The house, as already stated, was a corner one of three storeys, the left-hand and narrow side being the one which fronted the Eisengasse. The decoration covered both sides, and was painted more or less in perspective, so arranged that the spectator, in order to obtain the full effect of the design, must stand at the corner angle of the house, from which he could see both sides at the same time. On the ground floor he placed on either side of the broad arched windows and the narrower door at the end of the chief façade thick, stumpy columns, with garlands hanging below their Ionic capitals. He made skilful use of the Gothic forms of the openings, as they actually existed, in such a way that the pointed arches appeared to be merely the result of perspective foreshortening, as seen from the spectator’s standpoint. Above these arches, in the flat space beneath the first-floor windows, was painted the broad band containing the “Bauerntanz,” or “Dance of the Peasants,” which gave the house its popular name. This band was broken by a small oblong window over the house-door, which Holbein utilised by turning it into a stone table, with cans and jugs for the refreshment of the dancers, against which two musicians are leaning, one playing the bagpipes and the other a wind instrument of unusual shape. Boisterous mirth reigns among the dancers. Their flitting shadows are cast upon the wall behind them, as they give full vent to their delight in life by means of measures more energetic than graceful, and much rough-and-tumble play. Judging from the fine original study in the Berlin Print Room,[263] which shows a part of this frieze, the wall-painting itself must have produced a vivid effect of rapid, lifelike movement, and even of noise and laughter. Above the Dance, decorated pilasters supporting lofty columns, which ran up to the top of the building, were placed between the windows, together with antique figures of Mars, Venus, Cupid, and other gods. Above these again ran a balcony with an open balustrading, supported on projecting cornices, with numerous figures of Holbein’s fellow-citizens in contemporary costume walking about and looking over into the street below, one of them with a greyhound. Round the windows of the second floor, which were of varying heights, he gave full play to his delight in Renaissance architecture of a very intricate and fantastic kind, including his favourite round medallions containing the heads of Roman Emperors and other classical heroes and heroines, friezes with rich ornamentation, grotesque figures with human bodies and tails of dolphins, and columns and arches seen in strong perspective. On the top floor of all the small windows were given the appearance of little square towers surrounded by broken and ruined arches and masonry, overgrown with bushes, and behind and between them the blue sky. On one of the walls was a peacock, and on another a paint-pot with the brush stuck in it, as though left up there