FIGURES OF LANDSKNECHTE
Among these designs for painted glass there is a considerable group in which the mercenary soldier or landsknecht of Holbein’s day forms the chief subject. These warriors are introduced as heraldic supporters of shields, and were intended, no doubt, for the use of burghers and nobles who had seen military service, while others were designed for the city authorities. The fact that in most cases the shields are left blank shows that Holbein produced them as stock patterns for the glass-painters, which could be adapted to the use of any customer who desired a military subject for his window. In these designs Holbein has made effective use of the picturesque and sumptuous dress and richly-decorated weapons these bold and reckless fighting-men affected. One of the earliest of them in point of date is in the Historical Museum of Berne.[[311]] It is, unfortunately, only the lower half of a design, of which the remaining portion is now lost. Only the legs, the lower part of the body, and the left hand, with which the landsknecht grasps his sword, are seen, together with part of the shaft of his lance. His right foot is hidden by a large shield containing the coat of arms of the city of Basel. The bases of the columns on either side very closely resemble those in the glass design of the “Prodigal Son,” which places the date at about 1520. The soldier is represented as standing on a platform above the river Rhine, and down below, seen between and on either side of his outstretched legs, is a distant landscape, drawn in a free and masterly manner, of exceptional interest on account of its elaborate detail. Across the rapidly-flowing river stretches a wide tressel bridge supported on wooden piers, which leads to an arched gateway in a high tower. Along the river bank, on either side of the bridge, are a number of houses, and behind them a town within steep fortified walls, with many buildings huddled together, and a church tower rising above the surrounding roofs. In the distance ranges of snow mountains close in the view. Trees and a high rock on the near side of the water fill the background on the left-hand side of the design. The view Holbein has thus shown is by no means an exact representation of Basel as seen from across the water, but is rather the simplified type of a Rhine town of his day. It is not improbable that the artist, in addition to the wall-paintings in the new Town Hall, also supplied designs for the windows in some of the rooms, in which case this fragment of a drawing, which contains the city coat of arms, may very possibly have formed a part of such decoration.[[312]]
The other sheets with landsknechte were produced some few years after the Berne study, though, according to an old copy of one of them, not later than 1524. In most of them the motive consists of two warriors supporting an empty shield between them. It was first used by Holbein in 1517 in a glass painting for Hans Fleckenstein of Lucerne,[[313]] and was followed a year or two afterwards by the beautiful design in the Basel Gallery and the still later and equally beautiful study in the Berlin Print Room. The date of the last-named drawing can be fixed with some certainty from an old copy which is inscribed 1523. The example at Basel (Pl. [42] (1))[[314]] must have been done shortly after the completion of the wall-paintings of the Hertenstein house. In the decorative details of the architectural setting it bears a close resemblance to the glass design of the Madonna with the view of Lucerne in the background, of the year 1519, while the warrior on the right is seen again in an early glass design in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.[[315]] The double columns carrying the arch in the Basel drawing are richly ornamented, and at the base are supported by a number of small nude sculptured figures. Festoons of laurel leaves and ribbons hang down from the arch—a feature to be found in many of these designs—and in the angles over the capitals are round medallions with antique heads, which was also a favourite decorative motive with Holbein, and, as already noted, is rarely missing from any of his Renaissance frameworks. The two landsknechte wear breastplates over their gay attire, and large slouched hats with many feathers. The one on the left, a bearded man, carries sword and dagger, and holds a battle-axe on his shoulder; the one on the right, clean shaven, leans upon the shaft of his lance. The two figures are splendidly conceived and drawn with the greatest force and truth; and the whole design affords proof of how considerable an effect his stay in Lucerne and his short visit to Northern Italy had upon his art, and of the extraordinarily rapid manner in which his genius for decorative design, and his delight in the invention of these settings of Renaissance architecture, developed under these new influences. The background of this particular design, which, according to Dr. Ganz, is strongly reminiscent of the country in the Vierwaldstättersee, shows the tall tower of some village church, the lower part of which is hidden by the beautifully-designed Italian shield which the two warriors support, situated in a hilly landscape, with the sharp peaks of a range of mountains in the distance.
FIGURES OF LANDSKNECHTE
A similar background is shown in the design in the Berlin Print Room,[[316]] though only the red roof of the church tower appears above the shield. This drawing has been touched with colour in places, the faces of the two landsknechte with red, and also the roofs of the houses of the village seen in the distance, the landscape with green and brown, while colour is also used in several of the decorative details, such as the festoons hanging from the wide flattened arch. The attitudes of the two shield-bearers are more natural and less forced than in the Basel sheet. They are dressed in the same fashion, the man on the right wearing his large feathered hat fastened to his back, and leaning on a large pike held with both hands. The soldier on the left, an exceedingly graceful figure, with a long lance placed point downwards, rests one hand on the shield, and with the other touches his sword hilt. The architectural setting is similar in general design to that of the Basel example, though here the arch is supported by pairs of short slender columns, with sculptured figures of Judith and Lucretia standing on the capitals, and above them Samson and Hercules, while a long frieze over the arch contains a battle of nude foot soldiers and horsemen, in the midst of a shallow stream.
In another drawing in the Basel Gallery,[[317]] the shield, a fine heraldic design, completely fills the right-hand side of the sheet. It contains a coat of arms consisting of two pears hanging from a branch and a star on either side, and, surmounting the shield, a helmet with large upstanding wings, between which is placed a branch with a single pear, elaborate scroll-work falling on either side. On the left stands a fierce-looking landsknecht, with his plumed hat on his back, and a great two-handed sword upon his shoulder. Over the crown of the arch, but not forming part of the architectural design, is a battle scene with four men fighting, two with long lances and one with a gun. This drawing, which is a most effective one, is signed “H.H.” The design in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris,[[318]] appears to be one of the earliest of all, produced during his stay in Lucerne. It is evident, from the figure on the left-hand side, that it was ordered in celebration of a wedding, the richly-dressed young lady wearing a bridal crown being the newly-wedded wife of the landsknecht standing on the right. Each one supports a shield with a coat of arms, the woman’s consisting of three arrows, and the man’s of an anchor. The soldier, with long pike over his shoulder, has a strong facial likeness, as already mentioned, to the warrior on the right of the Basel design, while the face of his wife is of the same type as the head in the Louvre study for the Solothurn “Madonna.” In the background is a castle on a precipitous rock by the side of a lake, shut in by a mountain range. The framework consists of two columns with grotesque heads in the capitals, supporting some elaborate scroll-work in place of an arch. Several other drawings in which these mercenaries form the subject are in existence,[[319]] including a study from life of a seated landsknecht at Berlin,[[320]] which was formerly in the Lawrence and Suermondt Collections.
Vol. I., Plate 43.
DESIGN FOR PAINTED GLASS
With the Coat of Arms of the Von Hewen Family
1520
Basel Gallery
A glass design at Basel (No. 341), remarkable for the beauty and freedom of its luxuriant Renaissance scroll design, and also for its fine architecture, bears the date 1520 (Pl. [43]).[[321]] This design is without supporting figures, the whole of the centre of the sheet being filled with a blank shield, surmounted by two helmets with elaborate crests, one with the rampant body of a winged goat, and the other with a pair of curved trumpet-shaped horns. From them flows, down either side of the shield, a mass of beautifully-drawn scroll and leaf ornament. This elaborate coat of arms, designed for a married couple, is placed in an architectural setting resembling a Romanesque church portal. The circular arch is supported by six pillars on either side. At the base of the two nearer ones kneel warriors in Roman armour, supporting a blank tablet for some inscription; above each is a small blindfolded and trumpet-blowing cupid, with a body ending in foliated scrolls, and on the capitals stand sculptured figures of Mercury and Cronos, the devourer of mankind, resting on his scythe, and about to swallow a small naked child. Behind their heads are two tablets, chained to the crown of the arch, one inscribed “MERCHVRIVS EIN PLONET,” and the other, “ANNO DOMINI·M·D·XX·H.” The upper moulding of the arch is filled with small sculptured figures of saints, kings, warriors, and others of humbler rank. In the lower right-hand corner is written “d he’ von Hewen,” showing that the design was made for a member of the noble family of Von Hewen, who was probably a churchman, and, judging from the inscription round the helmet on the right—“DHIOEQV”—a knight of the Order of St. John. Dr. Ganz suggests,[[322]] therefore, that the orderer of the glass was Wolfgang von Hewen, Canon of Trier, Strasburg, and Chur, who became Rector of Freiburg University in 1504. There is in the Basel Gallery a companion drawing with the coat of arms of the Von Andlau family, which, however, is not so fine a design.[[323]]