the organ which they decorated. Neither the doors themselves, nor the design, are dated, but the beauty of the composition and the brilliant and assured technique point to a period towards the end of Holbein’s second sojourn in Basel, about 1525, shortly before his departure for England, and they are thus of about the same date as the ten designs in Indian ink made for painted glass, representing scenes from Christ’s Passion. Among the monumental works of decorative painting undertaken by him during his second residence in Basel, these designs stand among the highest. The influences which were brought to bear upon his art during his sojourn in Italy find in them their fullest and most dignified expression, happily blended with and modified by those other influences, springing from his native soil, under which he was trained in his father’s studio. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI THE HOUSE OF THE DANCE AND THE WALL-PAINTINGS IN THE BASEL TOWN HALL Holbein as a mural decorator—The “Haus zum Tanz”—The “Dance of Peasants” frieze—Original studies and old copies—Decoration of the inner walls of the new Basel Town Council Chamber—“Charondas of Catanea”—“Zaleucus of Locris”—“Curius Dentatus”—“Sapor and Valerian”—The single figures placed between the large compositions—Cessation of the work before its completion. AT this period of his life Holbein’s work was by no means confined to the painting of portraits and church pictures. His activity was ceaseless, and every moment of his time must have been fully occupied. In addition to many book illustrations for the publishers, and designs for glass-painters, armourers, and other craftsmen, he found considerable employment in decorating the street-fronts of houses of certain of the leading citizens with large wall-paintings, and, in some instances, painted similar decorations on the inner walls. It is evident from various contemporary and later references that he covered more than one house in Basel with decorative designs in this fashion, and that the art of wall-painting, practised in that city to some extent before his time, received a great impetus from his example. He carried it to a far greater pitch of excellence than had been achieved until then in any country but Italy, and founded a school of monumental decorative design which existed for a considerable period after his death, and has been revived again in modern times in Lucerne, if not in Basel. Unfortunately, nothing remains of his original work in this field except a few isolated designs for one or two façades, and several tracings and inferior copies of fragmentary remains of the actual wall-paintings; nor has any definite record been handed down in Basel of any particular dwelling so decorated by him, with the exception of the “House of the Dance,” which obtained a wide celebrity in his own day, and was