Holbein, however, does not appear to have come into contact with them during his first visit to England; no portrait, at least, of a Steelyard merchant of that date has survived, though he painted Niklaus Kratzer, who must have known many of them intimately. Possibly his introduction to them in 1532 was due to his friendship with the German astronomer. In any case, between 1532 and 1536, he painted a considerable number of them, chiefly small half-length portraits, in which the sitter is shown in his own room or office, dressed in sober black, with the accessories of his work scattered round him, and with letters in front of him containing his name and his address at the Steelyard. These portraits were most probably painted for presentation by the sitters to the League of which they were leading members, to be hung on the walls of the Council Chamber of their Guildhall, rather than for the purpose of sending them to family relations abroad. This would account for the presence of several of them in England to-day, for when the Guild was finally broken up in 1598 and much of its property scattered far and wide, some of the portraits remained in this country while others found their way abroad. [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 1 GEORG GISZE KAISER FRIEDRICH MUSEUM, BERLIN ] [Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF GEORG GISZE] The portrait of Georg Gisze, now in the Berlin Museum (No. 586) (Pl. 1),[5] was one of the first, if not the first, of these likenesses of Steelyard merchants to be painted by Holbein. This portrait is not only the most elaborate work of the whole series, but the sitter was also one of the most important members of the League then in London. His name is spelt in more than one way on the picture itself, and other versions of it are to be found in the English State Papers. In the letter from his brother, which he holds in his hand, he is addressed, according to the Berlin Catalogue, as Jerg Gisze. The full address is “Dem erszamen Jergen Gisze to lunden in engelant mynen broder to handen.” Below the motto on the wall, beneath the shelf on the left—“Nulla sine merore voluptas”—in the sitter’s own handwriting, is the signature G. Gisze or Gyze. It has been read both ways, for the second letter may be taken either as an _i_ followed by a long _s_, or, as two connected strokes representing the letter _y_. On other letters from foreign correspondents, tucked behind the wall-rails on the right, his name is also spelt Gisse and Ghisse, while in the distich inscribed on a cartellino fastened to the wall over his head it appears in its Latinised form of Gysen. This distich, which also contains the date and the sitter’s age, runs as follows:— Footnote 5: Woltmann, 115. Reproduced by Davies, p. 140; Knackfuss, fig. 117; Berlin Catg., p. 176; Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 95; and in colour by the Medici Society.