A work of a very different kind, the Painted Table at Zürich,[94] has been regarded by some writers as the result of a commission received by Hans Holbein during a halt in that town on his journey to Basel. This, however, was not the case. It must have been painted after he had settled in the latter place, for it was ordered on the occasion of the marriage of Hans Baer, a citizen of Basel, with Barbara Brunner on the 24th June, 1515, either by Baer himself or by some friend of his as a wedding present, and the coats of arms of the two families are represented on it. Shortly afterwards the bridegroom left Basel for the Italian wars, marching as standard-bearer with one of the mercenary troops, and was killed at the battle of Marignano on the 14th of September in the same year.
This large table-top is of wood, and oblong in shape, with a slab of slate inserted in the centre. This broad wooden border or framework is painted with hunting, fishing, jousting, and other outdoor scenes. One of the longer sides is occupied with a number of mounted knights with long lances engaged in a tournament, attended by their squires and servants. The action is very spirited, and several of the individual figures are finely conceived. The corresponding side is devoted to hunting scenes, including the chase of the stag, the wild boar, the hare, and the bear. The last-named animal is represented in the act of overturning a number of bee-hives. The decoration of one of the end borders shows the banks of a river with a number of men and women engaged in fishing, using both the rod and nets of great variety. In the meadow at the back a table is spread for a meal, and two women are cooking at a fire. On the other end is depicted a lady and gentleman out hawking, with the branches of the surrounding trees crowded with birds of many kinds, and rabbits playing on the grass, and, on the left, some game is shown in progress, in which young men are capturing girls in nets. The slate slab in the middle contains two principal subjects. One of them represents the old legend of “St. Nobody,” the unfortunate mythical personage usually accused of being the author of all breakages and accidents in German households, and incapable of defending himself from such false accusations, and, for this reason, represented by Holbein with a padlocked mouth, and surrounded by broken crockery and other objects of daily use. A comic poem on “Nobody,” by Ulrich von Hutten, published in Basel at about the time the table was painted, suggested this subject, and some lines from it are inscribed on a ribbon-scroll above the dejected saint. The second subject is also humorous, and shows a pedlar sleeping by the roadside, quite unconscious of a troop of monkeys who have plundered his pack. Over the rest of the surface a number of small scattered objects have been painted, as though left there by the owner. These formed a part of the joke, and were painted with a realism intended to deceive, and with the expectation that the spectator would attempt to pick them up. Among them are a pair of spectacles, a seal, a quill-pen, and penknife, scissors, a carnation, and a folded letter with a seal, round the margin of which part of the painter’s signature, “HANS HO,” can still be deciphered, though the coat of arms itself is not that of the Holbein family. A circle in the centre of the table contains the armorial bearings of Hans Baer and his wife.