And a renowned triumph the painter made of it; a triumph such as, perhaps, no other artist north of Italy could then have equalled. It is idle now to dwell upon the religious subjects of one room, the genre paintings in another, the battle scenes of a third, and so on through those five famous rooms which were still in existence and fair preservation so late as 1824, but are now for ever lost; to say nothing of the painted Renaissance architecture and the historic legends which looked like solid realities when the façade was studied. But "Mizraim is become merchandise"; and all that is now left of what should have been a treasured and priceless heirloom is but a monument to the shame of that citizen, a banker, who could condemn such a thing to destruction as indifferently as if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame of the municipality which, at any cost, did not prevent it. Some hasty sketches—due to individual enterprise and a sense of the dignity of Holbein's fame—an original drawing for one of the façade-paintings, and a few fragments of the interior paintings, which still show themselves, by chance, in the banker's stable wall—these are all that remain to speak of what must have been the enthusiastic labour of the greater part of Holbein's twenty-first year!

CHAPTER II

HOLBEIN BASILIENSIS
1519-1526

Holbein Basiliensis—Enters the Painters' Guild—Bonifacius Amerbach and his portrait—The Last Supper and its Judas—The so-called "Fountain of Life" at Lisbon—Genius for design and symbolism in architecture—Versatility, humour, fighting scenes—Holbein becomes a citizen and marries—Basel in 1519—Froben's circle—Tremendous events and issues of the time—Holbein's religious works—The Nativity and Adoration at Freiburg—Hans Oberriedt—The Basel Passion in eight panels—Passion Drawings—Christ in the tomb—Christ and Mary Magdalen at the door of the sepulchre—Rathaus wall-paintings—Birth of Holbein's eldest child—The Solothurn Madonna: its discovery and rescue—Holbein's wife and her portraits—Suggested solutions of some biographical enigmas—Title pages—Portraits of Erasmus—Journey to France, probably to Lyons and Avignon—Publishers and pictures of the so-called "Dance of Death"—Dorothea Offenburg as Venus and Laïs Corinthiaca—Triumph of the Protestant party—Holbein decides to leave Basel for a time—The Meyer-Madonna of Darmstadt and Dresden, and its portraits.

And now it is 1519, and with it the true Hour of Holbein's destiny is striking. Take away the coming seven years and you will still have what Holbein is too often thought to be only—a great portrait-painter. No greater ever etched the soul of a man on his mask. His previous and his after achievements would still amply justify the honour of centuries. But add these seven years, from 1519 to 1526, and dull indeed must be the intelligence that cannot recognise the great Master, without qualification and in the light of any thoughtful comparison with the very greatest.

His Basel career may be said to begin here; his earlier work furnishing the Prologue. On the 25th September, 1519, when he was about two-and-twenty, he joined the Basel Guild of Painters; that same "Guild of Heaven" (Zunft zum Himmel) which his brother Ambrose had joined two years earlier and from which he seems to have passed to the veritable guild of Heaven at about this latter date.

And hardly is the ink dry upon the record of his membership than Holbein painted one of the most beautiful of his portraits—that of Bonifacius Amerbach ([Plate 6]). He stands beside a tree on which is hung an inscription. Behind him is Holbein's favourite early background,—the blue of the sky, here broken by the warm brown and green of the branch, and the faint glimpse of far-away mountains. Under his soft cap, with a cross for badge, his intensely gleaming blue eyes look out beneath grave brows. The lips are softly yet firmly set; the mouth framed by the sunny beard which repeats the red-brown of his hair. The black scholar's gown, with its trimming of black fur, discloses his rich damask doublet and white collar.

PLATE 6.
BONIFACIUS AMERBACH
Oils. Basel Museum
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