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

DESIGNS FOR BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS Holbein’s work for the Basel publishers—Imperfection of the cutting of his earlier book illustrations—His connection with Hans Lützelburger—His first title-page—More’s _Utopia_—the Table of Cebes—Luther’s translation of the New Testament—Title-page to the quarto edition—Work for Luther’s translation of the Old Testament—“The Sale of Indulgences”—“Christ the True Light”—Woodcuts representing incidents of common life, dancing, merry-making, &c.—Initial letters and alphabets—Trade-marks and devices for printers. THROUGHOUT the whole period of his first residence in Basel a considerable part of Holbein’s time was occupied with the production of designs for book illustrations, such as title-pages, head and tail-pieces, ornamental borders, initial letters, and printers’ marks. Including the “Dance of Death” and Old Testament illustrations, and the various alphabets of his designing, Woltmann enumerates more than three hundred woodcuts or metal engravings, large or small, for which Holbein made the drawings. Much of his work of this kind was done for Froben, but he was also frequently employed by Adam Petri, Thomas Wolff, and other printers and publishers. The old contention that Holbein himself cut the blocks bearing his own designs, which at one time produced much acrimonious dispute and a voluminous literature, has long since been abandoned, and there is absolutely nothing to be said in its favour. He must, however, have had a thorough working knowledge of the technical side of woodengraving, and of the limits within which it was necessary to confine his art; and within those limits he produced the most splendid results. A number of his earlier designs were not cut in wood, but in metal. The method was similar to that of wood-cutting, the drawing being left in relief, as on the wood block, a process exactly opposite to copperplate engraving, in which the lines to be reproduced are incised. Several of his title-pages and ornaments from metal blocks bear the initials I.F. upon them, and it was at one time considered that they were probably the work of Froben himself,[433] who is described more than once as “chalcographer,” or a worker in metal. The term, however, may mean only a designer and caster of type, which was a trade Froben followed side by side with that of a publisher. The I.F. of these engravings was not Froben, but Jakob Faber, who was the best of the cutters in metal who worked after Holbein. Froben, no doubt, employed a permanent staff of engravers, both for his own publications and also for the sale of blocks and plates to other publishers. Faber was possibly one of those who found more or less regular employment in his service, and another was the engraver with the signature “C.V.,” who engraved the eight metal cuts in illustration of the Lord’s Prayer, which appeared about 1523, badly printed, in two rare editions of the _Precatio Dominica_ of Erasmus, copies of which are included in the William Mitchell Collection in the British Museum. The proofs in the Basel Gallery have German text; the Mitchell set, with a clause of the Paternoster in French printed at the top of each cut, is a unique state, and the impressions are very early and sharp. The same “C.V.” engraved in metal the Evangelists in the Greek Testaments of 1524 and 1540. One of the finest of Faber’s metal-cuts is the folio title-page issued by Cratander in 1525, representing Christ before God the Father, surrounded by a great crowd of boy-angels, in the lunette at the top, the symbols of the four Evangelists in niches shown in perspective at the sides, and the Apostles at the foot. This title-page is made up of four separate plates, each of which bears the initials “I.F.”[434] Quite recently (1913) the British Museum has received from the National Art-Collections Fund a rare Book of Hours, printed at Lyon in 1548, containing fourteen metal-cuts by Faber after Holbein’s designs. [Sidenote: HANS LÜTZELBURGER] According to Woltmann, many copper plates after Holbein’s designs were still in existence in Basel as late as 1852, in the possession of the family of a publisher named Haas, but were subsequently sold on a division of the property, all further traces of them being lost.[435] These metal engravings of Holbein’s book ornaments as a rule do but little justice to the original designs, and compare very unfavourably with the later wood engravings cut by Hans Lützelburger. They miss much of the strength and character of Holbein’s line, and are marked by a hardness of effect which is by no means pleasing. Many of the earlier wood engravings, too, suffer in the same way from the imperfection of the cutting, inferior workmen having been employed to reproduce them, just as in the case of the book illustrations of Ambrosius Holbein, who was employed by Froben quite as often as his brother Hans, and whose work also suffered from inadequate translation. It thus becomes difficult, in the case of several unsigned prints, to decide which of the two young men was the designer of them. In these earlier efforts, too, Hans had not reached to that pitch of excellence in adapting his design to the requirements of the wood-cutters to which he attained some years later, when he was working in conjunction with Lützelburger, nor had his powers of draughtsmanship and composition yet found their complete expression. Having at length met with an engraver who could do full justice to his ideas, and one who was as great a master in one branch of art as he himself was in another, Holbein’s genius for decorative design matured rapidly, so that the two men between them produced works in this field which have never been surpassed. They worked together from the autumn of 1522 until Lützelburger’s death and Holbein’s departure from Basel in 1526. Modern researches have failed to glean much information about the life and career of Lützelburger. On a tablet below a wood engraving of his cutting representing a battle between peasants and naked men in a fir wood in Utopia, designed by the unknown Augsburg master N.H., he signs himself “HANNS. LEVCZELLBVRGER. FVRMSCHNIDER. 1.5.2.2.” At a later date, on the proofs of Holbein’s “Dance of Death” alphabet, he calls himself “Hanns Lützelburger, furmschneider, genant Franck,” that is, “Hans Lützelburger, wood-engraver, called Franck.” This is printed in movable type, the first H being an ornamented Roman capital, while the other letters of the name are in the German character. He was one of the group of wood-engravers who were working at Augsburg about 1516-19, under the direction of Jost de Negker, on the blocks for the Emperor Maximilian, and his name is written or his monogram cut upon the back of nine of the “Triumph” blocks, still preserved at Vienna, and he also cut nine of the series of “Saints connected with the House of Habsburg” in 1516-17. All available evidence indicates that the “Battle of Naked Men” was engraved in Augsburg. In the same year, 1522, Lützelburger cut an alphabet for the printer Schöffer at Maintz, of which the letter L is signed “H.L.F.,” and the same date and initials occur on two specimen ornamental alphabets evidently designed by the same unknown artist.[436] Whether he was residing at Maintz at the time is uncertain, but by the autumn of 1522 Lützelburger had moved to Basel, and was at work on Adam Petri’s folio New Testament. There he remained until his death in the summer of 1526, in constant collaboration with Holbein, engraving, among many other designs, the “Dance of Death” woodcuts and many of the Old Testament illustrations. What little is known of him points rather to Augsburg than to Basel as his place of birth, though, according to Herr His-Heusler’s researches, a family of that name was then living in Basel, the names of both a Michael and a Jakob Lützelburger appearing in the baptismal register of St. Leonhard between 1529 and 1533; while the same name occurs frequently in the parish register of the adjacent town of Colmar during the first half of the sixteenth century. Further documents discovered by His-Heusler show that Lützelburger died in Basel before the 23rd June 1526, and that he was insolvent at the time. Among his creditors were the printer, Melchior Trechsel, of Lyon, for an advance of 27 florins 15 shillings, and Hans zum Sessel (Froben), for 3 florins 10 shillings. Trechsel, the publisher of the “Dance of Death” and “Old Testament” woodcuts, on hearing of Lützelburger’s death, also demanded certain wood blocks ordered by his firm, for which the money had been advanced, upon which the deceased had been at work. These blocks were sent to him on the condition that he appointed some person of substance in Basel as security, in case some other creditor proved to have prior claims on the estate; and in accordance with this arrangement he appointed Johan Lukas Iselin as his surety.[437] In the list of Lützelburger’s furniture and effects seized by the court he is described merely as “Hans Formschneider,” but there is no doubt that this “form-cutter” was Lützelburger, who at the time of his death was cutting the block of “The Waggoner” for the “Dance of Death,” which he left incomplete. Holbein drew all these designs directly on the wood block. There is not a single sketch or study in existence for any one of the very numerous book illustrations and decorations which he produced.[438] His title-pages consist, in almost every case, of an ornamental framework of Renaissance design with small panels on either side containing figure subjects, usually taken from classical history or mythology, and across the bottom a larger panel in which the chief subject is depicted. These title-pages do not always consist of a single block, but of four separate borders or strips, not always used together, but combined with others, or used singly as chapter-headings or sidepieces. These title-pages, designed in the first place for some particular book, were thus afterwards often made to serve for the ornamentation of other publications, with which at times their subjects had very little connection; and they were also copied by various publishers and printers in other cities of Switzerland and in Germany and elsewhere. [Sidenote: “MUCIUS SCÆVOLA AND LARS PORSENA”] Holbein’s earliest design for this purpose, drawn in 1515, shortly after his arrival in Basel, and signed with the abbreviated name “Hans Holb.,” has been already described.[439] This title-page, with its nine little cupids, which has suffered from inferior cutting, but nevertheless has considerable charm, was first used by Froben in the winter of 1515, and appeared in a number of books issued during the next five years, including More’s _Utopia_, published by Froben in 1518. The first of his designs from ancient history formed the title-page to _Æneæ Platonici Christiani de immortalitate animæ_, issued by Froben in 1516, and also appeared in the Basel edition of the _Utopia_, and again in Erasmus’ _Praise of Matrimony_ in 1518. It represents the story of Mucius Scævola and Lars Porsena (Pl. 60),[440] but has been so badly cut that much of the dramatic force of Holbein’s composition has been lost. When Porsena, the Etruscan king, was blockading Rome, after his attempted entry into the city had been frustrated by the bravery of Horatius Cocles, Mucius, a young Roman nobleman, resolved to rid his country of the invader. In disguise he entered the hostile camp, and, approaching the tent in which Porsena sat, with his secretary, dressed in similar fashion to his master, by his side, plunged his dagger into the latter’s body, mistaking him for the king. He was seized by the guards, and condemned to death, but thrust his right hand into a fire which was already lighted for a sacrifice, and held it there without flinching, to show how little he heeded pain. Amazed at his bravery, Porsena allowed him to go free; and Mucius afterwards received the name of Scævola, or the left-handed, on account of his courage. Holbein has depicted the two chief incidents of this legendary story side by side across the bottom of the title-page. On the right is an open tent, in which Mucius is stabbing the secretary, who is seated at a table by the side of the king. On the left, Mucius, held by a guard, plunges his hand into the fire in the presence of Porsena and his courtiers. Over each of the principal characters is a label with his name, and in the background is a small walled city labelled “Roma.” The figures, which are clad in sixteenth-century costume, are short and stumpy, these faults, no doubt, being exaggerated by the inadequate rendering of the engraver. The sides of the page consist of two narrow panels of conventional foliated design, with small figures, springing from vases, while the upper border contains a group of naked children, blowing trumpets and dragging one of their number in triumph. A small shield in the middle of the left-hand border contains Holbein’s initials, “H.H.” VOL. I., PLATE 60. [Illustration: MUCIUS SCÆVOLA AND LARS PORSENA First used in 1516 _From a copy of More’s “Epigrams” in the British Museum_ ] Froben, on the recommendation of Erasmus, undertook the publication of Sir Thomas More’s _Utopia_ in 1518, and the edition was lavishly ornamented with woodcuts, title-pages, and initials, in honour of the author. The book had been already published in Louvain in the winter of