Nature and Art, February 1, 1867.] 
HOLBEIN IN GERMANY. 
43 
HOLBEIN IN GERMANY.* 
By H. Ward. 
PART IV. BASE E — con eluded. 
O N the 23rd of September, 1520, Holbein was 
formally admitted into the Guild of his craft, 
which was distinguished by the name of Heaven, 
being called “Zum Himmel.” He painted his own 
shield for the hall, where it is still preserved. - It 
is yellow, bearing a black bull’s head, surmounted 
by a red star ; and over it is the inscription, Hans 
Holbein the painter (“ der Mailer”). He was a 
hearty young fellow, as we can see by Mechel’s 
engraving of his self-portrait. The drawing which 
he made for it has been photographed, and it has 
a more spiritual expression. His brain was teem- 
ing with beautiful and lively fancies ; and if his 
tongue was only a tithe as ready as his hand, he 
must have been a famous Guild-brother. He was 
evidently welcome to the other members of his 
Guild, whether saddlers, barbers, or painters ; for 
even before his formal admission he was chosen 
(25th June) as one of the two house-stewards for the 
year. His colleague was a saddler, and their suc- 
cessors were another saddler and a painter named 
Johann Herbster. The latter was a man of some 
local reputation : the records of him are few, but 
they contain fresh hints for tracing the connection 
between Holbein and Italy. Herbster had been 
a master painter at Basle ever since 1492 ; and he 
had travelled, at least as far as Pavia, in 1512. 
Now, according to a dated portrait, t he sat to 
Holbein in 1516, when the youngster was hardly 
settled at Basle. The talk of such a sitter may 
have induced his painter to follow in the same 
Italian track ; but on the other hand, for ought we 
know, Holbein’s fullest acquaintance with Leonardo 
da Vinci, and also with the Carthusian convent at 
Pavia, may have been made through the portfolio of 
Johann Herbster. 
The barbers do not appear at all among Holbein’s 
colleagues, as far as Dr. Woltmann’s extracts go; 
but a glazier unexpectedly makes his appearance. 
Thus, one of the two great northern artists took 
rank among ordinary tradesmen. He could never 
hope to rival such great grocer-barons as the F ag- 
gers of his native Augsburg. And what said the 
other great northern artist, Albert Diirer, when (in 
1506) he was on the point of returning home from 
Venice : — “ Oh, how I shall freeze for the sun ! 
Here I am a lord, but at home a sponger ! ” Diirer 
was fortunate in having a patron who could heartily 
sympathize with his grievances ; and it was to him, 
Bilibald Pirckheimer, that the simple-minded artist 
lamented his being a mere “ spunger.” His gift of 
* Holbein und seine Zeit: von .Dr. Alfred Woltmann. 
Erster Theil, mit 31 Holzschnitten und einer Photo-litho- 
graphie. Leipzig. 1866. 
f In Mr. Baring’s collection. See Dr. Waagen, Treaswes 
of Art, vol. iv. p. 97. 
II. 
high imagination had its usual drawback, vanity ; 
and he was consequently very thin-skinned. AVe 
suspect that Holbein was much more robust. It is 
said (it may be mere gossip, but the story is proba- 
ble enough) that, on his revisiting Basle, after his- 
first flattering reception in England, the upper 
circles offered to introduce him to their wives and 
daughters, and were disgusted at his preferring his 
old pot-companions. The Guild-brethren were 
doubtless these pot-companions of his ; but they 
may have been something better too, — true friends 
perhaps, who had helped him at a pinch. Thus the 
story has two sides to it. The candid biographer, 
Charles Patin, who relates it,* adds that Holbein 
was a downright toper ; but he luckily gives his au- 
thority for saying so ; and we shall presently show 
that the words of Erasmus, which he quotes, were 
nothing but a small joke, uttered in exchange for a 
small joke of Holbein’s. 
AVe leap at once into a different sphere when we 
turn from the poor painters’ Guild to the circle of 
Erasmus. He was fond of the arts, and had him- 
self been something of a painter in his youth ; yet 
he was not likely to consort much with German 
artists. One or two of them may have equalled 
him in native genius, but his scholarship had raised 
him high above their level. Not that he cared a 
straw for pomp or place ; indeed, he dreaded them. 
Splendid oilers had been made him from many courts, 
especially from that of Rome ; but he preferred 
Basle. He esteemed it a veritable “ Seat of the 
Muses,” aloof from the bigotries of Papist and 
anti-Papist. There he lived at ease, in the house 
of Froben the printer, making it a centre of learn- 
ing and social refinement. Of all the portraits of 
this “ little old mannikin,” as Albert Diirer called 
him, none pleased him so well as those by Holbein. 
One of the best is that at Basle. His naturally 
spare features are sharpened by thought and study ; 
and his great work lies open before him, — his edition 
of the New Testament; yet there is a suppressed 
smile upon his thin lips. AVe feel that he cannot 
altogether subdue it, in spite of his veneration for 
the text ; for passage after passage recalls to him 
some scholastic nonsense of the commentators. To 
purify the text and scourge the commentators was 
his main business at Basle. But there is another 
book of his, — a small one indeed, by comparison, — 
that is more personally connected with Holbein. 
This is his Praise of Folly (“ Laus Stultitiae”), a 
work that soon ran through many Latin editions, 
and has since been translated into most of the 
modern European languages. It is sometimes 
* In his edition of Erasmus’s Laus Stultitice. Basle. 
1676. 
E 
