Chapter XXV
.
VOL. I., PLATE 86.
[Illustration:
NIKLAUS KRATZER 1528 LOUVRE, PARIS ]
Kratzer, born in Munich, was educated at Cologne and Wittemberg. He came to England as a young man, and in 1517 was admitted a fellow of Fox’s new College of Corpus Christi, Oxford. Later on Wolsey gave him the post of lecturer on astronomy and mathematics at Oxford, and Henry VIII appointed him his astronomer, with a salary of £20 per annum. While at Oxford he designed two sun-dials, one in Corpus Christi garden, and the other on a pillar in St. Mary’s Church, the latter remaining in position until 1744. He died about 1550, and many of his works fell into the hands of the notorious Dr. Lee. Albrecht Dürer, during his visit to the Netherlands in 1520, made a drawing of Kratzer, as well as one of Erasmus. He notes in his diary: “In Antwerp I took the portrait of Master Nicolas, an astronomer, who resides with the King in England; he was very useful to me; he is a German, a native of Munich.”
[Sidenote: NIKLAUS KRATZER AND HOLBEIN]
Kratzer and Holbein appear to have become close acquaintances, as was only natural with two men of the same nationality in a foreign country. One of the few contemporary letters in which the painter is mentioned by name is one from Kratzer to Thomas Cromwell, referred to more
## particularly in a later chapter,[746] in which the astronomer announces
that he has sent the Lord Privy Seal by Holbein’s hands a book just received from Germany. Like the Steelyard merchants, Kratzer was in the habit of serving the King as a forwarder and translator of letters and papers from abroad, and was sent on occasional journeys to the Continent on royal service. On one of these occasions, in October 1520, Tunstall, who was in the Netherlands for political purposes, wrote to Henry VIII saying that in Antwerp he had met “Nicholas Craczer, an Almayn, deviser of the King’s horologes, who said the King had given him leave to be absent for a time.” Tunstall asked him to stay till he had ascertained if the King would allow him to remain until the coronation and the assembly of the Electors were over. “Being born in High Almayn, and having acquaintance of many of the princes, he might be able to find out the mind of the Electors touching the affairs of the Empire.”[747] Like Holbein and some of the other foreigners in England, Kratzer was not averse from an occasional commercial speculation. Thus, in October 1527, he received licence to import from Bordeaux and other parts of France and Brittany 300 tons of Toulouse woad and Gascon wine.[748] His name, spelt in a variety of fashions, frequently appears in the royal accounts, but as a rule only in connection with the payment of his quarter’s salary. On April 29, 1531, however, there is an entry: “To Nicholas the Astronomer for mending of a clock, 6_s._”[749] Some of the mathematical and astronomical instruments in the “Ambassadors” picture may possibly have been of Kratzer’s making.
Several undated portraits may be ascribed to this period with some certainty; and some others with perhaps less confidence. As a general rule, though it is not without exceptions, Holbein’s portraits of his first English period may be distinguished from those of his second by the fashion in which the sitters wear their hair. In 1526-8 the prevailing custom in England was to wear it cropped straight across the forehead, while it was allowed to hang down lower than the ears all round the rest of the head, the face being clean shaven. A very distinct change of fashion took place in the spring of 1535, when Henry VIII began to grow a beard, and ordered his own household to cut their hair. Stow, in his _Annales_,[750] says: “The 8th of May the King commanded all about his court to poll their heads, and to give them example, he caused his own head to bee polled, and from thenceforth his beard to bee notted and no more shaven.” This marked change in the dressing of the hair was, of course, not followed by everyone, but it became so general that it is of great assistance in helping to give approximate dates to a number of pictures and drawings. Of the two, the cut of the hair is a better indication of date than the beard or moustache, which were worn more at pleasure. Occasionally long hair is found in conjunction with the beard, and in other cases some men remained faithful to the earlier fashion. Thus Sir Richard Southwell (1536) and the Duke of Norfolk (1540) are examples of long hair and a shaven face after 1535. Some of the German merchants resident in London conformed to the English fashion, but certain of them will be found with beards before 1535, while others again, painted several years later, are clean shaven. It must not be forgotten, however, that Holbein had returned to England nearly three years before the King’s edict of 1535, so that certain portraits which have been usually ascribed to his first English period on account of the cut of the sitter’s hair, may very possibly have been painted five or six years later.
[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIR BRYAN TUKE]
The portrait of Sir Bryan Tuke, of which several versions exist, the best known being the one in the Munich Gallery (Pl. 87),[751] is ascribed by some writers to Holbein’s later English period, though the shaven face and the way in which the hair is worn indicate the earlier date of the first London visit. This test is not, of course, infallible, but it seems probable, nevertheless, that Tuke was painted in 1527 or 1528. The date of his birth is not known, but he received his first public appointment, as king’s bailiff at Sandwich, in 1508, and became Clerk to the Signet in the following year. On more than one of the replicas of the portrait his age is given as fifty-seven.
Tuke was a scholar, and one of the More circle, secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, and French secretary to Henry VIII, and as Treasurer of the Household was responsible for the payments to Holbein for his share in the work of the Greenwich Banqueting House, and, later on, of his salary. He was also Clerk of the Parliament and Master of the Posts. He is represented in the Munich version at half-length, three-quarters to the left, with clean-shaven face and long hair, wearing a black cap with ear-pieces, a gown of black silk, lined with brown fur, and a fur collar, over a black doublet also fur-lined and fastened with a gold button, and sleeves of fine chequered black and gold stuff. A gold jewelled cross, on which the pierced hands and feet of Christ are represented in enamel, is suspended round his neck by a gold chain. With the forefinger of his left hand, which holds his gloves, he indicates a paper in front of him, inscribed “NVNQVID NON PAVCITAS DIERVM MEORVM FINIETVR BREVI,” and, in smaller letters, “JOB cap. 10.” An hour-glass rests on the table behind the paper, in front of his right hand. In the background the figure of Death is seen against a green curtain, holding his scythe in his left hand and with the first finger of the right pointing to the hour-glass. It is signed “IO. HOLPAIN” in the old Augsburg orthography. From overcleaning and other causes the hands and face have lost much of the delicacy of their modelling, and the flesh tints remain unpleasantly red, and the face has a hardness and sharpness which, no doubt, it did not originally possess. Mr. Wornum, who, however, only saw the picture when it was hung too high for proper examination, considered it to be “painted in the taste and manner of Von Melem.” “This picture,” he says, “is not a bad one, but the signature is suspicious, as that of our painter; and the style does not proclaim it to be the work of Holbein.”[752] Woltmann, on the other hand, says that it “declares itself as strikingly as possible to be the work of Holbein, and it is one of the two genuine paintings among the eight portraits ascribed to him in the Pinakothek,” and adds that though so greatly damaged, “yet still from its truth and lifelike feeling, as well as from its masterly execution, it is an excellent portrait.” The picture, however, is now regarded merely as a good workshop replica of the original painting, and is so described in the latest edition of the Munich catalogue. It appears to have been in the Wittelsbach Collection in 1597, and in the description of it in the inventory of that date, the figure of Death is not mentioned, and was probably added later.[753]
VOL. I., PLATE 87.
[Illustration:
SIR BRYAN TUKE ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH ]
The best version of this picture is the one which at one time was in the possession of the Methuen family at Corsham Court, Wilts, and afterwards belonged to Mr. R. Sanderson, at whose sale at Christie’s in 1848 it was purchased for the Marquis of Westminster.[754] It was bequeathed by the Marchioness of Westminster to her daughter, Lady Theodora Guest, and now belongs to the latter’s daughter, Miss Guest, of Inwood. It was in the National Portrait Exhibition, 1868 (No. 625), in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1880 (No. 188), and in the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909 (No. 43), lent by Miss Guest.[755] This version is almost identical with the one in Munich, but the skeleton and hour-glass are missing, and on the green-brown background is inscribed “BRIANVS TVKE, MILES. AN^O ETATIS SVÆ LVII,” with his motto, “Droit et Avant,” below. It is in all ways a finer work than the Munich example, and undoubtedly by Holbein, and, in all probability, the original upon which all the others were based. At least three other versions exist, all without the skeleton. One of them, on canvas, was in the possession of Mr. William M. Tuke, of Saffron Walden, in 1869, who purchased it in Yorkshire in 1845, it having been formerly in the collection of a Mr. Winstanley. Another is, or was, in the possession of Mr. John Leslie Toke of Godington Park, Kent, which is said to have been in expression and features more of the type of Sir Thomas More; while a third belonged, in 1870, to Mr. J. R. Haig.[756] One or other of these versions was owned in the seventeenth century by Lord Lisle, son of the Earl of Leicester, as noted by Evelyn in his _Diary_ under the date 27th August 1678.
[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF RESKIMER]
The portrait of the Cornishman, Reskimer,[757] at Hampton Court, has been ascribed by most critics to Holbein’s first English period, and so is included in this chapter, although the exceptionally long beard, which reaches almost to his waist, and the hair, which, though not polled, is short enough to show the ears, would indicate a date after 1535. It has suffered somewhat in the course of time, but in its technique it resembles Holbein’s work at the beginning of his second English period, and so was probably painted at about that time. There is a fine drawing for it in the Windsor Collection,[758] which is inscribed, “Reskemeer a Cornish Gent.,” in which the hair and beard are carefully wrought. This study appears to be among the earlier drawings in the collection.
“The portrait,” says Mr. Law, “represents a youngish man, not more than twenty-eight, we should say, seen in a nearly complete profile, turned to the left, the light coming in from the right. He is dressed in a plain, dark-coloured coat or mantle; with the small white collar of his shirt showing, the two strings of which hang down untied. His two hands, which are drawn and painted with all Holbein’s strength and precision, are both seen, the knuckles of the left being turned frontwards to the spectator, and the palm of the right upwards, with the fingers just touching the end of his beard. He wears a flat black cap slantwise over the right side of his head. His hair is red, as is also his long peaked beard. The background is a bluish green, with a sprig of vine.” Some such branch of vine or fig frequently appears in the backgrounds of Holbein’s earlier portraits. It is on wood, or, possibly, according to Mr. Wornum,[759] on paper or parchment attached to oak, 1 ft. 6½ in. high by 1 ft. 1½ in. wide. The brand of Charles I—“C.R.” crowned—is on the back of the panel.
Nothing of its history is known, except that it was in Charles I’s collection, and is described in his catalogue, page 8, as follows: “A side-faced gentleman out of Cornwall, in his black cap, painted with a long peaked beard, holding both his hands before him; some parts of a landskip. Being less than life, upon a defaced cracked board, painted upon the wrong light. Done by Holbein, given to the King by the deceased Sir Rob. Killigrew, Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen’s Majesty.” Mr. Law suggests, no doubt correctly, that it was said to be “a gentleman out of Cornwall” in the catalogue on the authority of the inscription on the Windsor drawing.
The name is spelt in many ways in the records—Reskemeer, Reskimear, Rekymar, Reshemer, Reskemyr, Reskimer, and so on. The portrait is usually considered to represent John Reskimer, of Marthyn or Murthyn, though there is no authority for this except the fact that a John Reskimer was living at about this time. Among the various references to men of this family in the State Papers, Reskimers of more than one Christian name appear. A Mr. Reskemar is mentioned in 1527 as belonging to Wolsey’s household, and in 1532 the name of John Reskymer, son and heir of John Reskymer, occurs in connection with a grant of land in Cornwall.[760]
The John Reskemeer or Reskimer whose portrait this is said to be was the son of William Reskemeer, fourteenth in descent from the first of that name who settled in Cornwall, and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Arundel of Telverne. By his wife Catherine, daughter of John Trethurff, he had several children, his son William succeeding him;[761] though, according to a pencil note in the copy in the British Museum of John Chamberlaine’s “Imitations of Holbein’s Drawings,” he married Jane, one of the daughters of Robert, natural son of Henry, Lord Holland, the last Duke of Exeter. He was High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1557, and his seat, Marthyn, was one of the eight parks in that county in 1602.
There is a fine portrait in the Prado, Madrid, representing an elderly Englishman of extremely plain features and with an exceptionally large nose,[762] which Woltmann, who first drew attention to it, regarded as a genuine work of Holbein’s first English period. His clean-shaven face with its many heavy wrinkles is of a very ruddy brown colour. His small black cap has long ear-pieces, and he wears the customary dark cloak or overcoat, with a collar of black embroidered or watered silk, open at the top, and looped together with a cord, showing the white shirt below, cut straight without a collar of any kind. It is a half-length, almost full face, the head and eyes turned slightly to the left. He holds a rolled-up paper in his left hand. It bears the stamp of truth in every line of the rugged countenance. Modern criticism, however, refuses to accept it as a work from Holbein’s brush. Dr. Bode and other German writers consider it to be by the Master of the “Death of Mary.”
[Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF SIR HENRY WYAT]
A small portrait of undoubted genuineness, although badly over-painted, and belonging to the first English period, is the likeness of Sir Henry Wyat in the Louvre (Pl. 88),[763] which for many years was known as a portrait of Sir Thomas More. According to Mr. Lionel Cust,[764] this panel is in all probability the same as the portrait of “Cavaglier Wyat,” painted in 1527, by Holbein, which was in the possession of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, and among those pictures which, after his widow’s death at Amsterdam in 1654, were disposed of by her son, Viscount Stafford, to M. Jabach of Cologne, from whom they were purchased by Colbert for the collection of Louis XIV, and so came into the Louvre. Several copies of it exist. There is an excellent replica in the National Gallery of Ireland[765] (No. 370), which was acquired at the sale of the Magniac Collection in 1892; while a copy of it belongs to Constance, Countess of Romney, with which goes a picture of Wyat’s famous cat, which picture, according to Sir Martin Conway,[766] may likewise represent an original by Holbein. A somewhat later, probably seventeenth-century, picture belonging to Lady Romney, is made up out of a combination of the two—master and cat—with a background of prison wall and window.
In the Louvre picture Sir Henry is represented at half-length, slightly turned to the right, wearing a black skull-cap over his long hair, and the customary overcoat with deep fur collar, and green under-sleeves; from his shoulders hangs a large heavy gold chain, to which a gold cross is attached, which he grasps with his right hand, and holds a folded paper in his left. He is clean-shaven, and has a large rounded nose. The wrinkled face, the small tremulous mouth, and the tired eyes with the sadness of their expression, produce a very lifelike effect of old age. The chain is put on with real gold, in a way which Holbein practised from time to time in England. Although it has suffered severely, it seems to be an undoubted example of the first English period. It is about 15½ in. high by 12 in. wide. Woltmann saw a copy of it in London in the Robinson Collection, probably the one now in Dublin, and he speaks both of it and of the one belonging to Lady Romney as of high artistic merit.[767] Sir Henry Wyat, of Allington Castle, Kent, who had served Henry VII, was appointed as a member of the Privy Council by Henry VIII on his accession to the throne. He died in 1537. Holbein probably became acquainted with him when at work on the Greenwich Banqueting House.
VOL. I., PLATE 88.
[Illustration:
SIR HENRY WYAT LOUVRE, PARIS ]
VOL. I., PLATE 89.
[Illustration:
SIR THOMAS ELYOT _Drawing in black and coloured chalks_ WINDSOR CASTLE ]
[Sidenote: HIS EARLIER ENGLISH PORTRAITS]
In addition to these undated portraits, there are several studies for paintings now lost which it is the custom, both from the style of drawing and the fashion of hair and dress, to attribute to this earlier period. The truly magnificent head of an unknown man at Chatsworth, and the almost equally fine drawing of Sir Thomas Elyot (Pl. 89),[768] author of the “Boke called the Governour,” and friend of More, and that of his wife, Lady Elyot,[769] among the Windsor heads, have thus been ascribed to 1527-8; but in these three cases the draughtsmanship is so extraordinarily true and delicate, and at the same time so strong and so full of character in every touch, that one is inclined to place them some six or seven years later as work of the first years of Holbein’s second English period. The Chatsworth drawing[770] is outlined in black with the point of the brush on flesh-coloured paper, with a spot of red here and there. “It would be useless to dilate upon the qualities of this masterpiece,” says Mr. S. Arthur Strong, “in which Holbein seems to touch the highest point attainable by human faculty within the chosen limits. By the side of such work as this, Leonardo da Vinci himself would appear conventional, almost effeminate.”[771] This praise is by no means excessive, as the drawing is wonderful in its truth, its combination of delicacy and strength, and its beauty. There is a second head of an unknown man by Holbein at Chatsworth,[772] of a later date, and in no ways as fine as the earlier one. It is in black chalk with a wash of red, and it has been dashed in with rapid, vigorous strokes, though with little of the subtlety of the first.
With the exception of several doubtful examples, such as the Dr. John Stokesley, Bishop of London,[773] in Windsor Castle, which, though a work of high quality, has characteristic features in the painting which preclude its attribution to Holbein, the above-mentioned pictures constitute the tale of the painter’s achievement in England during his first visit, which lasted only some twenty months or so. During that time, however, he not only spent a couple of months or more over the decoration of the Greenwich Banqueting House, and made numerous studies for the big More Family Group, and carried that picture itself some way towards completion, but also painted portraits of Sir Thomas and Lady More, Archbishop Warham, Sir Henry and Lady Guldeford, Thomas and John Godsalve, Niklaus Kratzer, Sir Henry Wyat, and Sir Bryan Tuke, so that his output was a considerable one.
In addition to these, there is the portrait of Reskimer, and possibly others of Margaret Roper, Sir Thomas and Lady Elyot, and Sir Nicholas Carew,[774] while it is almost certain that he also painted one of Bishop Fisher, although the drawing for it is now the only record which remains. This list, which includes fourteen or more portraits, shows that Holbein, in spite of lack of official recognition from the King, received sufficient patronage from the More circle and the Court to keep him very busily and remuneratively occupied.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
##