admirer, or whether the artist brought it over in the ordinary way of his business, it is now impossible to say. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. [Sidenote: PARMA PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS] The Greystoke portrait closely resembles the Parma picture, which is regarded by most critics as an original work, though to the present writer it appears to be no more than a fine contemporary copy or adaptation of Mr. Morgan’s picture or the Basel roundel. The Parma example,[410] in which Erasmus is shown with his hands holding open one of his own books, has the date 1530 on the plain background, two figures on either side of the head.[411] Documentary evidence[412] exists, showing that Holbein had painted one or more portraits of Erasmus at this period. One of them was in the possession of Goelenius, professor at Louvain, and in 1531 Johannes Dantiscus, Bishop of Kulm, and afterwards of Ermeland, was anxious to obtain a copy of it, and wrote asking to have this done for him by a painter of Malines. Goelenius, in reply, sent to his friend the original portrait as a gift. The Bishop, however, not to be outdone in generosity, returned the present, at the same time saying that the portrait was an earlier one than he had supposed, and that he wanted one of a more recent date. In answer to this Goelenius wrote that fortunately he was on terms of such close friendship with Holbein that he could get him to do anything he wished, and would procure from him a portrait of Erasmus which he had quite recently painted. Some portrait, whether an original or only a copy, was eventually sent, and it has been suggested that it was the portrait now in the Parma Gallery. When Dantiscus became Bishop of Ermeland, he would, in all probability, take the portrait with him; and this district was afterwards devastated by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War, and many of the art treasures of the province carried to Sweden. Some of these spoils of war became the property of Queen Christina, who took them with her to Italy, where she lived in later life, and among the works so taken, it is conjectured, may well have been the Erasmus portrait now at Parma. VOL. I., PLATE 58. [Illustration: 1. ERASMUS Roundel BASEL GALLERY ] [Illustration: 2. PHILIP MELANCHTHON Roundel PROVINZIAL MUSEUM, HANOVER ]