It is doubtful, too, whether Holbein carried out any important decorative work in the Palace beyond the famous wall-painting already described.[398] According to a curious entry in Pepys’ _Diary_, under the date August 28, 1668, which is not easy to understand, the room known as the Matted Gallery had a painted ceiling of Holbein’s handiwork. The passage runs as follows: “With much difficulty, by candle-light, walked over the matted gallery, as it is now with the mats and boards all taken up, so that we walked over the rafters. But strange to see how hard matter the plaister of Paris is, that is there taken up, as hard as stone! And pity to see Holben’s work in the ceiling blotted on, and only whited over!” The exact sense of the concluding words is not very clear, but Pepys appears to mean that the ceiling had been formerly painted by Holbein, and that, having become damaged in course of time, it had recently been given a coat of whitewash. The ceiling was probably decorated with coloured plaster-work in relief, and though Holbein may have supplied the design, and may even have been responsible for the painting, it is much more likely that the plaster-work itself was done by some Italian, such as Nicolas Beilin of Modena, who had carried out similar undertakings at Fontainebleau. Footnote 398: In 1576 Johann Fischart, quoted by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. xxxviii., in a description of the Palace, speaks of several of the galleries as decorated on both sides with fine emblematic histories, and actions and stories in the style of Michelangelo and Holbein. Henry Peacham, in his _Graphicè_ (1606), and again in _The Compleat Gentleman_ (1634), speaks of works by Holbein in Whitehall. He says: “He painted the Chappell at White-Hall, and S. _James_, _Joseph of Arimathea_, _Lazarus_ rising from the dead, &c., were his.” (See _The Compleat Gentleman_, ed. G. S. Gordon, 1906, p. 128. Also Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 82.) There is a drawing in the British Museum representing Henry VIII seated at table under a lofty canopy, in a large chamber, with a number of standing courtiers in attendance, which appears to be a sixteenth-century copy of a preliminary study by Holbein for a wall-decoration, possibly for one of the rooms in Whitehall. It is inscribed “Holbein Inven^t.” Reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 183. [Sidenote: “DANCE OF DEATH” AT WHITEHALL]