which, indeed, would not be necessary, considering the temporary purpose for which they were intended. They have also been taken as affording indications that the young painters did not immediately on their arrival set up an independent workshop of their own, but entered for a period the service of some Basel artist as journeymen painters for a weekly wage. The composition of these “Passion” pictures, it is urged, is too elaborate to be the unaided invention of the two young men, and it is therefore assumed that the designs were provided by some other painter, and that Hans and Ambrosius carried them out under his instructions. The name of Hans Herbster, whose portrait by the elder brother[100] is now in the Basel Gallery (No. 293) has been suggested in this connection. On the other hand, although it is not easy at the first glance to recognise the workmanship of Hans in these coarsely-painted pictures, it is equally difficult to point to any one among the older painters then in Basel who, judged by existing works, was capable of producing compositions of this importance; in any case, the colour-scheme was probably Holbein’s own, as well as the vigorous expression given to the heads, which, however, in some of the subjects is exaggerated to the verge of caricature. The grotesquely ugly and brutal executioners in “The Scourging” have much in common with such works of Hans Holbein the Elder as the Passion scenes at Donaueschingen, and it may very well be that these five pictures were the unaided productions of Hans and his brother, based upon the knowledge of similar paintings by their father, in the execution of which they had in all probability given him assistance, and that they did not renew their prentice days in Herbster’s or any other workshop, but started as independent painters from the first. In the “Last Supper” (No. 303) (Pl. 9),[101] the meal is laid on two tables placed at right angles, with Christ sitting at the angle, and he is represented in the act of passing the bread across the table to Judas, who, dressed in yellow, is half rising from his seat. The supper takes place in an open loggia or courtyard, the background being filled with archways and openings through which the deep blue sky is seen. In the distance on the right is a representation of the Washing of Peter’s feet. In the night scene on the Mount of Olives (No. 304),[102] the kneeling Christ lifts up his arms with a passionate movement. The angel, a much fore-shortened figure in red draperies, flies head foremost from the skies bearing the host. Christ and St. Peter, who is asleep in the left foreground, are darkly clad. The background, with its tall, gloomy trees, is illuminated by the torches and lanterns of the soldiers entering the garden, while the light of the coming dawn is just breaking along the horizon. VOL. I., PLATE 9. [Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER BASEL GALLERY ] [Sidenote: EARLY “PASSION” PICTURES IN BASEL]