HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER

At one time, before these authentic records of the Holbein family had been unearthed from the Steuerbücher and Gerichtsbücher of Augsburg, it was believed that a third painter named Hans Holbein had existed, the father of Hans Holbein the Elder. Attention was first called to him by Passavant in 1846, in connection with a painting then in the possession of Herr Samm of Mergenthau, and now in the Augsburg Museum. This picture, which represents the Virgin Mary seated on a grassy bank by a wall, with the Infant Christ in her arms, is signed “Hans Holbein, C.A. (i.e. Civis Augustanus) 1459,” a date too early for the picture to have been painted by Hans Holbein the Elder; but the inscription has been proved to be a forgery. Further proof of the existence of this painter was thought to have been discovered in connection with a second picture, forty years later in date, and in reality from the hand of Hans Holbein the Elder. It is one of a series of six pictures representing the principal basilicas of Rome, ordered by the nuns of St. Catherine in Augsburg in 1496, on the occasion of the reconstruction of their convent. The names of the several donors of these pictures, with the prices and other details, are preserved in the annals of the convent, compiled by the nun Dominica Erhardt from old records and documents. Extracts from this work were supplied to Passavant, including one with reference to the picture of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, now in the Augsburg Gallery (Nos. 62-64), which is signed “Hans Holbain” on the two bells in the tower, and bears the date 1499. The passage in question is as follows:—

“Item Dorothea Rölingerin hat lassen machen unser lieben frauen Taffel, die gestatt oder steht 45 gulden. Vom alten Hans Holbein hie.” (Item. Dorothea Rölingerin has ordered of old Hans Holbein a panel painting of our dear Lady for the sum of 45 gulden.)

The term “old Holbein,” Passavant thought, could only be applied to the grandfather of the family, for in 1499 Hans Holbein the Younger was still a little child, and his father too young a man to be termed “the old.” Later researches, however, proved that the extracts supplied to Passavant were incorrect, containing numerous amplifications and spurious additions not to be found in the original document, which, after considerable search, was discovered by Dr. Woltmann in the Episcopal Library in Augsburg. In the original record the price paid for the picture is given as 60 gulden, and neither the name of “old Holbein” nor of any other painter occurs, so that the myth of the grandfather Hans was finally demolished.

THE MYTHICAL BRUNO HOLBEIN

There is no record of the birth of Hans Holbein the Elder; but as the earliest dated picture by him so far discovered was painted in 1493, it is supposed to have taken place about 1473-4.[[5]] There is equal lack of information as to the date of his marriage or the name of his wife. It was believed at one time, on the authority of Paul von Stetten, that she was the daughter of Thomas Burgkmair, and sister of the more famous Hans Burgkmair, and that the young couple lived with their father-in-law; but no confirmation of this legend has been discovered. The two families dwelt in the same street, “Vom Diepolt,” but Burgkmair’s house was No. 7, while Holbein’s was No. 17. His family, as far as is known, consisted only of his two sons, Ambrosius and Hans. A third son, Bruno, is mentioned by Remigius Faesch (1651) in his manuscript notes preserved in the Basel Library, compiled from information supplied to him from the Amerbach papers; but beyond this short notice, and a repetition of it by Patin, there is no trace of a Bruno Holbein to be found. There are two silver-point drawings, one of the head of a child in the Bernburg Library,[[6]] and the other of a mitred bishop in the Albertina, Vienna,[[7]] both dated 1515 and signed with the letters B. H. in monogram, which it has been suggested are the work of the supposed Bruno. Dr. Woltmann, however, considered them to be by Ambrosius Holbein. The latter, he says, was known by the diminutive name of “Prosy” in the family circle, and as at that time in Germany the letters p and b were often used indifferently—as can be seen in the spelling of Holbein’s own name in the Augsburg records, where it is sometimes given as “Holbain,” and sometimes as “Holpain”—it may well be that the monogram on these two drawings is that of “Prosy” or “Brosy” Holbein.[[8]] Modern criticism, however, has shown that the attribution of these two drawings to Ambrosius is a wrong one.[[9]]

THE “BASILICA OF S. MARIA MAGGIORE”

Hans Holbein the Elder, whose exceptional ability as an artist has always been overshadowed by the greater genius of his celebrated son, was one of the most representative painters of the Swabian School at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. His art, more particularly, but not only, in its earlier manifestations, shows the influence of Martin Schongauer, and, through Schongauer, that of Rogier van der Weyden and the Flemish School. The influence of Schongauer upon him is at times so marked that it has been suggested that he may have studied under him at Colmar during his younger days. Whether this be true or not, it is evident that Holbein was still under the spell of Schongauer’s painting during his stay in Isenheim towards the end of his life. The “Fountain of Life,” painted there in 1519, owed much of its inspiration to Schongauer’s “Madonna in the Rose Garden,” which Holbein must have seen in the not far-distant city of Colmar. Both in the types of his figures and the management of his draperies, as well as in the arrangement of his compositions, there is an echo of Schongauer’s art, which, however, may not have been derived through personal contact with that painter, but largely from the study of his numerous engravings, which were widely popular throughout Southern Germany. Schongauer himself, whose father, Kasper Schongauer, was an Augsburg painter, had studied, or, at least, had come much under the influence of, Rogier van der Weyden at Tournai, and had caught from him something of the sweetness and grace which characterised the finest Flemish art of that day. These characteristics, and others representative of the school, he handed on in his turn to the Swabian painters, the elder Holbein among them. Hans Burgkmair was one of Schongauer’s pupils, and was afterwards a near neighbour of Holbein, so that he also may have been an inspiring force in the moulding of the art of both the older and the younger Hans. Another of Schongauer’s followers, Bartolomaeus Zeitblom of Ulm, is also considered to have had some influence upon the elder Holbein’s painting. The latter, at one period of his career, became a citizen of Ulm, where he must have encountered Zeitblom, the leading painter of that city. Thus his earlier works show a gradual fusion of the methods of the old German or Rhenish School with those of the Flemings. He began to paint in the days when German art was almost uninfluenced by the great Italian Renaissance, which was gradually but surely spreading over Europe, but before the close of his career he had succumbed to its spell. A chronological examination of his later works shows what a vitalising force his study of Italian models had upon his style, though he did not accept these changes as easily or as rapidly as some of his contemporaries, such as Burgkmair. Unlike the latter, however, he never paid a visit to Italy, but he nevertheless found it impossible in the end to resist the new artistic impulses with which that country was then flooding the rest of Europe. It was not necessary for him, however, to cross the Alps in order to experience the magic spell of the new teaching, for Augsburg was one of the first of the South German towns to feel the effects of the Renaissance. The two chief routes from Italy, the western one from Milan, and the eastern road from Venice, met at its gates. The greater part of the trade between the Venetian States and Germany passed through the city, and its leading merchants had business branches in Venice and other North Italian towns. Many members of the Fugger and other patrician families of Augsburg spent long periods in the districts immediately south of the Alps, for the purpose of extending their trade connections; and the active commercial intercourse with Italy which resulted brought not only riches to the Augsburgers, but knowledge and love of the new culture as well, and thus through the old free city of Swabia the intellectual and artistic wealth of the Renaissance made its way into Germany. The elder Holbein was among those who reaped advantage from this intercourse between the two countries. Without entirely abandoning the solid German groundwork of his art, he stripped it, more particularly in his management of draperies, of many of its hardnesses. His colour grew more harmonious, and his handling broader and more free. His figures became less attenuated, and his heads, treated with greater realism, displayed more character, while the general composition of his pictures showed a greater dignity of conception and a deeper sense of beauty. In addition to these gradual changes in his art, the new influence wrought a complete alteration in his methods of dealing with all accessories and with the architectural backgrounds against which his subjects were placed, Renaissance forms and ornamentation taking the place of the earlier Gothic settings.

The earliest dated pictures which can be ascribed to him with any certainty are four altar-panels in the Cathedral of Augsburg, of the year 1493, which at one time formed the two wings of an altar-piece in the Abbey of Weingarten, representing Joachim’s Sacrifice, the Birth and the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, and the Presentation of Christ.[[10]] They display a strong Flemish influence, with a warm, luminous colour, and considerable dignity and sense of beauty in the figures.

His next pictures of which the date is certain are of the year 1499,[[11]] and include the picture of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore,[[12]] the work already mentioned as ordered by Dorothea Rölingerin[[13]] for the Convent of St. Catherine in Augsburg, and at one time attributed to the mythical grandfather Hans. It is a panel in the form of a broad pointed arch, corresponding, like the five other pictures of the series, with the vaulting of the chamber for which it was painted. It contains four scenes in three sections, divided from one another by gilded Gothic ornamentation. The lower half of the central compartment contains a view of the church, with a pilgrim kneeling at the altar. On the two bells is inscribed “Hans Holba—in 1499,” while an “H” is on one of the tombstones, and the date is repeated on the outer wall of the church. The upper part of the arch is filled with the Crowning of the Virgin. The division on the left contains St. Joseph and the Virgin adoring the Child in the stable, that on the right the Martyrdom of St. Dorothea, in honour of the donor of the picture, who is represented, a small figure, kneeling in prayer behind the saint. This picture is now in the Augsburg Museum (Nos. 62-64).