The earliest work of Hans which is both signed and dated is the small panel in the Karlsruhe Gallery (No. 64), representing “Christ Bearing the Cross,” a composition crowded with small figures.[97] In the centre Christ has fallen to his knees under the weight of the Cross, and is urged forward by the brutal soldiery, clad in the costume of the mercenary landsknechte of Holbein’s day. On the right stands St. Veronica holding the handkerchief, and behind her the mounted Centurion, with a small dog running by his horse’s feet, both animals very inadequately rendered. On the left is a group consisting of the weeping Virgin, St. John, Simon the Cyrenean, who is helping to raise the Cross, and Joseph of Arimathea. Behind the chief characters is a crowd of armed men and spectators issuing from the gate of a town, and in the background a hilly landscape with distant buildings. It is signed “H.H. 1515,” and was at one time attributed to the elder Holbein, and is still considered to be from his hand by some writers. It is so described in the first volume of the second edition of Woltmann’s book, but in the second volume he reverses his opinion, and modern criticism is mainly in agreement with this. Though in many ways a crude performance, it appears to be an undoubted work of the younger painter, conceived under the influence of his father. The figure of the stumbling Christ, the action of Simon, and of the soldiers striking at Christ are all reminiscent both of the “Cross-bearing” panel in the “Passion” series by the elder Holbein in the gallery of Prince Carl von Fürstenberg at Donaueschingen, (Nos. 43-54),[98] and of the similar subject in the Vetter votive picture of the year 1499 in the Augsburg Gallery (No. 61). Upon the back of the Karlsruhe picture are the badly-damaged remains of a second “Passion” subject, the “Crowning with Thorns,” also by the younger Hans, first published by Dr. Paul Ganz in his recent book, which also has much in common with the same two works by the elder Holbein.[99] The work, again, is closely akin to the five scenes from “Christ’s Passion” in the Basel Gallery (Nos. 303-307), which are certainly among the very earliest productions of the younger Hans. Two of these, “The Last Supper” and “The Scourging of Christ,” belonged to Bonifacius Amerbach, and are the best of the set, the remaining three having been acquired in 1836 at a sale in Basel. They are painted on canvas, instead of on panel, an unusual method for pictures of any value in those days, and for this reason it is supposed that they were ordered for some special purpose, such as the decoration of a church during Holy Week, after which they would be rolled up and put away until wanted again in the following year. The hasty execution which they betray possibly arises from the same cause. They may have been wanted in a hurry, and the pay for them was perhaps too small to allow of careful, elaborate work,