The very important and indelible expressions in the dedication to the first known edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, he very modestly terms “a play upon words,” and endeavours to account for the death of the painter by supposing Holbein’s absence in England would warrant the language of the dedication. This is indeed a most desperate argument. Frellon, the publisher and proprietor of the work, must have known better than to have permitted the dedication to accompany his edition had it been susceptible of so silly a construction.
He again adheres to the improbable notion that Holbein engraved the cuts to the Lyons book, and this in defiance of the mark or monogram
which this painter never used; nor will a single print with Holbein’s accredited name be found to bear the slightest resemblance to the style of the wood-cuts. Even those in Cranmer’s catechism, which approach the nearest to them, are in a different manner. His earlier engravings on wood, whether in design only, or as the engraver, resemble those by Urs Graaf, who, as well as Holbein, decorated the frontispieces or titles to many of the books printed at Basle. It is not improbable that Urs Graaf was at that time a pupil of Holbein.
Hegner next endeavours to annihilate the painting at Whitehall recorded in Nieuhoff’s etchings and dedications, but still by arguments of an entirely negative kind. He lays much stress on this painting not being specifically mentioned by Sandrart or Van Mander, who were in England; but where does it appear that the latter, during his short stay in this country, had visited Whitehall? Even admitting that both these persons had seen that palace, it is most probable that the fresco painting of the Dance of Death, would, from length of time, dampness of the walls, and neglect, have been in a condition that would not warrant the exhibition of it, and it was, moreover, placed in a gallery which scarcely formed, at that time, a part of Whitehall, and which was, probably, not shown to visitors. It must not, however, be omitted to mention that Sandrart, in p. 239 of his Acad. Pict. states, though ambiguously, that “there was still remaining at Whitehall a work by Holbein that would constitute him the Apelles of his time,” an expression which we may remember had been also applied to Holbein by his friend Borbonius in the complimentary lines on a Dance of Death.
The Herr Hegner has thought fit to speak of Mr. T. Nieuhoff in terms of indecorous and unjust contempt, describing him as “an unknown and unimportant Dutch copper-plate engraver,” and arraigning his evidence as being in manuscript only; as if manuscripts that have never been printed were of no authority. But where has Hegner discovered that Nieuhoff was a Dutch copper-plate engraver, by which is meant a professed artist; or even though he had been such, would that circumstance vitiate his testimony? In his dedication to Lord William Benting the expressions allusive to his ardent love of the arts, seem to constitute him an amateur attempter of etching; for what he has left us in that way is indeed of a very subordinate character, and unworthy of a professed artist. He appears to have been one of the Dutchmen who accompanied King William to England, and to have had apartments assigned to him at Whitehall. At the end of his dedication to Lord W. Benting, he calls himself an old servant of that person’s father, and subscribes himself “your and your illustrious family’s most obedient and humble servant.”
The identification of William Benting must be left to the sagacity of others. He could not have been the Earl of Portland created in 1689, or he would have been addressed accordingly. He is, moreover, described as a youth born at Whitehall, and then residing there, and whose dwelling consisted of nearly the whole of the palace that remained after the fire.
Again,—We have before us a person living in the palace of Whitehall anterior to its destruction, testifying what he had himself seen, and addressing one who could not be imposed upon, as residing also in the palace. There seems to be no possible motive on the part of Nieuhoff for stating an untruth, and his most clear and unimpeachable testimony is opposed by Hegner’s wild and weak conjectures, and chiefly by the negative argument that a few strangers who visited England in a hasty manner have not mentioned the painting in question at Whitehall, amidst those inaccurate and superficial accounts of England which, with little exception, have been given by foreign travellers. Among these Hegner has selected Patin and Sandrart. Before adducing the former, he would have done well to have looked at his very imperfect and erroneous account of Holbein’s works, in his edition of the ΜΩΡΙΑΣ ΕΓΚΩΜΙΟΝ of Erasmus; and, with respect to the latter, the stamp of inaccuracy has been long affixed to most of the works he has published. He has mentioned, that being in company with Rubens in a Dutch passage boat “the conversation fell upon Holbein’s book of cuts, representing the Dance of Death; that Rubens gave them the highest encomiums, advising him, who was then a young man, to set the highest value upon them, informing him, at the same time, that he in his youth had copied them.”[139] On this passage Mr. Warton has well remarked that if Rubens styled these prints Holbein’s, in familiar conversation, it was but calling them by the name which the world had given them, and by which they were generally known; and that Sandrart has, in another place, confounded them with the Basle painting.[140]
To conclude,—Juvenal’s “hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas,” may be regarded as Herr Hegner’s literary motto. He has advocated the vague traditions of unauthenticated Dances of Death by Holbein, and has made a most unjustifiable attempt to deprive that truly great artist of the only painting on the subject which really appears to belong to him. Yet, if by fair and candid argument, supported by the necessary proofs, the usual and long standing claim on the part of Holbein can be substantiated, no one will thereby be more highly gratified than the author of this dissertation.