’s famous Basle portrait 
of Amerbach in 1519. 
Passing over two portraits (1514 and 1515) and 
two subjects from the life of Christ, the Last 
Slipper and the Scourging, we come to a remark- 
able votive picture. Ulrich Schwarz, a carpenter 
of Augsburg and a fierce demagogue, had been 
chosen burgomaster in 1469. He hanged the 
nobles for a few years, when fortune changed sides, 
and the nobles hanged him. His martyrdom, as 
some people called it, occurred in 1478. But the 
peaceful burghers detested his name, and for 
many years he was left without any memorial. At 
length his sons took heart, and this votive picture, 
it may be presumed, was hung over the family 
vault. In the centre is Ulrich Schwarz storming 
heaven with prayers. The dead as well as the 
living are ranged on either side of him ; his three 
wives, and thirty-one children and grandchildren, 
all uniting in the Litany of the Head. Above 
them, and above the clouds and cherubim, is God 
upon the throne : the great sword of justice is in 
His hand, but He is sheathing it ; for Christ and 
his mother have joined in the appeal for mercy, 
the one displaying his wounds, and the other her 
breasts. Their gestures may be theatrical, perhaps, 
yet they are forcible and pathetic, and manifestly 
studied from life. The Virgin, no longer the 
beautiful commonplace of early art, is a real 
woman, with expressive, though somewhat irre- 
gular features ; her hands are too powerful to be 
quite feminine, but they are admirably modelled. 
Forms of such passion and grace, says Dr. Wolt- 
mann, had been hitherto almost unknown in 
Germany. But most interesting to us, he con- 
tinues, is the head of the Almighty : we have seen 
it before, as that of the crucified Peter, on a com- 
partment of the altar-screen of St. Catherine’s ; 
and we shall see it again, as that of a sympathizing- 
spectator, in the Ma/rtyrdom of St. Sebastian. Of 
its profile there is a silver-point drawing at Berlin, 
belonging to the Augsburg sketch-books. And we 
venture to identify it with the head engraved in 
Sandrart’s Deutsche Alcademie, as the portrait of 
Holbein the elder. In all of these the leading- 
features are the same : the outlines of the nose and 
cheeks ; the contraction of the brows : and the 
remarkable forehead overshadowing the eyes. This 
head reminds us also of the self-portrait of the 
elder Holbein, in the Basilica of St. Paul ; but the 
lapse of a full decennium has sharpened his features 
and furrowed his brow, and turned his flowing 
brown locks and beard into a silvery grey. The 
young artist could find no better type for his 
heavenly father than this idealized portrait of his 
earthly father. 
On the pommel of the sword of Justice in the 
hand of the Almighty, is a monogram, jj|f£ , the 
earliest example of any used by the younger 
Holbein. 
We shall be extremely curious to see how far 
Mr. Wornum’s book will confirm the truth of these 
descriptions and conclusions. If Holbein was not 
born before 1498, he coiild hardly have worked in- 
dependently at the altar-screen of 1512 ; in which 
case his father, when an elderly man, must have 
mastered an entirely new style of ornamentation. 
This is by no means impossible; for the artist 
of the Basilica of St. Paul was cleai-ly a man of 
progress ; and from his sketch-book Ave learn that 
on one occasion, at least, he executed a com- 
mission more archaically than he had designed 
it. He may have adapted his ornamentation, in 
like manner, to the taste of his patrons ; and 
restrained his OAvn taste for the new style, until it 
had become popularized by Burgkmair. But at 
any rate, these paintings are closely connected with 
the student days of the younger Holbein. Next 
month we shall see him formally admitted, at 
Basle, into the guild of the Master Painters. But, 
meanwhile, he is said to have left at Augsburg what 
maybe termed his diploma picture, the Martyrdom 
of St. Sebastian. But this, again, is a subject of 
contention. We have barely left ourselves space 
for any account of it. Moreover, this volume 
presents us with a woodcut, which acts as a strong- 
antidote to the raptures of the text. We should 
say that the pictorial saint has suffered more from 
the graving-tool than the legendary saint ever did 
from the arroAvs. Still, we can discern a certain 
beauty in his attitude ; he stands, nearly naked, in 
front of a tree, Avith his right Avrist fettered to the 
stem above his head, and his left arm bound down 
to the stump of a branch by his side : there is just 
enough left here to sxiggest a fine original, with 
classic lines in his upper body. His legs, however, 
are absolutely infirm ; and there are a few other 
symptoms of the artist’s not having yet escaped 
from the old school. The archers are all in Medkeval 
costume ; one of them, a kneeling figure Avith 
an arroAV betAveen his teeth, wears the livery of 
Bavaria, the traditional enemy of the Free City of 
Augsburg ; and another has a cock’s feather in the 
cap over his sinister face, which strangely recalls 
Dr. Waagen’s descriptions of pictures by the elder 
Holbein. The group, whoever designed it, is full 
of animation : that the son had a hand in it, we 
might almost take for granted ; and this is con- 
firmed by four of the sketch-book leaves at Copen- 
hagen, containing studies for the Martyr and his 
executioners. 
But be was uoav about to work by himself : 
there is no reason to suppose that his father accom- 
panied him to Basle. As only one “ Hans Holbein, 
painter,” occurs in the registers of Augsburg, so 
also one only occurs in those of Basle. There Avas, 
indeed, another Holbein admitted into the Painters’ 
Guild at Basle : but this was Ambrosius, the same 
whom we see, as a young man, on our photo-litho- 
graph, and who had hitherto remained peacefully 
at home, for aught Ave know. But young Hans 
Holbein, as soon as he began to feel the fulness of 
his strength, longed to prove it to the world ; and 
so, in 1516, he set out for Basle, taking, as it were, 
his elder brother with him. 
