The genuineness of the Hampton Court portrait of Froben has been often disputed, and to-day the consensus of opinion is not in its favour. Both Waagen and Woltmann regarded it as a copy, and more recent writers, among them Dr. Ganz, hold the same view. Even those who consider it to be a genuine work by Holbein are forced to own that it is by no means a fine example of his portraiture. The head, however, has more character than is usually found in a copy, and, no doubt, its present condition is due to some extent to the mishandling it received from Von Steenwyck, who probably did not confine his attentions solely to the background. It is possible, therefore, to regard it as an original study by Holbein, which has suffered somewhat severely in the course of years. Mr. Ernest Law speaks of it as a genuine though not first-class example, and refers to the version at Basel as “little more than a clumsy imitation” of it.[422] The Basel Catalogue, on the other hand, says that the latter portrait, which is an old copy or else an original which has suffered severely from repainting, is “incomparably better than the seventeenth-century replica at Hampton Court.” Woltmann considered the Basel version to be merely a late Netherlandish copy,[423] while Knackfuss says that it is “very bad as regards colouring.”[424] [Sidenote: ROUNDEL OF MELANCHTHON] Another friend and correspondent of Erasmus, Philip Melanchthon, was painted by Holbein, though there is no evidence to show when or how they met. The small roundel in oils of the young German scholar in the Provinzial Museum at Hanover (Pl. 58 (2))[425] may perhaps have been done as a pendant to the circular “Erasmus” at Basel. It is almost exactly the same size, about four inches in diameter, and is carried out with an almost equal delicacy and freedom of touch, as though it were a study direct from nature. Melanchthon is shown nearly in full profile to the right, with dark smooth hair falling on his ears, and a scanty beard and moustache. His coat and plain white shirt are open in front, showing the bare chest. The background is grey, but may possibly have been at one time blue. The head itself is not free from retouching. It is preserved in its original circular box, the inner side of the cover being decorated in grey monochrome with a very beautiful design of foliage and fruit intermingled with the heads and figures of satyrs in the Renaissance style from Holbein’s own hand, and across the centre a cartouche with the following inscription in gold: “Qui cernis tantum non, viva Melanthonis ora, Holbinus rara dexteritate dedit,”[426] which is perhaps the sitter’s own personal tribute to the skill of the painter. The style of the Renaissance decoration indicates that in all probability the portrait was painted during Holbein’s third stay in Basel (1528-32).[427] Melanchthon attended the Imperial Diet at Speier in 1529,[428] and a little later visited his mother in Bretten, and it