Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 1 (of 2) by Arthur B. Chamberlain
1528. The date of his birth is not known, but he received his first
877 words | Chapter 140
public appointment, as king’s bailiff at Sandwich, in 1508, and became
Clerk to the Signet in the following year. On more than one of the
replicas of the portrait his age is given as fifty-seven.
Tuke was a scholar, and one of the More circle, secretary to Cardinal
Wolsey, and French secretary to Henry VIII, and as Treasurer of the
Household was responsible for the payments to Holbein for his share in
the work of the Greenwich Banqueting House, and, later on, of his
salary. He was also Clerk of the Parliament and Master of the Posts. He
is represented in the Munich version at half-length, three-quarters to
the left, with clean-shaven face and long hair, wearing a black cap with
ear-pieces, a gown of black silk, lined with brown fur, and a fur
collar, over a black doublet also fur-lined and fastened with a gold
button, and sleeves of fine chequered black and gold stuff. A gold
jewelled cross, on which the pierced hands and feet of Christ are
represented in enamel, is suspended round his neck by a gold chain. With
the forefinger of his left hand, which holds his gloves, he indicates a
paper in front of him, inscribed “NVNQVID NON PAVCITAS DIERVM MEORVM
FINIETVR BREVI,” and, in smaller letters, “JOB cap. 10.” An hour-glass
rests on the table behind the paper, in front of his right hand. In the
background the figure of Death is seen against a green curtain, holding
his scythe in his left hand and with the first finger of the right
pointing to the hour-glass. It is signed “IO. HOLPAIN” in the old
Augsburg orthography. From overcleaning and other causes the hands and
face have lost much of the delicacy of their modelling, and the flesh
tints remain unpleasantly red, and the face has a hardness and sharpness
which, no doubt, it did not originally possess. Mr. Wornum, who,
however, only saw the picture when it was hung too high for proper
examination, considered it to be “painted in the taste and manner of Von
Melem.” “This picture,” he says, “is not a bad one, but the signature is
suspicious, as that of our painter; and the style does not proclaim it
to be the work of Holbein.”[752] Woltmann, on the other hand, says that
it “declares itself as strikingly as possible to be the work of Holbein,
and it is one of the two genuine paintings among the eight portraits
ascribed to him in the Pinakothek,” and adds that though so greatly
damaged, “yet still from its truth and lifelike feeling, as well as from
its masterly execution, it is an excellent portrait.” The picture,
however, is now regarded merely as a good workshop replica of the
original painting, and is so described in the latest edition of the
Munich catalogue. It appears to have been in the Wittelsbach Collection
in 1597, and in the description of it in the inventory of that date, the
figure of Death is not mentioned, and was probably added later.[753]
VOL. I., PLATE 87.
[Illustration:
SIR BRYAN TUKE
ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH
]
The best version of this picture is the one which at one time was in the
possession of the Methuen family at Corsham Court, Wilts, and afterwards
belonged to Mr. R. Sanderson, at whose sale at Christie’s in 1848 it was
purchased for the Marquis of Westminster.[754] It was bequeathed by the
Marchioness of Westminster to her daughter, Lady Theodora Guest, and now
belongs to the latter’s daughter, Miss Guest, of Inwood. It was in the
National Portrait Exhibition, 1868 (No. 625), in the Royal Academy
Winter Exhibition, 1880 (No. 188), and in the Burlington Fine Arts Club
Exhibition, 1909 (No. 43), lent by Miss Guest.[755] This version is
almost identical with the one in Munich, but the skeleton and hour-glass
are missing, and on the green-brown background is inscribed “BRIANVS
TVKE, MILES. AN^O ETATIS SVÆ LVII,” with his motto, “Droit et Avant,”
below. It is in all ways a finer work than the Munich example, and
undoubtedly by Holbein, and, in all probability, the original upon which
all the others were based. At least three other versions exist, all
without the skeleton. One of them, on canvas, was in the possession of
Mr. William M. Tuke, of Saffron Walden, in 1869, who purchased it in
Yorkshire in 1845, it having been formerly in the collection of a Mr.
Winstanley. Another is, or was, in the possession of Mr. John Leslie
Toke of Godington Park, Kent, which is said to have been in expression
and features more of the type of Sir Thomas More; while a third
belonged, in 1870, to Mr. J. R. Haig.[756] One or other of these
versions was owned in the seventeenth century by Lord Lisle, son of the
Earl of Leicester, as noted by Evelyn in his _Diary_ under the date 27th
August 1678.
[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF RESKIMER]
The portrait of the Cornishman, Reskimer,[757] at Hampton Court, has
been ascribed by most critics to Holbein’s first English period, and so
is included in this chapter, although the exceptionally long beard,
which reaches almost to his waist, and the hair, which, though not
polled, is short enough to show the ears, would indicate a date after
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