This picture is Holbein’s greatest masterpiece of sacred painting, noble and dignified in feeling and composition, remarkable for the direct and striking veracity of its portraiture, and the splendour of its rich, subdued colour. There is extraordinary expression in Meyer’s head, with its rapt, tense look, in which the depth of his faith is clearly portrayed. His ruddy complexion and blue shaven chin form a strong colour contrast with the fresher, paler flesh tints of his two sons, in whom the likeness to the father can be plainly traced. There is an equal contrast, too, between the face of the living wife, energetic and capable, and that of the other woman, seen in profile, whose features are nearly concealed by the white hood and the chin band she is wearing, giving almost the appearance of grave-clothes, though it was a head-dress then in common use, as can be seen from a number of Holbein’s book illustrations. In the Virgin’s face, with its downcast eyes, there is a look of heavenly tranquillity. Her complexion is fair, and her cheeks have a rosy tinge. She wears a golden crown set with pearls and precious stones, below which her golden hair falls upon her shoulders and over her mantle, and is painted with all Holbein’s minute care and complete technical mastery. The pale, delicate flesh tints are continued in the body of the Infant Christ and in the hands of his mother, the two heads forming a lovely chord of colour in perfect harmony with the reddish marble and grey stone of the niche against which they are set. The Virgin’s dress is dark blue, which has turned almost green with the passing of time, with under-sleeves of gold, in the painting of which actual gold has been used, as also in the crown, and in Anna Meyer’s head-dress and other ornamental parts of the picture. Her girdle is red, and her mantle a greenish grey. Meyer’s hair is black, and his black surcoat is lined with light-brown fur. The kneeling boy wears a dress of light brown trimmed with bands of dark red velvet, and red hose, and from his belt hangs an elaborate purse with long blue tassels. The colouring of the group on the spectator’s right is largely black and white. The two elder women are in black, with plain white head-dresses. The daughter’s dress is also white, decorated with deep bands of gold material embroidered with pearls, her head-dress being formed of two similar bands, with crimson tassels, which almost conceal the brown braided hair, and a little wreath of white and red flowers on the top. She gazes across the picture at her little brother, her rosary in her hands, of which, owing to the long sleeves of her dress, only the tips of her fingers can be seen. The Turkey carpet, which falls over the low step upon which the figures are grouped, has an elaborate pattern of red, green, black, and white on a yellow-brown ground. The monotony of its geometrical design is broken by a large irregular fold in the centre, as though the rug had been hastily thrown down and not straightened out. On either side of the shell-shaped circular niche the carved pilasters of two low columns are seen above the heads of the kneeling figures, and the green branches of a vine or fig-tree stand out against a bright-blue sky.
The picture, like the Solothurn Madonna, is of peculiar shape, the top of the panel following the lines of the architectural background. It measures about 4 ft. 8½ in. (1.44 m.) to the top of the circular niche, and 3 ft. 8½ in. (1.125 m.) to the horizontal edge above the pilasters at the side, and is nearly 3 ft. 3½ in. (1.01 m.) wide. It is possible that in its original state it was furnished with a pair of shutters. It is now generally agreed that its date is about 1525 or 1526, and that it was the last work of importance painted by Holbein before he left Basel. Meyer took a second wife in 1513, and their daughter Anna, who afterwards married Nikolaus Irmi, appears in the picture to be about the age of twelve, which gives the year 1526 as the one in which Holbein received the commission. Nothing is known of the two boys, who must have died young, for Meyer left no male heirs. After his decease his widow was twice married, and on her death in or about 1549 her heir was her daughter Anna. The elder boy was perhaps the son of the first wife. The technical qualities of the painting, too, place it in the years immediately preceding Holbein’s first visit to England.
Vol. I., Plate 72.
JAKOB MEYER
Drawings in black and coloured chalks
Basel Gallery
DOROTHEA KANNENGIESSER
Studies for the Meyer Madonna
Drawings in black and coloured chalks
Basel Gallery
There are three preliminary studies for the picture in the Basel Gallery, portrait heads of the ex-burgomaster, his wife, and their daughter.[[494]] All three are drawn in his customary manner in black chalk, with spare use of coloured chalks and water-colour here and there. The head of Meyer (Pl. [72] (1)),[[495]] in black and red, is in the same position as in the picture, and placed against a greenish background. His wife (Pl. [72] (2))[[496]] is also taken in the position she occupies in the finished work, but her head-dress is a different one, and the chin and the greater part of the mouth are hidden by a linen band similar to the one worn by the unknown kneeling woman. Red is used in the face, and brown for the hair, which is seen through the muslin cap, and for the fur lining to the collar of her gown. The daughter, Anna,[[497]] is shown almost at three-quarter length, with the arms and hands visible. She wears the same dress with embroidered bands as in the picture, but her hair, instead of being almost hidden by the elaborate cap, hangs down straightly below her waist. More colour is used in this drawing than in the others, the face being worked in flesh tints, the hair of a golden-brown colour, the girdle red, and the ornaments of the collar in yellow, while the background is washed with pale green. The effect produced is very delicate and beautiful, and the portrait is perhaps finer and more natural than in the picture itself. These drawings closely resemble in style those which Holbein produced shortly afterwards in England, and approach them very nearly in their complete mastery of expressive line.
THE BATTLE OF THE PICTURES
For many years the fine early copy of the Meyer Madonna in the Dresden Gallery[[498]] was regarded as Holbein’s original work, and one of the greatest treasures of the collection, and it was not until 1822, when the Darmstadt picture, purchased in that year by Prince William of Prussia from a Parisian picture-dealer, was first brought to the notice of connoisseurs, that any doubt was thrown upon the authenticity of the better-known example, which was then almost universally regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the German school. A few German critics of note, among them Dr. Kugler, admitted that the Darmstadt picture was a genuine work by Holbein, but it was many years before anyone had the temerity to refuse a like honour to the famous example in Dresden. The first to do so publicly was Wornum, in his Life of Holbein, published in 1867, and he was followed by Woltmann, A. von Zahn, and others.[[499]] In spite of such critics, however, both pictures were still regarded by most people as from Holbein’s own hand, and it was not until the Holbein Exhibition, held in Dresden in 1871, when the two panels were placed side by side, and a close comparison became possible, that the undoubted genuineness of the Darmstadt painting was admitted by all except the few who had a personal interest in upholding the prestige of the Dresden Gallery, and who, therefore, refused to believe that their own picture was a mere copy, however good. Throughout the autumn of 1871, a fierce battle raged between the contending parties, and Dresden was split up into two hostile camps. A manifesto was issued by thirteen of the leading critics, headed by Woltmann, Thausing, De Lutzow, and A. Bayersdorfer, affirming their belief that the Darmstadt picture was indubitably a genuine work by Holbein, with considerable and later retouches in the heads of the Virgin, the Infant Christ, and the Burgomaster, and that the Dresden Madonna was a free copy of it, in which the hand of Holbein was not to be seen in any part. The other party retaliated with a manifesto of their own, in which they claimed that the modifications of the design in the Dresden example were so free, and were such great improvements, particularly in the spacing and the proportions of the figures, that no one but Holbein could have accomplished it, and that he alone could have given so lofty an ideality and beauty of expression to the figure of the Virgin, and that the picture remained a monument which attested the culminating point of German art. The Darmstadt picture, on the other hand, they found to be so badly obscured by dirty varnish and partial repaints that it was impossible to judge seriously the question of its originality. An interesting account of the dispute was given in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts[[500]] by the artist Rudolf Lehmann, who was a staunch upholder of the genuineness of the better-known picture. He saw in it a greater beauty, maturity, and nobility, and held that the modifications were so intelligent as to be in reality corrections of the earlier work, and therefore only from the hand of the master himself.