For many years the fine early copy of the Meyer Madonna in the Dresden Gallery[498] was regarded as Holbein’s original work, and one of the greatest treasures of the collection, and it was not until 1822, when the Darmstadt picture, purchased in that year by Prince William of Prussia from a Parisian picture-dealer, was first brought to the notice of connoisseurs, that any doubt was thrown upon the authenticity of the better-known example, which was then almost universally regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the German school. A few German critics of note, among them Dr. Kugler, admitted that the Darmstadt picture was a genuine work by Holbein, but it was many years before anyone had the temerity to refuse a like honour to the famous example in Dresden. The first to do so publicly was Wornum, in his Life of Holbein, published in 1867, and he was followed by Woltmann, A. von Zahn, and others.[499] In spite of such critics, however, both pictures were still regarded by most people as from Holbein’s own hand, and it was not until the Holbein Exhibition, held in Dresden in 1871, when the two panels were placed side by side, and a close comparison became possible, that the undoubted genuineness of the Darmstadt painting was admitted by all except the few who had a personal interest in upholding the prestige of the Dresden Gallery, and who, therefore, refused to believe that their own picture was a mere copy, however good. Throughout the autumn of 1871, a fierce battle raged between the contending parties, and Dresden was split up into two hostile camps. A manifesto was issued by thirteen of the leading critics, headed by Woltmann, Thausing, De Lutzow, and A. Bayersdorfer, affirming their belief that the Darmstadt picture was indubitably a genuine work by Holbein, with considerable and later retouches in the heads of the Virgin, the Infant Christ, and the Burgomaster, and that the Dresden Madonna was a free copy of it, in which the hand of Holbein was not to be seen in any part. The other party retaliated with a manifesto of their own, in which they claimed that the modifications of the design in the Dresden example were so free, and were such great improvements, particularly in the spacing and the proportions of the figures, that no one but Holbein could have accomplished it, and that he alone could have given so lofty an ideality and beauty of expression to the figure of the Virgin, and that the picture remained a monument which attested the culminating point of German art. The Darmstadt picture, on the other hand, they found to be so badly obscured by dirty varnish and partial repaints that it was impossible to judge seriously the question of its originality. An interesting account of the dispute was given in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_[500] by the artist Rudolf Lehmann, who was a staunch upholder of the genuineness of the better-known picture. He saw in it a greater beauty, maturity, and nobility, and held that the modifications