a painting by Holbein's father, the
"Basilica of St. Paul," in which there is a group introduced after the
fashion of the period, which has a special biographical interest. This
group, in the Baptism of St. Paul, is believed by many authorities to be
a portrait-group of the painter himself,--Hans Holbein the Elder, and
his two young sons, Ambrose (or Amprosy, as it was often written) and
Johannes, or "Hanns." The portrait of the father is certainly like
Holbein's own drawing of him in the Duke d'Aumale's Collection, which
Sandrart engraved in his account of the younger Holbein; while the heads
of the two boys are very like those which we shall find later in a
drawing in the Berlin Gallery. From the pronounced way in which his
father's hand rests on little Hans' head, while the left points him
out,--and even his elder brother "Prosy" shows by his attitude the
special notice to be taken of Hans,--it is clear that if this is a
portrait-group either it was painted when the boys were actually older,
or the younger had already given some astonishing proof of that precocity
which his early works display; for in this group the younger boy cannot
be more than eight or nine years old.

Hans Holbein the Elder, who stands here with his long brown hair and
beard falling over his fur gown, was a citizen of Augsburg, living for
a while in the same street with the honoured Augsburg painter, Hans
Burgkmair, and occasionally working with him on large commissions. That
he was a native of Augsburg, and the son--as is generally believed--of
"Michel Holbain" (Augsburg commonly spelt _Holbein_ with an _a_),
leather-dresser--I myself cannot feel so sure as others do. There is no
documentary evidence to prove that the Michael Holbein of Augsburg ever
had a son, and there is both documentary and circumstantial evidence to
prove that the descendants of Hans Holbein the Elder claimed a different
origin. That a man was a "citizen," or burgher, of any town, of course
proves nothing. It was a period when painters especially learned their
trades and practised it in many centres. And this, when guilds were
all-powerful and no one could either join one without taking citizenship
with it, or pursue its calling in any given place without association
with the guild of that place, often involved a series of citizenships.
The elder Holbein was himself a burgher of Ulm at one time, if not of
other cities in which he worked.

But that Augsburg was his fixed