After the early “Cross-Bearing” panel of 1515 at Karlsruhe, there is no dated picture among this group of sacred paintings until the “Dead Christ in the Tomb,” in the Basel Gallery (No. 318), of the year 1521, is reached (Pl. 35).[228] This remarkable work, which forms part of the Amerbach Collection, is a life-size study of a dead man, and one whose end has, perhaps, been brought about by violence. Holbein has painted the corpse upon a long, low panel, and has represented it as lying enclosed within the narrow confines of a tomb of plain marble of a greenish hue, the side facing the spectator being removed in order to permit a view of the interior. The body, which almost fills the narrow space, rests on its back on a plain white cloth, over which the long dark hair falls. The head is seen almost in profile, but very slightly turned towards the front, the short brown beard pointing directly upwards. The light comes from some small aperture low down at the foot of the tomb, and falls on the soles of the feet, and illuminates the lower side of each prominent feature of the body, such as the under parts of the chin, the white swollen lips of the open mouth, the nose, and the eyebrows, leaving other portions in shadow, and thus intensifying the feeling of horror which the picture at first produces. It shows that Holbein, at the age of twenty-four, had attained a complete mastery of technical expression, for it is painful in the completeness of its realism. The rigidity of the limbs, the haggard cheeks with strongly-projecting bones, the staring, half-sunken eyes, the lifeless skin, the colourless face with bloodless lips, the emaciated body with its ribs standing out, have all been set down with relentless accuracy. The indication of decay in the hands and feet, and in the flesh turning green round the wounds in the side, helps to intensify the terror and horror of death which the picture is intended to depict. It was evidently painted from some dead body, how obtained it is impossible to say, but, according to an old tradition, his model was the corpse of a man just taken out of the Rhine by the Rhine Bridge. Holbein’s object in painting it was undoubtedly to give as complete a rendering as possible of the physical aspects of death as seen in a body approaching decay. It is hardly to be believed that it was his original intention to paint a picture of the “Dead Christ,” and that for the purpose he made search in Basel for a corpse to serve as his model. It is much more natural to suppose that, having painted this vividly realistic study, which no patron was likely to purchase, he made it of marketable value by adding the wounds and the title, and so turning it into a “Christ in the Tomb.” This is borne out by Basilius Amerbach’s entry in his inventory. He calls it “A picture of a dead man, with the title Jesus of Nazareth” (“Ein todten bild H. Holbeins vf holtz mit ölfarben cum titulo Iesus Nazarenus rex”). This Latin title, in large