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
A smaller portrait of Cromwell, a circular painting with a green
background, and enclosed in a painted square stone frame, showing the
head only, is described by Wornum and Woltmann.[122] It was at that time
in the possession of Captain Ridgway, of Waterloo Place, London.[123] It
is 12 in. square, and differs in some details from the Tyttenhanger
portrait. Both writers appear to regard it as a genuine work by Holbein.
A portrait of Cromwell was one of the few works mentioned by name by Van
Mander when describing De Loo’s collection of Holbein’s works:—“the old
Lord Crauwl, about a foot and a half high, taken unusually artistically
by Holbein.” Although the dimensions do not quite agree, Woltmann
suggests that Captain Ridgway’s little picture was the one thus
described. According to Mr. Lionel Cust,[124] the few portraits of
Cromwell which have any claim to authenticity are all traceable to
Holbein, and fall into two groups, or at most three, each group deriving
from an original portrait by him. In the first class are the
Tyttenhanger picture and others based directly upon it. This portrait,
he says, descends direct from Sir Thomas Pope, one of Cromwell’s
instruments in the suppression of the monasteries. The second group
includes such pictures as the one in the National Portrait Gallery (No.
1683, 16¾ in. × 13 in.),[125] purchased in 1897, of which there are
several versions in existence, though there is no portrait of this type
so far traced which can be attributed to Holbein himself. The pictures
in this group show the head and shoulders only, and differ in minor
details from the Tyttenhanger type. The look of craftiness is
accentuated, and he is shown with a slight grey whisker, and the pointed
arch of the eyebrows is more strongly marked. The third group, which is
closely allied to the second, includes the recently-discovered miniature
in the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s collection,[126] and the medal in
the British Museum, of the date 1538, which, according to Mr. Cust, is
evidently based on a drawing by Holbein.[127] There was a portrait of
Cromwell in the Arundel collection, which is entered in the inventory as
“ritratto de Cromwell.” This was evidently the one in the possession of
De Loo, which afterwards passed, with other works by Holbein, from that
dealer’s collection into that of the Earl. Hollar’s engraving,[128]
which is not signed or dated, does not appear to have been taken from
the portrait at Tyttenhanger, but was most probably based upon the
Arundel picture; but whether that picture was an original by Holbein,
now lost, or one of the numerous versions now in existence, it is
impossible to say. One of these versions is in the collection of M. Ch.
Léon Cardon, Brussels.
Footnote 122:
Woltmann, 212, and i. 376; Wornum, p. 287.
Footnote 123:
Now, according to Dr. Ganz (_Holbein_, p. 241) in that of M.
Kleinberger, Paris.
Footnote 124:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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