In the collection of drawings in the Louvre there is an elaborately drawn design for the decoration of a house with a narrow frontage and high-pitched gables,[272] which, although not from Holbein’s own hand, bears considerable resemblance to his style and methods in carrying out large mural paintings. It may be a contemporary copy of one of his designs, or, perhaps, an original work by one of the clever Basel artists who adopted his manner. The architectural details, however, are characterised by a fantastic play of fancy carried beyond the limits Holbein usually prescribed for himself in work of this nature. Some of them are frankly impossible, and if actually carried out in brick or stone would at once fall to pieces. This element of architectural absurdity is to be seen very clearly in the large capital in the centre supported by a much weaker and smaller one, in the curious thin bands of projecting stonework with circular openings through which all the columns pass, and the equally curious circular vaulting over the door, with round openings through which two cupids bend down in the act of supporting a coat of arms. The principal features of the design are two deep bands divided by the columns into panels containing combats between sirens and grotesque men with fish-like extremities ending in spirals of foliage. On either side of the windows of the second floor double columns are set close together, between which three nude old men are striving to force themselves. On the topmost storey two figures are looking over a balcony in front of two small windows. Medallions with antique heads are freely introduced, and every part of the house-face is so lavishly covered with small ornamentation that the eye becomes confused, and the general effect produced is one of restlessness and over-elaboration. Below the ground-floor window a fictitious opening is shown, in which two large dogs are fighting over a bone. Woltmann suggests that a passage in Dr. Ludwig Iselin’s notes has reference to these two animals, and may be taken as some indication that this particular design for house-decoration was Holbein’s own, and had been carried out by him in Basel. Iselin says, in speaking of the artist’s truthfulness to nature: “He painted a dog, at which dogs running past used to bark.”[273] [Sidenote: LEGEND OF THE INN “ZUR BLUME”]