the same person as she who appears in the Augsburg picture. But, whether it be the mother of the great painter or no, it is certainly a study which shows Hans Holbein the Elder to have been possessed in some degree of those very qualities in which his son afterwards stood supreme. There is something of the same sympathetic power of seeing, and the same completeness of recording what has been seen, without pedantries and without makeshifts, all that gives to any given human face its charm and its interest.... There is in it something of inspiration which neither care nor industry nor strength—and there are certainly artists stronger than he—can give. There is in this drawing the germ, and something more than the germ, of the spirit of his great son.”[24] This altar-piece, in which the figures are represented at about one-third the size of life, marks a considerable advance in Holbein’s art, both in technical qualities, the harmony of colouring, and in the drawing of the figures and natural arrangement of the draperies. When ordering the picture, Veronica Welser at the same time commissioned Hans Burgkmair to paint one of the Basilica of Santa Croce and the legend of St. Ursula. Only one payment, 187 gulden, is recorded for the two. As Burgkmair’s picture is dated 1504, it is natural to suppose that Holbein’s altar-piece was painted at about the same time. VOL. I., PLATE 1. [Illustration: THE BAPTISM OF ST. PAUL Left-hand panel of the “St. Paul” Altar-piece, with portraits of the Holbein Family HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER AUGSBURG GALLERY ] [Sidenote: THE ELDER HOLBEIN’S TROUBLES] Between the years 1504 and 1508 Holbein found frequent employment in connection with the Church of St. Moritz in Augsburg. Various payments are recorded in the church account books, but the pictures he painted cannot now be traced. Among them appear to have been two large altar-pieces, for which he frequently received small sums in advance at his own request. On the 28th October 1506, he agreed to supply four altar-panels for 100 gulden, receiving 10 gulden on account. Money was evidently scarce in the Holbein household in these years; he was even obliged to borrow 3 gulden from the churchwarden’s wife. For the second altar-piece, commissioned on the 16th March 1508, he was to receive the considerable sum of 325 gulden; but, as he was evidently still in debt, the whole of the money was not paid directly to him, but was handed over to various creditors; thus 74 gulden was paid to one Thomas Freihamer. On the same occasion Holbein’s wife received a present of 5 gulden from the church authorities, and his son, no doubt Ambrosius, one gulden.[25]