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 first known reference to the portrait of Morette occurs in the
correspondence of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, the great
collector of Holbein’s work, who employed friends and agents on the
Continent to hunt up and buy everything from his brush that they could
discover. He got together a remarkably fine series of pictures and
drawings by Holbein, which, on his death at Padua, 1646, came into the
possession of his widow, then residing in Holland. Upon her decease in
1654, at Amsterdam, her youngest son, Lord Stafford, who was living with
her, propounded a nuncupative will in his own favour, and began as
quickly as he could to sell the pictures, which it had been the
intention of the Earl should become heirlooms, but the deed had never
been executed. The sale, however, was stopped by other representatives
of the Arundel family, and a lawsuit resulted. Among the documents in
connection with these proceedings was one of very great interest, an
inventory of the pictures and objects of art in the possession of the
Countess at the time of her death. The original list, which was in
Italian, and probably drawn up for the Earl in Padua, has disappeared,
but a copy of it has been recently discovered by Miss Mary L. Cox in the
Record Office. This valuable document was evidently copied from the
original by some clerk in Amsterdam ignorant of the Italian language,
for it is full of mistakes. The complete inventory was published by Miss
Cox, with an introduction by Mr. Lionel Cust, in the _Burlington
Magazine_.[134] From it we learn that Lord Arundel possessed no less
than forty-one works by or attributed to Holbein, in addition to the
drawings, which are not included in the inventory. Among the portraits,
some of which have been already noted, were those of the Duchess of
Milan, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Edward VI, the Duke of Norfolk and
his son the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, Cromwell, Erasmus, the Earl
of Southampton, Thomas and John Godsalve, Sir Edward Gage, Sir Henry and
Lady Guldeford, Archbishop Warham, Dr. John Chamber, Derich Born, and
Sir Thomas More and his family, as well as several unnamed portraits, to
all of which reference will be found in these pages. Very possibly some
few of these pictures, such as the full-length of the Earl of Surrey,
were not by Holbein, though given to him in the list. Lord Arundel also
possessed several works which so far have not been traced, though the
titles may help towards their future rediscovery. Among them is a
portrait said to be of Holbein’s wife, which is most probably the
picture at the Hague;[135] one of a lady “con gli mani giunti e un agato
atacato al beretino”; another of a lady, aged 40, with the inscription,
“In all things, Lord, thy wilbe fulfilled”; the portrait of a
musician;[136] one of an armed man, which may possibly be the portrait
of Sir Nicholas Carew; the portrait of the goldsmith Hans of Zürich; the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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