In the “Scourging” (No. 307) (Pl. 10),[105] Christ, a nude figure, is bound round the waist to a pillar in the prison, his uplifted arms being fastened to an iron ring above his head. His body is scored with wounds from the lashes of his executioners, his head falls in agony upon his shoulder, and one leg is dragged across the other in the extremity of his pain. The action of his torturers is of the utmost violence, and they jeer at him as they rain heavy blows upon his defenceless body. The scene to be depicted was a brutal and ruthless one, and to drive it home to the spectators, Holbein spared no details or efforts to make it as brutal in paint as it was in deed. The agony of Christ is well expressed, and considerable knowledge is displayed in the drawing of the body. The bright garments of the executioners form a striking though harsh contrast to the pale flesh tints of Christ and the stone wall of the cell, through the doorway of which on the right Pilate is gazing at his victim. Though by no means faultless, this picture has qualities, both of expression and of execution, which are remarkable when the age of the painter is remembered, qualities which already give indications, however faint, of the coming greatness of the master. This picture, and the one of the “Last Supper,” are noted in the Amerbach inventory as among Holbein’s first works. Taken as a whole, the series displays numerous reminiscences of the art of the father, sufficiently so, indeed, to make needless the supposition that in the painting of them the artist was assisted by some older practitioner of Basel. They possess considerable dramatic power, and the draughtsmanship, though in parts faulty, is often excellent, the signs of hasty manipulation, which are very apparent, being due, no doubt, to the fact that the pictures were intended to serve merely as processional standards or temporary “stations of the Cross”; but the colour throughout is for the most part crude and harsh. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much of them was the work of Hans and how much that of his brother Ambrosius. The three which do not form part of the Amerbach collection were regarded at the time of their acquisition by the Basel Gallery as the handiwork of Holbein the Elder, but this ascription has been long since abandoned. Mr. Davies is of opinion that the “Pilate Washing his Hands” is entirely the work of the younger Hans, and that “The Scourging” is almost wholly by him, while he gives “The Agony in the Garden” and “The Arrest” to Ambrosius alone.[106] One is on safer ground, however, in confining oneself to the assertion that the pictures were produced in the common workshop of the two youths, and that both of them may have had something to do with the painting of all five canvases, but that the predominant hand was that of the younger brother. VOL. I., PLATE 10. [Illustration: THE SCOURGING OF CHRIST BASEL GALLERY ]