In composition the Solothurn Madonna bears close resemblance to a large woodcut, designed by Holbein, on the back of the title-page of the Statute Book or Town Laws of Freiburg-im-Breisgau.[[248]] This book, The Municipal Laws and Statutes of the Praiseworthy Town of Freiburg, by Ulrich Zasius, was published in Basel by Adam Petri in 1520. The Virgin is seated enthroned in front of a niche of Renaissance design. In her attitude, and the way in which she holds the Child on her knees, as well as in her dress and her long hair falling on her shoulders, there is considerable likeness to the altar-piece, as also in the two figures of the patron saints of Freiburg who stand on either side of her, St. George, with one hand resting on his shield and a flag held aloft in the other, and clad, like St. Ursus, in complete armour, and Bishop Lambert, in rich ecclesiastical dress, and holding the crozier, as St. Nicholas does in the Solothurn picture. The similarity between the two designs is particularly close in the position and movement of the arms and hands of the Infant Christ. The woodcut, which is signed “H. H.” on the edge of the step on the left, and dated 1519, is richly and grandly designed, the figures of the two saints having been conceived with great nobility, and it is possible that Holbein was so satisfied with its composition that he made use of it two years later when Gerster came to him for an altar-piece.[[249]]
Only one other picture bears Holbein’s signature and the date 1522. This is the full-length representation of “St. Ursula,”[[250]] which with its companion, “St. George,” is in the Karlsruhe Gallery. They evidently formed the wings of an altar-piece, the central panel of which is missing. St. Ursula, who carries a number of long arrows in her arms, symbols of her martyrdom, is clad in the fashion of the rich citizen’s wife of Holbein’s day, as seen in the set of his costume studies in the Basel Gallery, and wears a golden crown and a nimbus with a band of Renaissance ornamentation. Behind her, the branches of a fig-tree stand out against the blue sky, and low down on the horizon is a landscape with a tower. Her necklace, with an openwork medallion containing the cross of St. Anthony, closely resembles the one in the Louvre sketch of Holbein’s wife as a young woman. In the companion panel, St. George,[[251]] with his flag grasped in his left hand, stands over the prostrate dragon, which he has transfixed with his spear. Here again the background consists chiefly of blue sky with a distant hilly landscape. The types of the two heads are not unlike the “Adam and Eve” study of 1517, while the St. Ursula also recalls the Solothurn Madonna, though the face is less idealised. It is possible that his wife also sat for this picture. The costume of St. George, who is crowned with a nimbus containing his name, is very similar to that of the Archangel Michael in the beautiful study in the Basel Gallery already described.[[252]] The “St. Ursula” is signed and dated “Hans Holbein MDXXII.”
ORGAN-CASE DOORS IN BASEL MINSTER
These two panels have been renovated and retouched, and, in consequence, much of Holbein’s original brushwork has vanished. For this reason they have been regarded by some writers as merely works of the Holbein school. They are accepted as genuine, however, by such modern critics as Dr. Ganz and Herr Knackfuss, while Woltmann,[[253]] who speaks of the face and bust of St. Ursula as delicately finished in Holbein’s happiest manner, though the lower part of her figure and that of St. George are so inferior as to suggest a less skilful hand, conjectured that they were probably designed, and in part painted, by the master himself, and executed under his direction, but without very careful supervision. It has also been suggested that they were the result of a poorly-paid commission for some village church, and that Holbein, in consequence, did not take much trouble over them; but such a supposition has little probability, for Holbein was never satisfied with inferior work, but always gave of his best, both in great things and small. Mr. Gerald Davies refuses to accept “these weak and slightly affected figures” as possible work of the painter who in the same year produced so great a picture as the Solothurn Madonna.[[254]] There can be little doubt however, that, though damaged, they are from the hand of the master himself.
The two large paintings in monochrome on canvas, for the decoration of the inner sides of the doors of the case which covered in the organ in the Minster of Basel when it was not in use, must not be omitted in any consideration of Holbein’s work for church decoration.[[255]] They survived the iconoclastic outbreak of 1529; possibly the mob did not regard them as religious paintings, or they may have escaped owing to their position high up on the wall of the nave, and so not easily reached. Merian mentions them in his Topographia Helvetiæ, published in 1622,[[256]] and in 1775 Emanuel Büchel made a water-colour drawing of them in their original position,[[257]] for his collection of the monuments, sculptures, and paintings in Basel Minster, from which drawing it is to be seen that they decorated the upper part of the organ. The organ-case was of wood, richly carved in the style of the early Renaissance, and Holbein’s decorations were painted in brown monochrome in order to produce the effect of similar carving, as though they formed an integral part of the case itself. The organ was restored in 1639, when the doors were repainted by Sixt Ringle, and in 1786 it was replaced by a new one, Holbein’s decorations and some of the old carved woodwork being deposited in the Public Library. The doors suffered a second “restoration” in 1842, and in the following year were removed to the Basel Picture Gallery (No. 321).[[258]] Quite recently much of the over-painting has been removed, and it is possible to obtain a good idea of the noble and decorative effect they must have produced when fresh from Holbein’s brush and in the position intended for them. In spite of this careful renovation, however, the damage done to them in earlier days was so severe that much of their original beauty has vanished. The figures are larger than life-size, and produce the effect of carved wood statues. Happily, the original study for them, a very beautiful and powerful pen-drawing washed with brown-black Indian ink, is to be found among the drawings in the Amerbach Collection (Pl. [39]).[[259]] The design is on six vertical strips of paper fastened together. The peculiar shape of the doors necessitated considerable ingenuity on the part of the artist in the arrangement of his material, and he succeeded admirably in adapting the spaces to his purpose. Each door is in three divisions, the innermost being the highest. In the left-hand shutter this inmost space contains the figure of the Emperor Henry II, founder of Basel Minster. In the shorter, outer division stands his wife, Kunigunde, and between them is a representation of the Minster itself. On the right-hand wing the Virgin and Child stand facing the Emperor, and in the outer division, St. Pantalus, the first Bishop of Basel; between them is a group of small nude singing and playing angels. The spaces above the heads of the Emperor and the Virgin, and the other spaces, triangular in shape, over the central part of each wing, are filled in with Renaissance ornamentation. The four large figures are designed with great nobility, and are very impressive in effect. The horizon lies below the level of the ground, on account of the height at which the doors were to be hung, a frequent practice of Holbein’s in his wall-paintings, and an observance of the laws of vision probably brought home to him by his study of Mantegna’s works. For this reason the figures are represented as seen from below in effective perspective foreshortening.
Vol. I., Plate 39.
DESIGN FOR THE ORGAN DOORS, BASEL CATHEDRAL
Pen and wash drawing
Basel Gallery
The Emperor, with long beard, is shown in profile, crowned, and wearing a royal mantle, a sceptre in his left hand. His Empress, also crowned, carries a large cross in her hands, and stands in the curious Basel manner of those days, with the body thrust forward, and the back bent, as in Holbein’s costume studies referred to in a later chapter.[[260]] The figure of the Virgin is nobly conceived. The Child flings his little arms round her neck, and presses his cheek against hers, while she clasps him closely to her breast with both hands. In carrying out the design, Holbein made one or two slight changes in the position of the Child. In the finished painting the right arm is not flung round the Virgin’s neck, but, instead, the hand rests in the bend of her elbow, while their cheeks no longer touch. St. Pantalus, in full ecclesiastical robes and mitre, holds his crozier in his left hand and stretches out the right, as though speaking. The group of small child-angels, three of whom blow trumpets, while four others hold a sheet of music from which they are singing, is a design of the greatest charm, the figures being excellently grouped, and drawn with the utmost freedom. They are sturdy little boys, with curly hair and small wings. One of the singers beats time with a stick, and another does so with his hand. In the finished picture this sheet of music is inscribed with the words from the “Song of Solomon”—“Quam pulchra es amica.” The corresponding division of the left wing, representing the exterior of the Minster, is just as free and masterly a study, and the Renaissance ornament which is so cleverly adapted to the remaining spaces is in the finest taste. This decorative filling is not the same on both doors, and it is possible that the artist intended the church authorities to select whichever design they preferred. The one chosen was that on the right-hand door, though the design on the left-hand one with the figure of a nude child among the foliage, is the more beautiful of the two. The whole composition was admirably suited for the purpose for which it was intended, and when the doors were thrown open, and the organ itself was played, the effect produced must have been a fine one. The dignified conception of the four great figures was in perfect keeping with the deep and solemn tones of the organ which they decorated. Neither the doors themselves, nor the design, are dated, but the beauty of the composition and the brilliant and assured technique point to a period towards the end of Holbein’s second sojourn in Basel, about 1525, shortly before his departure for England, and they are thus of about the same date as the ten designs in Indian ink made for painted glass, representing scenes from Christ’s Passion. Among the monumental works of decorative painting undertaken by him during his second residence in Basel, these designs stand among the highest. The influences which were brought to bear upon his art during his sojourn in Italy find in them their fullest and most dignified expression, happily blended with and modified by those other influences, springing from his native soil, under which he was trained in his father’s studio.