The first pair represent the Virgin standing with the Infant Jesus in her arms,[[302]] in the left division, and some prince of the Church in the robes of a bishop in the right.[[303]] This last figure has been described as that of St. Pantalus, the patron saint of Basel, but there is little resemblance in expression to the fine head of that bishop in Holbein’s design for the organ shutters in the minster. Here the face is full of arrogance, rather than piety, and the prelate bears himself proudly as though conscious of his exalted position. His mitre and ecclesiastical robes are richly embroidered and ornamented. A marked peculiarity in the drawing of all the figures in this series is their appearance of stumpiness, the legs being too short for the bodies. A similar defect is to be noted in some of Holbein’s earlier designs for book ornaments. In the case of these glass designs it may have been that they were to be enlarged afterwards by the glass-painter, and placed at some height from the floor, and that Holbein, therefore, attempted foreshortening. This, however, is not very probable, as all his designs for this purpose seem to have been intended for small paintings, to be placed near the eye, and it is much more likely that this characteristic of his figures was a fault, also to be noticed in his earlier woodcut designs, of which he afterwards broke himself. The two in question are placed in an architectural setting of a somewhat fantastic design, with large open arches through which an extensive mountainous landscape is seen. Below the hills, on the right of the bishop, are the houses of a village and a stone crucifix by the wayside, and on the left a torrent rushing down a mountain gorge crowned with trees, and forming a large waterfall under a bridge of one wide arch where the stream joins the plain. The same landscape is continued in the background of the panel of the Virgin and Child, the river wandering away through another gorge among the hills on the left. This view is strongly reminiscent of the St. Gotthard district and the Devil’s Bridge over the Reuss, and affords some slight additional proof of Holbein’s expedition across the Alps.[[304]]
A second pair represent St. Anna with the Virgin and Child, and St. Barbara.[[305]] Here again the unusual shortness of the figures is very apparent. St. Barbara, who is dressed in the rich costume of a Basel lady of the sixteenth century, stands in the characteristic attitude, with the upper part of her body bent backwards, and the heavy dress held up in front by the hand, as is the case in each one of the series of studies of ladies’ costumes by Holbein to be described later, which thus appears to have been the customary habit of walking at that time. The setting is less fantastic and elaborate than in the two panels just described, and consists in each of an open arch supported by pillars, with sculptured figures above the capitals. Although the details of the ornamentation of the columns do not exactly agree in the two designs, they are evidently a pair. On the left-hand panel, as in the one on the same side in the preceding set, there is an empty shield for a coat of arms, and the background is also a mountainous landscape, though drawn in less detail. In the design of St. Catherine,[[306]] which forms one of a pair with St. John the Baptist, the background is almost entirely filled with a building with pointed arches supported by short pillars, but on the left a narrow strip of landscape is visible, with an archway or bridge across a road with a building on the far side of it, and distant mountains behind. The face of the saint is a very charming one, and her hair falls in elaborate ringlets down her back, and is surmounted with a jewelled crown. In the pair representing St. Andrew and St. Stephen, Dr. Ganz recognises, in the arcading with flat pilasters and shallow scallop-crowned niches in front of which the saints are standing, an architectural motive taken from the cathedral of Como.[[307]] There is no need to describe every figure in this series in detail, each one of which wears a halo, a symbol of which Holbein afterwards made very little use.
THE “PRODIGAL SON” WINDOW
Two other designs for painted glass in the Basel Gallery are of about the same date as these eight sheets with figures of saints, and were done in the earlier years of his second Basel period, either in 1519 or 1520. One represents the “Prodigal Son,” and the other is an heraldic device with two unicorns supporting a shield. The former is a very effective design, in which the Prodigal Son is shown tending a herd of swine (Pl. [42] (2)).[[308]] He strides along, barefooted, in ragged clothes, through which his bare knees protrude, his long staff on his shoulder, and his short sword grasped in his left hand. His head is turned towards the spectator, and there is a look of misery and despair on his face. The animals he is driving have come to a halt round the trunk of a large oak tree which fills the greater part of the left-hand side of the sheet, and is one of the most considerable pieces of tree-drawing Holbein ever designed. Some of the pigs are devouring the fallen acorns; others raise their snouts as though expecting the food to drop from the branches into their mouths. Their keeper, whose miserable thoughts are far away from his task, unconsciously thrusts the end of his staff into the eye of one of the herd. The background is a landscape of wide expanse, with a large walled-in building with farm outhouses on the bank of a river in the middle distance, and a range of mountains on the horizon. The whole is surrounded by a simple framework consisting of a single arch supported by pillars, with two nude sculptured figures in the angle above the capitals. The rather weak and wavering line of the flattened arch, and the similar hesitating double spiral which runs round the pillars, together with the very simple ornamentation of arch, capitals and bases, indicate that the design is quite an early one, though the drawing of the figure and the accompanying animals is excellent and full of character. An empty shield for a coat of arms is placed in the right-hand corner against the column, and a flat space is left below for an inscription.
Vol. I., Plate 42.
TWO LANDSKNECHTE
Design for painted glass
Basel Gallery
THE PRODIGAL SON
Design for painted glass
Basel Gallery
The sheet with the two unicorns[[309]] is much more elaborate in its architectural treatment, and is a design of great decorative effect. The two beasts stand on their hind-legs, and support with their forelegs an empty shield of Italian fashion. The animals themselves are realistically drawn, and are not treated merely as conventional heraldic beasts, the sense of reality being increased by the head of the one on the left, which is turned round over its back, so that the horns of both point in the same direction, but at different angles. They are placed beneath a very richly-decorated edifice which Holbein appears to have taken from one of the monumental tombs to be seen in many of the cities of Northern Italy. The principal feature is a barrel-shaped wooden roof, supported by a flattened arch and double pillars at the sides and in the centre. At either side of this roof-like structure rise short chimneys of Italian design, and above it is a deep frieze with Renaissance carvings supported by three short pillars. As Dr. Ganz points out,[[310]] the design has features in common with the fine tomb of Andrea Fusina, now in the Archæological Museum in Milan, while the three sculptured antique heads which crown the lower columns have their counterpart both in the Certosa of Pavia and the church of S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The whole design, in fact, so closely resembles in its elaborate architecture these Renaissance monuments, that it is impossible to believe that it was the result of Holbein’s imagination alone, but rather was due to personal knowledge and actual study. In the landscape background is seen a country château with a projecting tourelle.