Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 2 (of 2)Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
History
Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 2 (of 2)
Chamberlain, Arthur B. (Arthur Bensley)
Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543 -- Criticism and interpretation; Painters -- Germany -- Biography
Norfolk in England.” There is every reason to suppose that among the
latter the Holbein book was included.
Footnote 566:
See p. 219. This manuscript is Norgate’s final version of the
“discours,” written some twenty years or so later than the British
Museum manuscript, which was his first compilation.
Footnote 567:
Quoted by Dallaway, in his notes to Walpole’s _Anecdotes_, vol. i. p.
84; and by Wornum, p. 398.
Footnote 568:
See Cust, _Burlington Magazine_, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 269.
[Sidenote: LATER HISTORY OF THE DRAWINGS]
It should be noted that, according to Charles I’s catalogue, the number
of drawings was only fifty-four. Van der Doort may have made a mistake
in the entry, putting a 5 instead of an 8, otherwise it must be supposed
that Lord Arundel already possessed some thirty of these “heads,” which
he added to the book after Lord Pembroke had given it to him. The
collection as it now exists does not contain the whole of the
portrait-drawings of Holbein’s English period. The fine head of Lord
Abergavenny at Wilton appears to have been kept back, or to have been
accidentally retained, by Lord Pembroke when he parted with the
remainder of the collection, and there are several others in continental
museums and elsewhere, some of which are known to have once formed part
of the Arundel Collection. At Basel there are Sir Nicholas Carew, an
unknown English lady, and a second English lady and her husband; at
Dresden the Count Moretta; at Munich the head of Henry VIII; at Berlin a
fine head of an unknown Englishman; in the Salting Collection the
magnificent study of a lady already described;[569] and the two heads in
the Duke of Devonshire’s Collection at Chatsworth.[570] If, therefore,
Van der Doort is correct in stating that there were only fifty-four
drawings in the book when it was in his keeping, the one person in
England most likely to have added so considerably to their number was
the Earl of Arundel, who was unceasing in his search for original works
from Holbein’s hand. There is no record to show at what time the book
returned to the royal collections, though the tradition noted by
Dallaway, in his edition of Walpole’s _Anecdotes_, that they were
purchased for James II at the sale of the possessions of Henry, Duke of
Norfolk, in 1686, is no doubt the correct one.[571] A list of the
drawings was included in James II’s catalogue, which was published by
Bathoe in 1758. After this the drawings themselves were laid aside and
forgotten, and it was not until early in the reign of George II that
they were rediscovered by Queen Caroline hidden away in a folio in an
old bureau in Kensington Palace, together with a volume of equal
importance containing the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, which now form
so valuable a part of the royal collection at Windsor. Queen Caroline
had them framed and glazed, and for many years they decorated her own
apartments, first at Richmond, and afterwards in Kensington Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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