The first portraits of Erasmus by Holbein to which a date can be given are the Longford Castle example and the profile likeness in the Louvre, both of which were painted in 1523, probably towards the end of that year, when the artist was about twenty-six; and it is generally agreed that these are the two which were sent to England by Erasmus in 1524. In a letter to his friend Wilibald Pirkheimer at Nuremberg, dated June 3rd of that year, Erasmus says: “Only recently I have again sent two portraits of me to England, painted by a not unskilful artist. He has also taken a portrait of me to France.” That the painter to whom Erasmus refers was Holbein is proved by a passage in Beatus Rhenanus’ _Emendations of Pliny_, published by Froben in March 1526, and written in the previous year. In speaking of the most celebrated German painters of the day, he mentions Dürer in Nuremberg, Hans Baldung in Strasburg, and Lucas Cranach in Saxony, and concludes with Hans Holbein in Switzerland, “born in Augsburg, but for a long time a burgher of Basel, who last year painted, most successfully and finely, two portraits of our Erasmus of Rotterdam, which he afterwards sent into England.”[380] One of the two sent to England was a present to William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose yearly pension to Erasmus was increased about this time. The latter wrote to Warham on September 4, 1524: “I hope that the portrait painted of me, which I sent to you, has reached you, so that you may have somewhat of Erasmus should God call me hence.” It is not known for whom the second portrait was intended. No reference to it is to be found in the numerous letters despatched to England by Erasmus in that year, addressed, among others, to Fisher, Tunstall, Wolsey, and the King himself. It was not, apparently, meant for Sir Thomas More, for he already possessed the portrait of his friend by Metsys, and it is not very probable that Erasmus would send him a second. Nor does More speak of it in his letters to Basel, although he is certain to have done so had he received so valuable a gift, for he was lavish in his praise and his thanks for the Metsys portrait in 1517. It has been generally supposed that the well-known letter from More to Erasmus, in which he speaks of Holbein as a wonderful artist, affords proof that Sir Thomas had seen one or both of these two portraits, and that it was of them he was speaking when he praised the painter’s skill. The date of this letter is given as December 18, 1525, in the published works of Erasmus, but Herman Grimm showed that it was incorrect, and altered the year-date to 1524, in which Woltmann followed him. This, however, is also an error. The real date of the letter is 1526, as is proved by the literary work of Erasmus mentioned in it; and it has, therefore, nothing to do with the two portraits sent over in 1524, but was written shortly after Holbein’s arrival in London, when More had made his personal acquaintance.[381]