The pose and costume of Henry VIII. in the cartoon were, as Leemput's copy shows, faithfully carried out in the painting; but in the latter the face was afterwards turned to the full front view familiar to us in the many copies of the King's portrait which so long passed as works of Holbein, on the strength of reproducing his own painting. There is no evidence that he ever again painted Henry VIII. or that he executed any replica of this portrait. The old copy at Windsor Castle serves, however, to recall its details of costume; such as his brown doublet stiff with gold brocade and scintillating with the gleams of splendid jewels, his coat of royal red embroidered with gold thread and lined with ermine to match the wide collar; his plumed and jewelled cap; as also the huge gems on collar, pendant, rings, and the gold-hilted dagger in its blue velvet sheath.

But Holbein's own portrait of Henry VIII.—as shown by the original chalk study from life now in the Munich Gallery ([Plate 32])—may in all sobriety of speech be called a stupendous work. Looking at this marvellous drawing and picturing to one's self those cheeks informed with pulsing blood, those lips with breath, those eyes with blue gleams,—it is easy to understand that Van Mander was using no hyperbole when he said that the painting on the wall of the Privy Chamber made the stoutest knees to tremble. It was literally, as he said, "a terrible painting," of which none of the stupidly-heavy copies that have for the most part travestied Holbein's work give any true conception. Many a man could paint cloth-of-gold and gems; but only once and again in the centuries comes a man who can thus paint, not alone the mane and stride of the lion, but the fires that light his glance, the roar rushing to his lips. To look long into these eyes that Holbein had the genius to read and the firmness to draw, is to feel one's self in the grip of an insatiable, implacable, yet leonine soul; a being who, to borrow the matchless description of Burke's political career, is "parted asunder in his works like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature; each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility with one another." And so long as the great drama of Tudor England enthrals the minds of men, hard by Shakespeare's supreme name must be read the name of the painter in whose pages the actors in that drama have been compelled themselves to declare themselves.

PLATE 32.
KING HENRY VIII
(Life-study; probably for the Whitehall Painting)
Chalks. Munich Collection
Click to [ENLARGE]

To crown the King's pride, and to the no less intense delight of the whole nation which saw in this event the rainbow of every promise, at Hampton Court, on the 12th of October, 1537, Queen Jane Seymour gave birth to the son who was to reign so briefly as Edward VI. And it was doubtless in connection with this happy circumstance that the King commissioned Holbein's design for a truly royal piece of goldsmith's work. This drawing, generally known as "the Jane Seymour cup," is at Oxford, in the Bodleian Library ([Plate 33]).

No sketch of the artist's powers would be even barely complete without a realising sense of their versatility. And in this design Holbein has more than equalled the highest achievement of his great contemporary, Benvenuto Cellini, at this time in the service of the French Court. The initials of the King and Queen, H. and J., and the exceedingly judicious motto of the latter—"Bound to obey and to serve"—are recurring devices. But it is in the originality and unflawed beauty of the whole—the springing grace of outline, the taste and cunning with which flowers of gold naturally bloom into gems and pearls, the combination of freest, richest fancy with every restraint of a pure taste—that the perfection of this little masterpiece consists.

PLATE 33.
DESIGN FOR "THE JANE SEYMOUR CUP"
Bodleian Library
Click to [ENLARGE]

In the midst of all the public rejoicings, the Te Deums, feasts, and bonfires, came the thunderclap of the young mother's death. Some negligence had permitted her to take cold, and on the twelfth day after his coveted heir was born, Henry VIII. was once again a widower. The Court went into deepest mourning until the 3rd of February. But Thomas Cromwell was very shortly authorised to take secret steps to ascertain what Princess might most suitably fill the late Queen's vacant place and strengthen the assurance of an unbroken succession.

Choice fell at first on a Roman Catholic—Christina, the sixteen-year-old widow of Francis Sforza Duke of Milan, who had died in the autumn of 1535. The upshot of private inquiries was that Holbein was sent over to Brussels in March, 1538, to bring back a portrait of this daughter of Christian of Denmark and niece of Charles V. And although the painter had but three hours in which to do it, he did make what Hutton described as her "very perffight" image; besides which, said the envoy, the portrait previously despatched, though painted in all her state finery, "was but slobbered."

From this "perffight" painting, which could not have been more than one of his portrait studies, he afterwards completed that full-length oil painting which is worthy to rank with his great Morett portrait. By the kindness of the Duke of Norfolk, who has lent it, this beautiful work is now in the National Gallery ([Plate 34]). But unhappily for its best appreciation, to my thinking at least, it hangs at one side and in too close proximity to the bold colouring of "The Ambassadors"; so that its own subtle, yet reticent superiority is well-nigh shouted down by its lusty neighbour. It is a picture to be seen by itself; as it must stand by itself in the usual inane gallery of women's portraits.

Hutton tells us that the painter who "slobbered" Christina's portrait had painted her in full dress. But Holbein's eye was quick to recognise the values of her everyday dress—the widow's costume of Italy—in enhancing the distinction of her face and the stately slenderness of her figure. And so he drew her as she stood, with a hint of bending forward, her gloves being restlessly fingered in a shy yet proud embarrassment, in the first moments when he saw her.