PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.
In these arts the sixteenth century in England was almost totally destitute of native talent. In statuary and carving the former age had made great progress, but the destruction of the churches, and the outcry raised against images, and even carving on tombs, as idolatry and vain-glory, gave a decided check to their development. As for painting, for some cause or other, it had never, except in illumination, flourished much amongst the English, and now that the Italian and Flemish schools had taken so high a position, it became the fashion in the princes and nobility, not to call forth the skill of natives, but to import foreign art and artists. In the reign of Henry VII. a Holbein, supposed to be the uncle of the great Hans Holbein, visited England, but we know little of his performance here. There is a picture at Hampton Court, called a Mabuse, of the Children of Henry VII.—Prince Arthur, Prince Henry, and the Princess Margaret. As Prince Henry appears to be about seven years old, that would fix the painting of the picture about 1499, and as this is the very year of Mabuse's birth, the picture is clearly not his. In Castle Howard there is a painting by him of undoubted authority, "The Offering of the Magi," containing thirty principal figures. It is in the highest state of preservation, and Dr. Waagen, who is well acquainted with the productions of this artist in the great galleries of the Continent, pronounced it of the highest excellence. He is said to have painted the children of Henry VIII., which is another proof that he did not paint those of his father. Probably, most that he painted for Henry perished in the fire at Whitehall. Mabuse was a very dissipated man, and had fled from Flanders on account of his debts or delinquencies, yet the character of his performances is that of the most patient industry and pains-taking. His works done in England could not have been many, as his abode here is supposed to have been only a year.
Besides Mabuse, the names of several other foreign artists are known as having visited England; but little or nothing is known of the works of Toto del Nunziata, an Italian, or of Corvus, Fleccius, Horrebout or Horneband, or of Cornelii, Flemish artists; but another Fleming was employed, in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., by Bishop Sherbourne, in painting a series of English kings and bishops in Chichester Cathedral.
Of the celebrated Hans Holbein, the case is clear and determinate. He resided in this country nearly thirty years, and died in London of the plague. There is an obscurity about both the time and place of his birth, but the latter appears now to be settled to be Grünstadt, formerly the residence of the Counts of Leiningen-Westerburg. He accompanied his father to Basle, receiving from him his instructions in his art; and becoming acquainted with Erasmus, he received from him letters to Sir Thomas More. He arrived in England in 1526, and lived and worked in the house of his noble patron, Sir Thomas, for three years. The learned chancellor invited Henry VIII. to see his pictures, who was so much delighted with them, as to take him instantly into his service. It is related of him that whilst busily engaged with his works for the king, he was so much annoyed and interrupted by a nobleman of the court, that he ordered him to quit his atelier, and on his refusing, pushed him down-stairs. When the nobleman complained to Henry of this rudeness, Henry bluntly told him that the painter had served him right, and warned him to beware of seeking any revenge. "For," added he, "remember you now have not Holbein to deal with, but me: and I tell you, that of seven peasants I can make as many lords, but I cannot make one Holbein."
The demand of portraits from Holbein by the Court and nobility was so constant and extensive, that he completed comparatively few historical compositions. He has left us various portraits of Henry, and adorned the walls of a saloon at Whitehall with two large paintings representing the triumphs of riches and poverty. He also painted Henry as delivering the charter of the barber-surgeons, and Edward VI. delivering that for the foundation of Bridewell Hospital. The former piece is still at the hall of that guild. Amongst the finest of Holbein's paintings on the Continent is that of "The Burgomaster and his Family" in the gallery at Dresden. There is less of the stiffness of his manner in that than in most of his pieces; but in spirited design, clearness and brilliance of tone, and perfection of finish, few painters except Holbein; he wanted only a course of study in the Italian school to have placed him amongst the greatest masters of any age. His defect is a want of full attainment of "chiar'oscuro," which Italy could give given him; at the same time we are not to form our idea of him by the host of indifferent copies of his portraits which have been made, and puffed by interested dealers as originals.
Henry VIII. not only employed artists at home, but he gave orders to artists abroad, and Raffael painted for him a St. George. His collection furnished some of the earliest specimens to the gallery of Charles I.; but if what Walpole says of his collection be true, it is probable that Hampton Court has preserved a number of the worthless subjects which he got together. "If," says Walpole, "it be allowed that the mind and taste of Henry VIII. were demonstrated by the subjects upon which he employed the painters whom he patronised, and to whom he dictated them, an opinion exactly corresponding with his character will be the result. We find in his collections numerous portraits of himself; repetitions of those of contemporary princes, particularly those of the emperor and Francis I.; of his predecessors; two of the Duchess of Milan, who refused to marry him, but not one of his six wives! The historical and Scriptural subjects were the violation and death of Lucrece; the decollation of John the Baptist, with his head in a charger; a similar exhibition of Judith and Holofernes; St. George, his patron saint; the Virgin and Child, with the Dead Christ; sundry Flemish moralities in which death is personified; and drolls of the imbecility of old men, with caricatures of the Pope."
In the reign of Mary, Sir Antonio More, a Flemish artist, was the great portrait-painter. In that of Elizabeth, though she was not more liberal to the arts than to literature, yet her personal vanity led her to have her own portrait repeatedly painted, and the artists, chiefly Flemings, were much employed by the nobility in the same department. Some of the foreign artists also executed historical and other pieces. Amongst these artists may be named Frederic Zuccaro, an Italian portrait-painter; Lucas de Heere, who executed a con-
