No one but Lützelburger can have cut it, so that the design must have been made before Holbein’s first visit to England. Why Froben made no earlier use of it, it is impossible to say.
Vol. I., Plate 59.
ERASMUS
From a woodcut in the British Museum
PORTRAITS OF FROBEN
The history of the double portrait of Erasmus and Froben, as far as it is known, has been already given. The version of Froben, at Hampton Court[[420]]—No. 603 (323)—is a drawing on parchment, afterwards fastened down on a panel, and roughly finished as a picture, and has little of the careful elaboration of Holbein’s painted portraits. It is a half-length figure, less than life-size, turned to the right, the face seen almost in profile. The arms are folded, and the hands, thrust within the sleeves of his brown cloak, which is lined with fur at the neck, are not seen. He wears no cap, and his straight hair is growing thin. The head is seen against what now appears to be a window or opening, sea-green in colour, which is part of the original plain background, afterwards repainted by Von Steenwyck with various pillars and mouldings. In front is a narrow stone ledge, over the greater part of which hangs what appears to be a white cloth, on which is inscribed, “Ioannes Frobenius typ. HHolbein p.” which is not the original handiwork of the painter. The face is a kindly but ugly one, and bears out the character given to him by Erasmus, who was overcome with grief at his sudden death. “All the friends of the belles lettres,” he wrote to a friend, “should put on mourning attire and shed tears at the death of this man, and should wreath his grave with ivy and flowers. Never before have I felt how great is the power of sincere friendship. I bore with moderation the death of my own brother; but what I cannot endure is the longing for Froben. So simple and sincere was his nature that he could not have dissembled had he wished. To show kindness to everyone was his greatest delight, and even if the unworthy received his benefits, he was glad. His fidelity was immovable, and as he himself never had evil in his mind, he was never able to cherish suspicion of others.”
There is a similar portrait of Froben in the Basel Gallery (No. 357),[[421]] an old copy, which was presented to the Basel University by Christian von Mechel, who acquired it as an original work by Holbein from the publisher Enschede at Haarlem in 1792, and was transferred to the Gallery in 1811. In the letter making the gift he speaks of it as softer, richer, and more powerful than the usual Holbein style. A third, and inferior, example was lent to the Tudor Exhibition in 1890 by Sir Henry B. St. John Mildmay, Bt. (No. 134), which is perhaps identical with the small portrait in oil which belonged to Walpole and was sold in 1842 at the Strawberry Hill sale for 19 guineas.
The genuineness of the Hampton Court portrait of Froben has been often disputed, and to-day the consensus of opinion is not in its favour. Both Waagen and Woltmann regarded it as a copy, and more recent writers, among them Dr. Ganz, hold the same view. Even those who consider it to be a genuine work by Holbein are forced to own that it is by no means a fine example of his portraiture. The head, however, has more character than is usually found in a copy, and, no doubt, its present condition is due to some extent to the mishandling it received from Von Steenwyck, who probably did not confine his attentions solely to the background. It is possible, therefore, to regard it as an original study by Holbein, which has suffered somewhat severely in the course of years. Mr. Ernest Law speaks of it as a genuine though not first-class example, and refers to the version at Basel as “little more than a clumsy imitation” of it.[[422]] The Basel Catalogue, on the other hand, says that the latter portrait, which is an old copy or else an original which has suffered severely from repainting, is “incomparably better than the seventeenth-century replica at Hampton Court.” Woltmann considered the Basel version to be merely a late Netherlandish copy,[[423]] while Knackfuss says that it is “very bad as regards colouring.”[[424]]
ROUNDEL OF MELANCHTHON
Another friend and correspondent of Erasmus, Philip Melanchthon, was painted by Holbein, though there is no evidence to show when or how they met. The small roundel in oils of the young German scholar in the Provinzial Museum at Hanover (Pl. [58] (2))[[425]] may perhaps have been done as a pendant to the circular “Erasmus” at Basel. It is almost exactly the same size, about four inches in diameter, and is carried out with an almost equal delicacy and freedom of touch, as though it were a study direct from nature. Melanchthon is shown nearly in full profile to the right, with dark smooth hair falling on his ears, and a scanty beard and moustache. His coat and plain white shirt are open in front, showing the bare chest. The background is grey, but may possibly have been at one time blue. The head itself is not free from retouching. It is preserved in its original circular box, the inner side of the cover being decorated in grey monochrome with a very beautiful design of foliage and fruit intermingled with the heads and figures of satyrs in the Renaissance style from Holbein’s own hand, and across the centre a cartouche with the following inscription in gold: “Qui cernis tantum non, viva Melanthonis ora, Holbinus rara dexteritate dedit,”[[426]] which is perhaps the sitter’s own personal tribute to the skill of the painter. The style of the Renaissance decoration indicates that in all probability the portrait was painted during Holbein’s third stay in Basel (1528-32).[[427]] Melanchthon attended the Imperial Diet at Speier in 1529,[[428]] and a little later visited his mother in Bretten, and it is by no means impossible that he also went to Freiburg to see Erasmus, and that while there, some time during 1530, Holbein painted the roundels of both friends. A second version of this portrait was in the possession of Horace Walpole, in which the inscription runs round the outer edge. It fetched fifteen guineas at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842, and is now in the collection of Sir William van Horne in Montreal.