, where there is an oil-copy of
the Dresden Meyer-Madonna.

Even the cool eye of Walpole was warmed by this great work of 1526, as
he saw it in the Dresden painting then hanging in the Palazzo Delfino
at Venice. "For the colouring," he exclaims, "it is beautiful beyond
description; and the carnations have that enamelled bloom so peculiar to
Holbein, who touched his works till not a touch remained discernible."
Twenty years earlier Edward Wright had written of Meyer's youngest
boy--"The little naked boy could hardly have been outdone, if I may
dare to say such a word, by Raphael himself." And in our own day that
fine and measured critic, Mrs. Jameson, has spoken for generation upon
generation who have thought the same thought before the Meyer-Madonna
of Dresden, when she says of it: "In purity, dignity, humility and
intellectual grace this exquisite Madonna has never been surpassed; not
even by Raphael. The face, once seen, haunts the memory."

When Wright and Walpole saw this Dresden work at Venice, it was supposed
to be "the family of Sir Thomas More"--_Meier_ having slipped into
"More" in the course of centuries, which had retained only the vivid
impression of Holbein's association with the latter, and knew that
the painter had drawn him in the midst of his family. That living
association was now, late in the summer of this year, about to begin.

CHAPTER III

CHANCES AND CHANGES

1526-1530

First visit to England--Sir Thomas More; his home and portraits--The
Windsor drawings--Bishop Fisher--Archbishop Warham--Bishop
Stokesley--Sir Henry Guildford and his portrait--Nicholas
Kratzer--Sir Bryan Tuke--Holbein's return to Basel--Portrait-group of
his wife and two eldest children; two versions--Holbein's children,
and families claiming descent from him--Iconoclastic fury--Ruined
arts--Death of Meyer zum Hasen--Another Meyer commissions the
last paintings for Basel--Return to England--Description of the
Steelyard--Portraits of its members--George Gysze--Basel Council
summons Holbein home--"The Ambassadors" at the National Gallery;
accepted identification--Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn--Lost paintings
for the Guildhall of the Steelyard; the Triumphs of Riches and
Poverty--The great Morett portrait; identifications--Holbein's industry
and fertility--Designs for metal-work and other drawings--Solomon and
the Queen of Sheba.

Two years earlier Erasmus had evidently thought that Lo