Holbein, who was largely employed by the Basel glaziers and glass-painters for this purpose, made the freest and finest use of this new convention in the decoration of windows. The convention was, no doubt, a wrong one, and in the end all but extinguished the older and more beautiful art, but Holbein took it as he found it, and brought to it all his mastery of design and purity of line, so that the panels he produced were of great beauty and fine decorative effect. In his day glass-painting was no longer confined to the services of the Church, but was introduced into the windows of all private houses of importance, usually in the form of single panes with the householder’s coat of arms, or with sacred or profane subjects, according to his tastes. Thus he had many opportunities of showing his skill in this form of decoration, and he made use of a great variety of subjects. In some instances, such as the “Passion” series described below, the treatment is frankly pictorial, and the decorative effect is confined to the framework of Renaissance architecture within which the subject is set; but in others, and more particularly those intended for the display of shields with armorial bearings, the design becomes largely a decorative one, in which the artist gives free play to his imagination and taste for ornamentation in the Italian manner. Whatever the subject, however, each drawing displays wonderfully free yet delicate draughtsmanship, skilful arrangement of the design in the space to be filled, and extraordinary facility of invention. The studies appear often to have been made to the exact size of the panel they were to decorate, and, as a rule, Holbein left the question of colour to the taste of the glass-painter; in a few cases, however, he indicated it by the addition of one or two slight tints. There can be little doubt that they were carried out largely in that combination of pale yellow for the higher lights and brown or grisaille for the darker portions and shadows which was the customary practice in Switzerland at that period, with touches of more positive colour here and there in the dresses of the figures, the landscape backgrounds, and the coats of arms. The designs are in most cases drawn with the reed pen and washed with Indian ink. [Sidenote: EIGHT PANELS OF SAINTS]