By far the most important of Holbein’s designs for glass windows are those forming the series of ten subjects from the “Passion of Christ,” in the Basel Gallery, which in dramatic power and fertility of invention surpass all his earlier treatments of this great subject. The range over which the series extends is a shorter one than in the painted altar-piece in eight scenes representing the same subject. The latter begins with the “Mount of Olives” and ends with the “Entombment,” whereas the glass designs start with “Christ before Caiaphas” and conclude with the “Crucifixion,” so that the part of the story which is represented is told with greater detail. In most cases the designs are arranged in pairs, with the architectural framework in close though not exact correspondence, and similarly shaped and decorated spaces left at the bottom for the inclusion of the appropriate scriptural text. Evidently in each of the windows of the church for which they were designed pairs of subjects were to be placed side by side. Two of the scenes, however, seem to be single designs, the “Mocking” (No. 3), and the “Ecce Homo” (No. 6), in which the setting corresponds with none of the other drawings; while in the two last of the series, the “Nailing to the Cross” and the “Crucifixion,” the architectural framework only agrees in its general lines, though the designs evidently form a pair. Apparently, therefore, the series was made for a range of six windows, four of them with double and two with single divisions. According to Dr. Ganz, the series was begun, but not completed, by Holbein in 1523, his journey to the south of France intervening. On his return to Basel he resumed the work, which was probably finished by the end of the same year or early in 1524. He sees differences, more particularly in the architecture, in certain of the drawings, such as the “Mocking,” which suggest that the artist had gained fresh ideas from his study of the buildings in the towns through which he passed on his way to Montpellier, where he went to deliver the portrait of Erasmus to Bonifacius Amerbach. [Sidenote: THE “PASSION OF CHRIST” SERIES]