and the
feather, with the finish of an artist who was before all things a good
workman. Observe how delicately the chubby little fingers are drawn.
Holbein's detailed treatment of the accessories of a portrait is only
less than the care expended in depicting the face. He studied faces,
and his portraits, one may almost say, are at once images of and
commentaries on the people they depict. Thus his gallery of pictures
of Henry and his contemporaries show us at once the reflexion of them
as in a mirror, and the vision of them as beheld by a singularly
discerning and experienced eye that not only saw but comprehended.

This is the more remarkable because Holbein was not always able to
paint and finish his portraits in the presence of the living model,
as painters insist on doing nowadays. His sitters were generally busy
men who granted him but one sitting, so that his method was to make
a drawing of the head in red chalk and to write upon the margin notes
of anything he particularly wanted to remember. Afterwards he painted
the head from the drawing, but had the actual clothes and jewels sent
him to work from.

In the Royal Collection at Windsor there are a number of these portrait
drawings of great interest to us, since many of the portraits painted
from them have been lost. As a record of remarkable people of that
day they are invaluable, for in a few powerful strokes Holbein could
set down the likeness of any face. But when he came to paint the portrait
he was not satisfied with a mere likeness. He painted too 'his habit
as he lived.' Erasmus is shown reading in his study, the merchant in
his office surrounded by the tokens of his business, and Henry VIII.
standing firmly with his legs wide apart as if bestriding a hemisphere.
But I think that you will like this fine portrait of the infant prince
best of all, and that is why I have chosen it in preference to a likeness
of any of the statesmen, scholars, queens, and courtiers who played
a great part in their world, but are not half so charming to look upon
as little Prince Edward.

CHAPTER IX

REMBRANDT

After the death of Holbein, artists in the north of Europe passed
through troublous times till the end of the sixteenth century. France
and the Netherlands were devastated by wars. You may remember that
the Netherlands had belonged in the fifteenth century to the Dukes
of Burgundy? Through the marriage of the only daughter of the last
Duke, these territor