There is only one other record to show that he received any further employment from the civic authorities after the completion of the Town Hall paintings. On October 7, 1531, he was paid “17 pfund 10 schilling,” or fourteen gulden, for repainting the two clocks on the Rhine Gate (“von beden Uren am Rinthor zemalen”).[[798]] This commission was for renovating the two faces of the old clock, which was decorated with the grotesque figure of the “Lallenkönig,” with distorted countenance stretching out his tongue towards Little Basel. This undertaking seems very paltry after the big decorative works upon which he had been occupied twelve months earlier, but was apparently all that the authorities had to give. It is an exaggeration, however, to speak of it, as some writers do, as contemptible work for an artist of his standing. Mrs. Fortescue says of it: “As soon as Holbein got his pay for this disgraceful commission—a pay he was now much too hard pressed to refuse—he quietly slipped away from Basel without taking the Council into his confidence.”[[799]] To Holbein, who by no means regarded himself as a portrait-painter only, but to whom all decorative work, however large or however small, was equally an occasion for giving of the best that was in him, the ornamentation of a clock face would in no ways appear to be work in any way disgraceful or beneath him; nor is there the slightest evidence to show that he ran away from Basel like a thief in the night. Throughout his life, indeed, his methods were orderly, and such as became a citizen and guildsman of his adopted town. He must, nevertheless, have suffered many anxieties, for times were unpropitious in Basel, and offered few opportunities for the remunerative practice of the fine arts.
Both in 1529 and 1530 great scarcity prevailed. The religious excitement, too, grew in strength, and the Protestant persecutions became as severe as the papal ones which had preceded them. Holbein himself fell under suspicion. On June 18, 1530, just when he was beginning to work on the Town Hall frescoes, he was called upon, together with a number of other citizens, to justify himself for not having taken part in the Communion instituted in the Basel churches after the abolition of the Catholic ritual in 1529. He gave as an answer that he demanded, before approaching the Lord’s Table, that the signification of the holy mystery should be better explained to him. It appears that the information given to him was sufficient to satisfy his conscience, as he did not persist in his refusal. His friend, Bonifacius Amerbach, was more obdurate, and so had the ban passed upon him.
In 1531 open war broke out between the different cantons, through stress of religious differences. This was possibly the last straw in Holbein’s case. Work growing daily more difficult to obtain, his thoughts would naturally turn to the happier fields for his genius which England afforded, and he determined to return there. The exact date of his departure is unknown, but it must have been towards the end of 1531 or in the early spring of 1532; perhaps the latter date is the more probable of the two, as the journey, in the way in which he would be forced to make it, would be an unpleasant, if not a difficult, one in winter.[[800]]
POSTSCRIPT TO CHAPTER XIV
A Newly Discovered Portrait of an Unknown English Lady
THE discovery of a new portrait by Holbein must always be a matter of the highest interest to students of the master’s art, and when the panel so discovered is one in practically faultless condition and of exceptional attraction, its importance as an addition to the list of the painter’s works cannot be easily exaggerated. It is pleasant, therefore, to have to record the fact that such a portrait was brought to light for the first time during the present year (1913). The portrait in question formed part of a collection of pictures and engravings removed from Rotherwas House, near Hereford, the seat of the Bodenham family, early in the year, the greater number of which were sold by auction in London last February. The Holbein picture, however, was first heard of at a sale at Messrs. Puttick and Simpson’s rooms in Leicester Square on April 8th. It was in a very dirty state, and its beauty was almost entirely obscured by a thick coat of dark varnish, with which it had been covered some two centuries or more ago. It had also two slight abrasions above and below the right eye. Across the left sleeve was painted in white, in late eighteenth-century lettering, the inscription “Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland.” This attribution, however, was changed by the compilers of the sale catalogue to “Mary, Queen of Scots,” and it was described as by an unknown artist of the early English School. The bidding for this picture started at £10, and it was finally acquired for 340 guineas by Mr. Ayerst H. Buttery.
Upon careful cleaning the false inscription at once came away, and after the removal of the varnish the picture was found to be, as already stated, in a practically faultless condition—except for the two small abrasions—and in the original state in which it was left by the artist, thanks, no doubt, to the varnishing process it had undergone. It is unsigned, and has no inscription giving the name and age of the sitter, but in spite of this it is difficult to doubt its authorship. Holbein was the only painter then in England who possessed so fine a technique. It has been carefully examined by several leading authorities on the painter, among them Dr. Friedländer, of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and all are agreed that it is a splendid example of Holbein. A detailed description of it, with several suggestions toward the solution of the identity of the sitter, was first published by Mr. Maurice W. Brockwell, in the Morning Post of June 28, 1913.
Vol. I., Plate 95.
