Hans Holbein the Younger, Volume 1 (of 2) by Arthur B. Chamberlain

Decoration of the Ground Floor BASEL GALLERY ] A second original drawing by Holbein in the Basel Gallery is a study for a part of the ground-floor façade of this house (Pl. 23 (2)).[161] It is a pen and wash drawing slightly touched with colour. Groups of pillars support a frieze with flat carving in the Gothic manner. Above the pointed doorway on the left he has thrown a circular arch, round which the pattern of the frieze is continued, filled in with grotesque sculptured figures supporting a tablet for a date. On the right he has placed an open loggia, to which a flight of stone steps descends, with square pillars, inlaid with marble panels, on either side supporting a wide, flattened arch richly ornamented. The space over the frieze on the right is filled in with a procession of naked boys, some dragged along by their comrades, and others carried on litters, and above this again, hanging garlands of leaves with swinging putti, one blowing a trumpet. According to Dr. Ganz, this last motive, as well as other parts of the architectural design, are reminiscent of details to be seen in the cloisters and on the façade of the Certosa of Pavia, and suggest that Holbein must have taken them directly from that building.[162] If this be so, it proves that a part at least of the wall decoration of the Hertenstein house was not finished until after Holbein’s visit to Lombardy. [Sidenote: PAINTINGS OF HERTENSTEIN HOUSE] It seems certain that Holbein began his work in the interior of the house, and that he covered the walls of at least five rooms, chiefly on the third floor, with paintings. In 1825 many of them still remained in an excellent state of preservation. In contradistinction to those on the outer walls, they consisted of religious pictures, and scenes from ancient fables and from everyday life in which humour found a prominent place. The sacred decorations were in a large hall which served as the family chapel. One of them represented the legend of the fourteen saints who are said to have appeared to a shepherd in 1445 at a church in the neighbourhood of Bamberg. Holbein depicted them in an elaborate landscape, with mountains and a church in the background, grouped on their knees round the Infant Christ, with the shepherd, a striking figure, kneeling in adoration with his sheep round him. A second picture in this room contained portraits of Hertenstein, his wife, and three sons, very diminutive figures, kneeling before seven saints, among them St. Benedictus, the patron saint of Lucerne. A third picture showed a religious procession, with a bishop and other ecclesiastics, headed by banners, issuing from the walls of a town in a hilly country. In the large hall of the house, on the third floor, which at the time of the demolition was still in its original state, were a number of landscapes with hunting scenes, in one of which, a stag-hunt, the ancient castle of the Hertensteins on a hill by the lake of Lucerne was introduced. In these scenes portraits of the chief magistrate and members of his family were included. In one of them Hertenstein, his fourth wife, and two sons, Benedikt and Leodegar, all mounted, are hunting wild ducks by the side of the lake, accompanied by dogs. Husband and wife appear again in the painting representing a stag-hunt in the woodland below the castle at Weggis. In a third scene hares are being hunted with a pack of hounds over hilly country. Near the fireplace was a representation of a subject which was popular with German painters—the Fountain of Youth. In this a certain amount of latitude was permitted, and Holbein depicted some of the incidents with a rough, unrefined humour. Nude men and women are sitting crowded together in a small circular fountain, some still old, others already rejuvenated by its waters. In the centre of the basin rises a pillar with a banner bearing the arms of Hertenstein and his fourth wife. From all sides old people come crowding and hurrying up, some in carts, some on donkeys, one pushed in a wheelbarrow, and others carried in litters or on the backs of less feeble seekers after perpetual youth. In one instance an ugly old woman, seated in a basket slung on the back of a sturdy young man, holds in her arms an equally old and ugly dog, in order that it, too, may benefit from the bath. A second painting next to it continued the story. Other old men and women are crowded into a long cart drawn by four horses, into the back of which a lame man has scrambled, while a second limps painfully after it. In other rooms the decorations were so dilapidated and damaged that it was impossible to make copies of them; but they included battle scenes, and various Renaissance ornaments and devices. In one of these latter rooms occurred the date 1517 under the family shield.[163] In one of the chambers was a wooden pillar, carved with the likeness of Heini von Uri, court fool of Duke Leopold of Austria, for which Holbein appears to have supplied the design from which the carver worked. Hollar made an etching from this drawing, or from a woodcut of it, as he has inscribed it, “H. Holbein incidit in lignum,” when it was in the Arundel Collection, in 1647.[164] In carrying out this monumental work, Holbein, in addition to possible help from his brother, must have employed more than one assistant. He made, no doubt, designs for every part of it, and painted the principal pictures himself, but much of the remainder was very probably done by others under his personal direction. North of the Alps such work was not particularly well paid, nor was great care displayed in carrying it out. Both artist and employer were satisfied if a good decorative effect in design and colour was produced; the former, considering the large amount of surface to be covered, could not waste much time over the careful painting of details, nor was the latter prepared to pay more than a very moderate price for it. There is no doubt, however, that Holbein’s work in this field was far in advance of anything hitherto carried out in Switzerland, more particularly in the elaborate architectural settings in which he placed his wall pictures, and in the use made of perspective, so that the scenes depicted appeared to be taking place within the rooms of the house itself, and the eye was deceived into supposing that a building of somewhat plain design was in reality a mansion erected in the richest style of the Italian Renaissance. [Sidenote: DESTRUCTION OF WALL-PAINTINGS] In 1825 the Hertenstein house came into the possession of a Lucerne banker named Knörr, who pulled it down in order to replace it by a more modern building. In spite of the efforts of a few art-lovers, this work of demolition was carried out, and the town authorities made no attempt to stop such an act of vandalism, or to save the only surviving record they possessed of the art of by far the greatest artist their walls had ever sheltered—a record which to-day would be rightly regarded as one of their greatest treasures. It was only through the efforts of Colonel May von Büren and Colonel Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, who employed certain local artists to make copies of the frescoes before the house was finally destroyed, that any record at all of the decorations remains. Time and the damp climate had so dimmed them, however, that it was found necessary to wash them down with the town’s fire-engine before they could be seen clearly enough for the artists to copy them. The copies, which were made by the Lucerne painters Schwegler, Ulrich von Eschenbach, Eglin, Marzohl, and an Italian, Trolli von Lavena, had to be hurriedly done, and they naturally possess little or nothing of the combined delicacy and force of the originals. Much of the purely decorative work, the scroll and wreath ornament, and details in the Renaissance style, in the use of which Holbein was to become so great a master, had to be left uncopied, attention being concentrated on the pictures and figure subjects. Still, what was done was sufficient to show something of the ideas Holbein brought to the undertaking, the influences he came under in his choice of subjects, and the methods he employed in carrying them out. Colonel May persuaded Usteri, the painter and poet, to visit Lucerne in order to give his opinion as to the value of the paintings, but he was unable to do so until 1825, when the demolition had already begun. Usteri directed the making of the copies, and saw to it that the artists adhered as faithfully as possible to the originals. No “restoration” was permitted; those parts which had perished were left blank in the copies. The latter were made with the view of publication, but they proved too inadequate, and the scheme was dropped. In 1851 they were presented by Colonel May to the town library of Lucerne, together with Usteri’s letters concerning them.[165] VOL. I., PLATE 24. [Illustration: BENEDIKT VON HERTENSTEIN 1517 METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK ] [Sidenote: BENEDIKT VON HERTENSTEIN] Before turning to Holbein’s journey across the Alps in 1518, reference must be made to a portrait painted by him during his first residence in Lucerne, which is the only one by him so far discovered bearing the date