Inside would be kindred illusions. Large pictures would seem to be actually taking place without, and beheld through beautifully carved archways or windows; while the apparent walls would have niches filled with superb marble statues and the ceiling be supported by pillars, behind which people walked and talked or leaned out to watch the chief scenes. And so it was with the Council Chamber. But nothing now remains of these works except fragments and a few drawings for the principal features. So far as can be judged, each wall had two large scenes; the four pictures of this period being chosen from the heroic legends of the _Gesta Romanorum_; the two painted later, from the Old Testament. But while these large works were going forward Holbein was busy with many others; private commissions for Froben, occasionally for other printers, and for altar-pieces or portraits. All through his life his industry and accomplishment left him small time for leisure or the dissipations of leisure. Nor is there any year of his life when his work does not attest a clear eye and a firm hand. These things are their own certificate of conduct; at any rate, of "worldly" conduct. * * * * * In 1522 occurred two important events in his life. His first child, the son he called Philip, was born; and he painted an altar-piece which is in some respects the most beautiful of his extant works. The latter--now in the Solothurn Museum, and therefore called the "Solothurn Madonna" (Plate 12)--has had one of the most extraordinary histories to be found in the records of art. Illustration: PLATE 12 THE SOLOTHURN, OR ZETTER'SCHE, MADONNA _Oils. Solothurn Museum_ The background of this picture,--a massive arch of grey sandstone supported by iron stanchions,--was evidently designed to suit the surrounding architecture of some grey-walled ancient structure. On a dais covered with a green carpet, patterned in white and red and emblazoned with the arms of the donor and his wife, sits the lovely Madonna with the Child held freely yet firmly in two of the most exquisite hands which even Holbein ever painted. Her dress is a rich rose-red; her symbolical mantle of universal Motherhood, or "Grace," is a most beautiful ultramarine, loaded in the shadows and like a sapphire in its lights. The flowing gold of her hair shimmers under its filmy veil, and the jewels in her gold crown flash below the great white pearls that tip its points. Where the sky-background approaches Mother and Child, its azure tone is lost in a pure effulgence of light; as if the very ether were suffused with the sense of the Divine.