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Updated: May 13, 2025
Look again at Gaudenzio Ferrari, or the "Danse des Paysans," by Holbein, to which I ventured to call attention in the Universal Review.
You must have noticed her White Lady her name is and she belongs to Mr. Samuel Holbein, the South African millionaire. You've heard of him, of course. His wife and daughter are on board, and they've begged me to bring as many girls to the dance as I can, for there'll be a lot of men. You know there are heaps more young men about here than there are girls so unusual except at Monte Carlo."
His pictures appeal more to the eye and less to the mind than do those of Durer. Where Durer sought to instruct, Holbein was content to please. But like a German he spared no pains. He painted the stuff and the necklace, the globe and the feather, with the finish of an artist who was before all things a good workman. Observe how delicately the chubby little fingers are drawn.
Holbein painted a prelate of a very different sort in the oil portrait of John Stokesley, Bishop of London, which is preserved at Windsor Castle. And yet he dared to paint the Truth now as always. The painting is a masterpiece of modelling and soft transparency of light and shade.
Then the Van Eycks, Hubert and Jan, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Quentin Massys, Lucas van Leyden, the two Hans Holbein, elder and younger, Burgkmair, Wolgemut, and then, master of them all, Albrecht Dürer.
Great statesmen, and even ecclesiastics, did not consider it beneath their dignity to recruit and solace themselves after important business with the conversation of their fools; the celebrated Sir Thomas More had his fool painted along with himself by Holbein.
But he wisely preferred to quit his apartments under the King's roof, without, however, breaking the bond of mutual attachment. Five years after this picture was painted he died; in May, 1532. Holbein also painted Lady Guildford's portrait; an oil painting in Mr. Frewer's collection.
The pictures represent a skeleton clutching at his victims, who are of all ages and occupations, from the lovely young bride at the altar to the hard-working pedlar in the cut we give here, and all of them are hurried away by this frightful figure which stands for Death itself. Holbein made many wood engravings, but none so important as these.
Since eleven o'clock the death rattle has been in his throat, and he can see nothing. He will not last out the night. If you wish it, Monsieur, I will call M. Surville, who has not yet gone to bed. "The woman left me. I waited several minutes. The candle hardly lighted up the splendid furniture of the salon, and the magnificent paintings by Porbus and Holbein which were hanging on the walls.
A great artist invents a type, and Life tries to copy it, to reproduce it in a popular form, like an enterprising publisher. Neither Holbein nor Vandyck found in England what they have given us. They brought their types with them, and Life with her keen imitative faculty set herself to supply the master with models.
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