Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/437

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HOLBEIN


385


HOLDEN


Society. On his return he made a pilgrimage to Lo- reto, and again arrived at Munich on 23 March, 1817. On 8 June of the same year he was made ecclesiastical councillor, and, in 1S21, canon of Bamberg. About this time began the nimierou.s miraculous cures which are alleged to have been effected through the prayers of Hohenlohe. On 1 February, 1S21, he was suddenly cured at Ilassfurt of a severe pain in the throat in consequence of the prayers of a devout peasant named Martin Michel. His belief in the efficacy of prayer was greatly strengtliened by this cure, and on 21 .June, 1821, he succeeded in curing the Princess Mathilda von Schwarzenberg, who had been a paralytic for eight years, by his prayers which he joined with those of Martin Michel. Having asked the pope whether he was permitted to attempt similar cures in the fu- ture, he was told not to attempt any more public cures, but he continued them in private. He would specify a time during which he woultl pray for those that applied to him, and in this manner he effected luimeroiis cures not only on the Continent, but also in England, Ireland, and the United States. Worthy of mention is the case of Mrs. .\nn Mattingly of Wash- ington, D. C, who was said to have been cured of a timiour through his prayers on 10 March, 1824. Rome did not pass judgment on these supposed mira- cles and t'atholics were divitled in their opinion. In 1824 Hohenlohe became canon, in 1829 provost, and later Vicar-General and .administrator of (Irosswar- dein. In 1844 he was made cliorepiscopus and titular Bishop of Sardica. He is the author of four volumes of sermons and ascetical treatises most of which were collected and published by S. Brunner(Ratisbon, 18.51). His method of curing the sick was continued after his death by his frieml and disciple Joseph Forster, pastor of Huttenheira, who died in 1875.

ScH.^ROLD, Lebensgesrhichte Alexanders von Hohenlohe (Wiirz- burg, 1822); Pachtler, Biog. Xotizen i'tber A. von Hohenlohe (1850).

MlCH.\EL OtT.

Holbein, Hans (The Elder Holbein), a German painter; b. at Augsburg about 1460; d. at Isenheim, Alsace, in 1,524. Except that he was born in the Bava- rian centre of art, culture, and commerce, and that his father, Michael, was a well-to-do leather-worker, little is known of his early life. He may have studied in the studio of the great Schongauer, and some authorities state that he married the daughter of the engraver and painter Brickmaer (von Stetten). He is registered among the citizens of Ulm in 1499; he was established in Frankfort in 1501 and subsequently lived and painted at Basle and in Alsace. These wanderings may have been occasionerl by financial embarrass- ments, for he was poor and in debt all his life.

Holbein's early work shows that he followed van Jer Weyden and Meraling. Then the van Eycks and the Cologne school influenced him for more than a decade. In this, his " dry " period of painting, his sub- jects were chiefly from the Passion, and, although they exhil>it crude grouping and colour, and a naive tech- nique, they nevertheless evince a profoimd sentiment of sincerity and devotion. He was one of the first painters, if not the first, in Germany to avoid angles, lines, and sharp folds in his elaborate draperies. Augsburg was on the high road between German}^ and Italy, and Holbein, drinking deeply of Italian culture substituted the softer Southern elements for the pre- cise and archaic German methods. He was one of the first to paint a Renaissance type of background, and to use architectural decoration in his pictures; and in this he became a master. This emancipation of paint- mg (1512-22), begun by the elder Holbein, was to be completed by his son Hans. Thus the elder Holbein was a pioneer and leader in the transformation of Ger- man art. The majority of the great critics incline to this opinion, while others aver that his poverty and debts were due to his long and notorious resistance to VII.— 25


Italian influence. He was a spirited and robust, if sometimes vulgar, painter, a man of imagination and power, possessing a splendid capacity for depicting character. His merits have long been overshadowed by the fame of his son.

The earliest important work of the elder Holbein is a "Madonna and Child" (1492) now in the Moritz Kapelle, Nuremberg. In 1493 he became well known by his altar-piece in Weingarten Alibey ; but the most famous of his works is the altar of the basilica of St. Paul (now in the .\ugsburg (iallery), for it contains a portrait of himself and his two sons, Ambrose and Hans; and the father is pointing with pride to young Hans as if predicting the lad's future greatness. At Frankfort, in 1501, Holbein painted a large and im- portant altar-piece for the Dominicans and for some time after seems to have won pecuniary success. Forged documents and false inscriptions for a long time ascribed works to the son which modern authori- ties ascribe to the father. To-day the elder Holbein enters into his own. The beautiful "Conception", painted in 1512 (Augsburg Gallery), and the altar- piece of St. Sebastian (Munich), a triptych with the " Annunciation " and Sts. Elizabeth and Barbara oc- cupying its wings, are two notable pictures recently proved to be by the elder, and not the younger, Hol- bein. The St. Sebastian altar-piece is generally regarded as his greatest work. His " Madonna En- throned " is preserved in the Germanic Museum, at Nuremberg, while two portraits by him (probably a man and wife) are in the Hampton Court collection. The sketch books of this prolific artist, preserved at Berlin and Copenhagen, are filled with portraits, chiefly in silver-point, the noteworthy faces therein being the Emperor Maximilian, his fool, Kunz von der Rosen, the Fuggers, and other men conspicuous in commerce and at Court. He and his brother Sigmund painted together — how long, and on what pictures, cannot be discovered; but Hans always signed the work. He gave young Hans his first lessons, and en- dowed him with his virile force and immense capacity for characterization. About 1.520 Holbein was in .\lsace and sought refuge with the monks of Isenheim. .After his death it is recorded that his son claimed his brushes, paints, and sketch books from the monastery. WoRNUM, Life and Works of Hans Holbein (London, 1S67); Ch.\mberlain, Hans Holbein (London, 1902); Woltman', Hol- bein und seine Zeit (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1876): Witt, German and Flemish Masters in the National Gallery (London, 1904).

Leigh Hunt.

Holden, Henry, English priest; b. 1596; d. March, 1662. Henry Holden was the second son 6f Richard Holden, of Chaigley, Lancashire, and Eleanor, his wife. He entered the English College at Douai under the name of Johnson, 18 Sept., 1618, where he studied till 15 July, 1623, when he proceeded to Paris, took his degree as Doctor of Divinity, and was made a pro- fessor at the Sorbonne. He also became penitentiary at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet and one of the grand vicars of the Archbishop of Paris. When Bishop Richard Smith fled from England in 1631 and there arose a difference of opinion between the Jesuits and the other orders, who thought the presence of a bishop in England was not advisable at the time, and the secular clergy, who took the opposite view, Dr. Holden was sent to Rome to represent the seculars and to avert the dissolution of the chapter. In 1655, on the death of Bishop Smith, the question again arose, and Holden 's friend and brother-priest, Thomas White, alias Blackloe, wrote a book, " The Groimds of Obedi- ence and Government", which gave offence to his opponents, and led to some of his other works being censured by the Holy See. Holden, who thought Blackloe had been hardly treated, undertook his de- fence, and thus the "Blackloist Controversy" was begun. Holden, however, did not approve of all Blackloe's opinions and persuaded him to submit and