As in other guilds, the government of this cosmopolitan beehive was that of a despotic democracy. All the inmates of the precincts were subjected to a rule little short of monastic in its strict discipline. The penalties for any infringement, for drunkenness or dicing or even for an abusive epithet, were very severe. The civic duties of the corporation, too, were sharply defined. In case of war every member had his appointed post in the defence of London. Every "master" had to keep the prescribed accoutrements and arms ready for immediate use, and the repairs and maintenance of the Bishop's Gate were at the sole cost of the Steelyard.

No chapel was erected within its enclosure, the Guild preferring to be incorporated with the adjoining parish of Allhallows. Whether or not there is any truth at the bottom of the ancient tradition that this church had been originally founded by Germans, the Guild maintained its own altar in it in Holbein's time, where Masses were said on its own special days and festivals. So far are the facts from the common supposition that the doctrines of Luther would find natural favour in such a community, that the latter only gradually came into the "Church of England" by the same slow processes which transformed the whole parish around it. And when More, who was anything but Utopian himself in the practice of tolerating "heresy" during his chancellorship, headed a domiciliary visit in search of Lutheran writings, he could find nothing but orthodox German Prayer-books and the Scriptures, whose use among laymen he always strenuously advocated; while every member of the community was able to make honest and hearty oath at St. Paul's Cross that no heretic or heretical doctrine would be tolerated amongst them.

Here, then, in this staunch citadel of his own faith, Holbein naturally found a new circle of friends among whom it must have been strangely easy to fancy himself back in the Fischmarkt of his young years, with Froben and Erasmus and Amerbach and Meyer zum Hasen.

The curtain rings up on his work for the Steelyard,—work which covered many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated here—with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait of Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often written, now in the Berlin Gallery ([Plate 27]), inscribed 1532, has called forth the enthusiastic eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece of rare good fortune it is in perfect preservation. The black of the surcoat alone has lost a little of its first lustre; all the rest is as though it had left the easel but the other day.

PLATE 27.
JÖRG (OR GEORGE) GYZE
Oils. Berlin Museum
Click to [ENLARGE]

The young merchant is seated among his daily surroundings in the Steelyard. He is in the act of leisurely opening a letter addressed, "To the hand of the honourable Jörg Gyze, my brother, in London, England" (Dem ersamen herrn Jörg Gyzen zu Lunden in Engelant meinem broder to henden). The merchant's motto, "No pleasure without care," is chalked up in Latin on the background, with his signature beneath it. Written on a paper stuck higher up is a Latin verse in praise of the portrait; also the date, and the sitter's age—thirty-four. On the racks and shelves are documents, books, keys, a watch and seals, and a pair of scales. A gold ball is hanging from above with a lovely chasing in blue enamel; a miracle of painting in itself, to say nothing of the exquisite Venetian glass, filled with water and carnation-pinks. This flower has its own meaning, and is introduced in more than one of Holbein's portraits. On the rich oriental table-cloth are writing materials also, with account-books, seal and scissors.

Gyze himself is a fair-haired man, wearing a brilliant red silk doublet beneath his black cloak. And the amazing thing is that amidst this bewildering array of pictures—for every article is such in itself, owing to the perfection of its painting—Gyze is not lost or overridden for a moment. It is unmistakably his picture; and he dominates the accessories as much as he did in reality. The man, the whole man, is there; and the things are there around him; that is all. But that the eye recognises this is the demonstration of the painter's own mastership. It is as much Holbein's peculiar secret as are the cool shadows, the luminous glow, the astounding elaboration, all made to express the dignity of one, and but one, theme.

As has been said, the Steelyard portraits are too many to even catalogue here, covering many years. But Gyze's may be taken as their high-water mark. For that matter it could not, in its own way, be surpassed by any portrait. Holbein himself greatly surpassed it in the matter of subtle and noble simplicity, in his two greatest extant pieces of portraiture—the Morett of Dresden and the Duchess of Milan, now in our National Gallery. But in technical powers, and the power of subordinating their very virtuosity to the requirement of a true picture, this was a superlative expression of his matured method.

In the midst of all his fresh London successes came a summons from Basel, which must have made the painter smile a little grimly. It had slowly dawned on the Council that Holbein—whose renown they well knew was a feather in Basel's cap—was proposing to make a prolonged absence. The result was a decision which the Burgomaster officially conveyed to him. Jacob Meyer zum Hirten wrote to say that Holbein was desired to return immediately to resume the duties of a citizen-artist, and that the Council, anxious to assist him in the support of his family, had resolved to allow him an annuity of thirty guldens yearly "until something better" could be afforded. Whether he replied in evasive terms, or whether he let the Lällenkönig speak for him, is not on record.

By the time Holbein received this letter, written late in the autumn of 1532, he was plunged into a year of almost incredible activity. The whole of it would hardly seem too long for one such painting as the life-size double portrait—his largest extant portrait-painting—that now belongs to the National Gallery: "The Ambassadors" ([Plate 28]).