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
The British Museum possesses a very rare and interesting engraving,
dated 1561,[59] and inscribed “Faicte par Maistre Hans Holbeyn tres
excellent pointre. Et imprime par Johan Borg^{ni} Floret^o en Anuers lan
M·D·LXI.” It is evidently taken from Holbein’s original design, which
must have been in Antwerp at that date. Larger copies of both paintings
are also in the British Museum; they are by Jan de Bisschop, a Dutch
artist who died in 1686, and were probably made from the original large
compositions when they were in Amsterdam. They are pen drawings washed
with bistre, and are executed with great detail (#Pl. 7#).[60] The
“Riches” shows several minor differences and some additions when
compared with the Louvre drawing. Two new characters are introduced,
_Phileas_ and _Leo Pisanus_, their heads appearing before and behind the
charioteer, as well as _Heliogabalus_ and some unnamed persons; there is
a parrot on the tree in the background (as in the Vorsterman drawing),
while the tree itself is much larger and more finished. All goes to
prove, in short, that the Louvre drawing and the copy of it in the
British Museum represent Holbein’s study for the painting, while the
Bisschop drawings were made from the paintings themselves, and the
Vorsterman drawings either from the finished works or from Zuccaro’s
copies of them, and represent the final designs.[61] The British Museum
possesses a third copy of the “Triumph of Poverty,” made by Matthäus
Merian the Younger in 1640, when the picture was still in London.[62]
Footnote 59:
Reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 175.
Footnote 60:
Both reproduced by Ganz, _Holbein_, pp. 176-7.
Footnote 61:
See the British Museum Catalogue, i. p. 343.
Footnote 62:
A small version of the “Riches” until recently belonged to Mr. Edwin
Seward, F.R.I.B.A., of Cardiff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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