skill displayed in it is already of a high order, though the draughtsmanship is still a little laboured, and lacking in that ease and certainty to which he afterwards attained, while the flesh tints are paler and flatter than in his later work. It shows, nevertheless, a distinct advance when compared with the Meyer portraits of the preceding year. The draughtsmanship is firmer, the colour tones softer, and the general effect produced is one of greater naturalness, though still far behind the “Bonifacius Amerbach,” painted two years later, in subtlety of line and harmony of colour. When the picture was purchased in 1906 the name of the sitter was unknown, and beyond the fact that at the beginning of the last century it was in the possession of the Burckhardt family, its history has not been traced; but by means of the coat of arms on the ring it was identified three years later as Benedikt von Hertenstein.[168] In 1826 Ulrich Hegner saw in Lucerne a portrait of his father, Jakob von Hertenstein, of the same date, 1517, still in the possession of one of his descendants, which he considered to be an original work by Holbein, which would indicate that the artist, in addition to including portraits of various members of the family in the wall-paintings in the interior of the house, was also commissioned to paint individual portraits of more than one of them. The portrait seen by Hegner has now disappeared, but others of Hertenstein still remain in the Town Hall and the Library of Lucerne. These, however, are not contemporary likenesses, but later copies, possibly after an original by Holbein now lost. [Sidenote: THE VISIT TO LOMBARDY]