PLATE 4.
JACOB MEYER (ZUM HASEN)
Oils. Basel Museum
Click to [ENLARGE] 		PLATE 5.
DOROTHEA MEYER (née KANNEGIESSER)
Oils. Basel Museum
Click to [ENLARGE]

Against the rich Renaissance architecture and the blue of the sky-vista the massive head of Meyer and the blonde one of his young wife,—the latter so expressive of half-proud, half-shy consciousness,—stand out in wonderful vigour. From the scarlet cap on his thickly curling brown hair to the piece of money between his thumb and finger, the Burgomaster's picture is a virile and masterly portrait. And just as forcefully is the charm of his pretty wife,—with all her bravery of scarlet frock, gold embroidery, head-dress and chains,—her own individual charm. They are both as much themselves in this fine architectural setting as in their own good house "of the Hare" which adjoined the rising glories of the new Renaissance "Council Hall" (Rathaus) in which Meyer was to preside so often.

In 1516 he had just been elected Mayor for the first time; but after this he had many consecutive re-elections in the alternate years which permitted this. For no burgomaster could hold office for two years in actual succession. Previous to being Mayor he had been an eminent personage as master of the guilds. And both before and after his mayoralty he was a distinguished soldier,—rising from ensign to captain in the Basel contingent which served at different times among the Auxiliaries of France and of the Pope.

But what made this election of 1516 a civic epoch was that Meyer zum Hasen (there were many unrelated Meyers in Basel, and two among Holbein's patrons, who must be carefully distinguished according to the name of the house each occupied) was the first Burgomaster ever elected in this city from below the knightly rank. While the piece of money in his hand, far from fulfilling the absurd purpose sometimes suggested,—that of showing his claim to wealth!—marks another civic event of this year. For it was on the 10th of January, 1516, that the Emperor Maximilian had just issued the Charter which gave to Basel the right to mint her own gold coins. In the painting the pose of Meyer's right hand has been altered, and the position which Holbein originally gave it can still be made out. The monogram and date are on the background.

In accordance with his invariable rule for portraits in oils, Holbein first made a careful drawing of each head on the same scale as the finished picture, carrying it out with great freedom but at the same time with astonishing care and finish. So that his studies for portraits are themselves works of art, sometimes invested with even more spirit than the oil painting, which was never made direct from the living model,—at any rate, until ready for the finishing touches. Drawn with a point which could give a line as bold or as almost impalpable as he wished, and modelled to the very texture of the surfaces, the carnations are so sufficiently indicated or rendered with red chalk as to serve every purpose. Sometimes notes are also added. Thus in the upper corner of the drawing for Meyer's head the artist has noted "eyebrows lighter than the hair" in his microscopic yet firm writing.

With these fine portraits, painted as if united by the same architectural background, Holbein began a friendship of many years. After some four centuries it is not possible to produce written records of such ties except in occasional corroborative details. But neither is it possible to mistake the painted records of repeated commissions. While as the lifelong leader of the Catholic party in Basel, it was natural that Meyer zum Hasen should have much in common with a painter who all his life held firmly to his friendships with the most conspicuous champions of that party.

Johann Froben was another of these; and from 1515 until Froben's death eleven years later Holbein had more and more to do for this printer. Occasionally, too, he drew for other Basel printers; but not often. The eighty-two sketches on the margins of that priceless copy of the Praise of Folly, which Basel preserves in her Museum, had been suited to their company. Admirable, though unequal, as are their merits, they are sketches, whose chief beauty is their happy spontaneity. Such things are among the trifles of art, and are not to be put into the scales at all with the finished perfection of his serious designs for wood engraving. These were drawn on the block; and even these cannot properly represent the drawing itself except when cut by some such master hand as his own. Since in preparing the design for printing the background is cut away, leaving the composition itself in lines of relief,—it follows that everything, so far as the reproduction is concerned, must depend upon the cleanness and delicacy of the actual cutting. A clouded eye, a fumbling touch, and the most ethereal idea becomes its travesty—the purest line debased. Hence the necessity for taking the knife into consideration in judging such work.

This is not the place for any fraction of that hot debate which Kugler ironically styles "the great question of the sixteenth century"; the debate as to whether Holbein himself did or did not cut any of his own blocks. Assuredly he could do so. The exquisite adjustment of every line to its final purpose, the masterly understanding of the proper limitations and field of every effect, all prove that he had an unerring knowledge of the craft no less than of the art of Illustration. But in his day that craft, like every other, had its own guild; and it would not have been likely to tolerate any intrusion on its rights.

We know, too, that those woodcuts which most attest Holbein's genius were engraved by that mysterious "Hans Lützelburger, form-cutter, called Franck" (Hans Lützelburger, Formschnider, genannt Franck), who still remains, after all the researches of enthusiastic admirers, a hand and a name, and beyond this—nothing. But it is when Holbein's designs are engraved with Lützelburger's astonishingly beautiful cutting that we can appreciate how wonderful was the design itself. To compare these fairy pictures with the painter's large cartoons is to get some conception of the arc his powers described. It seems incredible that the same hand could hang an equal majesty on the wall of a tiny shell and on that of a king's palace, and with equal justness of eye. Yet it is done. He will ride a donkey or an elephant with the like mastery; but you will never find Holbein saddling the donkey with a howdah.

It is not always possible to subscribe to Ruskin's flowing judgments; but I gratefully borrow the one with which he sums up thus, in a lecture on wood-engraving: Holbein does not give many gradations of light, the speaker says, "but not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he chooses. He is twenty times a stronger master of it than Rembrandt; but therefore he knows exactly when and how to use it, and that wood-engraving is not the proper means for it. The quantity of it which is needful for his story he will give, and that with an unrivalled subtlety."