Holbein, of course, would carry with him a letter of introduction from Erasmus to More, and very possibly to Warham, Fisher, and other correspondents of the philosopher then in England. There is no reason to throw doubt on Carel van Mander’s statement that he was received as a guest in Sir Thomas More’s hospitable house in Chelsea. Van Mander’s biography contains numerous inaccuracies, although he wrote only some sixty years after Holbein’s death; but in this instance he is probably correct. More, who was noted for his hospitality, would welcome to his home any friend sent to him by Erasmus, and would do all that he could to help a foreigner, who can have had little or no knowledge of the English language. Van Mander’s statement has been copied and amplified by later writers until the legend runs that Holbein spent the greater part of three years under More’s roof; but this is not at all likely to have happened. During the painting of the great family picture, or, in any case, while the preliminary studies were being made, and other single portraits of members of More’s household taken, Holbein, no doubt, remained as a guest at Chelsea, if only for the convenience of the several sitters, but that he stayed throughout the whole of his first English visit as More’s guest is doubtful. He would, naturally, wish for a studio and lodging of his own, however humble, where he would be free to do just as he liked. Whether he set up his easel in the village hard by his patron’s house, or in London itself, where he would find a number of compatriots, it is not now possible to say, though an item in the royal accounts in connection with the festivities at Greenwich in 1527[[651]] seems to indicate that he had settled in the city; while, on the other hand, nearly all the portraits painted by him at this time were of men who were among More’s most intimate personal friends, whom Holbein would be more likely to meet in Chelsea than in London.
More certainly did everything in his power to help the painter. He not only gave him commissions for single portraits of himself and his wife, and, possibly, of his favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, but also for the large family group already mentioned. It is to be supposed that Holbein had carried with him some specimens of his handiwork by which Sir Thomas could judge of his ability, and he would almost certainly have with him proofs of the “Dance of Death” woodcuts, in themselves more than sufficient testimony to the brilliance of his artistic powers. Sir Thomas must also have had earlier knowledge of his skill both as a portrait-painter and a book-illustrator, in the likenesses of Erasmus already sent to this country, and in the various books by Erasmus and others, including his own Utopia, issued by Froben and other printers of Basel, which Holbein had helped to decorate.
MORE’S LETTER TO ERASMUS
In a long letter to Erasmus, mentioned above,[[652]] dated 18th December, More gives a few words of praise and a promise of help to their common friend and protegé: “Your painter, dearest Erasmus, is a wonderful artist, but I fear he is not likely to find England so abundantly fertile as he had hoped; although I will do what I can to prevent his finding it quite barren.”[[653]] This letter, as already stated, is dated 1525 in the published letters of Erasmus, but the correct date is 1526, as first pointed out by Mr. F. M. Nichols, F.S.A.[[654]] It has been generally supposed that it was written after More had seen certain portraits of Erasmus sent over from Basel about 1524, and that his promise of help to the painter had reference to a projected visit to England on the part of Holbein. Mr. Nichols, however, proves conclusively that it was written after More had made his personal acquaintance. “The true date,” he says, “is shown not only by the allusion to Holbein, who was evidently in England at the time, but still more certainly by the literary work of Erasmus mentioned in it. The first part of the Hyperaspistes (the answer of Erasmus to the Servum Arbitrium of Luther), printed in the spring of 1526, and the Institution of Christian Marriage, printed in August of the same year, are both mentioned as already published, and the second part of Hyperaspistes as expected. This last book was published at the close of the same year, 1526, not much after the date of the letter as here corrected.” More, therefore, wrote to Erasmus in praise of Holbein after he had received practical proof, in the shape of his studies for the Family Group, of what the latter was capable in the way of portraiture.
The earliest work undertaken by the artist was the painting of this group of his host’s family, and the several individual portraits of certain members of the Chelsea household, of which the first would be undoubtedly that of his new patron.
The inscriptions on the study for the Family Group, now in the Basel Gallery, prove conclusively that the beautiful sketch of the general arrangement of the picture was finished, and possibly the picture itself begun, before 7th February 1527, thus indicating that Holbein must have started upon it with little delay. This fact is made clear through the researches of Mr. Nichols, included in a second and earlier paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in 1897,[[655]] dealing with the correct birth-year of Sir Thomas More. It is impossible to give here even a short summary of the evidence which he brings forward, evidence which proves that More was born on 7th February 1477, a year earlier than the date until then supposed to be the correct one. He then proceeds to show the bearing of this new year-date upon the Basel sketch. The sketch has the name and age of the persons represented in it written against each figure, and it is important to observe that there is a strong probability that these inscriptions were written or dictated by More himself. They are correctly written in Latin, while the painter’s notes on the same drawing are in German; and, as Mr. Nichols says, the information, including on the one hand the age of More’s venerable father, and on the other that of his domestic fool, could scarcely have been furnished by any one but More himself. Woltmann recognises the handwriting as undoubtedly that of More from its remarkable resemblance to the address on the letter held in the hand of Peter Ægidius in the Longford Castle portrait, which More declared was copied quite as closely as he could have copied it himself.
BASEL STUDY FOR THE FAMILY GROUP
In the Basel sketch he has written above his own portrait, Thomas Morus anno 50—that is, anno quinquagesimo, “in his fiftieth year”—and, according to the corrected birth-date, Sir Thomas was in his fiftieth year from 7th February 1526 to 7th February 1527, which proves that the big picture had been completely planned out, and probably well advanced, before the latter date. In support of this contention, it will be found that not only the age of More himself, but that of other members of his family where they can be verified, point to the same date. Thus, Erasmus, who prided himself on his remarkable memory for the ages of his friends, says that John More, Sir Thomas’s only son, was just about thirteen in the summer of 1521, so that he would be in his nineteenth year in the autumn and winter of 1526, which is the age attributed to him on the sketch; while the dates of the birth and death of John More’s wife, Anne Cresacre, are known, and tally with the “anno 15” on the same drawing. More’s eldest child, Margaret Roper, is described as in her twenty-second year, and though the precise date of her birth is not known, the marriage of her parents took place in the twentieth year of Henry VII (21st August 1504-21st August 1505), which is consistent with her birth at any time between the summer of 1505 and the 7th February 1506, and therefore with her being in her twenty-second year at the date attributed to the sketch. It appears, therefore, that the evidence of all these inscriptions either confirms that date or is not inconsistent with it.
This proves that the Family Group was the first work undertaken by Holbein in England, and that in the intervals of painting the larger picture he was engaged upon a single portrait of Sir Thomas More and upon others of certain of the latter’s friends.
Unfortunately, the picture itself, if ever completed by Holbein, has disappeared. “For nothing,” says Walpole, “has Holbein’s name been oftener mentioned than for the picture of Sir Thomas More’s family. Yet of six pieces extant on this subject, the two smaller are certainly copies, the three larger probably not painted by Holbein, and the sixth, though an original picture, most likely not of Sir Thomas and his family.”[[656]]