HANS HOLBEIN, the younger, of Augsburg (1497--1543), who came, in 1526, with a recommendation from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, by whom he was welcomed and entertained at Chelsea. Unlike Albrecht Dürer, the other great German painter of the Reformation epoch, Holbein was a literal painter of men, not a dreamer haunted by visions of saints and angels. His ideas of heaven were probably modelled far more on the plan of the Bristol pageant, than on that of the Italian masters. Such an artist came exactly at the right moment to England, where Protestantism was becoming popular. Holbein's wonderful power as a colourist and the fidelity of his likenesses exercised a lasting effect on English art. He founded no school, however, though he had many imitators among the foreign artists whom Henry had invited.[C]
[Illustration: EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AFTERWARDS KING EDWARD VI.
_From a Miniature in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire._]
In 1532 Holbein was made Painter to the King, with a salary of £34 a year, in addition to the payment given for his works. The chief pictures painted by Holbein in England are portraits; and tradition says that Henry specially employed him to delineate the features of any fair lady on whom he had cast a favourable eye. Among the portraits we may mention those of _Nicolas Kratzer_, _Erasmus_, _Anne of Cleves_, and _Sir Richard Southwel_ (in the Louvre); _Archbishop Warham_ (Lambeth Palace); _Sir Henry Guildford_, a _Merchant of the Steelyard_, and _Lady Rich_ (Windsor); _Lady Vaux_ and _John Reskimer_ (Hampton Court); _Henry VIII._; the _Duchess of Milan_[D] (Arundel Castle); _Sir William_ and _Lady Butts_ (Mr. W. H. Pole Carew); _The Ambassadors_, a most important work, and _Erasmus_ (Lord Radnor, Longford Castle). There is at Windsor a series of eighty portraits of the English nobility, drawn by Holbein in black and red chalks, which are of infinite value as works of art; and at Windsor likewise, and in other galleries, are many carefully painted miniatures ascribed to him, of the greatest artistic and historic value.
Hans Holbein, like most artists of his age, could do more than paint portraits. At Basle are noble subject pictures by him. He was an architect, a modeller, and a carver. He was specially gifted in designing wood-blocks for illustrating books, and in the ornamentation of sword-hilts, plate, and the like. A book of designs for jewels, by Holbein, once the property of Sir Hans Sloane, is now in the British Museum. Holbein died of the plague, in London, between October 7th and November 29th, 1543.