CHAPTER XI

THE MEYER MADONNA AND THE DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND Commission from Jakob Meyer for the “Meyer Madonna”—Description of the picture at Darmstadt—Preliminary studies for the heads—The copy at Dresden—History of the two pictures—Magdalena Offenburg and the “Lais Corinthiaca” and “Venus”—Lack of work in Basel owing to the disturbed state of the city—Holbein’s departure for England. THE year 1526 was by no means a favourable one for the members of the Basel guild of painters, although, in all probability, it was in this very year that Holbein received one of his most important commissions, the famous altar-piece known as the “Meyer Madonna,” now in the Grand-ducal palace of Darmstadt, in the possession of the Grand Duke of Hesse. At this period ecclesiastical dissension had reached its acutest pitch, and party feeling ran so high that there was little time or inclination among the leading citizens for the patronage or even the consideration of the fine arts. The Reformers, then in the ascendant in the control of public affairs, were strongly opposed to all forms of pictorial or decorative art for church use, and it was this side of the painter’s craft which, until then, had been the most lucrative. Times, indeed, were so bad for them that in January of this year the Painters’ Guild had been forced to petition the Council for permission to remain in Basel in the pursuit of their art in order that they might obtain means for the support of their families. Holbein, in spite of his outstanding merits and the high reputation he had made for himself in his adopted city, felt the pinch of adverse circumstances almost as severely as his brother painters. The authorities, unwilling, apparently, to complete the decorations of the Town Hall, had no remunerative work to give him. From November 1523, when he received the last instalment of his money for his wall-paintings in that building, down to the beginning of 1526 there is no record of any civic payment made to him. On the 3rd of March, however, in the latter year, he received the meagre sum of two Basel pounds ten shillings, about equal to two gulden, for the painting of some shields or coats of arms for the borough of Waldenburg, a township on the slopes of the Jura within the jurisdiction of Basel, no doubt for the decoration of the court of justice or public hall of that place. The entry runs as follows: “Sampstag nach Reminiscere, 1526: Item ij ll. x sh. geben Holbein dem moler, für etliche schilt am stettlin Waldenburg vergangener Iaren zemolen.”[491] Unimportant commissions of this nature cannot have been of much help in keeping the wolf from the door, and that he was willing to undertake such mere journeyman’s work, in which his splendid talents could have little opportunity for their full display, affords proof that for the time being an artist’s life in Switzerland was a very precarious one. [Sidenote: MEYER’S COMMISSION FOR A PICTURE] Happily for him, at about this time his old patron Jakob Meyer “zum Hasen” gave him a commission for a votive picture, in which he and the members of his family were to be represented as kneeling in adoration under the direct protection of the Virgin Mary, a work in the painting of which his genius found complete expression.[492] Meyer, who since 1521 had been removed from all public offices, was a thorough-going adherent of the old religion, and the party to which he belonged was by this time in the minority; but his sturdy belief remained unshaken, and in 1529, immediately before the fiercest iconoclastic outburst in the city, he was at the head of the Catholic party. At the time when the greater number of his fellow-citizens were beginning to view with disfavour all sacred paintings, he proved that he had the courage of his convictions by ordering this picture, in which his faith was very plainly expressed. It is doubtful whether it was intended to be placed over an altar in some chapel in one of the Basel churches, or to be hung in Meyer’s own house, but in either case it was a definite public profession of his faith. The figures in the picture (Pl. 71) are about three-quarters of the size of life. The Virgin is not represented on her throne, but stands amid the donor’s family as the Mother of Grace, her mantle spread over them as a sign of her protection. Holbein has placed her in the centre of the composition in front of a shallow niche with a circular arch, fluted like a shell, against which her head is relieved. In her arms she clasps the Infant Christ, whose head rests against her shoulder, his left arm outstretched over the kneeling suppliants below as though in benediction. The edge of her cloak falls over the shoulders of Meyer, who kneels on the left, with hands clasped, gazing upwards in adoration.[493] In front of him kneels his elder son, a youth of about sixteen, whose attention is diverted from his prayers by his small brother, a little naked boy with curly hair, standing upright on the Turkey carpet which is placed beneath the group, whom he is holding with both hands. The child stands, with left arm outstretched, gazing at his open palm. On the right-hand side is a group of three kneeling women, Meyer’s second wife, Dorothea Kannengiesser von Tann, with her daughter Anna in front of her, and, next to the Virgin, a third woman who has been taken to represent either the Burgomaster’s first wife, Magdalena Baer, who died in 1511, and was a widow when he married her, or her daughter by her earlier marriage. It has been also suggested that the figure represents Meyer’s mother, or his mother-in-law, but it is most probable that it is a portrait of his first wife, for it was by no means unusual at that time to combine both the living and the dead in such a votive picture. VOL. I., PLATE 71. [Illustration: THE MEYER MADONNA DARMSTADT ] [Sidenote: DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE] This picture is Holbein’s greatest masterpiece of sacred painting, noble and dignified in feeling and composition, remarkable for the direct and striking veracity of its portraiture, and the splendour of its rich, subdued colour. There is extraordinary expression in Meyer’s head, with its rapt, tense look, in which the depth of his faith is clearly portrayed. His ruddy complexion and blue shaven chin form a strong colour contrast with the fresher, paler flesh tints of his two sons, in whom the likeness to the father can be plainly traced. There is an equal contrast, too, between the face of the living wife, energetic and capable, and that of the other woman, seen in profile, whose features are nearly concealed by the white hood and the chin band she is wearing, giving almost the appearance of grave-clothes, though it was a head-dress then in common use, as can be seen from a number of Holbein’s book illustrations. In the Virgin’s face, with its downcast eyes, there is a look of heavenly tranquillity. Her complexion is fair, and her cheeks have a rosy tinge. She wears a golden crown set with pearls and precious stones, below which her golden hair falls upon her shoulders and over her mantle, and is painted with all Holbein’s minute care and complete technical mastery. The pale, delicate flesh tints are continued in the body of the Infant Christ and in the hands of his mother, the two heads forming a lovely chord of colour in perfect harmony with the reddish marble and grey stone of the niche against which they are set. The Virgin’s dress is dark blue, which has turned almost green with the passing of time, with under-sleeves of gold, in the painting of which actual gold has been used, as also in the crown, and in Anna Meyer’s head-dress and other ornamental parts of the picture. Her girdle is red, and her mantle a greenish grey. Meyer’s hair is black, and his black surcoat is lined with light-brown fur. The kneeling boy wears a dress of light brown trimmed with bands of dark red velvet, and red hose, and from his belt hangs an elaborate purse with long blue tassels. The colouring of the group on the spectator’s right is largely black and white. The two elder women are in black, with plain white head-dresses. The daughter’s dress is also white, decorated with deep bands of gold material embroidered with pearls, her head-dress being formed of two similar bands, with crimson tassels, which almost conceal the brown braided hair, and a little wreath of white and red flowers on the top. She gazes across the picture at her little brother, her rosary in her hands, of which, owing to the long sleeves of her dress, only the tips of her fingers can be seen. The Turkey carpet, which falls over the low step upon which the figures are grouped, has an elaborate pattern of red, green, black, and white on a yellow-brown ground. The monotony of its geometrical design is broken by a large irregular fold in the centre, as though the rug had been hastily thrown down and not straightened out. On either side of the shell-shaped circular niche the carved pilasters of two low columns are seen above the heads of the kneeling figures, and the green branches of a vine or fig-tree stand out against a bright-blue sky. The picture, like the Solothurn Madonna, is of peculiar shape, the top of the panel following the lines of the architectural background. It measures about 4 ft. 8½ in. (1.44 m.) to the top of the circular niche, and 3 ft. 8½ in. (1.125 m.) to the horizontal edge above the pilasters at the side, and is nearly 3 ft. 3½ in. (1.01 m.) wide. It is possible that in its original state it was furnished with a pair of shutters. It is now generally agreed that its date is about 1525 or 1526, and that it was the last work of importance painted by Holbein before he left Basel. Meyer took a second wife in 1513, and their daughter Anna, who afterwards married Nikolaus Irmi, appears in the picture to be about the age of twelve, which gives the year 1526 as the one in which Holbein received the commission. Nothing is known of the two boys, who must have died young, for Meyer left no male heirs. After his decease his widow was twice married, and on her death in or about 1549 her heir was her daughter Anna. The elder boy was perhaps the son of the first wife. The technical qualities of the painting, too, place it in the years immediately preceding Holbein’s first visit to England. VOL. I., PLATE 72. [Illustration: JAKOB MEYER _Drawings in black and coloured chalks_ BASEL GALLERY ] [Illustration: DOROTHEA KANNENGIESSER Studies for the Meyer Madonna _Drawings in black and coloured chalks_ BASEL GALLERY ] There are three preliminary studies for the picture in the Basel Gallery, portrait heads of the ex-burgomaster, his wife, and their daughter.[494] All three are drawn in his customary manner in black chalk, with spare use of coloured chalks and water-colour here and there. The head of Meyer (Pl. 72 (1)),[495] in black and red, is in the same position as in the picture, and placed against a greenish background. His wife (Pl. 72 (2))[496] is also taken in the position she occupies in the finished work, but her head-dress is a different one, and the chin and the greater part of the mouth are hidden by a linen band similar to the one worn by the unknown kneeling woman. Red is used in the face, and brown for the hair, which is seen through the muslin cap, and for the fur lining to the collar of her gown. The daughter, Anna,[497] is shown almost at three-quarter length, with the arms and hands visible. She wears the same dress with embroidered bands as in the picture, but her hair, instead of being almost hidden by the elaborate cap, hangs down straightly below her waist. More colour is used in this drawing than in the others, the face being worked in flesh tints, the hair of a golden-brown colour, the girdle red, and the ornaments of the collar in yellow, while the background is washed with pale green. The effect produced is very delicate and beautiful, and the portrait is perhaps finer and more natural than in the picture itself. These drawings closely resemble in style those which Holbein produced shortly afterwards in England, and approach them very nearly in their complete mastery of expressive line. [Sidenote: THE BATTLE OF THE PICTURES] For many years the fine early copy of the Meyer Madonna in the Dresden Gallery[498] was regarded as Holbein’s original work, and one of the greatest treasures of the collection, and it was not until 1822, when the Darmstadt picture, purchased in that year by Prince William of Prussia from a Parisian picture-dealer, was first brought to the notice of connoisseurs, that any doubt was thrown upon the authenticity of the better-known example, which was then almost universally regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the German school. A few German critics of note, among them Dr. Kugler, admitted that the Darmstadt picture was a genuine work by Holbein, but it was many years before anyone had the temerity to refuse a like honour to the famous example in Dresden. The first to do so publicly was Wornum, in his Life of Holbein, published in 1867, and he was followed by Woltmann, A. von Zahn, and others.[499] In spite of such critics, however, both pictures were still regarded by most people as from Holbein’s own hand, and it was not until the Holbein Exhibition, held in Dresden in 1871, when the two panels were placed side by side, and a close comparison became possible, that the undoubted genuineness of the Darmstadt painting was admitted by all except the few who had a personal interest in upholding the prestige of the Dresden Gallery, and who, therefore, refused to believe that their own picture was a mere copy, however good. Throughout the autumn of 1871, a fierce battle raged between the contending parties, and Dresden was split up into two hostile camps. A manifesto was issued by thirteen of the leading critics, headed by Woltmann, Thausing, De Lutzow, and A. Bayersdorfer, affirming their belief that the Darmstadt picture was indubitably a genuine work by Holbein, with considerable and later retouches in the heads of the Virgin, the Infant Christ, and the Burgomaster, and that the Dresden Madonna was a free copy of it, in which the hand of Holbein was not to be seen in any part. The other party retaliated with a manifesto of their own, in which they claimed that the modifications of the design in the Dresden example were so free, and were such great improvements, particularly in the spacing and the proportions of the figures, that no one but Holbein could have accomplished it, and that he alone could have given so lofty an ideality and beauty of expression to the figure of the Virgin, and that the picture remained a monument which attested the culminating point of German art. The Darmstadt picture, on the other hand, they found to be so badly obscured by dirty varnish and partial repaints that it was impossible to judge seriously the question of its originality. An interesting account of the dispute was given in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_[500] by the artist Rudolf Lehmann, who was a staunch upholder of the genuineness of the better-known picture. He saw in it a greater beauty, maturity, and nobility, and held that the modifications were so intelligent as to be in reality corrections of the earlier work, and therefore only from the hand of the master himself. The Darmstadt picture had certainly suffered from retouching in many places, but in 1887 it underwent a careful cleaning at the hands of Hauser of Munich, by means of which the dirt and the spurious paint were removed. It was then found to be in a very perfect state of preservation, with the original splendour of its colour almost undimmed, and the details as fine and as clear as when Holbein first painted them. The differences between the two pictures are many, but in colour, in expression, and in technical achievement the one at Darmstadt is far superior. The copyist who produced the Dresden picture has apparently attempted to improve upon the original, by beautifying the face of the Madonna, which has lost much of its character in the process, and giving a more graceful form to the rather thickset, stumpy figure of the original, so characteristic of Holbein. The proportions of the background have been also changed, with the same idea of improvement. The copyist appears to have thought that the top of the semicircular niche pressed too closely upon the Virgin’s head, and he accordingly raised it, thus relieving what he considered to be a cramped position; whereas in Holbein’s original arrangement, in which the diameter of the semicircle cuts across the shoulders of the figure, the spacing is more effective than in the copy, in which the line passes through the Virgin’s neck. In the same way the pilasters over the kneeling figures on either side have been raised well above the heads, so that the upper parts of the columns become visible. In richness and harmony of colour the Darmstadt version is far finer. In the Dresden copy the Virgin’s dress is green, which proves that it was painted at some time considerably later than the original, when the blue of the latter had taken on a greenish tint from the discoloration of the varnish. Again, the extraordinary delicacy and precision of the draughtsmanship of all the details of dress is far more marked in the original work, in which, too, there is much greater expression and animation in the faces. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE DARMSTADT PICTURE] The history of the Darmstadt picture can be traced, with few breaks, from the day it was painted. On the death of Dorothea Meyer about 1549 it passed into the possession of her daughter Anna and the latter’s husband, Nikolaus Irmi, or Irmy (1507-52). Anna Irmi, who married, after Irmi’s death, Wilhelm Hebdenring, and died a widow in 1558, left it to her daughter Rosa or Rosina, who, in 1576, married, as his third wife, Remigius Faesch, burgomaster of Basel. Rosa died about 1606, and shortly afterwards Faesch sold the picture for one hundred golden crowns (_coronatos aureos solares_) to a certain Lucas Iselin. This information is contained in a Latin manuscript in the Basel Library, which was written about the middle of the seventeenth century by a second Remigius Faesch, grandson of the burgomaster. He was a doctor of laws, and a collector of pictures, and his manuscript bears the title, “Humanæ Industriæ Monumenta.” The thirty-fifth folio is concerned with Holbein, and from it the history of the picture may be taken a step farther. Faesch says: “In the year 163-, the above-named painter, Le Blond, bought here of the widow and heirs of Lucas Iselin, of St. Martin’s, a painting on wood, about three Basel ells in size, the height and width being the same; in which were represented the foresaid Burgomaster Jakob Meier, together with his sons on the right side, and on the opposite side his wife with the daughters, all painted from life, kneeling before the altar. I possess copies of a son and a daughter, painted in Belgium from the picture itself by Joh. Ludi. Le Blond paid for the picture 1000 imperials, and sold it afterwards for three times as much to Maria de’ Medici, Queen Dowager of France, mother of King Louis XIII, while she was residing in Belgium, where she died. Whither it afterwards went, is uncertain.” A marginal note, added by Faesch, probably at a later date, further states: “This panel belonged to my grandfather, the Burgomaster Remigius Faesch, from whom Lucas Iselin gained possession of it, ostensibly for the ambassador of the King of France, and paid 100 gold crowns for it about the year 1606.”[501] Lucas Iselin died in 1626, and his heirs appear to have sold the picture some years afterwards to Michel Le Blond, the German engraver, who lived for the greater part of his life in Amsterdam, where he was occupied in providing engraved plates of ornaments for the use of jewellers, and was also a picture collector and dealer. He acted as agent to the Court of Sweden at Amsterdam, and in 1625 he negotiated for the Duke of Buckingham the purchase of a large collection of works of art from Rubens. He was a friend of Sandrart, Holbein’s biographer, and travelled with him in Italy. Sandrart, in his Life of Holbein, continues the history of the picture, and in speaking of Le Blond’s collection, says: “This gentleman has long ago” (_lang vorher_)—he refers to some time before he, Sandrart, was in Amsterdam, about 1640-45—“sold to the bookkeeper (or banker) Johann Lössert, at his urgent request for the sum of 3000 gulden, a standing figure of the Virgin painted on a panel, holding her little Child in her arms, and under her is a carpet on which some figures are kneeling before her, taken from life.”[502] Sandrart’s description shows that the picture in question was undoubtedly the Meyer Madonna, and this is confirmed by Patin’s account. The latter had access to the Faesch manuscript, and speaks of it as “A standing Mary on a panel with the Child on her arm, under her a carpet on which some figures are kneeling before her, painted from the life.” [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE DARMSTADT PICTURE] Sandrart’s story indicates that Faesch must have been wrong in stating that Le Blond sold the picture to Maria de’ Medici, then in exile in Holland; she appears to have been contented with a copy of it. Sandrart himself took sketches of some of the figures, and others were made, according to Faesch, by Joh. Ludi. This was Johannes Lüdin, a pupil of Sarburgh, who has been confused by earlier writers with Giovanni da Lodi, an obscure painter whose work is to be found in several churches in Lodi. Wornum thought that Giovanni might have been the author of the Dresden copy of the picture,[503] but later researches have shown this to be a mistake. Quite recently (1911), Dr. E. Major has identified it as a copy made for Queen Maria de’ Medici by Bartholomäus Sarburgh, a portrait-painter who, in 1634, was living at the Hague, which was about the time the picture went to Holland. Sarburgh, who was born about 1590, worked in Basel and in Berne, and may have known the painting in his youth. It is extremely probable, in Dr. Major’s opinion, that the Dresden example is identical with the copy known to have been in the possession of the French Queen.[504] There are numerous copies of Holbein’s works by Sarburgh still in Basel, and several portraits by him in the Picture Gallery of that city. It has also been suggested that Faesch was mistaken in saying that Le Blond bought the picture from Iselin’s widow in Basel, and that in reality he obtained it from Iselin himself at some earlier date; for in 1621 there was an important example of Holbein’s work in Amsterdam which the Earl of Arundel was anxious to obtain. Sir Dudley Carleton, writing to the Earl from the Hague, 22nd June 1621, says: “Having wayted lately on y^e K. and Q. of Bohemia to Amsterdam, I there saw y^e picture of Holben’s yo^r L^p. desires; but cannot yet obtayne it, though my indeavours wayte on it, as they still shall doe.”[505] Sir Dudley, however, gives no description of the picture, which he was unable to get for the Earl, so that it is impossible to say more than that there is some probability that it may have been the Meyer Madonna. Sandrart, who was a personal friend of Le Blond, is no doubt correct when he says that the latter sold it direct to the banker Johann Lössert; and it remained in the possession of that family for some seventy or eighty years. It next appears in a sale of the pictures of Jacob Cromhout and Jasper Loskart, held at Amsterdam on the 7th and 8th May 1709, the latter evidently a descendant of Johann Lössert. According to the catalogue, both owners were deceased, and the greater number of the pictures seem to have belonged to Cromhout, the catalogue-heading concluding with the words, “and some other fine pictures coming from the cabinet of the deceased Herr Jasper Loskart.”[506] It is possible that the two owners were relations, or partners in business, as the coat of arms of the Cromhouts is on the old frame of the Darmstadt panel, indicating that at some time or other the picture had been transferred from the one family to the other.[507] The picture was No. 24 in the sale, and was described as, “A capital piece, with two doors, representing Mary with Jesus on her arm, with various kneeling figures from life, by Hans Holbeen—fl. 2000”; just double the price paid for a large altar-piece by Rubens in the same sale, and equal to about £160 in modern money, a large price for a picture in those days. It will be seen that in 1709 it still had wings, which have since disappeared. For more than one hundred years after the Cromhout sale all traces of the picture are missing, though it appears to have been in England for at least a part of the time, for on the back is written in English: “No. 82, Holy Family, Portraits, A.D.,” the latter initials indicating that when here it was attributed to Dürer. On the old seventeenth-century frame there are, in addition to the Cromhout coat of arms, the armorial bearings of a member of the Von Warberge family and his wife, apparently indicating yet another ownership. It reappeared in 1822, when it was purchased by Prince William of Prussia from the Parisian picture-dealer Delahante, through the latter’s brother-in-law, Spontini, at that time royal musical director in Berlin, at a cost of 2500 or 2800 thalers—about £420. On the death of the Prince its purchase for the Berlin Museum was urged by Dr. Waagen, but the authorities were not willing to consider it. On the division of the Prince’s property, it was assigned to his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, who married Prince Charles of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1836; and from that day the picture has remained in the private apartments of the old palace. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE DRESDEN VERSION] The first definite information about the Dresden version is that at the beginning of the eighteenth century it was in Venice, in the possession of the Delfino family, from whose representative, Giovanni Delfino, it was purchased by Count Francesco Algarotti on the 4th September 1743, for Augustus III, Elector of Saxony, for one thousand sequins. A previous attempt to buy it had been made by the Duke of Orleans in 1723. It is to be gathered from Algarotti’s correspondence that the picture had been bequeathed to Delfino’s father by the Venetian banker Avogadro, and, according to an old servant of the latter’s, named Griffoni, his master had obtained it in or about the year 1690 in Amsterdam as payment for a debt of 2000 sequins owing to him by the house of Lössert, which had recently become bankrupt. Algarotti was of opinion that it was the very picture mentioned by Sandrart. As, however, the original picture was still in Amsterdam in 1709 (the date of the Cromhout sale), nearly twenty years after Avogadro is said to have received it, the version which went to Venice can only have been a copy, which it is now known to be. It appears, therefore, that at one time Loskart or Lössert possessed two versions of the picture; and it may be conjectured that at the time of the bankruptcy, or perhaps earlier, the original was sold to or taken over by Cromhout, and the early seventeenth-century copy retained, until it was given to Avogadro in lieu of the debt. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the transaction was an underhand one, and that a copy was knowingly palmed off on the banker as an original, for very possibly by that time both pictures were regarded as genuine works by Holbein. At the time the Venetian example was purchased for the Elector of Saxony, it was generally regarded as a portrait-group of the More family, owing to the similarity of the names Meyer and More. Horace Walpole, who saw it in Venice, gave it its correct title. He says, when referring to the various examples existing of the More family group: “The fifth[508] was in the palace of the Delfino family at Venice, where it was long on sale, the first price set, 1500_l._ When I saw it there in 1741 they had sunk it to 400_l._, soon after which the present King of Poland bought it.... The old man is not only unlike all representations of Sir Thomas More, but it is certain that he never had but one son. For the colouring, it is beautiful beyond description, and the carnations have that enamelled bloom so peculiar to Holbein, who touched his works till not a touch remained discernible! A drawing of this picture by Bischop was brought over in 1723, from whence Vertue doubted both of the subject and the painter; but he never saw the original! By the description of the family picture of the Consul Mejer, mentioned above, I have no doubt but this is the very picture—Mejer and More are names not so unlike but that in process of time they may have been confounded, and that of More retained, as much better known.”[509] The cost of the picture was 1000 sequins, or 22,000 livres de Venise—about £458 in English money—and the expenses in connection with its purchase, packing, and forwarding to Dresden, came to some £125 more, including a liberal present to the painter Tiepolo, who helped in the negotiations, and smaller gratuities to various retainers of the Delfino family. The total cost, therefore, was considerably more than three times the price paid for the original painting in the Amsterdam sale. Although the Meyer Madonna possesses no hidden meaning, and is merely a customary representation of a donor and his family kneeling in adoration before the Virgin and Child, yet a number of fanciful interpretations were given to it in the last century, of which some echoes still remain. It has been suggested that it is a votive picture to commemorate the recovery of a sick child, whom the Virgin has taken into her arms, placing her own child on the ground among the donors. This idea was carried still farther by others, who saw in the infant on the Madonna’s breast the soul of a dead child; while a third theory propounded was to the effect that the little one was merely the soul of the woman kneeling next the Virgin, supposed to be Meyer’s first wife. These are all sentimental refinements of nineteenth-century German criticism, first voiced by such writers as Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel, and in all probability would never have been heard of had the original picture been in Dresden instead of the copy. In the latter the unknown copyist has not been so successful in the figure of the infant Christ as in other portions of the picture. It is far less animated than in the original, and a little sickly and unhappy in expression, and it was this, no doubt, which first suggested these over-refinements of meaning. Ruskin was on the side of the sentimentalists. He says: “The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is beautiful, and I believe the interpretation to be true. A father and mother have prayed to her for the life of their sick child. She appears to them, her own Child in her arms. She puts down her Christ before them, takes their child into her arms instead; it lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hands to its father and mother, saying farewell.”[510] As a matter of fact, there is nothing of death or sickness about the work, which tells its story with the utmost simplicity and mastery of means, without needing such refined subtleties for its proper explanation. [Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S MODEL FOR THE VIRGIN] It is difficult to follow Holbein’s latest English biographer, Mr. G. S. Davies, in his belief that the influence of Gherardt David can be seen in this work, and, in particular, to find, as he does, indications of Holbein’s acquaintance with David’s great picture of the “Madonna with the Saints and Angels,” now in the Rouen Museum, but in Holbein’s day, and for three centuries afterwards, in the Carmelite Church in Bruges, for which it had been painted. “I do not think that any one who thoroughly knew the Darmstadt Holbein can fail,” he says, “as he looks at this masterpiece of the Flemish painter, to be at once reminded by something in the feeling and in the type of Madonna, and even in such details as the choice of crown and robe, in the outspread mantle, in the fashion of the robe, in the wavy golden hair lying along the shoulder, and in the pose of the head as she looks down at the Child, of the greater German master. Holbein’s is a stronger, more intensely sympathetic, more real and convincing vision; but the original type seems to be common to both men.”[511] To render this possible, a visit to Bruges on Holbein’s part becomes necessary, and Mr. Davies considers it to be most probable that he did so either on his way to England in 1526 or on his return in 1528, and he states, but without bringing forward any proofs, that Holbein “spent several months in or about Antwerp” on the former journey, and that he would not be likely to omit a visit to so great a centre of art as Bruges. This theory also necessitates the alteration of the date of the painting of the Meyer Madonna, whereas everything points to its completion before Holbein left Basel for England; nor will he find many to agree with him that in this great picture, so essentially German in feeling, strong traces of Flemish influence are to be seen. Such alien influence as can be traced in it is undoubtedly Italian. For the Meyer Madonna, Holbein’s wife no longer served as the model for the Virgin, as she had done for the Madonna of Solothurn. Her place was taken by that lady of somewhat notorious character in Basel, Magdalena Offenburg. As pointed out in an earlier chapter, she had already twice served Holbein as a model for his costume studies of Basel ladies,[512] and she also sat to him for the two pictures of “Venus” and “Laïs Corinthiaca” in the Basel Gallery, in which the similarity of features to those of the Virgin in the Darmstadt altar-piece is very marked, while all three bear an evident likeness to the model of that one of the costume studies in which the sitter wears a necklace with the recurring initials “M. O.” Her daughter Dorothea, wife of Joachim von Sultz, who at one time was considered to be the lady represented in the “Laïs” and “Venus” pictures,[513] led an equally scandalous life. She was divorced in 1545, and both she and her husband were imprisoned, and afterwards expelled the country. VOL. I., PLATE 73. [Illustration: MAGDALENA OFFENBURG AS VENUS 1526 BASEL GALLERY ] [Illustration: MAGDALENA OFFENBURG AS LAIS 1526 BASEL GALLERY ] [Sidenote: THE “LAÏS” AND “VENUS” PICTURES] These two small, delicately painted portraits of Magdalena Offenberg as “Laïs” and “Venus,” the former being dated “1526,” were among the last works produced by Holbein before he left Basel for England. They bear a very close resemblance to one another, except in the position of the head, so that one appears to be almost a copy of the other. In the Amerbach catalogue of 1586 they are described as: “Zwei täfelin doruf eine Offenburgin conterfehet ist vf eim geschriben Lais Corinthiaca, die ander hat ein kindlin bÿ sich. H. Holb. beide, mit ölfarben vnd in ghüsern.” In each the figure is about one-third the size of life, and the costume is the same, a rich dress of dark red velvet with slashings showing white silk puffs, each fastened at top and bottom with gold tags. The wide upper sleeves are of a deep gold hue. In each picture she is shown at almost three-quarter length, behind a plain stone parapet, with a dark green curtain as background. In the “Laïs” (No. 322) (Pl. 73 (2))[514] she wears a closely-fitting gold-embroidered head-dress or cap on her fair hair, and with her left hand grasps the folds of a blue mantle draped across her knees. On the parapet in front of her—which is inscribed “Lais Corinthiaca. 1526,” in Roman letters, as though incised in the stone—is placed a little heap of scattered gold coins, and she is holding out her right hand, with palm upwards, as though asking for more of them in payment for her favours. The pose is slightly varied in the “Venus” (No. 323) (Pl. 73 (1)),[515] which is undated, the head being bent a little to the right, instead of to the left, and there are small changes in the costume. The lower sleeves of red slashed velvet are omitted, and the arms are bare to the elbow, while the head-dress is black, with a little gold ornamentation. The position of the hands is almost the same, though the left one is hidden by the head and shoulders of a small naked, red-haired Cupid, whose right arm rests on the parapet with two long arrows in his hand. The golden coins are missing, but the open palm of the lady’s right hand carries the same suggestion as in the “Laïs.” The old frame still retains the curious and singularly inappropriate inscription, “Verbum Domini manet in æternum,” which was upon it when the Amerbach Collection was purchased by the town of Basel in 1662. [Sidenote: HOLBEIN AND MAGDALENA OFFENBURG] The face is a refined one, with a high forehead, long nose, finely cut lips, and fair complexion, and in the “Laïs” in particular, does not suggest the supposed character of the sitter as tradition has handed it down. It is possible that the painter to some extent idealised her features. The “Venus” is less tender and attractive in expression; so much so, indeed, that Woltmann[516] suggests that it was painted at an earlier date, and that the “Laïs” was a renewed and more successful attempt to represent the same idea. What that idea may have been has given rise to considerable speculation. Wornum[517] quotes an old legend to the effect that the artist could not obtain payment for the “Venus” picture, and so, in revenge, he painted her as the famous courtesan, Laïs of Corinth, the mistress of the great painter Apelles; but this explanation is an absurd one. Woltmann’s suggestion is that both pictures were painted for some lover of the lady, who wished, in the first instance, to express his love, and then, later on, his contempt. It is more probable that the pictures were the result of relationships between the painter himself and Magdalena, though beyond the fact that she served him more than once as a model, there is no proof of this. This supposed connection between Holbein and the lady has given rise to much imaginative writing in recent monographs. In one of them we are told that “when Holbein inscribed his second portrait of Dorothea with the words Laïs Corinthiaca, the midsummer madness must have been already a matter of scorn and wonder to himself. His whole life and the works of his life are the negation of the groves of Corinth. The paint was not long dry on the Goddess of Love—at any rate, her dress was not worn out—before he had seen her in her true colours: the daughter of the horseleech, crying ‘Give, give.’ And so he painted her in 1526; to scourge himself, surely, since she was too notoriously infamous to be affected by it. As if in stern scorn of every beauty, every allure, he set himself to record them in detail.... Laïs is far more beautiful, and far more beautifully painted, than Venus. No emotion has hurried the painter’s hand or confused his eye this time. In vain she wears such sadness in her eyes, such pensive dignity of attitude, such a wistful smile on her lips. He knows them, now, for false lights on the wrecker’s coast. No faltering; no turning back. He can even fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and add the puffed sleeves below the short ones. He is a painter now; not a lover.... The plague was raging in Basel all through that spring and summer, but I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact as at the loveliness he painted,”[518] and so on. This is all very pretty, but the imagination of the writer has run away with her. What suggestion could be more fantastic than that in painting the Venus, Holbein’s love for the lady was so great that both hand and eye faltered in depicting her charms, and that he could only do full justice to her beauty when his affection was dead and her loveliness made him shudder? A more recent writer[519] is of opinion that Holbein succumbed to the charms of Magdalena Offenburg before his marriage, and that she deigned to honour the young Swabian painter with her favours almost directly after his return to Basel from Lucerne. Though forced to confess that he can find no traces of her as Holbein’s model in any of his finished paintings of the period before Elsbeth Schmidt came into his life, in his opinion she served him in that capacity not only for the series of studies of the costumes worn by the Basel ladies, but also for his early glass designs of the Madonna gazing down at the Infant Christ in her arms, the St. Barbara of the same set, and the fine design of a wooden statue of St. Michael, all three of which have been already described.[520] No doubt the type of face in all these studies is much the same, but there is a tendency in this search for likenesses to go too far, and to see Magdalena Offenburg or Elsbeth Schmidt as the only models used by Holbein at this time. In some instances the likeness is largely imaginary. His wife, the same writer continues, may not have been beautiful, but she certainly had charm, as the portrait at the Hague proves, and Holbein must have loved her when he painted her. For two years afterwards he remained the devoted husband, using her as the model for the Solothurn Madonna, the Virgin of the Basel organ doors, and for the glass design of the Mary in the niche with the cavalier kneeling before her. Then, after this short period of happiness, her place in the pictures and designs is again taken by Magdalena. The impudent creature appears as the St. Ursula of the Karlsruhe painting, and the “arrows in her hands are those with which in succeeding years she is to pierce the poor heart of the painter’s wife.” In the Meyer Madonna, this writer sees in the Virgin nothing but the elegant, banal visage of the courtesan, and a complete want of all humanity. The “Laïs” and “Venus” of 1526, he adds, affirm finally and cynically the victory of the mistress over the legitimate wife, while the last and worst insult of all was in using his own eldest child as the model for the Cupid, and placing him in the company of the hateful rival, who in the end robbed his wife of all her beauty and all her happiness. There may be some truth in this attempt to reconstruct a few pages of Holbein’s life-story, but there is little proof to support it. Where proof is lacking, however, the writer’s imagination fills the gaps; but it is not fair to condemn the painter upon such evidence as this, or to hold him guilty of infamous conduct upon the strength of a few supposed likenesses in his pictures or designs. Whatever Holbein’s personal relations to Magdalena Offenburg may have been, she appears to have been a good model, which is in itself quite sufficient to explain the fact that he painted these two portraits of her. That he held her in no particular esteem may be gathered from the name he gives her, just as Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, as noted in a previous chapter, wrote an offensive remark as to her character on the drawing he made of her. Her face, as represented by Holbein, is fair, but devoid of any strong feeling, though Knackfuss holds that “a deep and quiet sorrow lies in the expression of the refined face;” and that “the sense of the two paintings is explained by their juxtaposition: the gold which she desired cannot make the young woman happy; love alone can do so.”[521] This last-named writer considers that the pictures were not painted to some one’s order, but for the artist’s own amusement. A question of much more interest in connection with these two works is their authorship. They differ from all other portraits by Holbein of the Basel period, because in them the Milanese influence upon his art is seen at its strongest, so that more than one writer of repute has refused to admit that they are his work. Rumohr regarded them as from the hand of some Netherlandish painter, and Waagen was of opinion that Holbein painted them under Netherlandish influence. Wornum considered them to be the work of some Milanese. “The style of the painting,” he says, “is more Milanese, in colouring and in treatment, than anything else, exceedingly elaborate, cool in colour, dry in manner, and altogether unlike any other known work by our painter. In this case I have not the slightest faith in the Amerbach inventory.... The two portraits have a decided Milanese character, in the manner of the scholars of Leonardo da Vinci. A visit to Milan could not have had such a wonderful influence on Holbein’s taste as is shown in these portraits, or if such be allowed to be possible, it is just as remarkable that he should have laid this taste down again without leaving a trace behind.”[522] Mr. Davies follows Wornum, but goes still farther in suggesting the name of the North Italian artist who painted them. He says: “I may say at once that I am quite unable to see any Netherlandish influence or probable authorship in the pictures. On the other hand, I see the strongest evidence of Lombard influence, and that in so direct a fashion and to such a degree that I believe them to be the work of some Lombard artist who had come under the influence of the later work of Raphael. The name of Cesare da Sesto at once occurs to one, and if it were not for the date 1526 on the Laïs picture, there would be no great difficulty in accepting it as a work by him which had found its way across from Milan—possibly even in the pack of Holbein himself.”[523] He acknowledges the difficulty of the date—Da Sesto was dead in 1526—and also of the red-haired Cupid in the Venus picture, so evidently both German and from Holbein’s own hand, and bearing so close a resemblance to the children in other pictures of his, such as the Meyer Madonna and the Family Group of 1528; but in spite of this, his final opinion is that they are most probably the work of Cesare da Sesto. He further suggests that Holbein, “possessing, or seeing in the possession of Amerbach, these two small examples, very similar in attitude and motive,” sought to give them variety, by inserting the figure of Cupid in the one, and thus giving this Italian lady the character of Venus, and in the other the gold coins and the title of Laïs, “so as to turn a somewhat unmeaning picture of a woman into a quasi-classical personality.” “The Offenburg tradition,” he adds, “I should wholly reject, nor indeed can I persuade myself that these pictures are portraits by Holbein either of that shadowy lady or of any other lady whatever. They appear to me to be pictures, not of some well-marked personality, but merely Lombard school types.” [Sidenote: MILANESE INFLUENCE IN THE LAÏS] It is impossible to follow Mr. Davies in this attribution. Woltmann’s opinion, with which most modern critics are in agreement, that they are genuine works by Holbein in which Lombard influence is more strongly marked than in most of his other Basel paintings, is the correct one. The two panels are unmistakably the product of a northern painter working under some southern influence, and just as unmistakably the work of Holbein himself, as a close comparison with his other work of this period shows very plainly. This Milanese influence was the result of his visit to Lombardy, and is to be traced in a greater or lesser degree in all that he accomplished previously to his first visit to England. “Their warm, transparent technique and the realistic ungracefulness of the draperies,” says Mr. C. J. Holmes, speaking of the Laïs and its companion, “make them characteristic northern works, just as the Raphaelesque folds and cool opaque pigment of Cesare da Sesto in his later paintings—the small Madonna in the Brera, for example—are characteristically southern.”[524] Possibly for once in a way Holbein was making a conscious attempt to imitate the manner of some artist of the North Italian school whose work he had seen and admired, perhaps in Basel itself, so that the Lombard influence is more pronounced than in those pictures and designs in which he was less evidently making an experiment based upon what he had seen in Italy, and in which his own native genius was the predominating force. For the same reason it is very possible that in the Laïs and the Venus, Holbein, instead of following his model closely, gave play to his imagination, and attempted, as the type of face, with downcast eyes, and pensive, almost melancholy charm of expression suggests, to emulate the Leonardesque manner, so that at the best they are merely idealised representations of the notorious Magdalena Offenburg. There is no doubt that during the summer of 1526, in spite of his reputation as a painter, he found it increasingly difficult to gain a living, and that, in consequence, he made up his mind to seek his fortunes in some other country, and finally decided to visit England. In those early days of the Reformation in Switzerland, when the ecclesiastical disputes were assuming so acute a form, and risings of the peasants and other violent disturbances were growing common, there was very little opportunity for artists to find remunerative employment, and Holbein suffered with the rest. The town authorities had no time for considering such important public works as the completion of the Town Hall decorations, and all that they could find for him to do was an ill-paid job or two at long intervals, such as the one already mentioned,[525] which in happier times would have been hardly worth his attention. Basel, indeed, no longer offered a means of livelihood to a painter with a wife, a stepson, and two children of his own to keep. Throughout this year, too, the plague was raging in the city, and this may have proved the last straw which definitely turned his thoughts in the direction of England. Numerous legends have grown up around this journey of his, which for the most part have no foundation in fact. The commonest, first voiced by Van Mander, is to the effect that the Earl of Arundel, when passing through Basel on his way home from Italy some years previously, was so delighted with Holbein’s work that he urged him to try his fortunes in England. Later on, when Holbein had taken his advice, he was asked by Sir Thomas More, who it was who had suggested this course to him. Holbein replied that he had forgotten the nobleman’s name, but, taking up a piece of charcoal, he rapidly sketched a face, which the Chancellor instantly recognised. Another version gives the Earl of Surrey as Holbein’s adviser; but the tale is a pure legend, and has been told of more than one painter. Another story, which has been often repeated, gives as the reason of his departure the desire to escape from the constant tempers of an ill-humoured wife, and that he therefore left Basel surreptitiously, without obtaining the necessary leave of absence from the Town Council. His earlier biographers all describe his relationships with his wife as not very cordial ones, but they merely copied from one another, and this again may be mere legend. Patin, in particular, whose account of Holbein is palpably exaggerated and often false, describes him as a drunkard, who led a disorderly life, and was always so poverty-stricken that Erasmus and Amerbach had frequently to come to his assistance—a statement entirely devoid of fact, and sufficiently disproved by Holbein’s brilliant performances in many branches of art. Patin also, when speaking of Holbein’s journey to England, makes use of another favourite story told of numerous artists. He says that on his way he passed through Strasburg, and called on the principal painter of the town, but found him out. An unfinished portrait stood on the easel, whereupon Holbein painted a fly on the forehead, and then left. When the painter returned he attempted to brush it away, imagining it to be a real one, and was so impressed by his unknown visitor’s skill, that he at once sought him out, but found that he had already left the town. [Sidenote: REASONS FOR LEAVING BASEL] It is, of course, possible that Holbein’s domestic relations by that time were not as cordial as in earlier days, and that his supposed connection with Magdalena Offenburg may have rendered them still less pleasant, and that this may have had something to do with his departure; but this again is mere conjecture, of which no actual proof is forthcoming. Want of work was undoubtedly the chief, and possibly the only cause of his journey, and no doubt it was largely the advice of Erasmus which finally decided him to take the step. Erasmus, who had already sent more than one example of Holbein’s skill as a portrait-painter to England, had a large circle of friends and patrons here, to whom he could recommend the artist. To Warham and More, at least, Holbein’s portrait of Erasmus had already provided an informal