Nature and Art, February 1, 1867,] 
HOLBEIN IN GERMANY. 
51 
like mushrooms. Hearn er gives two or three more 
instances of it ; one of which is worth mentioning. 
Down to the middle of last century, so wasteful of 
its Holbeins, there was a house at Basle, known as 
the Dcmce-house. On a broad space above the first- 
floor windows was painted a band of country lads 
and lasses, crowned with flowers, and dancing 
lustily to two bagpipers. The place had been a 
tavern, people said, where Holbein had paid a long 
reckoning with his brush. 
But they forgot to observe, adds Hegner, that 
the whole facade, three stories high, was covered up 
to the garrets with frescoes. The decorations were 
festive, and some of the mythological figures might 
have suited a wine-shop ; but, next to the dancers, 
the most prominent object was Marcus Curtius on 
horseback, plunging into the gulf. The oldest 
mention of the building (in 1577) merely calls it “ a 
private house.” Some water-colour copies of it, and 
a tracing of the original sketch, are in the Basle 
Museum ; and there also remain two or three 
studies of separate portions,' which prove that 
Holbein reconsidered and improved his plan with 
his usual attention to the minutest details. This 
toilsome execution of many great works, together 
with numberless designs for jewellery, glass-paint- 
ing, carving, &c., must have occupied most of his 
hours. Year after year he worked on patiently, till 
the plague cut him short in mid career ; and his 
conceptions were rich and beautiful, his eyes fresh, 
and his hand steady to the- last. His works ought 
to outweigh a thousand scandals : they bear 
witness that he had a strong taste for joviality, but 
no more than was becoming in a young brother of 
the Guild of Painters. Indeed, he was probably 
more refined than any of the brotherhood. He 
was a painter of realism, but mostly in its nobler 
forms ; and his art, even in undress, is com- 
paratively pure. Among the drawings in the 
Basle collection, those of Hrs Graf and Nicolaus 
Manuel, and others, are often, we are told, unfit 
for description ; whereas those of Holbein are very 
seldom coarse, and never obscene. 
What a pity that such a man should have left 
one blot on his memory that can hardly be cleansed 
away. We allude to his neglect of his wife. There 
were extenuating circumstances, no doubt, as there 
always are. She was vulgar and ugly, as we see 
by her portrait ; and in all probability she was 
much older than her husband. Nothing has shocked 
Hr. Woltmann more than discovering that she was 
a widow, with a half-grown son, when she married 
Holbein, and that her name was Elsbeth Schmidt. 
These would have been valid reasons for Holbein’s 
avoiding her, as long as she was widow Schmidt ; 
but they became invalid as soon as she was Mrs. 
Holbein. Other excuses present themselves, as at 
least not impossible. He could not have been much 
more than twenty-five at the time of the marriage : 
and young men of genius are often more easily en- 
trapped than common-place people. Again, her 
eyes are red, says Dr. Woltmann, as if with weep- 
ing. May not the cause have been less sentimental ? 
She is reported to have been a shrew ; may she not 
have inflamed her temper and her eyes by emptying 
some of the bottles which have keen laid to the 
charge of Holbein 1 Such things may have been ; 
but we must beware, lest we, in our turn, should 
be scattering the seeds of calumny. There is really 
nothing known against the poor woman, except her 
bad looks, her widowhood, and her big boy. As to 
the date of her portrait it must have been about 
1526-9. It was painted in oils upon paper ; the 
figures were afterwards cut out, and pasted on 
wood ; and in doing this the last cipher of the year 
was clipped away, so that it now stands 152-. The 
boy at her side is Philip Holbein, whom his father 
apprenticed to a Parisian goldsmith in 1539 : he 
has rather a whining look, but not otherwise a 
bad countenance. The childish action of his little 
sister is excellently rendered, and she is shapely, 
though not pretty. The homespun attire of this 
family group, artistically considered, is worth whole 
wardrobes of cloth of gold : and the flesh-colours 
are Titianesque. The sitters were treated with 
tender care, as sitters, but not, we are afraid, as 
objects of daily concern. Holbein did not desert 
his wife : he maintained her, and twice revisited 
her ; but she never joined him in London. The 
natural consequences followed. In 1543, when he 
was moved by fears of the plague, which were soon 
to be too well justified, he had to do his best to 
provide for two nameless little children. But we 
are anticipating the dismal end. It lies far beyond 
the scope of our present series. 
Our story of Holbein in Germany would be very 
incomplete if we said nothing more of Bonifacius 
Amerbach. His father, the well-known printer, 
had nourished one great ambition, — to produce noble 
editions of St. Axxgustine and St. Jerome. He had 
published the whole of the former ; the publication 
of the latter had been interrupted by his death, but 
it was completed by his three gifted sons. Boni- 
facius, the youngest, was born in 1495 ; the same 
year as Holkein,if our new chronologyis correct. He 
played a leading part at Basle as a lawyer and 
politician. His talents had been early developed ; 
and his tutor had more than once commended him 
to the notice of Erasmus, as a “thorough Eras- 
mian.” In one respect he was superior to Erasmus : 
he was a man of high moral courage. His portrait, 
considered by some critics as the most perfect of the 
Holbeins at Basle, displays him in the flower of 
young manhood; for it was painted in 1519, when 
he was twenty-four. His eyes are small, but of 
the purest blue ; his features are well chiselled, and 
their vigorous beauty is heightened by the silky 
curls of his auburn beard. His manners are said 
to have been singularly engaging. His gifts of mind 
and body won the admiration of the day ; but 
it was the stanchness of his heart that preserved 
his memory. The world has clean forgotten how 
he used to lead the song and dance to music of his 
own ; and he has left few traces of his erudition 
behind him ; but he will long be remembered as the 
great collector of the works of Holbein. He 
bought what no one else would buy, — the Bead 
Christ, for instance, which was unfitted by its stark 
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