is by no means impossible that he also went to Freiburg to see Erasmus, and that while there, some time during 1530, Holbein painted the roundels of both friends. A second version of this portrait was in the possession of Horace Walpole, in which the inscription runs round the outer edge. It fetched fifteen guineas at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842, and is now in the collection of Sir William van Horne in Montreal. With these portraits of Erasmus and some of his most intimate friends may be placed Holbein’s own portrait of himself (_Frontispiece_), the very exquisite drawing in the Basel Gallery (No. 320),[429] in which he is represented almost full face, wearing a large red hat, a brown-grey cloak or overcoat with bands of black velvet, and a white shirt tied with strings at the neck. He is beardless, with short dark-brown hair, and brown eyes. The study is on paper, and is drawn in Indian ink and coloured chalks, and washed with water-colour which has faded in parts. This drawing, like the portrait of Holbein’s wife and children, and the one of Von Rüdiswiler of Lucerne by Ambrosius Holbein, has been at some time cut out round the outlines, and afterwards mounted on a greyish paper, which produces the slight effect of hardness which must certainly have been missing in its untouched state.[430] In 1907 the plain blue background was carefully renewed from an old example. Some writers have held that it is not absolutely certain that this drawing really represents the painter. In the Amerbach inventory of 1586 it is described as, “Item ein tafelen gehort darin ein conterfehung Holbeins mit trocken farben (a counterfeit of Holbein in dry colours, _i.e._ crayons), so im grossen kasten vnder Holbeins kunst ligt”; and in the later inventories it is described in much the same way. Knackfuss, among others, says that from these words it is not positively to be concluded that the “counterfeit” was of Holbein himself. There can be little doubt, however, that Amerbach intended to describe it as a portrait of Holbein by himself; if it had been a drawing of some unknown sitter he would have so described it. As far back as 1676 it was published by Patin in his edition of the _Praise of Folly_ as Holbein’s portrait from his own hand. It bears, too, a strong likeness to the portraits of Holbein as a boy by the elder Hans, both in the “St. Paul” picture and in the drawing of 1511 of the two brothers at Berlin. There is the same massive head, with its fine forehead, breadth of cheek-bones, strong chin, and firm mouth. It has great resemblance, too, when due allowance has been made for the passing of twenty years or so, to the miniature portraits of himself which he painted at the end of his life. It may be accepted, indeed, without reservation as a genuine portrait of Holbein, of about the date 1523-5, when he was some twenty-six years old.[431] As a portrait it is a magnificent study. The face is a strong one, of a somewhat serious cast, but with a suggestion